Can you do Disney World last minute

2,354 Views | 19 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by lil99chris
Fleff
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I have had four days off all year, including holidays and weekends. Just found out I am clear to take a week off at 9/20. Can you do a Disney vacation a week out, more importantly am i going to regret spending 5k on a short notice trip? Main reason is to take my two sons 9 & 11, and they love Star Wars. Will we still be able to do that stuff or will it all be booked. Only other time we went was 7 years ago and my wife planned or 5 months.

Help/Thoughts?
kdm_01
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Not a Disney expert or anything but I know the Sept crowds at Disney have been some of the lowest of the year. Go for it - and have fun!
Fleff
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Booked it. Figured I haven't spent time with the family in a year, and don't know my next opportunity. We will give it a go.
aggiepaintrain
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yes and watch a youtube video on how to reserve your spot
for
Rise of the Resistance

from what I remember, turn off bluetooth, turn off wifi, close all windows. Log in a couple minutes before 7:00:00 the day you go to Hollywood Studios, you will have 3 seconds to get a spot. Everyone with a phone and the my disney app can try.

The ride is the best ever

For Avatar Flight of Passage get to AK around an hour before it opens and literally run (walk super fast) and get in line. I'm
sure all the fast passes are gone. You won't have to wait more than an hour. The parks sometimes open earlier than they advertise.

2nd best ride of WDW

also, the reservations are probably gone but for the day(s) you go to HS you can make a reservation to make a droid or lightsaber. Check now for this.
Hincemm
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First step is to make park reservations.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/availability-calendar/?segments=tickets,resort,passholder&defaultSegment=tickets
JimmyHouston
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Rise of the Resistance was worth it for sure....but man the first time I tried to get on I got so frustrated with the process. Luckily we managed to get into the afternoon que with the lunch reset - make sure you understand how that works. The second time I applied for ROTR we were in the very first que as I had gotten so fast from the previous two times. Having an understanding of exactly how it works really pays off!
JimmyHouston
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clintaggie04
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You have worked 253 out of 257 days this year???
CoachRTM
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Read what aggiepaintrain wrote.

Read it again.


Rise of the Resistance is the best ride I have ever been on, and with your kid's ages and their fandom in Star Wars, it will be what they talk about on the flight back and for a long time after that. Make that work however you can.

Do some research on what resort you are staying at. There are three price tiers and here are our favorites :
Low : All star resorts / Fort Wilderness Campground (if you have RV)
Mid : Port Orleans / Fort Wilderness Campground (if you stay in a cabin)
High : the hotels around Magic Kingdom - Polynesian / Grand Floridian.

Honestly, you can't really go wrong here. The theming is pretty ridiculous at all of them in the Mid/High price points. Some are connected to the Gondola system which can take you to Epcot / Hollywood Studios. Find a theme your kids will like and a price point you are ok with and go with it.

Animal Kingdom - read what aggiepaintrain said about Avatar, it is the best part of the park. The Lion King show is good and depending on your kids' interest in animals you can also spend a lot of time checking them out.

Epcot - this will depend on your kids. I could see 9 and 11 year olds going either way. Visiting the countries is pretty fun and you can try food (and adult drinks) from all different places around the world. You can get sushi and sake from Japan and then a beer from Germany, and then French pastry and glass of wine. On the other hand, it is more on the "adult" side of things to do in terms of interests. Some kids yours age will love it, some will hate it, so it just depends on yours.

Hollywood - all the IP. Star Wars sounds like the big ticket here for you guys. Toy Story land is also here along with Tower of Terror, Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Train ride. (this is one of the newer technology rides that is absolutely worth finding time to do)

Food - reservations will be hard to get this close to, but I would do what I can. Walking up to a restaurant at Disney is gambling with your time. The pizza place in Italy (Via Napoli) is one of my favorite "underrated" spots to grab dinner. You might be able to still get a spot there.

Disney Spring has some cool stuff - it's mainly dining/shopping, but there are some things to do. You can research to see if there are things your kids might like to do. There is one place where you can take a ride in a car that can drive into the water. It's what I used to call a "duck-mobile". I'm sure there's a better way to describe it.
Shagga
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aggiepaintrain said:

yes and watch a youtube video on how to reserve your spot
for
Rise of the Resistance

from what I remember, turn off bluetooth, turn off wifi, close all windows. Log in a couple minutes before 7:00:00 the day you go to Hollywood Studios, you will have 3 seconds to get a spot. Everyone with a phone and the my disney app can try.

The ride is the best ever

For Avatar Flight of Passage get to AK around an hour before it opens and literally run (walk super fast) and get in line. I'm
sure all the fast passes are gone. You won't have to wait more than an hour. The parks sometimes open earlier than they advertise.

2nd best ride of WDW

also, the reservations are probably gone but for the day(s) you go to HS you can make a reservation to make a droid or lightsaber. Check now for this.
Spot on advice. My son and his wife were cast members at WDW for a couple of years and we used their guest privileges for our entry a half dozen times - we were always chasing for last minutes spots on certain rides. Also, working at WDW stinks, so they no longer work there.
jopatura
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As long as you're back before 10/1 you should be fine. The 50th anniversary starts in October and many fall travelers have pushed back their travel dates to be there for the anniversary.
aggiepaintrain
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I'm going back 12/16 for the 50th.

