Help with my itinerary... 1st Timer

[Nedsram4]

GReat plan

[Guest]

Looks like you're getting lots of good advice on the specifics, so thought I'd throw in my top 10 tips* for a first timer:

1) Enjoy it! Both the planning and the during!

2) You could plan each individual complete day that you want to do, and then decide on the order that you will do these days later

3) Be flexible and allow time for R&R. Be realistic and don't torture yourself to have everything be "perfect".

4) Most first timers will primarily stick with the parks and that's fine ... though is so much to offer beyond Disney too (see the Beyond the Parks section of the forum

5) Use the forum to work out where things have gone well for others ... and less well so you can avoid the same mistakes.

6) If you see something you like: whether it's a ride to go on, a restaurant to eat at, a souvenir to buy, a beach to visit, a hotel/resort/villa to stay at in future, make a note of it, and keep all these things in the one place to make planning easier.

7) Make sure the 'building blocks' are in place - things like flights, accommodation as well as passport, ESTAs, travel money, driver's licence, credit card in driver's name if hiring a car etc. There are lots of threads as to how to do all this. I'd also include in that anything you can get sorted before you go that will save you time while you are there, and anything that needs sorting on this side of the Atlantic!

8) Travel light, as you may well bring back more than you came with!

9) Part of the fun can be in not knowing what is coming. Knowing what happens on each attraction / ride may spoil the fun!

10) A holiday to Florida is a holiday of a lifetime ... but also somewhere to take a lifetime of holidays. (Schmaltzy I know!) So don't necessarily try and do everything this time, as there is always next time!

* this is a work-in-progress and my first go at this, so will evolve over time

[Guest]

Thank you so much for all your advice I am taking it all in, as much as I can anyway with all the planning ☺️ I am just going to go with the flow and enjoy the holiday, I'm not going to stress but once kids get cranky I'll be heading back to the villa, thank you once again.

[kl_belle]

I would bear in mind that for probably your first week as your bodies adjust to 'Florida time' you'll be up quite early so best to plan mornings in the parks, as you go into the second week you'll probably find it harder to do early starts so maybe plan later trips in? We quite often went into WDW around 3/4pm and still had plenty of time to go on a few rides and enjoy the evening shows.

[gazza5]

We are travelling for the first time with our little one (she will be 4).

Main thing we have tried to do is not do too much for the first week, and we have a lazy day after a day of travelling, as exciting as it is, and the temptation is always there to go straight into parks etc. Split days up with a bit of shopping - time out the heat.

Watch the weather channel - see what the weather will be like, and don't be afraid to change your plans accordingly. If its going to be very hot one day, might want to swap it for a bit of swimming that day instead of going to the parks.

[Guest]

Thank you all for your comments, counting down the days now 😀