Need help deciding which days for which parks!

[SugarSweetLee]

So, after we booked our trip I started planning what days we'd be visiting which park. Then, I consulted easywdw's calendar prediction and learned I'd pretty much chosen the wrong parks for almost every single day

Do most people go by the recommendations they or touringplans put out when you're planning your vacation, or do you still go by your own ideas of how the trip should go?

To give you real number examples, we will be visiting arriving on a Monday morning, with 5 non-hopper days, ending on a short day on Friday with our flight out in the evening.

My original idea was to start with

• Monday: MK - the only day the MSEP will be playing while we are there, which we are not *guaranteed* to want to do, but nice to have the option
• Tues: Epcot
• Weds: AK
• Thurs: Epcot again
• Friday: MK, short day to redo/catch any attractions we might have missed.

Easy WDW recommended/not-recommended parks

• Mon: EP AK/MK HS(EMH)
• Tues: AK MK HS/EP(EMH)
• Weds: MK EP/HS AK(EMH)
• Thurs: EP AK/HS MK(EMH)
• Fri: MK HS/AK EP(EMH)

Easy WDW predicted crowd levels

• Mon: 5
• Tues: 3
• Weds: 3
• Thurs: 3
• Fri: 3

I do find something magical about starting the trip in MK, since it just feels so darned 'Disney', but I don't want to do it at the expense of our fun if the crowds are going to be terrible and have us waiting in super-long lines all day.

Would you flip-flop and go to Epcot first and MK on Tues? Or keep it the way my current plan is? (For whatever reason, I'm not quite as worried about AK being a non-recommended park on Weds when we plan to go...should I worry though?)

Thanks for any input, I know a lot of you are way more experienced at this than me!

 

[Alesia]

Since you don't have hoppers, I would recommend avoiding any park that has EMH.

If you want to aviod lines and crowds, the smart choice is to go to a park that had EMH the day before.

If you like lines and crowds, then choosing your days willy-nilly is a good plan.

 

[TinkSassy]

Do you have park hopper passes? I pay no attention to the crowd level predictors. I go to the EMH AM park in the morning (if I'm staying onsite otherwise I purposely choose not to as you loose RD advantage). If the crowds get too much we just hop.

I look more at time of year and what is going on in the other parks. Is Food and Wine on at Epcot? I won't be there on a Friday or Saturday.

 

[SugarSweetLee]

Do you have park hopper passes? I pay no attention to the crowd level predictors. I go to the EMH AM park in the morning (if I'm staying onsite otherwise I purposely choose not to as you loose RD advantage). If the crowds get too much we just hop.

I look more at time of year and what is going on in the other parks. Is Food and Wine on at Epcot? I won't be there on a Friday or Saturday.

No, no hoppers, just the single-park daily passes. No special events happening that I have been able to find anywhere...

 

[SugarSweetLee]

Since you don't have hoppers, I would recommend avoiding any park that has EMH.

If you want to aviod lines and crowds, the smart choice is to go to a park that had EMH the day before.

Thanks, that's what I was gleaning but wasn't sure 100%.

If you like lines and crowds, then choosing your days willy-nilly is a good plan.

Haha, fair enough.

 

[Dash7]

I am struggling with this, too. I'm trying to decide what is more important, how I want our vacation to flow or crowd potential.

 

[minnie mum]

Just a reminder about Josh's crowd numbers. These are for all of WDW. While the average may be pegged at a 5 for example, you can bet your last Disney Dollar that the crowds at the not recommended park will be significantly higher for some or all of that day compared to the crowds at the most recommended park. If you don't have hoppers then you have to make a conscious decision between lower crowds and shorter lines, and a crowded park and longer lines. Its your choice.

While MK is our favorite park, I find no magic in crowds and almost always follow the park recommendations. On our next trip we won't hit MK until day 3.

 

[phillyatdisney]

I wouldn't worry about lines and crowds for those predicted levels.... you should be able to do about anything you want to do at each park. Plan your fastpasses wisely and enjoy however you see fit....

 

[SugarSweetLee]

I wouldn't worry about lines and crowds for those predicted levels.... you should be able to do about anything you want to do at each park. Plan your fastpasses wisely and enjoy however you see fit....

That's what I was wondering too! A 5 doesn't seem super high to me, but as minnie mum says, maybe that average 5 is really a 8 at the EMH park and a 2 at the recommended park? I don't wanna go to the 8 park!

Trying to figure out the fastpasses based on where we go each day...that's the toughie

 

[SugarSweetLee]

Just a reminder about Josh's crowd numbers. These are for all of WDW. While the average may be pegged at a 5 for example, you can bet your last Disney Dollar that the crowds at the not recommended park will be significantly higher for some or all of that day compared to the crowds at the most recommended park. If you don't have hoppers then you have to make a conscious decision between lower crowds and shorter lines, and a crowded park and longer lines. Its your choice.

While MK is our favorite park, I find no magic in crowds and almost always follow the park recommendations. On our next trip we won't hit MK until day 3.

