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Old 4 Nov 19, 12:11 AM  
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Elodie
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August 2020, first timers

We’re essentially first timers - the girls have never been, although DH and I both went to WDW as children. He can’t remember it at all, and my trip was very different from our planned 2020 holiday. (i.e. it was a 7 day trip to Orlando with 3 days at Disney, staying off-site and having the hotel buffet morning and evening with no meals at Disney, and it was over 30 years ago!)

Our 2020 holiday will be almost three weeks, staying on-site at Universal and Disney with the Disney dining plan while at Beach Club. There will be four of us - DH, myself, DD13 and DD9.

We’ve made a rough plan, which seems to fit in well with the rides, attractions and restaurants we like the sound of, so I’d appreciate any input before we get into those details:

Week 1
11 Aug - set off, Premier Inn at Manchester
12 Aug - (DH’s birthday) arrive MCO 6pm and check into Cabana Bay
13 Aug - Shopping, hotel pool, Universal
14 Aug - Volcano Bay, IOA
15 Aug - Check in to Royal Pacific. Universal
16 Aug - a.m. IOA, p.m. pool / rest time
17 Aug - Universal / IOA. Check into Beach Club late afternoon

Week 2
18 Aug - Magic Kingdom
19 Aug - Animal Kingdom
20 Aug - a.m. free, p.m. Studios
21 Aug - (my birthday) a.m. Epcot, p.m. Disney Springs - Cirque du Soleil
22 Aug - a.m. Typhoon Lagoon, p.m. Epcot
23 Aug - a.m. Magic Kingdom, p.m. free
24 Aug - Epcot

Week 3
25 Aug - a.m. Magic Kingdom, p.m. Animal Kingdom
26 Aug - a.m. free, p.m. Magic Kingdom
27 Aug - a.m. pack & check out of BC, midday Magic Kingdom, p.m. check into Art of Animation
28 Aug - a.m. Epcot, p.m. free
29 Aug - Studios
30 Aug - a.m. Blizzard Beach, p.m. Magic Kingdom
31 Aug - a.m. Animal Kingdom, p.m. set off for airport (flight at 8pm)

Week 4
1 Sept - p.m. arrive home and collapse! The children bizarrely go back to school on Friday 4 Sept, so they only have to get through one day before the weekend!

I’ve only planned half days for rest / pool time, but every two or three days, as well as being able to take a couple of hours mid-afternoon whenever we need to - is that too much rest or not enough? We’re used to doing DLP, full-on from 7am to past midnight, five days in a row, then going home to recover! We can’t keep that up for three weeks, but I don’t know if I’ve gone too far the other way.
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Old 9 Nov 19, 09:43 AM  
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Mortimer Mouse
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I think the balance of rest periods about right. The heat/humidity make it very hard to enjoy open-close park days in Florida, so part days is definitely the way to go.

MNSSHP will probably start mid August during your stay, so the evenings when you can do MK in the evenings will be limited. Also, I would concentrate on getting Epcot and HS done while you're at BC as they're so easy to pop in to from there, which is especially useful after the evening fireworks.

Have a great trip.
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Old 12 Nov 19, 06:46 PM  
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Elodie
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Originally Posted by Mortimer Mouse View Post
I think the balance of rest periods about right. The heat/humidity make it very hard to enjoy open-close park days in Florida, so part days is definitely the way to go.

MNSSHP will probably start mid August during your stay, so the evenings when you can do MK in the evenings will be limited. Also, I would concentrate on getting Epcot and HS done while you're at BC as they're so easy to pop in to from there, which is especially useful after the evening fireworks.

Have a great trip.
Very true about the heat. It was a relentless 37 degrees every single day of our first trip to DLP and I don’t know how we survived the heat and non-stop park time! We thought it was going to be a once-only trip, so we didn’t want to miss a thing and somehow managed 7:30am - 1am on our last day, although my 5 year old fell asleep on the sofas in World of Disney just after midnight!

That’s also a good point about MNSSHP, I’ll have to keep an eye out for the dates when they’re announced. I believe this year’s was on Tuesdays and Saturdays in August, so if it’s the same for 2020, our plan will fit in well. (We only plan to be in MK once on a Tuesday, and not at all on a Saturday, so we could just get tickets for the Tuesday - if I can convince DH! Been working on that one for a while now!) I’ll just have to be ready to make changes if it’s held on different days next year.
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Old 12 Nov 19, 11:13 PM  
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LOUISEACAT
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Have you booked this DIY Elodie? Your trip seems very similar to one I'd like to plan for 2021, split stay USF/WDW and the same dates. Have only been in October twice before so also worried about August weather.
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Old 13 Nov 19, 09:37 AM  
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IndianaMac
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As Mortimer Mouse said, MNSSHP may impact your MK days, particularly your first visit on the 18th - they start about Mid August, and in 2018/2019 they were Tuesdays and Fridays [edit, Tues/Sat in '19] (we went in our last week in our 2018 hol)... assuming they follow the same pattern in '20, that means parties likely Tue 18th, Fri 21st or Sat 22nd, Tue 25th, Fri 28th or Sat 29th (they may start as early as Fri 14th).

