Animal Kingdom or Hollywood Studios

[TexasTSL]

If you had to give up either Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom for a three-day trip, which one would it be? My friends are doing MK and EP and can only choose one orher park for their third day. They will have two girls with them, ages four and nine.

 

[Alesia]

With younger kids I would pick AK.

 

[disneymom0104]

I agree, I would choose AK. Now that I have older girls and younger SW loving boys we would choose HS. But AK is great, too.

 

[CAS239]

With younger kids I would give up HS over AK.

I think HS is more of a teen geared park and AK has more to do that everyone in the family enjoy together. I love all the parks, but unless the two girls are doing ToT and Rockin Rollercoaster, I'd pick AK

 

[JZCubed]

If you had to give up either Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom for a three-day trip, which one would it be? My friends are doing MK and EP and can only choose one orher park for their third day. They will have two girls with them, ages four and nine.

As much as my family prefers AK over HS, it's really a close call.

The case for HS is there are more rides, even for the 4 y.o., with Toy Story being amongst the best at any Park.
HS: Toy Story, Rockin' Coaster (certainly not for 4 y.o.), Tower Terror (not likely for 4 y.o.), Star Tours, Movie Ride
AK: Safari, Everest (certainly not for 4 y.o.), Dinosaur (not likely for 4 y.o.), Tricera Top

The show comparison is personal choice
HS: Beauty & Beast, Little Mermaid, Frozen, Muppets 3-D, and Indiana Jones, vs.
AK: Lion King, Nemo, Flights of Wonder, and Bug's Life 3-D.

Time Killer Attractions:
HS: One Man's Dream
AK: Pangani, Maharajah, Rafiki's, Boneyard, Carnival Games

Frankly, I'd ask the 9 y.o.
Epcot is going to be enjoyed by the adults.
MK is going to be enjoyed by the 4 y.o. the most.
HS or AK may be the opportunity to engage the 9 y.o. with her selection.

 

[jkh36619]

I would say HS. I agree with JZ. And Kids love frozen sing along

 

[TexasTSL]

Thanks for all of your replies!

At first they were doing MK, AK and HS, but they decided to give up either AK or HS for EP because they wanted to do the Frozen ride and meet Anna and Elsa; however, they haven't gotten their Fastpasses yet. They are planning to book them the day before because they got a vacation package through a third party, who told them their tickets would be waiting at the hotel and they could do all of that once they arrive. I can really empathize with first-timers who don't realize they need to plan! I told my friend to call and see if she could get her ticket numbers so that she can book her Fastpasses now. She said she called and was told she couldn't get them over the phone.

Anyway, so I told them it is going to be really hard to ride Frozen anyway. They do have the Frozen show at HS.

So now they are thinking of going back to MK, AK and HS!

Decisions, decisions.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

Did she purchase a package? If so, she just needs the Disney package number to input in MDE to make the FP+.

If she really has to wait until she gets there, I would still recommend AK and EP over DHS. AK has a TON of things to do. The Wilderness Explorers experience alone is a reason to take younger children to AK. EP is also great for young children. My DS8 could spend an hour just in the Seas with Nemo. DHS has very few attractions for young children IMHO and is a half day park.

 

[cosmicmommy]

This was my line of thinking. Granted, I have boys and not girls, but my kids will be 8, 6.5 and almost 5.
MK -Top Priority (Even when I was doing a 3 day trip, I dedicated 2 days here) - must do almost everything because my kids are the "age of magic" so I want them to experience this park while that brand of magic can still ensnare them. I was older my first trip and all I remember is the mountains and Tomorrowland.
Animal Kingdom - 2nd priority (Again, when doing a 3 day trip, this was the third day) - my oldest loves animals and there are a lot of shows and time killers to amuse the boys around the rides.
Epcot - Then I started to expand my trip. I added this park first due to lots of interests - Nemo, Soarin, Frozen Even After, Akershus breakfast with princesses (my boys love the princesses too), Baymax and Joy/Sadness - plus, they will enjoy Spaceship Earth and Mission: Space, then we will spend what time we can with Agent P in the World Showcase.
Hollywood Studios - I added this park last and only on our arrival day as a half day park and only because I have boys who love Star Wars. We are skipping most of the shows here because we will be getting there late and are doing something similar in MK (Beauty & the Beast and Little Mermaid because we are doing Enchanted Tales w/Belle and Under the Sea), so I focused on Star Wars, Frozen and Toy Story and will add in a couple other things as we have time, but this park was never a priority for us.

 

[DonaldDuck77]

If it is only 3 days total with no park hopper, skip both of them for another day at Magic Kingdom.

 

[cleophus12]

The Star Wars fireworks at HS are IMO the best on property right now if your kids are interested in fireworks.

 

[canadiandisneynut]

I would have to say choose HS of AK. Our DD is 8. She loves the entire Disney Jr section, the Star Wars side, the Frozen stuff. She loved going to Beauty and The Beast show. I feel that there is much more for girls at this park than they might find at AK.

 

[cmarsh31]

Here's another question - how close to they live to a Zoo? We've taken our kids to the Bronx Zoo and the National Zoo in Washington DC (randomly the same years as we've gone to Disney). AK pales in comparison. If they have access to great zoos, the animals will be nice, but nothing overly impressive. Skip AK for HS or, as others have recommended, more MK time. I have an 11 yr old DS, we could NEVER skip HS but if it was only my 8 yr old DD, more MK all the way.

 

[ELSA711]

I can't compare AK to a zoo. We've been to many all over the US and AK is just amazing to us. We have two die hard animal activist (vets in training) girls and 1 boy who would choose AK over any of the other parks, including MK.
I would choose AK, giving up Fantasmic! would be hard, but really the only reason I go to DHS.
My kids love Indiana Jones, Beauty and the Beast and TSMM but other than that. Easy to give up compared to AK for our family. FOTLK is our fav! EE is my two oldest fav ride. We all adore the safari and DH loves Dinosaur. My youngest loves everything about anything to do with animals

 

[mdejesusjr85]

i would choose HS. DD3 loves SW, disney junior and frozen. so for us it works out great.

9 yo could do ToT and rockin rollercoaster
together Toy Story Mania, great movie, star wars ride and shows

 

[dreiwhit]

We would give up AK. In fact, we're not going back to AK the next time we go to WDW.

For us, there's maybe 2 or 3 things at AK that we would like to do again. That just doesn't justify the cost of the tickets. At DHS, there's much more stuff for us to see and do than at AK.

AK really isn't a zoo. Its more of a theme park that has a small zoo as part of it.

 

[lynzi2004]

If I only had 3 days I would be very tempted to skip AK and HS and do MK twice!! I would do MK, Epcot, MK again. Depending on the time of year, I would stay an extra night and consider a resort day or trip to Fort Wilderness!