That's a great point, and one I was wondering about. I think I am going to end up juggling it to try to follow the recommendations. I will have to check with DH to see if the MSEP is a must-see for him though. For me, it's a nice perk if we happen to be nearby when it comes through, but I don't think it's something I would go out of my way to position myself in advance and just stand and watch...I'd rather be riding rides

 

[notrub98]

With a level of "3" most days, I would not worry one bit about which park to hit. You should enjoy pretty tame crowds your entire week. Have fun!

 

[SugarSweetLee]

With a level of "3" most days, I would not worry one bit about which park to hit. You should enjoy pretty tame crowds your entire week. Have fun!

Thanks!!

 

[eyehartdisney]

Do you have kids? That might influence my order of parks more than anything else. It's hard to convince a kid to enjoy Epcot after they had MK the first day.

 

[NY Pirate Princess]

I did the same thing you did, no park hoppers and picked the emh parks for each day, then looked at josh's website and freaked.

FP+ has been a game changer as far as I'm concerned on crowd levels and enjoying ourselves. Yes, MK was packed on EMH day and no, we didn't end up making rope drop, but every park was packed when we were there (early May 2014) with some unexpected craziness unpredicted on any website.

Long story short, we still had a wonderful vacation walking on to our 3 a day and able to schedule a 4th eticket FP in each park that we never used because the heat wore us out. The trip was different from our trip with legacy fp, but fun all the same.

I was prepared to purchase hopper if the crowds were bad, but we just didn't need it. As a pp said, with numbers at 3 you shouldn't worry a bit.

Happy planning and have a great trip!

 

[DisMama5]

I've never used recommend park days from any site. I always set up our schedule as to how we want it to go and we go with that. I've never had an issue but we do go in a slow time period, end of September and October.

This last trip we did last fall, as usual I did our own plans based on our wants not on off of any calendars and the only time we felt the crowds was in Epcot a few times and once in AK, and when I checked for the heck of it we were at those parks on non recommend days. So I would say it does help to utilize those sometimes but not necessarily always. I do have to say next time I might use them though so as others stated, maybe flip a few days around if possible, but if not I wouldn't stress it honestly, we never have and always feel like we have very low waits, most rides are walk ons when we go or close to walk ons.

Enjoy

 

[GigiDisneyfreak]

I have never used the crowd calendars or a touring plan and I have always gone during the moderate to high crowd times. I have never not been able to ride everything I have wanted to. With the new fp system I decided to check the planning websites since I now need to follow somewhat of a plan. I told my kids the first and last days we are going to be in the parks, which we always do as MK days, are the least recommended days for MK and maybe we should go to a different park on those days. Nope they are having none of that and honestly I am happy with that decision. We like being there late at night and we like to bookend or trips with the MK. Our vacation is what we make of it so if you prefer to bookend your vacation with the MK you should. If you are going to stress over the lines and crowds then switching your days is your best bet.

 

[Xippi]

I use undercover tourists version of crowd indicator almost religiously.....
It has never let me down and we make multiple Week long trips every year.

 

[maarowak]

On my plans, AK and EP have morning EMH, but they are the second most recommended park/tentatively recommended park.

Overall, I chose recommended parks, but not the first option. I didn't follow easywdw perfectly, but used it as a guideline and tried to see what would work best in our trip.

We will hit MK on our last two days because we really wanted to see FoF/MSEP/Wishes and have an extra day to do whatever else we couldn't that would not be too crowded (it's a MNSSHP day). Also, isn't it nice to finish the trip with MK? I find it more exciting than starting with it! As someone else said, it's a specially good idea if you have children haha

EDIT:

Seeing your itinerary, I would keep MK on Monday IF: you really like to start your trips with MK/want to see MSEP. It's not impossible to tour in a more crowded day, and specially with the crowd predictions you got. Arrive early, do more popular attractions, FP+ in late morning/afternoon and relax on the afternoon, go back to the hotel, go on more low-key attractions, than get ready for MSEP.

Would change AK and EP. AK on Tuesday and Epcot to Wednesday.

And that's it!

 

[kohlby]

If you really wanted your EP day to stay, then I'd leave it. EP is the easiest park to do with crowds in our experience. AK is one of the harder ones just for walking around though. I've been there on a low-to-moderate crowd day and just walking around was challenging! If you can use EMH, then I'd keep AK and get there in time to use it. AK is a great park to use morning EMH at. If you can't use EMH, then I'd strongly recommend you change out the AK day. As for your MK, that depends on what you want to deal with. MK is large enough that you could easily just tour smart. Pick your FP+ smartly and be there at rope drop. Figure that you can skip any rides that are too crowded and do them on your other MK day. Since you have two MK days planned, you can skip any long lines on your first day and plan those attractions for your second. Just using FP+ for two days will get you 6 attractions total right there.

 

[SugarSweetLee]

Do you have kids? That might influence my order of parks more than anything else. It's hard to convince a kid to enjoy Epcot after they had MK the first day.

Nope, just DH and me. Epcot is my favorite!