Party guests can get in from (iirc) 16:00, and non-party guests need to vacate by 19:00 (they do this slowly, but cast members at ride queues and at areas that transit between "lands" check for wristbands and generally do a fair job).

Since you're on the dining plan (QSDP? DDP or above? Table service meals definitely need booking well in advance), you can do ADRs at 180 days out for your Disney stay. So your restaurant choices may impact your park choices.

Looks a good mix though, enjoy

Edited to correct party dates from Fri/Sat 2018 vs 2019.

Edited at 10:12 AM.
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Old 13 Nov 19, 07:02 PM  
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Elodie
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Originally Posted by LOUISEACAT View Post
Have you booked this DIY Elodie? Your trip seems very similar to one I'd like to plan for 2021, split stay USF/WDW and the same dates. Have only been in October twice before so also worried about August weather.
Yes, it’s all booked DIY - Disney hotel, tickets and free DDP booked direct with Disney, flights booked with Lufthansa, Universal tickets bought from Attraction Tickets Direct, Cabana Bay paid for with our Tesco clubcard vouchers, and we used the Dibb discount for Royal Pacific.

Also really hoping the weather doesn’t disrupt too much of the holiday - I’ve only been to WDW once, in November, and I remember the torrential downpours every afternoon. I can’t imagine how much worse August must be!
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Old 13 Nov 19, 07:16 PM  
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Elodie
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Originally Posted by IndianaMac View Post
As Mortimer Mouse said, MNSSHP may impact your MK days, particularly your first visit on the 18th - they start about Mid August, and in 2018/2019 they were Tuesdays and Fridays [edit, Tues/Sat in '19] (we went in our last week in our 2018 hol)... assuming they follow the same pattern in '20, that means parties likely Tue 18th, Fri 21st or Sat 22nd, Tue 25th, Fri 28th or Sat 29th (they may start as early as Fri 14th).
Yes, I’d replied above to say that if the MNSSHP is held on the same nights as in 2019 then it would only affect us on the 18th, as that’s the only Tuesday / Saturday (or Friday) afternoon we plan to be at MK, and hopefully we’ll just get tickets for the 18th. If the dates are different in 2020, we’ll need to rejig our plans.

Originally Posted by IndianaMac View Post
Since you're on the dining plan (QSDP? DDP or above? Table service meals definitely need booking well in advance), you can do ADRs at 180 days out for your Disney stay. So your restaurant choices may impact your park choices.
I think I must have forgotten to mention that this itinerary is based on getting to the restaurants and rides we’re most keen on. As with the MNSSHP dates, we’ll have to rejig it if we don’t get the ADRs we want, but we won’t know that until our ADR day in February, so this is my best guess for now.
We’re on the free DDP, but DH wants to upgrade to the DXDDP (I think he’s genuinely planning to sit and eat throughout the entire holiday, but I don’t think the rest of us will have the time or appetite to benefit from the DXDDP, so we haven’t agreed on that yet.)

Originally Posted by IndianaMac View Post
Looks a good mix though, enjoy
Thank you, I’m sure we will!
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Edited at 09:48 PM.
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Old 14 Nov 19, 08:29 AM  
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Originally Posted by Elodie View Post
Yes, I’d replied above to say that if the MNSSHP is held on the same nights as in 2019 then it would only affect us on the 18th, as that’s the only Tuesday / Saturday (or Friday) afternoon we plan to be at MK, and hopefully we’ll just get tickets for the 18th. If the dates are different in 2020, we’ll need to rejig our plans.


I think I must have forgotten to mention that this itinerary is based on getting to the restaurants and rides we’re most keen on. As with the MNSSHP dates, we’ll have to rejig it if we don’t get the ADRs we want, but we won’t know that until our ADR day in February, so this is my best guess for now.
We’re on the free DDP, but DH wants to upgrade to the DXDDP (I think he’s genuinely planning to sit and eat throughout the entire holiday, but I don’t think the rest of us will have the time or appetite to benefit from the DXDDP, so we haven’t agreed on that yet.)



Thank you, I’m sure we will!
This year the MNSSHP were on three times a week, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. You have daytime visits on Tuesday and Sunday which are good days to go as many people stay away due to early close. You have also got visits planned on a Wednesday and a Thursday, I would rethink those as MK is very busy on non party days.

