Arrival night at different resort questions

[Skawt]

We are arriving on Tuesday, May 12th (Less than 1 month!) and are staying at Pop Century the first night via Magical Express. I have a couple of questions on planning for the switch to the Wilderness Lodge the next morning and getting started on the activities we have scheduled that morning.

We have the Supercalifragilistic breakfast booked at 8:20 and then need to be at Epcot by 9:30 for the Dolphins in Depth tour. How much time should we allow to get from Pop Century to Wilderness Lodge and get checked in/bags dropped off, and make it to the Grand Floridian in time for breakfast?

We'll need to cab it from PC to WL and then to GF, correct?

Will the monorails be running by the time we finish breakfast around 9:00am?

[johnatthebar]

While I probably cant give terribly accurate answers to most of your questions (not compared to others on the board I'm certain) I can say that its gonna be rough getting from your 0820 breakfast to The Living Seas by 0930.

[ti2gr]

I swear people have no comcept of the size and scope of Walt Disney World.

Firts off, Check in time is 3pm at ALL WDW resorts. Yes you will be able to check in at the WL in the morning, but don't plan on getting into your room right away. If a room is available, you will be able to, but if the type room you booked is not, expect to wait until the 3pm check in time in order to get into the room. Your luggage will be stored until your room is ready, however you will need t be in the room before they can deliver it.

Breakfast at Grand Floridian, will take more than an hour. This is not a quick serve restaurant, it's a buffet. Unless you plan on grabbing a quick pastry and heading right back out, you didn't schedule enouh time.

Monorails start running on the resort line very early like 7am. Monorails to EPCOT about 8 I believe, so yes the monorails will be running. But to get from the Grand Floridian to Epcot via Monorail I'd allow at least 30 minutes. You'll get off at the third stop (TTC) and then transfer to the EPCOT monorail. I see no way you can make an 8:20 breakfast and then soing the Dolphin in Depth Tour an hour later, unless you were picking up a coffee and donut , and you can do that at Pop Century and just go straight to Epcot from there.

[Skawt]

I know that check-in is at 3pm but we need to get our tickets/package at Wilderness Lodge so do have to start our day over there. Just staying at Pop Century because we are not arriving until 5:30pm and it ended up being like $600 less to make the first night a resort only before starting the main package in the morning.

The schedule is going to be tight the entire trip as we have 3 table-service meals and at least one tour each day but I chose the buffet for the first morning so we could be in more control over how long it took. I was thinking it would be similar to Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary and we will get to the check-in at 8:00am and hope to be seated by 8:20. It is just my wife and I so everything should go much easier than having a big group.

It is good that the monorail is running, it is a lot more magical than a cab ride. As long as we have at least 30 minutes we'll plan for the monorail with a cab as a backup if we get out of breakfast too late.

The tour actually starts at 9:45 at the Epcot main entrance so we don't have to worry about getting through the gates and over to the Seas, just the ride over.

I am thinking we will need to plan to leave Pop Century around 6:30am to be safe.

[halltd]

There's absolutely no way you'll make it to a 9:45 tour at Epcot with a breakfast planned for 8:20 at GF. It's just impossible. You won't enjoy breakfast and you'll for surely be late (or miss) the tour at Epcot. I'd reschedule one of the events.

I would do a quick service breakfast at Wilderness Lodge after you check in and then head over to Epcot. With a schedule that tight, you're not going to fully enjoy anything you have planned. I know my way around the resort like my own home and almost always have a car. I wouldn't even be able to do both of the events you have planned.

[Semiquaver]

When my sister and I booked our trip we were told that if we get all our stuff together the staff will move our bags from one hotel to another if we wanted, and then we can check in at our leisure. This is from French Quarter to AKL. I'd call to find out if something like that is possible, since it'd be one less thing to worry about.

[Skawt]

I would do a quick service breakfast at Wilderness Lodge after you check in and then head over to Epcot.

That is probably good advice and will certainly be the backup plan if we start off running late.

The first day is really the only one that is super tight. I am putting in a request this morning to switch dinner (Sadly this means missing out on Citricos) to avoid a similar time crunch at dinner to make it over to the Illuminations cruise.

Just have to decide on dinner somewhere at Epcot or Yacht Club, already having lunch at Le Cellier otherwise would go with Yachtsman's Steakhouse. Ended up switching lunch to San Angel and dinner to Yachtsman's.

The rest of the trip is full but we are not trying to hop from resort to park to activity the way the first day ended up.

[halltd]

I'd HIGHLY recommend either Flying Fish or Chef's de France for dinner. Both are two of my favorite restaurants on property.

[danyoung]

There's absolutely no way you'll make it to a 9:45 tour at Epcot with a breakfast planned for 8:20 at GF. It's just impossible.

I'm not sure I agree. There's flexibility in times that Disney will check you in. If they're at the GF by 8am they can be seated and eating by 8:20am. Eat, pay and finish by 8:45am, monorail around to TTC (15 minutes), Epcot monorail (20 minutes), and that leaves 25 minutes to get over to The Seas for their 9:45 event. Tight, much tighter than I'd like to experience, but still doable.

[flynnibus]

- Call POP and ask if they will transfer bags for you (AFAIK this is standard and they do it all the time)
- More importantly, ask if you can obtain your tickets somewhere else besides checkin at WL - that is your weak point. If you can obtain your tickets by checking in somewhere else on property, then you'll open up much more flexibility.
- Kill the breakfast reservation... Getting seated at your exact time and depending on it is just setting yourself up for failure. You are in peak breakfast hour there and its going to be busy. Get breakfast in the food court at POP.

If you do all that.. you can leasirely go from POP right to EPCOT and enjoy your swim at the seas.