4-day Park Hopper planning help

[BL82]

My wife and I have talked about our family of 4 (DD 10 and DD8) coming down late May 2020 or early June 2020. More than likely budget wise we will stick to 4 nights at a moderate resort with the 4 day PH's. If I can make it work I'd like 5 nights and 5 day base tickets, but I doubt it. My problem is I can't figure out how to plan our park days with the 4 day PH. We've only been to the world once and that was back in 2016 on a last minute 3 night 2 day PH trip during Easter. Day 1 was MK/EP (never went to the WS just the seas pavilion) and day 2 was AK/MK, we had fun and we want to stay a little longer this time.

My rough draft plans are:

Day 1: Arrival ( 4 hour drive for us) /MK maybe HS instead
Day 2: MK/AK
Day 3: EP/HS
Day 4: AK/MK
Day 5: Depart

Does this sound like it would work, am I missing anything? Any help or suggestions on how you all normally do a trip of this length works too. Part of me thinks that 4 days isn't enough even with hopping, but my wallet says that with a good plan 4 days of hopping will work. I know we want to see SWGE, that's the whole reason we changed from going in 2019 to 2020. With Epcot having a lot of construction by that time I was figuring a half day there. That gives us a morning in MK and a night maybe two there to see HEA. My kids loved AK so that's two half days there. I'm probably over thinking this to the point of confusion...lol.

Thanks,

 

[holden]

With that short of a trip and hopping, I’d say you’ll be exhausted bit have a great time! Be sure to prioritize FP+ so you can get on the attractions you want to experience the most.

For example, you might want to flip day 2 and day 4 if you want FP+ for FOP. Putting FOP later in your trip in the afternoon give you a better chance of getting FP+ for it.

 

[Figment Mom]

What's the rationale for hopping on days 2 and 4? Why not just make one a full day at MK and one a full day at AK? Then you don't lose any time to travel on those days.

 

[suemom2kay]

You'll need to look at park hours. MK, AK, and DHS often have evening ticketed events. Not sure if there are many in May/June. Also are you planning on any EMH mornings or the rare anymore evenings? If not, you'll want to avoid the EMH parks. Otherwise, your plan is solid. You'll just have to look at those hours and you may need to swap around some parks.

 

[a1tinkfans]

I don’t suggest hopping at all. Why take transport and energy time when u can be in a park All day and night? Save the energy, money and time. Look for discount tickets .. AAA or undercover tourist, thru mouse saves you even more.
By doing it this way u can truly plan easier imho.. you know where you ll be, you can choose when and where to eat, take a snack break and move along. You can be using the app to update/add/change fastpasses as your within that park and gauging what may happen to pop up. I find that knowing ahead and being totally immersed within that park for the full day/nite is worth it.
I just think hopping is worth it, especially on a shorter visit. Only time we’d hop is a loooong trip where we need that extra single ride somewhere in a few parks and that gives us that option. If you re driving... id be on the road and at the first park gate ( if staying on site at the hotel.. drop or keep luggage in the locked car, check in and off u go) at the opening .. kiddos will have slept and though u may not be as refreshed as you’d like.. it’s what we moms n dads do, lol
Have an Awesome time!

 

[BL82]

With that short of a trip and hopping, I’d say you’ll be exhausted bit have a great time! Be sure to prioritize FP+ so you can get on the attractions you want to experience the most.

For example, you might want to flip day 2 and day 4 if you want FP+ for FOP. Putting FOP later in your trip in the afternoon give you a better chance of getting FP+ for it.

Thank you, I was thinking Day 4 we'd aim to have FP at AK and then hop to MK for the night time stuff and try and get some extra FP.

 

[BL82]

Thank you all for the suggestions, we are in the early phases of planning and this helps me out a bunch. I'm not a huge fan of hopping but I figured by hopping it would maximize our time in the parks due to the short time frame. I was just hard to visualize in my head how to make a 4 day non PH work then trying to figure out how to make a 4 day PH work was overwhelming me I think. Makes it a bit easier to step back and see what others think and then go from there. I think I'll see if a 5 night/5 day non PH would be a possibility for us, that would make it easier to plan for me and adjust when park hours come out. That way we could get a full day in the same park. And add in a pool break during the hottest part of the day then back to the parks at night.

5 day non PH plan:

Day 1: Arrive/EP
Day 2: MK
Day 3: HS
Day 4: AK
Day 5: MK
Day 6: Depart

 

[FFedge]

I’m doing a 4 day trip as well and love the suggestions! Great thread!

