I’d been warned.
Planning a Disney vacation can be overwhelming. Absolutely. So many pieces to coordinate and fit together in the best possible way- almost like a tricky little logic puzzle. Good thing I love logic puzzles.
Once the resort hotel, race entries, and park tickets had been settled, it was time to cover the rest of the details- Dining reservations, FastPass +, introducing my kids to all things Disney.. Lots to do.
So, how does one begin to wrap their head around planning such a feat?
I found it useful to break it down into pieces, and use lots of spreadsheets.
First step, determine which park you’ll be at each day.
We were flying in on a Tuesday night, and out on Monday evening. Nonie & Pops would be driving, so they would arrive before we did. With Online Check-in, they were able to get in the room with their Magic Bands even before we had arrived. This was useful- and allowed them to go shopping for provisions and get them up to the room in a timely manner. They were tempted to use one of their park days that night, but ended up deciding against it.
We had planned for 6 park days, with park hopper. After reading as much as I could about Toddlers in Disney, I had come up with a basic plan for the week.
Wednesday- Epcot & Marathon Expo/Packet Pick-up.
Thursday- TT Dad’s 5k, Kids’ Fun Run, and Magic Kingdom.
Friday- TT Dad & I would run the 10k, and Epcot
Saturday- TT Dad’s Half Marathon, Hollywood Studios AM, Animal Kingdom PM
Sunday- TT Dad’s Marathon, Magic Kingdom.
Monday- Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Home.
As usual, this was all subject to change.
Now that we had a general plan, it was time to think about food. Always an important step. Important, but very difficult when we’re bringing two toddlers, and we have no idea what a trip like this will be like with them. Will they stay on their typical schedule? Be overwhelmed quickly, and tire easily? Will they be completely distracted by all the fun, and not be hungry when they normally are? How will we fit in naps?
As a general rule of thumb, all of the pros suggest only making one Table Service reservation per day, lunch or dinner. I had a hard time following that rule, so I didn’t. I cheated a bit, and made reservations for both lunch and dinner each day. I tried to get one character meal and one non-character meal a day. My thought process was that if the kids enjoyed characters, meals would be an easy way to get those in, without spending time waiting in line. If not, we could skip out, cancel those, and keep the non-character meal reservations. As long as you cancel a couple of days ahead of time, there is no issue. Either way, I thought we’d end up with one table service meal a day.
That left me with the task of determining which character meals, and which non-character meals to choose.
Kids under 3 are free, technically. Admission is free, and in some restaurants, they can eat free. The basic rule is that they eat free, unless you order specific food for them. In other words, they can eat at buffets, or family style restaurants for free. They can also eat free if you want to share some of your food with them, and have them eat off of your plate. You will have to pay for their food if you order them a meal.
As it turns out, a lot of character meals are buffet, or family style. Perfect.
Once the character meals were figured out, it wasn’t too difficult to find non-character meals to pair up with them.
The actual booking of these reservations wasn’t nearly as difficult as I’d expected. There was a little hiccup with our travel agent, so our hotel stay wasn’t linked to my account in time to begin making reservations, so I lost out on one big perk of staying onsite, which is booking all reservations at once, instead of waiting for each day of your vacation to reach 160 days out.
Regardless, I was able to find a way to secure each reservation we were interested in.
Food for thought-
There were a few instances that took some extra steps to book. More often than not, in that case, I was able to book a reservation for either a different time slot, or a smaller number of guests, and then adjust that reservation to fit our needs. Sometimes it took a few tries to find the availability, but we accomplished it every time.
After the reservation blitz, I had a few months to plot out our FastPass+ plans. How to make the most of our time. Less lines, and more fun.. For everyone.