Let's talk a little about size...it really does matter!! First, we will take a little trip back in time. The year was 1955 and Disneyland had just opened it's gate. Disneyland consisted of just the Magic Kingdom and while it wasn't an instant success, it caught on fairly quickly. Not only that but area "entrepreneurs" decided they could make a pretty penny off Walt's dream too! Very quickly lots of tourist trap type business started popping up and Walt had no where to go!! If you've ever visited Disneyland you will notice that the two theme parks are closely surrounded by local business, hotels and restaurants.
Walt need more space! He starting purchasing plots of land in Florida under various pseudonyms like Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation. He wanted space and he got it! Walt Disney World totals 47 square miles or roughly the size of San Fransisco or TWICE the size of Manhattan. Nearly one third of that is set aside for Environmental Protection and can't be developed on.
My point is...it's big. It's HUGE!! There are 25 Disney resorts, one residential area, 10 non-Disney resort, 4 theme parks, 2 water parks, 5 golf courses, 2 miniature golf courses, a shopping district and much, much more!
This old photo comes from ideal4disney.com but is a great view of how large the Walt Disney World resort really is!
So let's talk about the game plan. We are traveling do Walt Disney World for 7 nights, 8 days with one day set aside for a trip to Cape Canaveral. Here is our general plan:
Arrival Day- Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
Arrival Day- Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
Day 2-Magic Kingdom
Day 3-EPCOT
Day 4-Animal Kingdom
Day 5-Cape Canaveral
Day 6-Hollywood Studios
Day 7-Magic Kingdom
Day 8- Depart :(
So how did I come up with this schedule? I take a few things into consideration when planning our itinerary:
So how did I come up with this schedule? I take a few things into consideration when planning our itinerary:
-Even thought we purchased Park Hoppers we are planning one park per day. I know our group though and things tend to change so we like the flexibility.
-Park Hours. Even though we are traveling with a baby we like to be in the parks as long as possible. We have a schedule but the baby can sleep pretty much anywhere.
-Extra Magic Hours. There are several schools of thought on Extra Magic Hours
Avoid them as everyone else goes so the other parks will be less crowded
OR
Take advantage of them as they are less busy and you can see and do a lot of things before regular guests are allowed in.
Take advantage of them as they are less busy and you can see and do a lot of things before regular guests are allowed in.
We subscribe to the latter. I highly enjoy early Extra Magic Hours at both Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom and evening Extra Magic hours..well just about anywhere!!!
-Crowd levels. Personally I love using touringplans.com BUT I don't follow their advice to a T. Sometimes it's not correct...after all it's not a perfect science! It does give a good idea of how the parks were historically.
-Crowd levels. Personally I love using touringplans.com BUT I don't follow their advice to a T. Sometimes it's not correct...after all it's not a perfect science! It does give a good idea of how the parks were historically.
Bottom line is that itinerary planning is not a specific science but more of an art!
Let's take a look at that schedule again shall we?
Let's take a look at that schedule again shall we?
Arrival Day- Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
Day 2-Magic Kingdom
Day 3-EPCOT
Day 4-Animal Kingdom
Day 5-Cape Canaveral
Day 6-Hollywood Studios
Day 7-Magic Kingdom
Day 8- Depart :(
Currently we have 6-day park hopper passes. So for Day 1 we are covered with our Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party Tickets (remember, you can access the parks starting at 4 p.m.!) Today is scheduled as the SECOND busiest day of our trip!
Day 2- We always like to start our trip at the Magic Kingdom (and end it!) Plus the park is open until 11 p.m.! Rather low crowds and because of the Christmas party the night before, it should be relatively quiet.
Day 3-EPCOT has early extra magic hours so we are going to take advantage of this. Today is supposed to be extremely quiet! Plus another Christmas party is scheduled at the Magic Kingdom.
Day 4- You guessed it...Animal Kingdom has early Extra Magic Hours. We'll end our day either at the resort, the Boardwalk or Downtown Disney
Day 5-Cape Canaveral with dinner at EPCOT
Day 6-Hollywood Studios. Touring plans recommends Animal Kingdom plus there is extra magic hours at EPCOT so we are hoping it will be slow here today
Day 7-One last day at Magic Kingdom.
So there it is! That's "the plan"...I'm really the only one who would be willing to stick with it. It will be interesting on how it plays out! Next up we'll talk about our dining reservations and then we'll talk about each park individually and touring plans.
Don't forget the LIVE chat tomorrow night at 8 p.m. eastern time! Also, I have a special guest post coming up!
I like referencing Touring Plans but I hardly ever take their advice (at least on purpose, sometimes we do end up picking their recommended park) but I do like the Lines app which is more why I subscribe.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, I <3 Extra Magic Hours, both AM and PM (although since we're more night people PM works better). But I love the feeling of having the park almost to ourselves with EMH.
I like your schedule, we too have a day planned off-property to go visit Universal to see the Harry Potter section. I think it'll be a fun change of pace. Oh and we too always have to end our trip with a day in the MK, it seems wrong to do otherwise!
I loved the extra magic hours! We were the first in line at Magic Kingdom and went on whatever Aurora wanted to go on twice!
ReplyDeleteWe are going to use touringplans.com for a lot of our itinerary for this trip. We will be in the dead middle of spring break time, so I am hoping to squeeze in as many rides as possible for my little girl!
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