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Old 7 Jan 19, 11:32 PM  
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#21
Palm trees
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Join Date: May 17
Planning is great but remember it's a holiday so try to enjoy the planning too .

I've found the dibb to be invaluable. For example the Disney menus are all available (top of the page as I'm reading now) and I've really enjoyed reading through to see which menus look nicest. We don't stay on site but I had no problem booking the restaurants I wanted at 180 days (although we haven't booked the headliner character meet meals).

I've picked up lots of great tips/ideas from reading people's trip reports on here.

You should really benefit from the fast pass availability at 60 days, I've got NO expectation of getting flights of passage, for example, at 30 days The only thing I'm going to try and do differently for our next trip... particularly at MK, is to try and book my fast passes geographically nearer to each other as I found we were criss crossing the park and it can be quite a lot of walking.

I know for offsite guests that any ADR's cancelled have to be done so by a certain time beforehand, 24 hours I think, or there's a charge. I don't know if it's the same for onsite guests but I'd expect it will be. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me could confirm that one.

Take advantage of photo pass opportunities, we've got some great photos from previous trips.

Hope you have fab trip
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Old 8 Jan 19, 09:01 AM  
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#22
Thorpy
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Join Date: Nov 09
Location: Wigan
Originally Posted by Lostbrain View Post
The one mistake we made on our first visit was booking a dinner reservation on the second day, we were far too tired by 6 or whenever to enjoy it. We booked a really early character breakfast at Chef Mickeys last time and that was perfect, great start. I plan for early morning starts and early finishes for the first few days. It’s very easy to try to squeeze too much in and over Disney. We manage to have tired grumpy kids at some point every time.
After 12 trips, I've found the best way for us is to book early things and avoid late things for the first few days. Essentially work to a mid atlantic clock as your body adjusts, raqther than try and force a change to US time.
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Old 12 Jan 19, 06:42 PM  
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#23
Ricky_Spanish
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Join Date: Jul 18
Well am still awaiting park hours for Aug - scratch that just checked and it looks like they are out. I figured to hit MK 1st and then AK, HS and EP over the next 4 days, all with early starts. Then poss a rest day with pool am and maybe visit international drive area pm. Then parks again possibly taking in the later stuff and Halloween party if available. I don't think we are too bothered about water parks.

Do you have to book MNSSHP? Edit I've read you do. Is it worth going to assuming it's on while we're there? Aug seems a bit early for Halloween.

I notice in the dibb park hours guide if a park has am EMH (extra morning hours or magic hours?) it tends to be least recommended. Is this just for people staying off site? If you can go early is it worth it?

I'm guessing when we arrive we will get to our resort around 3-4pm. I'm trying to think of where to eat. Will the dining plan be activated the day we arrive? Do I need to book somewhere to eat the 1st day? It seems Caribbean Beach choices are Sebastian's Bistro or Old Port Royale with OPR being a counter service. Does this mean OPR is a QS meal?

I was also wondering about buying snacks etc. I saw a youtube video where someone was shopping on amazon prime now. Is this necessary? I don't think we will have time to go shopping the first few days, unless there is somewhere nearby I can just nip to. Is there anywhere like this?

I've linked our booking to my disney experience. It's bit hard to fathom the site. It has the hotel and an itinerary. I can't book any restaurants for when we are there yet as it's too early. Do you need credit card details to do this? Will they know we are on the dining plan?

It has a section to link park tickets but I don't have any atm. Will they appear at some point and activate the fast pass options?

Also can I alter my kids pictures? I changed mine but can't see any option for my kids.

Cheers again all.

Edited at 10:34 AM.
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Old 13 Jan 19, 10:30 AM  
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#24
Ricky_Spanish
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Join Date: Jul 18
I've just noticed that epcot has eeh the day we arrive, so may be worth a visit. Do people tend to hit the parks if arriving pm on the same day?
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Old 13 Jan 19, 01:34 PM  
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#25
shona
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Join Date: Aug 08
If you haven't done already buy the Brits guide to Orlando. We found this a great book before our first visit with lots of great tips and will give a breakdown of the rides along with heights
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Old 14 Jan 19, 02:50 PM  
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#26
WDWfangirl
Relaxing at the Grand Floridian
 
Join Date: Apr 15

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Hotel Reviews: 1
Restaurant Reviews: 12
Our last trip to Disney was staying at CBR for the last two weeks in August and taking our two children aged 6 and 4 for the first time just like you. We're going back this year for the same weeks and I'm now in serious planning mode for this trip. Last time I had a detailed itinerary not only listing times of fastpasses and ADRs but also the order of the rides I had worked out to be the most timesaving route of visiting each park. Since park hours have been released I spent park of yesterday putting together the itinerary for this trip.

To answer your last question I wouldn't even attempt a park on your first day. By the time you get to CBR and checked in (even if you have done it online) you will still need to set your magic bands up for online payments and collect your resort mugs and I don't think you want to be rushing your kids off to a park when they have just arrived at such an amazing resort. Just go for a swim and have a meal and head to bed.

I was skeptical about the children waking up early on the first day but they did. I think we were in the MK parking lot about 7am for a 9am opening. In our first week we squeezed pretty much everything which the adults struggled with (not me as I'd planned it that way) but the children were totally fine, went with the flow and really didn't get tired. We took a pushchair for our youngest which was good albeit a bit of a hassle at times. She was just tall enough (at 102 cm) to do all the big rides (Soarin/Splash Mountain) but not tall enough for Space and Expedition Everest. I didn't really get the hang of splitting fastpasses so I booked them for all 4 of us and we did rider swap. I think that meant we missed out on one fast pass but we were fine with that.

And I would definitely second youtube videos. We all love the Get Binky vlogs and it was great watching them with the children as they were of the same holiday as we were doing (flights in the bubble with Virgin and staying at CBR).

We took bowls with us and stopped off at Walmarts to get cereal and milk. There is such much food on the dining plan that you won't need to get a food delivery. Our plan for this trip is to only get 3 CS meals between the 4 of us to cut down on wastage and use the snack credits for breakfast. I think over the entire 2 weeks the children only had 3 ice creams each because they were never hungry so we had loads of snack credits left over. I did take some cereal bars with us which were good for a quick snack if we got hungry in a queue.

One final thing, if you are planning on going to a park with morning EMH then make sure you are there at the start to fully utilize them. And be wary of Disney introducing their paid for early openings to offsite guests as again you don't want to get to a park for opening to find it already full of people. That screwed me over on a couple of dates last time round.

Have fun planning - to me it's half the fun!
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Old 14 Jan 19, 03:33 PM  
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#27
Thorpy
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Join Date: Nov 09
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I'll second that you can expect to arrive, find your room, maybe head back to the central bit to get your bearings, then head for bed. It's tempting to think you will have energy, but when you consider the time you get up, then think whether you'd be ready to go partying if you were travelling around the UK till bedtime...



We have done the Halloween party on our 12th visit !
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