Josh's EasyWDW plan works

[siskaren]

What I don't understand is 7s the first week of October. It seems to me the numbers should be lower than that.

The 7s are for Saturday and Sunday, which makes total sense since it's the Food and Wine Festival. The rest of the week is 4s and 5s.

 

[sjs314]

I love Josh's site ! His tips and pictorial reviews are the best!

 

[stevb]

Josh's blog posts are addictive. I especially enjoyed his one on drinking around the world.

 

[Lei]

It depends on what time of year you're visiting. For example, we go in September, a low crowd month. On our arrival day, easywdw had HS as the least recommended park but we braved it anyway as it worked better for our plans. It was still very manageable. But compared to the rest of the week when we did follow Josh's recs, it was nite and day.

I'm going on a supposedly low crowd month, too, February next year. Planning to go with Josh's advice, except for 2-3 days where I had to pick the second or least recommended park. Hope it wouldn't be so bad!

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

Question: if you had to go against Josh's advice and go to the NOT recommended park, how bad it usually is? I'm not talking about the worst park, tho. Maybe the second least recommended park. TIA!

We stay onsite and generally visit in May, Sept, Oct, Feb, Mar -- we NEVER follow his recommended park (we use early EMH every time it's available, park hop midday) and have never had a problem. Perhaps it makes a difference during busier times.

Over the last couple of years I've found Josh's crowd calendars to be more reliable than TP, but I wouldn't treat ANY of these as gospel.

 

[purpledisneyprncess]

(we use early EMH every time it's available, park hop midday) and have never had a problem. Perhaps it makes a difference during busier times.
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I think your way works because you park hop mid day after the EMH park. If you were to stay in the park that had the AM EMH it would be more crowded than Josh's recommended park. We didn't get hoppers for this trip and are heavily debating going with Josh's park recommendations instead of using the EMH. Still deciding though.

 

[Lei]

I think your way works because you park hop mid day after the EMH park. If you were to stay in the park that had the AM EMH it would be more crowded than Josh's recommended park. We didn't get hoppers for this trip and are heavily debating going with Josh's park recommendations instead of using the EMH. Still deciding though.

I assume that's the case, too.

We'll also be staying onsite and not getting parkhopper. My initial dilemma was similar, but i decide to follow Josh because I have a pretty low stamina. Won't be able to do all those EMH...

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

I think your way works because you park hop mid day after the EMH park. If you were to stay in the park that had the AM EMH it would be more crowded than Josh's recommended park. We didn't get hoppers for this trip and are heavily debating going with Josh's park recommendations instead of using the EMH. Still deciding though.

Yes, I suspect that you're right. That midday break and park hop works perfectly for us, and we have no intention of changing it! I still think that it doesn't make a ton of difference in low crowd times, though. We've occasionally stayed in the early EMH park later into the day -- no issues in Sept, Oct, May...

 

[Dizneydaz]

I visit Josh's site each and every day. His logic on the best parks to visit is based on common sense and will rarely, if ever, lead you astray.

We have a 10 day hopper in October and plan on hitting his most recommended park at rope drop on 9 of those mornings (the other is a recommended park, but not the 'most' because we did not want to hit rope drop at HS three times) . After an afternoon break we will hop to a different park for evening entertainment. We're less concerned about crowds in the evening and primarily focus on attractions or events that don't have actual queues (shows, parades, fireworks, concerts, etc.).

The problem I see is too many people are discovering him. One thing where we do differ from his plan is taking advantage of Evening Extra Magic Hours at Magic Kingdom. In October, you almost have to do that to see MK at night because the park closes early so many other days.

Once at his most recommended park in the morning, we follow his basic premise about hitting certain major attractions first, but refrain from walking across the park just to make it happen. For example, we won't immediately leave Toy Story and run over to RNR and TOT, then rush to Star Tours. The fact those rides are spread out just means we do two rope drops at that park. Same thing with Epcot when planning Soarin and Test Track. Another thing is his touring plans 'skip' a lot of our favorites. We simply build those into the plan by not riding things multiple times.

We do basically the same thing. We almost always go to evening EMH. As you said, when you go off season, the parks close early. However we don't take advantage of the morning ones-not that great of an advantage and that park gets pretty crowded.

We love going in Sept or Oct but it does change this up a bit with the shorter hours. But I love going during those lower crowd times. I don't plan on every going in summer again.

 

[JanaDee]

We do basically the same thing. We almost always go to evening EMH. As you said, when you go off season, the parks close early. However we don't take advantage of the morning ones-not that great of an advantage and that park gets pretty crowded.

We love going in Sept or Oct but it does change this up a bit with the shorter hours. But I love going during those lower crowd times. I don't plan on every going in summer again.

MK closes early in October due to MNSSHP, multiple times a week. Five of our seven nights at WDW have a party at MK.

 

[Tormania]

I'm using Josh's recommendations for our upcoming trip in Dec. Pretty much following it to the letter as far as Most Recommended Park each day, but with with a couple slight deviations to the next most recommended park as we try to balance out an equal amount of time spent at each of the 4 parks. Can't wait!!

 

[mkymouse40]

I'm glad to hear about EasyWDW's recommendations being accurate. I have always used TourGuideMike in the past, but his website is not quite what it used to be and a lot of the information is not current. I'm afraid to trust his predictions for our trip in December.

I've already planned my days based on EasyWDW, so here's hoping they are correct. We stopped going to EMH a few years ago, except sometimes for the MK late at night when we're not ready to go to bed yet! It is so much easier to go to the slower parks and be able to do more things in just a few hours versus the 60+ minute waits on things like Peter Pan!

Good luck to everyone and enjoy your vacations!!

 

[RedHeadedFairy]

MK closes early in October due to MNSSHP, multiple times a week. Five of our seven nights at WDW have a party at MK.

We ran into that problem a lot last October. It made seeing Wishes a pretty big challenge!

 

[Dinglehopperlizj]

Thanks for the tip. I'm leaving tomorrow and will check out his recommendations!

 

[Goofy127]

Goofy,
So you didn't have to take advantage of EMH and were you there for rope drop? Thanks for sharing your experience, I am planning on using Josh's crowd calenders for my trip.

We were always there for rope drop. If you are going to Hollywood Studios, make sure you are there by 8. It gets crowded pretty quick and they let us in a half hour earlier. We heard cast members saying once Toy Story Mania is up and ready to go they let you in. We did not use morning extra magic hours.

 

[Goofy127]

OP, I'm glad that Josh's park recommendations worked out well for you. We've had equally good results using his picks for the last few trips.

Did you also use his cheat sheets once you were inside the parks?

We would look at the cheat sheets while on the buses in the morning.

 

[Goofy127]

HS EMH - should we get Toy Story Fast Passes and then ride?

I will check out his site today!!!! We are leaving on the 19th. Maybe I can print stuff and bring it with me?

We got toy story fast passes then went on the ride. We actually were able to ride it twice since the park opened at 8:30 instead of 9