We have done deluxe dining before for five days and we have upgraded to deluxe for the next trip of eleven days. It is not about having a big appetite, I don’t have a big appetite either. However I like signature dining so it means I can do more of them and signature meals are smaller than your average QS. Also I do not often eat desserts but I like a starter and the deluxe plan allows me to have a starter not a dessert (well it allows both but I don’t want both). The other reason I upgrade is that I don’t like the QS experience in the parks; they always seem so busy and it is hard to find a clean table or indeed any table at too many I have looked in. I prefer to know I will have a table.

For the five day trip it was really easy to use up the credits, one breakfast and a signature each evening. It is harder for eleven days though and I think there will be some credits left over as we probably will not wish to have eleven signature meals in eleven days. I am happy to accept that I won’t maximise the value of the plan, but then I use snack credits on water, which I know is a Dibb crime.

Unless you think your family will want a lot of signatures, I doubt it would be worth upgrading to deluxe. It is a shame there is not something in between DDP and dxDDP.

I don’t think there is any need to book TS well in advance. I always have as I like doing it, but once I arrive, I end up changing nearly everything anyway. There are a couple of places that can be hard to get more than a few weeks past the 180 day mark, but even these become available again as people cancel at the last minute. I have picked up hard to get Cali Grill brunch, Cinderella Royal Table, BOG pre park opening, Akershus pre park opening and Beaches & Cream all either on the day or the night before.
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Old 14 Nov 19, 08:51 AM  
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Elodie, didn't want to quote your last, lest there'd be a wall of text, but I'd definitely agree with you regarding the DxDDP - we just do QSDP as we eat off-site a few times, and don't do enough Disney TS to justify an upgrade to DDP. The idea of two sit down TS meals a day would be too restrictive to me, but I'm sure it works for some.

For your first week at Universal, there are some great places to eat on City Walk - Margaritaville a favourite of ours, and Hard Rock Café, though pretty samey to anywhere else in the world, is consistently good.
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Old 14 Nov 19, 06:58 PM  
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Elodie
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Originally Posted by Claudette View Post
This year the MNSSHP were on three times a week, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. You have daytime visits on Tuesday and Sunday which are good days to go as many people stay away due to early close. You have also got visits planned on a Wednesday and a Thursday, I would rethink those as MK is very busy on non party days.

We have done deluxe dining before for five days and we have upgraded to deluxe for the next trip of eleven days. It is not about having a big appetite, I don’t have a big appetite either. However I like signature dining so it means I can do more of them and signature meals are smaller than your average QS. Also I do not often eat desserts but I like a starter and the deluxe plan allows me to have a starter not a dessert (well it allows both but I don’t want both). The other reason I upgrade is that I don’t like the QS experience in the parks; they always seem so busy and it is hard to find a clean table or indeed any table at too many I have looked in. I prefer to know I will have a table.

For the five day trip it was really easy to use up the credits, one breakfast and a signature each evening. It is harder for eleven days though and I think there will be some credits left over as we probably will not wish to have eleven signature meals in eleven days. I am happy to accept that I won’t maximise the value of the plan, but then I use snack credits on water, which I know is a Dibb crime.

Unless you think your family will want a lot of signatures, I doubt it would be worth upgrading to deluxe. It is a shame there is not something in between DDP and dxDDP.

I don’t think there is any need to book TS well in advance. I always have as I like doing it, but once I arrive, I end up changing nearly everything anyway. There are a couple of places that can be hard to get more than a few weeks past the 180 day mark, but even these become available again as people cancel at the last minute. I have picked up hard to get Cali Grill brunch, Cinderella Royal Table, BOG pre park opening, Akershus pre park opening and Beaches & Cream all either on the day or the night before.
I’m pretty sure the MNSSHP was only on Tuesdays and Saturdays in August 2019 - perhaps you’re thinking of September, when it was mainly held on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays? Hopefully the fact that it’s only on twice a week won’t make quite such a difference to crowd levels while there are five non-party days to share out the non-party guests. (Obviously, it will be a different matter if they announce more / different party dates for August 2020.)

As you say, I don’t think DxDDP is for us, and I agree it is a shame there isn’t a halfway point between DDP and DxDDP. We’re only planning / hoping to get one reservation for a 2TS credit restaurant (ie CRT) and the rest just normal table service, so it would mean a lot of meals. Like you, I’m tempted by the idea of being able to choose a starter rather than a dessert (wouldn’t manage both!) but that’s the only bit that tempts me, so I’d probably just pay OOP if there was a starter I really wanted.

Same as you, I think we will just book whatever we can in advance, then alter reservations during the trip if necessary. When we go to DLP, I always like to ensure we have a restaurant booked every day. Then we can just change our reservations around once we’re there - it’s never been a problem to do that, but at least we know we’re guaranteed a table if there’s ever a problem with last minute availability.
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