General Daily Plans (November 2019 trip)
While on vacation last week, I worked on our daily plans in anticipation of FP selection day next month. I've switched some things around from what I had initially thought we'd do, thanks to stalking and snagging a few ADRs at times that were preferable than what I had originally booked at 180 days out.
When Southwest released their November airfare in May, the prices were much higher than we had hoped (although not all that surprising given their MAX 8 situation). The more we crunched air travel numbers -- airfare, TSA precheck for at least one of us adults, long term airport parking, a rental car (a must in DH's book when visiting WDW with our kids and also much pricier than prior visits) -- the more we leaned towards our transportation of choice from last November's WDW visit. We eventually decided to get something on the books and once again opted to reserve spots on Amtrak's Auto Train. We had wonderful experiences both ways on the AT last year, so we're psyched to ride it again...particularly since we've upgraded this year from coach class to sleeping accommodations (still fairly tight, but it should feel great to fully recline and to have less ambient light while doing so).
We're currently looking at…
Friday, 11/15 (Departure Day):
- Drive from our home to Lorton, VA (about a 3 hour drive).
- Check in at station and reserve our dining time, then meet DH's brother for lunch nearby.
- Back to the station for our vehicle to be loaded and then passengers board for 4:00 departure.
- Dinner in the Dining Car and then back to our two roomettes for wine, movies, podcasts, reading and sleep.
Saturday, 11/16 (Arrival Day, Disney Springs & Resorts):
- Arrive in Sanford, FL (if all goes well, by 9:00 AM).
- Stop by Coronado Springs to check in, fully expecting that a room won't ready for us until late afternoon.
- Eventually head over to Disney Springs to poke around and to visit the Christmas Tree Trail, with a lunch ADR at Homecomin'.
- Head back to CS eventually (likely unpack, explore, swim).
- Dinner will likely be QS at Coronado; however, if we’ve got unexpected energy, we’ll head to the TTC and take the monorail to eat at The Wave, Grand Floridian Cafe or Capt. Cooks (I’d love to hang out late enough to watch fireworks from the Poly beach, but that may be pushing it).
Sunday, 11/17 (Magic Kingdom & Epcot):
- Breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table. This will be our 5-year-old twin daughters' third visit to WDW and they still have no idea that there's a restaurant inside the castle and I haven’t eaten there since 1982, when it was still King Stefan’s Banquet Hall.
- Whenever we eventually finish breakfast, we plan to head for the standby line at Enchanted Tales with Belle
- [FPs = probably Tiana/Rapunzel M&G, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell M&G; rolling FP at Epcot]
- Lunch will likely be MK snacks, otherwise upstairs at Columbia Harbour House
- We’ll probably watch the 2:00 FoF parade this day and head out sometime shortly thereafter.
- If we’re all game, we’ll head over to Epcot to, at the very least, catch a 4th FP ride and eat dinner (either Biergarten or World Showcase/F&W quick service)
- If no hop to Epcot, we’ll head back to Coronado to swim/explore and have dinner
Monday, 11/18 (Epcot):
- PPO breakfast at Garden Grill. One of our daughters really dislikes meeting non-face characters (she was fine during our 2016 visit, but not in 2018). We’re hoping she does better this trip, but she’s a trooper and has agreed to breakfast at GG again this year because a) she loves the food there, b) Soarin’ is one of her favorite rides and c) I begged her — her stipulation is that we again sit in one of the “horseshoe” tables and she sits at the back between DH and me.
- Post-breakfast = 2 standby line rides on Soarin’
- [FPs = Test Track, Spaceship Earth, Mission Space - green; will then try for a Frozen Ever After FP for at least 3 of us, which I was able to land last Nov]
- Late lunch ADR at Via Napoli.
- We’re hoping to stick around late enough to watch the Epcot Forever show, but we’ll see how the day goes.
Tuesday, 11/19 (Hollywood Studios): *Depending on how FP selection goes, today’s plan may be flip-flopped with Thursday’s plan*
- Breakfast in our room/en route to park.
- We’ll rope drop Tower of Terror in hopes of riding it at least twice, as this is both of our daughters’ favorite ride from our visit last fall (DH and I love it as well). We’d all love to ride Rock ’N Roller Coaster as well, but there’s no way that one of our twins will be tall enough to ride, so we’ve all opted to skip it.
- [FPs = Slinky Dog Dash, Star Tours, Frozen Sing-Along]
- Lunch ADR at Hollywood Brown Derby.
- We’re hoping to stay late enough to watch Fantasmic (out of the four of us, I’m the only one who has ever seen it) -OR- Jingle Bell, Jingle Bam (we watched it the year it debuted and weren’t too impressed, but I’ve heard that it has improved since then).