 

[mi*vida*loca]

If I were only going for four days I would skip hoppers and skip Epcot. Especially with kids your kids ages. I love Epcot but my kids aren’t big on WS and FW can be done in 3-4 hours for me.

If you switch to 5 days I think that plan is great!

 

[Keckster]

We did a 5-night stay with only 4 park days. Essentially 1 park per day no hopping. It was four of us: me+wife+daughters (11 & 13). We had to fly so here was our itinerary:

Day 1: Arrival, Check-in, Swim, Dinner @ O'hana
Day 2: AK - Rope dropped (for FoP) and stayed until the park closed
Day 3: HS - Arrived at Park open stayed to just before park close
Day 4: MK - Early morning Breakfast before the park opened, returned to resort for a break, went back to MK until the park close (this was actually a MNSSHP separately ticketed event so we were there until midnight)
Day 5: EP - Arrive about an hour after the park opened stayed until just before the park closed
Day 6: Check-out, Tragical Express back to Airport and depart.

While we certainly had fun. Everybody was sore and ready for recovery time once we got home.

 

[scionchigirl]

We are doing 5 day/4 night in November...mind you, we are used to being up EARLY for work and have tons of energy. We have PH, I ALWAYS ger them as I have panic issues and knowing I can bail put my mind at ease.
Day 1 (we will be at wdw by 10am) MK til 5ish,hop to AK to see the Tree of Life light up
Day 2 (my bday) MK til 4,then DS for dinner,then HS for Jingle Bell Bam
Day 3: HS all day (we have ALL the ressies,droid/Savis/Ogas)
Day 4: AK in am for Tusker House,hop to MK for MVMCP
Day 5: free day,Tragic Express leaves at 6pm and a late flight home,so gonna see what FP I can get,most likely will do Epcot...

Im planning on Lyft to save bus time after Day 3 and Day 4. We fully expect to be exhausted, but have 4 days after our trip to chill until we host Thanksgiving for 20!

 

[sharonabe]

Day 1: Arrival ( 4 hour drive for us) /MK maybe HS instead

5 day non PH plan:

Day 1: Arrive/EP
Day 2: MK
Day 3: HS
Day 4: AK
Day 5: MK
Day 6: Depart

With only a 4 hr drive, you COULD do a 4 night stay with a 5 day base ticket. I didn't check prices, but that should be close to the same price as the 4 day hopper.

I'd keep the same schedule you have above, but maybe leave your departure day (Day 5) open to whichever park you wanted to do again before driving home in the late afternoon. OR if you still wanted two nights at MK, make EP your departure day instead of your arrival day and put MK in the arrival day slot.

 

[BL82]

With only a 4 hr drive, you COULD do a 4 night stay with a 5 day base ticket. I didn't check prices, but that should be close to the same price as the 4 day hopper.

I'd keep the same schedule you have above, but maybe leave your departure day (Day 5) open to whichever park you wanted to do again before driving home in the late afternoon. OR if you still wanted two nights at MK, make EP your departure day instead of your arrival day and put MK in the arrival day slot.

Thanks for the idea, I didn't think about doing it like that before. Putting EP on the departure day would work pretty good I think. Maybe breakfast somewhere on the boardwalk then a few hours at EP.

 

[Roscoe18]

Thank you all for the suggestions, we are in the early phases of planning and this helps me out a bunch. I'm not a huge fan of hopping but I figured by hopping it would maximize our time in the parks due to the short time frame. I was just hard to visualize in my head how to make a 4 day non PH work then trying to figure out how to make a 4 day PH work was overwhelming me I think. Makes it a bit easier to step back and see what others think and then go from there. I think I'll see if a 5 night/5 day non PH would be a possibility for us, that would make it easier to plan for me and adjust when park hours come out. That way we could get a full day in the same park. And add in a pool break during the hottest part of the day then back to the parks at night.

5 day non PH plan:

Day 1: Arrive/EP
Day 2: MK
Day 3: HS
Day 4: AK
Day 5: MK
Day 6: Depart

Personally, I like this five day plan better. As others have said, on a somewhat shorter trip, hopping eats up a lot of time and you can get more done if you stick to one park per day, especially if you're park warriors

Consider also that the money you'd save on hoppers for four might be worth a night in a moderate (I'd have to look into the exact details but hoppers aren't cheap). That might make the five day trip more viable.