To me, Rise of the Resistance is worth the price of the entire trip, I am a Star Wars baby though..DOB 1972.

OP report back about your trip.
Fleff
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We are leaving Sunday morning, staying at the Riviera. Going to make the best of the short notice and do what we can. Going to rain a lot by the looks of it, so maybe the already low crowd levels will get even lower. I will report back next weekend.
TexasAggie73
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The virtual queue for Rise is ending on 9/23. Will be long wait times. Getting ready for Genie plus.

Space 220 restaurant in EPCOT opens 9/20. Not taking reservations at this time.
lil99chris
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Yes it can be done. For those interested, please contact me and I will get you booked and everything squared away. My services are free of charge and you are helping out an Aggie business.

I am leaving Sunday (9/19) and booked this week.

Quote:

Food - reservations will be hard to get this close to, but I would do what I can. Walking up to a restaurant at Disney is gambling with your time. The pizza place in Italy (Via Napoli) is one of my favorite "underrated" spots to grab dinner. You might be able to still get a spot there.

There are now restaurants that have 'mobile dine walk-up availability', so it is worth a shot.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/mobile-dine-walk-up-availability/
Harry Stone
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i did this in 2018 so it was before covid. booked on a monday, left on a wednesday mid january.
Thomas Little
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Fleff said:

We are leaving Sunday morning, staying at the Riviera. Going to make the best of the short notice and do what we can. Going to rain a lot by the looks of it, so maybe the already low crowd levels will get even lower. I will report back next weekend.


Don't worry about the rain there. It typically rains every afternoon for a short while. Maybe 30 minutes to an hour. Just head inside, let it blow over, then go have fun.
Fleff
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Ok just finished my last day of going to the parks, fly out tomorrow.

Stayed at the Riviera and thought our room and hotel were extremely nice. I am not a huge Disney guy and some of the stuff I say may just be my ignorance.

The first thing that mildly annoyed me was we were the seemingly the second to last stop on the magical express. Being a premium hotel it would have been nice to be dropped off first. Also highly annoying is we got to the hotel and then the driver left without dropping us off. He said he was rerouted to pick someone up from Typhoon Lagoon. There is not one over there so we got sent back.

Skyliners were great when the were running. Unfortunately several times in our trip they weren't and the buses for riviera seem to suck. Especially to the parks where the skyliner runs. Magic kingdom buses weren't back. animal kingdom buses were back to bad. Long waits, many other hotels had two to three buses by the time we were picked up. We thought about busing to Hollywood studios and sky lining back.

Parks:
Went to Hollywood studios the first two days. We were able to ride 'Rise of the Resistance' twice, and it was very cool. Easily best ride. Rode everything else at least once, except for Hollywood Tower, which my kids were scared of, built droids and lightsabers and took lots of staged photos. This was their favorite park. We ate '50s cafe and Hollywood Brown Derby. Both were ok.

Third day we went to Magic Kingdom and once again we were able to ride everything we wanted to at least once. The rides we passed on were the Jungle Cruise and Speedway. This was my kids second favorite park, with Space Mtn and Thunder Mtn being the highlights. Here we ate at the Be Our Guest and The Plaza Restaurant. Be Our Guest was probably the best restaurant we at at and it was good, but the waiter was great. Plaza was not good, but they had the best kid's chicken strips out of all the restaurants. At least one of my kids ordered chicken strips for every meal. Fireworks were really enjoyable and met a young lady that night who was a joy to talk to and had just moved back to Orlando to go back to work at Magic Kingdom. She was super knowledgeable and just really pleasant to talk to as we sat for an hour waiting for the show to start.

Epcot was a disaster for us. I really enjoyed Soarin, kids Loved the test track. Unfortunately the test track was broken for most of the day. We did get to eat at Space 220, and while the concept is really neat, I thought it was a disaster. Granted it was only the third day. The elevator was the best part, the space scenes start off being cool, but then you settle in to realizing it is hours of the same thing with very little to keep your interest. The transition from day to night was cool, but then it is over. Our food was awful, everything was tough. Wife had tough duck, I had short ribs that needed to be cut with a knife, one son had chicken strips, the other had a medium steak cooked to well done. Host didn't how the table numbers so we walked around the restaurant until a manager point her to our table. Waiter was probably the worst. Staffing seems to be a problem at the parks as several workers mentioned it during our stay.

Finally we went to Animal Kingdom. I had never been and I really enjoyed this park. My kids third favorite place. The Avatar ride was neat, but I thought I was just a fancy Soarin. Safari was fun, Everest was good. For lunch we ate at Tuskegee House. Food was good, maybe one of my better meals. What I found most amusing was I learned my 9 & 11 year old boys still like character meals. I didn't not expect that.

Overall it was a much needed vacation with my family and really glad they had as good of a time as they did.

aggiepaintrain
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that's a great trip, thank your wife for planning all that
TyHolden
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What are the chances of getting last minute after Christmas / past New Year's trip?
lil99chris
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Send me a message and I can let you know.
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