Leaving to Orlando Dec 23!!
 

Hi everyone, we are leaving for Orlando next Friday, me (25), my brother (28), sister (7) and parents (early 50's). We will be staying at the silverlake resort for 7 nights, then 2 nights at the mizner place in weston florida then 7 nights at the weston vacation village. Here is our ittinary: Dec 24, the whole familly will go to Magic Kingdom, we will go early in the morning and spend the day. We might come back for supper at the resort to relax before going back to see the fireworks. Dec 25, we will go to MGM, I guess same thing early in the AM we will go to the park, come back to relax at supper then go back to see fireworks. On the 26, me my brother and dad have an early tee-off at Oak Trail (Disney 9 holes course) then in the afternoon we thought we would do some boxing day shopping, will it be crazy busy? Will most outlets and shopping malls be open? Then at night after supper maybe go to epcot centre to walk around and see the fireworks. On the 27th, my brother and I have a tee off at 2PM, so we tought we might to to the parks in the AM with our parents (not sure if they are going to do MK again or Animal Kingdom) and then go golfing (Disney Eagle Pines) have supper with the familly and go back to the park we went to in the AM or just stay and relax at the hotel or go talk a walk at downtown disney. On the 28th, we have tickets to go see the Tampa Bay lightning play at 7h30, so I assume we will need to leave at around 4h00-5h00? Which means we might spend the day at animal kingdom or go golfing. On the 29th, we will go to sea world :)

On the 30th, we will drive to Weston Florida, relax at the resort for the day and we have tickets to go see the Florida Panthers in the evening. On the 31, I guess I will go golfing with my brother and maybe go to miami in the evening or go shopping at the outlets. Same idea for Sunday and then we leave on the monday! Wow that sounds packed! Does anyone have any suggestions? Did we miss anything? (I know we skipped universal but we will do it next time we go...) Also, I guess waterpark would be nice, but it will probably be too cold? Any suggestions for disney on the 24th and MGM on the 25th?? Any other suggestions at all?

Sounds like a pretty good itinerary. Most stores and outlet malls should be opened on the 26th. Fair warning: that will be an EXTREMELY busy shopping day, and most of the stores will be packed. You will love SeaWorld.

Thanks for the response. I went to Sea World as a kid and loved it! We have it planned for our last day, I just hope we dont get bad weather!

First need to know a bit more. I see you have been to Sea World, but have you been to Disney before or is this your first visit? What kind of passes do you have - do you have 3 day park-hopper tickets?

When you say "go back to MGM to see fireworks" do you mean to say the Fantasmic show? Because you have to queue up for that earlier in the evening.

What do you mean by "epcot center". Are you going inside Epcot and using a day of your pass to do that at night to see the Illuminations show? Epcot is beautiful at night at Christmas time, a huge lit tree, lgiths everywhere, etc.

You MUST go see the Osborne lights after dark at MGM!! DO NOT MISS THAT!!!

See:
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw...ecialEventPage

Thanks!
I went to disney before, but that was like 15+ years ago....

We have 5 day passes, they are not park hopper.

What do you mean by queue up? How early do we need to do this?

Yes, we plan do you a 1 day pass to just spend the evening at epcot centre...the cost for 5 days was similar to 3 days which is way we took the 5 days...and might as well use the passes even if its just to go see illuminations and the other x-mas things at epcot.

thanks for your response!

How does fast pass work?

For a "park alternative" and some adventure, take a flight with Warbird Adventures in Kissimmee. I went up in a WWII fighter and had a blast with my flight instructor, Jay. They have multiple planes so you and your brother
could fly at the same time.

If you want to see Fantasmic at MGM, they used to have a "dinner package". You chose to have dinner at one of three different restaurants and they give you special pass to enter Fantasmic in a different entrance and they have a section saved. You only don't have to get there as early that way. You have to reserve this in advance.
May I ask what made you decide to visit Weston?? My nephew lives there and it's lovely, but I tend not to think of it as a vacation destination.

its the only place we could get a timeshare week for that time period. How far is weston from ft. lauderdale? from sawgrass mills? from Orlando?

Also, thanks for the tip for fantasmic, however since we are going on x-mas day, all the restaurants are booked already.

How early should we wait up in line for fantasmic??

thanks for all the responses

Be prepared for long waits and tons of people. Disney is very popular this year! We were there in early December during their "slow" value season and it was too crowded for my taste...

I don't think the water parks are open during December since it is too for it. We were at the Magic Kingdom on New Year's Eve one year and it wasn't very crowded, especially late in the evening.

Be sure to get the Fast Pass once inside the Disney theme parks. When you arrive at the park, decide which ride you want to get on the most, then go to the ride location and get the Fast Pass ticket. We use it only for the popular rides that have long lines since you are allowed only one Fast Pass per person every couple hours or so. You receive a ticket with a specific time stamped on it. You can use it anytime after the specified time. While you are waiting for the time to pass, you can go to other attractions with shorter lines, eat lunch, or shop. We used ours for the Rock & Roller Coaster at MGM, and other rides that had long lines. You still have to wait, but you can be doing other things instead of waiting in the line.

I meant to say December is too "cold" for water parks in Orlando.

Sawgrass Mills is right there. It's in Sunrise which is very close to Weston. There are a lot of small towns in that area with their own names.
Weston is about 20-30 minutes from Fort Lauderdale, depending on traffic.

Do you have tickets for the Candlelight Processional at Epcot? Really wonderful program at the American Pavillion.

I think you might want to get on the Epcot, MGM, and MK websites to see what they offer this time of year. Lots of special things. Again, DO NOT MISS THE OSBORNE LIGHTS at MGM. They are set way back on a backlot of the park (next to the wonderful 1950s drive-in movie diner).

To find out how long it takes to line up to get a decent spot for Illuminations (and to get it for it) check disboards.com. We had the priority dinner pkg. so it was not an issue for us, but the lines were very long as we dashed by them to go in.

You might enjoy ICE at the Gaylord Palms resort, close to Downtown Disney Marketplace. It was a big hit for us. Get tickets online now at the Gaylord Palm's website.

thanks again for the responses!! What is ICE?

Anyone else have info on there experience for the lines for the nightly shows/fireworkd

A large scale Ice exhibit - ice carvers are brought in from China and they carve whole scenes, bigger than life size items and animals, villages, etc - even an ice slide tht you can use! It is all indoors and they give you big long parkas to wear in the exhibit. Lots of lights in there too. Very magical!

take a peak:
http://www.gaylordhotels.com/gaylord...o/IcePalms.cfm

ooo, I googled it for images- just copy and paste this into your address line and take a look!!!

http://images.google.com/images?q=ga...=Search+Images

At least one of the Disney waterparks should be open. Sometimes they close one for refurbishing and leave the other open.

Last Christmas it was below freezing all week and there were no water parks open...

Lows and highs are between 8-20 for this week, so I guess it could be warm enough if we get lucky :)

Try Discovery Cove sometime. It is affiliated with Sea World and is just down the road from Sea World.

There are never more than 1000 people at DC on any given day. You reserve a specific day and pay for it in advance. It isn't cheap but you get what you pay for.

Swim with sea animals, wade with sting rays, or pay extra for a dolphin encounter. It also includes multiple days at Sea World at no additional cost. Check it out online.