Hi Emily,
Welcome to the Disney Parks Moms Panel! Clearly, you are mapping out an excellent strategy. I love your planning!
We just encountered this dilemma - I had to plan our vacation week in July without know all of the park hours. When this happens, I check a few weeks prior. Our trip, for example, will be a Sunday through Saturday, I checked park hours Sunday through Saturday for two weeks prior to our vacation just to get an idea of what the
park hours might be. I made all of our advanced dining reservations using that information. A few days later when the park hours were released, I was pleased to see that our planning was good. There were
Extra Magic Hours on our last park day at Magic Kingdom that I was not anticipating based on the prior week's schedule, but those will not throw our plans into disarray!
Honestly, my main concern are those hard to get dining reservations for Cinderella's Royal Table and Be Our Guest for dinner. Once I make those, I know that they may be impossible to modify. I have, however, been able to modify dining reservations as it gets closer to our trip dates. Each day people are modifying plans, so I have learned to be patient when checking and re-checking for dining reservations!
Emily, as you make those dining reservations, I hope you plan to do at least one pre-park opening breakfast reservation. Our girls love these early morning reservations because we can enter the parks before the crowds. We always get some terrific pictures along the way to restaurant.
Magic, memories and Minnie Mouse hugs,
Donyell