Wednesday, 11/20 (Animal Kingdom):
- Breakfast in our room/en route to park.
- We still haven’t achieved consensus on which ride we’ll rope drop, other than knowing it won’t be Flight of Passage (DH and I rope dropped it during an adults-only trip and don’t feel like doing that again with two easily distracted kids in tow; if we can’t get FPs for it for today, I’ll book them for our final day and hop over to ride it). I figure we might as well RD Nav’i River Journey since Pandora opens earlier than the rest of the park and then we can rope drop another ride at regular open, but DH and our girls don’t really feel like riding it this year (we rope dropped it last year and my mom and I were the only ones all that into it). We may opt to skip Pandora rope drop all together and do a regular opening rope drop at Safaris or Expedition Everest instead.
- [FP = Flight of Passage, Expedition Everest -or- Kilimanjaro Safaris, Mickey/Minnie M&G]
- Peak heat of the day lunch ADR at Yak and Yeti; I will FINALLY get to try the famed ahi tuna nachos!
- We’ll likely aim to be in Pandora around dusk, as we really like seeing things transition and the bioluminescent features “come to life;” we’ll also grab a quick, light dinner at Satu’li Canteen.
- Check out the new holiday decorations after dark, as we head over to Expedition Everest. Our plan is to ride EE several times while Rivers of Light is going on.
- Watch a round or two of Tree of Life Awakenings before heading back to Coronado.
Thursday, 11/21 (Magic Kingdom): *Depending on how FP selection goes for 11/19, today’s plan may be flip-flopped with Tuesday’s plan*
- PPO breakfast at Be Our Guest
- Post-breakfast = We’ll probably get in line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train although, when we tried this routine last year, 7DMT had a delayed opening due to mechanical issues so we left the line and headed to Peter Pan’s Flight instead; if 7DMT with a short line is a no go, we’ll head over to meet Cinderella & Elena instead
- [FPs = 7DMT, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear]
- Lunch is still undecided between Liberty Tree Tavern, Columbia Harbour House (upstairs) or a monorail resort (Grand Floridian Cafe or Capt. Cooks)
- DH and I discovered a few years ago that we much prefer Jungle Cruise after dark and, after riding it post-sunset last year, or girls prefer it then as well; we'll try for an after dark JC ride, either via rolling FP or as our last ride via standby line
- Watch A Frozen Holiday Wish on the castle before heading out of the park (it’s a party night and we’re not attending)
- Dinner Options = A monorail resort (The Wave, Grand Floridian Cafe or Capt. Cooks) or back at Coronado
Friday, 11/22 (Magic Kingdom ??? & Epcot??? — Undecided Day)
- Breakfast in our room/en route to park
- I *think* we’ll go to morning EMH at Magic Kingdom and
head straight back to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for a couple of rounds, followed by Adventureland. (I don't think that we've ever attended an AM EMH at MK and I completely forgot that Frontier and Adventure Lands aren't open -- details TBD!)
- We currently have a noon ADR (latest available) at the Bon Voyage Breakfast over at Boardwalk ,which we may or may not keep.
- If we keep the Bon Voyage ADR, we’ll probably head into Epcot afterwards; but we may end up going somewhere else or back to our resort for the afternoon (???)
- If we don’t keep the Bon Voyage ADR, we’ll still likely head out of MK after a couple hours. As above, we may end up at Epcot or we may end up elsewhere (???)
Saturday, 11/22 (Departure Day)
- After packing up our car, we’ll head to Boma for brunch (this has become a departure day tradition for us)
- We’ll explore Animal Kingdom Lodge until it’s time to head to the Lorton train station
- Hope for tired kids and lots of sleeping for all of us on the train ride home (it worked last year, so everything’s crossed for a repeat this year!)
Painfully missing from all of our plans is much (any?) time spent in Galaxy's Edge. DH and I are hoping to have an opportunity to walk through the land, but won't be gutted if we don't because...we already decided a few months back to book a long weekend trip for just the two of us in spring 2020 (goals = all things Galaxy's Edge, Keys to the Kingdom tour, California Grill brunch). Besides, our girls have only recently explored anything beyond toddler-geared Star Wars books (= one viewing of "A New Hope") and we know we'll be frustrated if they aren't as interested in GE as we'd like them to be! We booked this trip back when we still thought that GE would likely have a December opening, so we hadn't expected to head there this visit.
). Mine are also huge fans fo the Disney Jr characters -- especially Vampirina -- so that's more time (and the lack of a schedule for the Disney Jr Dance Party show adds more uncertainty). We've already cut a few shows out and are *trying* to prioritize ones that are different than anything they might see elsewhere (at home or in the parks), are unlike the musicals they've attended, etc. I never expected HS to through me for a loop like it is this year!
