Planning our January 2025 WDW Trip

What do I have planned for my January 2025 WDW Trip? Find out!

Dec 30, 2024

Planning a Walt Disney World trip for your family can be overwhelming, especially if you have 13 people. Fortunately, I know what I’m doing 😉. How do I know what to do? I do a lot of practice, but mainly, I do research. I love reading about others’ trips to see what worked and what didn’t. So, if you are planning a trip to Walt Disney World with a large group, I hope this helps.

But first, a little background. I have a family of 6, me, my wife, a 17-year-old boy, a 14-year-old boy, a 9-year-old girl, and an 8-year-old boy. I’m also a cast member with Disney Streaming. I can’t go into details, but I get discounts available only to cast members, so with that, I won’t be going into prices. My wife’s two parents are joining us, as well as my brother-in-law and family
so,

Who?

4 adults in their 40s
2 adults in their 60s
2 teenage boys
1 teenage girl
2 9 year old girls
8 year old boy
and a 5-year-old girl

I had to make two dining reservations to accommodate our whole party. Fortunately, I got times within 5 minutes of each other. We’ll arrive early and ask them to sit at the two tables together or close to each other.

When?

We’ll visit Walt Disney World in January 2025, arriving on Sunday, January 12th, and leaving on Sunday, January 19th. Why those dates? I found the best price. It was also a good week based on crowd calendars. Our visit is sandwiched between marathon weekend and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
We aren’t concerned with taking the kids out of school, and we have found that some of the best times to go are right after or before school breaks.

Where?

We’ll be staying at the Grand Floridian! It's a dream come true. My wife and I have had the pleasure of staying there once before, but for everyone else, it’s their first time. Since my family is six, we needed two rooms and requested adjoining rooms. We also asked for the other two rooms to be near each other. I’ll follow up and let you know how that works out.

What? (or our schedule)

Sunday, January 12th:

We won’t be going to a theme park on the first day, but our flight is early, arriving in Orlando at 9 a.m. We are using Mears to get from the airport to our hotel. If the weather permits, we’ll go to Blizzard Beach and spend some time at the water park. Disney offers free water park admission on the first day of your resort stay, so we’ll take advantage of that.

We’ll eat at a quick-serve restaurant at the hotel or water park. We have a 4 p.m. Ohana reservation at the Polynesian.

Monday, January 13th:

This will be our primary Magic Kingdom Day. Rope drop to close, possibly.

We’ll have a quick-serve early lunch at Columbia Harbor House and dinner at 5 p.m. at Jungle Navigation Co. LTD Skipper Canteen.

Tuesday, January 14th:

We’ll spend half a day at Animal Kingdom; we rarely spend more than that at this park. It’s honestly our least favorite. Then, spend some time shopping at Disney Springs.

We’ll have a quick serve lunch at Satu'li Canteen, then head to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for Sanaa.

Wednesday, January 15th:

It's a resort day. We don't plan to go to a park, relax at the hotel, or maybe visit the monorail hotels and have fun. However, a few people in our party may spend time at the spa.

We’ll have breakfast at 10:45 am at 1900 Park Fare, then grab dinner at the hotel’s quick serve.

We also plan to head to the Poly that night to grab a Dole Whip and watch the fireworks from the beach. My wife and I were able to do this during the summer, and it was fantastic. We are excited to have our family experience this.

Thursday, January 16th:

For the first half of the day, we'll head to Magic Kingdom. My current plan is to visit Adventureland and Frontierland on the left side of the park.

We’ll then go to Hollywood Studios for the afternoon and see Fantasmic.

We’ll have lunch at Peco’s Bills and grab a sit-down dinner at Roundup Rodeo BBQ.

Friday, January 17th:

We’ll travel around the world and go to EPCOT. This is the first day of the 2025 EPCOT International Festival of the Arts. I’m a little worried it’ll be crowded because of that.

Lunch will be at Regal Eagle Smokehouse, and we will have dinner and dessert at Beaches and Cream.

Saturday, January 18th:

We’ll spend the whole day at Hollywood Studios. This is my favorite park, and I am happy to revisit MuppetVision 3D. There will be other visits before it closes.

We’ll have Ronto Roasters for lunch and eat dinner at Mama Melrose, probably for the last time.

So, how did I do? Do you have any recommendations or tips? After our trip, I’ll post a follow-up to tell you how everything went and what lessons I learned.