Park days before or after 4 day cruise?

[adoreboardwalk]

We are booked on a double dip in November of 2014. It's our first ever cruise and we are super excited!! We were looking at doing 3 days of park time before the cruise starts. BUT...I just looked at easywdw crowd calendar and due to food and wine marathon it's a crowd calendar 10!! Should we move our park days to after the cruise for a crowd level of only 4 the following weekend?

 

[pedsnurse88]

I would do before. Some people still have their "sea legs" after getting off the ship and it makes it feel like your world is still rocking.

 

[Stitch'sCousin]

Normally I would say go to WDW before the cruise and then relax on the cruise, but with that big a difference between the crowd levels I would definitely wait and go afterwards.

 

[hroyale]

It depends on what you want to do.
We were at the Wine and Dine half last year and since it's the last weekend of the F&W festival Epcot was packed both weekend days. Sat afternoon was crazy. We had an ADR for an early dinner at 3:30 and just needed to walk through from the International Gateway to Italy but it was total chaos and crowd overload. Think of MK after the fireworks.

However, the other parks really didn't seem all that crowded to me. Maybe a little more than they would be the following weekend, but not too bad. That Monday (Veteran's Day) was after the festival was over and it felt like we had EPCOT to ourselves.

Also keep in mind that Saturday most of the runners won't be at the parks because they are running at 10pm that night and they won't be up early Sunday since the party ends at 4am.

If it's important to you to go before your cruise I say go for it but stay far away from EPCOT Sat and Sunday afternoon.

I think we're running it again this year, maybe we'll see you (but not at EPCOT) ;-)

 

[CT Mom of 3]

We love spending a few days at the parks after our cruise to lessen the post-cruise depression!!

 

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

If you can ONLY do before or after, definitely do before!

However, our 4 day cruise is Mon embark and Fri debark, and so we are flying in the Fri prior, going to parks Sat & Sun, cruising Mon to Thurs nite, getting off the ship Friday and going to Sea World and then Busch Gardens the Sat after, (2 Disney days before cruise, 2 Seaworld park days the weekend after) and then flying out on Sunday. Seaworld and BG have a combo for $99 one day at each park until May 15, so that is perfect for us, it's almost a 2 for 1.

You can really wear your feet out at the parks, so I like to do no more than 2 parks days and then relax on the cruise. And nothing starts out your awesome trip like the Wishes or Illuminations Fireworks the night before embarkation! BUT like PP said, really the best way to leave the ship is knowing that you are running to the parks! So I like what I call a Cruise Sandwich. Planning is a little trickier, but who wants to fly home on a Friday? So we are staying BOTH weekends, before and after. And then, I'm sure we will REALLY be ready to go home.

 

[darkwing818]

How can you go wrong either way (completely subjective )
However since we drive we always hit the parks for a few days before & after our cruises , 11 to date.