First and Last day at WDW - July

[sablair]

Hi all I know this might not be the best place for this post, but the budget board is my fav DIS board and you all always have good ideas! I am trying to decide what we are going to do our first and last days at DW.

I have some ideas but would like to know from experienced WDW'ers what your best experience was for the first and last night. We would like the first day to get us in the disney mood The last day we are planning on going to blizzard beach and leaving about 1:00PM. I thought this might be a good time to spend in DD and go the the adventurers club??. But then I thought we might want to be in a special place to see illuminations or the firewords.


The first night I have been changing my mind about. We were going to do the Villain Dinner at the GF. Can you see the MK fireworks from there? I thought eating dinner somewhere at Poly and watching the fireworks from the beach might be nice too. And another idea was to go to Ft. Wilderness and do the campfire. Or Chef Mickeys.. the list is endless. I do know that we are planning on having lunch at the Crystal Palace one day and doing bfast at Hollywood and Vine (to get the fantasmic package. we can do bfast for the pass right?) another, so maybe we shouldnt do a character meal up front?

What do you all think? This trip will be our first and I want it to be magical from start to finish!!

Thanks!

Sheila

 

[DisneyMom92]

You don't say how old your group is. Do you have kids? For our money, character meals are a great benefit and time saver. We have to eat anyway. Character meals really don't take that much more time than regular meals, especially if you have PS's and arrive on time. I have never waited more than a few minutes to sit down. The other reason it's a time saver is that we don't have to wait to meet characters in the park. The kids know most of the biggies are going to be at a character meal we plan almost daily during our trip. Whenever we see a character we are not going to meet at a meal, the kids decide whether they want to wait. If the wait is over 10 minutes, they usually pass because they meet so many at meals.


The other thing we have found is that we really enjoy character meals. We are getting such a list that planning is harder and harder each year because we want to try new ones but the old ones are fun and we want to do them again. I like planning meals, too, because then we are assured we are going to eat and going to take a break.

I'm not sure this answers your question. If it doesn't, ask again, I will try to help if I can.

 

[Disneydenise]

I am always amazed by the people who do lots of character meals. I can't stand to do more than one and now that my children are teens I never go to them. I swear every time I go to put something in my mouth a character is there posing and I never eat a warm meal. If this is a first visit I think that you should do one maybe two but not for every meal. There is a place in the POly called O'hana's that has good food, it is mostly grilled fare and they just bring it to your table. They have little games and things that go on during your meal. I prefer a more quiet dinner hour so we go to the Kona Cafe. The food is okay but they have a great dessert called KOKO PUFFs. When you call to make a PS ask for a time that will corordinate your meal with viewing the fireworks. We usually top of the night with a fast trip around on the monorail and a shopping trip to either the Contemporay Grand Concourse or GF . We try to get to bed by 12PMthe first night.

 

[Gillian]

The beach at the Poly sounds like a good choice to me for the first night! You might be tired from traveling. Do you know for sure that there will be fireworks on your first night? What time of year are you going?

btw, the them parks board always has posts from people asking for itinerary reviews.

 

[sablair]

Two adults + a 15yr DS and 7yr DD. Hmmm... I didnt know there werent fireworks every night! We will arrive late Fri night, so our first day will be a Sat 7 Jul, we return home early the next sat. We will have a full day on Sat and plan to tour the resorts and ease into Disney.. lol. We are staying offsite until Mon - can we still ride the monorail? Im really leaning toward dinner at the Kona Cafe (Ohana's sounds a lot of fun, but the food choices at Kona would be better for us) Im considering dinner at Boma's in the AKL too. That would be the only way we could get in to see it. Uggh.. every time I think Im closer to making my mind up I change it And when I ask my family, they all say.... yeah that sounds good, or whatever you plan will be fun. Im about to call them all in here for a family meeting so I can get on with making our PS's!!!