We have booked

elainaandsophia · Apr 28, 2016

So its official. We have booked our family vacation to WDW for October 2017. We will be staying in OKW for 14 magical night. So excited.

So although we have visited WDW twice before this will be our first time staying on sight, first time using magic bands, first time with the meal plan and first time doing fast passes. I honestly dont know what we were doing on our last trips. Walking around in a daze obviously. I remember walking up to FP kiosks each morning to get FP for that day and being told they were gone for the rides we wanted and thinking how is that even possible. Obviously because you book them months in advance on MDE as I now know.

There are so many rides we haven't enjoyed and shows we haven't seen and restaurants we haven't eaten at so if anyone has any advice for us on how to get the best out of this trip and the best rides and trips to get FP for that would be amazing. I know I have so much time still but im impatient. :cheer2:

Also, we are travelling with 4 children. One boy who will be 12 and 3 girls ages 4, 6 and 15. The 15 year old also has autism so any help with how to tackle WDW with a special needs child would be greatly appreciated. :mickeyjum

luvpoohandcompany · Apr 28, 2016

Congratulations on booking :thumbsup2

Exciting times ahead :goodvibes

I'd recommend having a wee read of the official site to get a feel for which rides/ shows you would all like to see and check out the various height restrictions/ noise levels etc so you know what won't work then when you have some ideas you'll be better able to plan park days and fastpasses. Lots of time to plan and lots of great advice on here. I like to read trip reports to get an idea of things we might like to try. Happy planning :goodvibes

luvpoohandcompany · Apr 28, 2016

Love the photo :rotfl:

elainaandsophia · Apr 28, 2016

luvpoohandcompany said:
Love the photo

Thank you, I stole the idea from pinterest. Only took about 25 goes to get 1 good picture of them standing still. ha ha

BudgieMama · Apr 28, 2016

Congratulations on booking!

Where are you staying?

elainaandsophia · Apr 28, 2016

BudgieMama said:
Congratulations on booking!

Where are you staying?

Old Key West. There is 7 of us so from videos ive see it looked like the best option. There seems to be lots of room. We booked a 2 bedroom villa.

Tash87 · Apr 28, 2016

Yay, congrats on booking :goodvibes

We are exactly the same as you I.e first time staying onsite, magic bands, dining plan etc. I'm a bit apprehensive that we are going to feel regimented with adr's and FP+.

I have a couple of weeks before making our adr's :confused:

and although I have researched Beyond belief I'm scared :laughing:

. I think I have looked at every single menu that WDW has to offer! We can't wait to try out the restaurants that we have just gazed into and thought...wow their busy, there's no way we would be able to eat in there! Now we know it's cause you have to book well in advance, duh :blush:

Exciting times ahead :thumbsup2

elainaandsophia · Apr 28, 2016

Tash87 said:
We are exactly the same as you I.e first time staying onsite, magic bands, dining plan etc. I'm a bit apprehensive that we are going to feel regimented with adr's and FP+

I feel the same way, how are we supposed to know where we wanna eat and on what day in what park 6 months in advance. The stress. lol

Where are you staying??? Your trip is so close. So exciting

luvpoohandcompany · Apr 28, 2016

I'm sure others will disagree with me but I found that there were reservations to be had even while on holiday. Because our evening centers around our meal I made sure to have an adr for each night and I tried to make sure we didn't have too many of the same type of restaurant in a row eg steakhouses or Italian but instead alternated them so even if one person not fussed on type of food they knew next night would be more to their taste. Then if we didn't feel like a particular restaurant the day before we were due to dine there we just asked the guest services or used the mde app to see if there was something else available. Oftentimes there was and we changed to that. As long as you cancel the day before you don't incur fees. There was one night when we couldn't get an alternative and we just cancelled an ate qs. We used the saved ts credit at le Cellier later in in trip. Hope this reassures you. You will love magic bands as they make everything so easy

saintrob · Apr 28, 2016

Congratulations on your booking!

EmmaCollicott · Apr 28, 2016

Please don't worry about it being too regimented. We have stayed onsite before and used the dining plan and I can honestly say it was brilliant. Yes you need to plan but it was nice knowing that we didn't have to try getting into restaurants not knowing if there was room. We are going over Christmas this year and I am on countdown to booking all the meals etc - so exciting :tigger:

2005michelle83 · Apr 29, 2016

Congrats on your booking!
We are also going for two weeks next August and staying at OKW in a two bed villa.

We last went in November 14 and found the adr and magic bands were brilliant!

I did have a plan, and it did seem a bit regimented at the time but it worked so well!

I basically had a spreadsheet and started off by looking at the opening hours and deciding which days we would go to which parks. I would then make adr based around that and then added the fast passes to fit in around our adr.

I'll be doing the same this time and I can't wait to start putting the plan together

Tash87 · Apr 29, 2016

elainaandsophia said:
I feel the same way, how are we supposed to know where we wanna eat and on what day in what park 6 months in advance. The stress. lol

Where are you staying??? Your trip is so close. So exciting

Everyone has positive things to say about adr etc so I think I'm worrying over nothing

We are staying at The Grand Floridian, it's always been a dream to stay there :lovestruc

.

We booked this time last year and it has flown by! However these last couple of months have gone sooo slow, I think it's cause I'm waiting to do adr's :guilty:

1andrea · Apr 30, 2016

Whooohooo let the planning commence :0)

Rommie · Apr 30, 2016

I'm going late October 2017 and staying for 2 weeks. While the major planning involved (pardon me, I'm a touring commando) can feel a bit intimidating, I find it's the best way to antecipate the trip and experience all the magical pre-vacation aura, so I enjoy counting down the days to ADR, FP+, itineraries and creating the masterplan for vacationing. My first WDW trip I only did 1 week, and it was brutal, so I can say that choosing 2 weeks for your first family trip was the first right choice you did. I would recommend you to check touringplans, they have premade plans for each park, crowd predictions and all sort of tools to aid you. I used then and, while some predictions were way off and got me unprepared (MVMCP day was predicted like a ghost town day and it felt more like a New Year's Eve!!!) it really made a difference in the end. Knowing the popular rides and the best times to hit them. But don't go in planning that right now, it's too early and we can't say now how the major expansions will impact the seasons.

elainaandsophia · May 1, 2016

Tash87 said:
Everyone has positive things to say about adr etc so I think I'm worrying over nothing

We are staying at The Grand Floridian, it's always been a dream to stay there .

We booked this time last year and it has flown by! However these last couple of months have gone sooo slow, I think it's cause I'm waiting to do adr's

Wow. The grand Floridian looks amazing. Very jealous. Can't wait to hear about your trip.

elainaandsophia · May 1, 2016

Thank you everyone for your advice. I'm taking notes so I can get to planning.

I'm off out tomorrow to buy myself a travel planner so I can keep track of everything. I'm so excited to start.

Rommie: It looks like we will be there at around the same time.

scoobydooby2016 · May 4, 2016

Don't forget to plan in down time and pool time. I actually need to take my own advice about this. Ten trips later I still go commando and every single year I reflect we needed more down time!

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