walt disney world - the itinerary (i don't care that you don't care)

now i will subject you all to my walt disney world itinerary. i'll have you know that i spent a RIDICULOUS amount of time working this schedule out. yes, i am a freak.

Day 1 – Tuesday, October 12: Arrive & get settled. We have dinner reservations at 7:20pm at The Callifornia Grill, located on the 15th floor of the Contemporary Resort. We'll arrive at the Contemporary at around 6:30ish and get drinks at their bar while the sun sets. The restaurant dims its lights during the Magic Kingdom’s fireworks show (8pm) and pipes in the music. After dinner, we'll go to Jellyrolls (dueling piano bar) on the Boardwalk, or go to Pleasure Island. I figure we can play that by ear.

Day 2 – Wednesday, October 13: Rise & shine bright and early. It's early entrance day at Epcot, so we will head there first thing in the morning. We'll leave around lunchtime, & then head to Disney MGM Studios. MGM doesn’t have enough attractions to make up a full day, so I made sure we are there in the evening to see Fantasmic. I haven’t made any reservations for this day. This might be a good night for Pleasure Island.

Day 3 – Thursday, October 14: Animal Kingdom. We’re going to try to be there before the park opens (9am) so that we can get on one of the first safari rides of the day. Apparently the early morning and late evenings are when you have the best chance to see some of the bigger animals (lions & tigers, no bears). I’ve made a reservation at Boma, a buffet restaurant in the Animal Kingdom Lodge at 6:10pm. If we run out of things to do at Animal Kingdom, which sounds like a possibility, we can try to adjust our reservation or just head over to the restaurant. Another option is to arrive a little later to the park and make sure that we are on one of the last safaris of the day. If we go to Pleasure Island the night before, we might prefer the second option.

Day 4 – Friday, October 15: We have an 8:10am reservation at the Crystal Palace on Main Street inside the Magic Kingdom. We’ll get to enter the park early since we have breakfast reservations. This is a buffet-style “character meal,” meaning that Winnie the Pooh will come by to give us hugs while we eat eggs. Piglet will be there too. We’ll spend the whole day at the Magic Kingdom. For lunch we’ll take the monorail to the Grand Floridian Resort where we have a reservation at the Grand Floridian Café at 1:30pm. I figure we’ll take a break from the theme park for a bit & check out the hotel. It is supposed to be really nice! We’ll head back to the park after that and stay for the Spectromagic Parade and Wishes Fireworks show.

Day 5 – Saturday, October 16: Epcot. We’ll spend the whole day here. The International Food & Wine Festival will be going on, and I guess there will be little food stands set up with samples in every country. The only reservation I’ve made is at Biergarten in Germany for 6:10pm. It is basically an Oktoberfest themed-restaurant with an oom-pah band & a bunch of German beer. From there we’ll stake out a spot to watch Illuminations. We could go out to Pleasure Island after this if we were so inclined (though I would assume that it gets awfully busy on Saturday nights).

Day 6 – Sunday, October 17: Do whatever we feel like doing until it is time to leave.