Arrival day (1/2 Day) what do you do??

[JadeTiger]

I have been planning our January Disney trip since August. I am overwhelmed. I NEED to figure out what parks to do on what days. We will arrive January 23 and get to the WL around 2pm.

My guess is that we will be hungry so I thought we could do roaring forks for quick food before we enter any of the parks.

I thought maybe MK, or Epcot first. Which one is easier to get to?

I need to plan where we will be on what day so I can try for PS (not the hard ones like the princess breakfasts or anything like that ).

I guess my real question is how do you decide which park to do?? Is it based solely on early entry days, or where the night time foreworkd will be?

I am in need of Disney veteran advice... help me please.

 

[Grumpy92]

Ultimately it doent really matter. MK traditionally has been busier on Mondays and you will find that crowds often follow where the EEs are that day.

My suggestion is relax, I would hit MK the first day to really get you into the Disney spirit. Plus it will be easy to take the nice relaxing boat launch over to the park. Roaring Forks is a wonderful place for a meal, then you can sit down and look thru some of the info and catch your breath.

As for fireworks if you have a hopper pass you can always plan an evening say in MK, have dinner and then enjoy Wishes. That morning you could be in AK or EC wherever.

 

[jcemom]

touringplans.com has an interactive page where you tell it which park and what time of year, in turn it tells you the least busy days for that park. I based most of my mornings on that, then the evenings on which shows or fireworks I wanted to see. How long will you be staying? Do you have the UPH or Park hopper tickets? Who is going with you? I think you probably want to take all of those into consideration.

http://www.touringplans.com/ Try it out and see what you think!

 

[jimmiej]

Get yourself a copy of the Unofficial Guide. Enjoy reading it & check out their advice on days to visit each park. It's worked for me.

 

[swilphil]

The DISboard hours say that MK closes at 7 p.m. that day, and there is no Spectro. If you only want to spend a few hours in the park, go there. I agree the boatride to MK would be nicer than the other transportation options. If you want to stay at the parks until bedtime, go to Epcot and Illuminations. We don't go to the parks on our first day, but enjoy the resort and have a character meal dinner.

 

[Bill From PA]

We always (except once) kick back on the first day and save the Hopper Day. It's been our experience that it's not worth burning a day at $50 + per person to cram in a few tired hours during the most crowded part of the day. The one exception was when we landed @ MCO at 9:30 am once and drove our rental car to Epcot in plenty of time for the opening of WS. We'll be staying at Dolphin next March and whenever we get there we'll freshen up and stroll the Boardwalk and soak up some Disney atmosphere for free. If I were you I'd take a pleasant boat ride to the MK area, hop the monorail for a relaxing tour of the MK 'rail resorts and eat at one of them, the poly being our favorite. Then, view the fireworks from the deck outside Gasparillas at GF.

We always hit the EE park before rope-drop, hit all the 'big' attractions by the time crowds build, 1 pm usually, then hop to Epcot, which seems to absorb crowds better, for some international cuisine and liquid refreshments.

Below is a posting by Safari Steve, a CM well known on these boards concerning the busy and slack days at the various parks:

Sunday is historically the slowest day at MK, with Wednesday a close second.
Sunday is slow at all four parks as it is a MAJOR travel day.
Epcot is slow on Mondays, as most guests arrive on Monday and want to spend their first day at MK. Tuesday is Epcot's first heavy day of the week.
Tuesday and Wednesday are heavy at MGM, but Sunday and Monday are slower.
AK is still hard to judge as it is still a baby and still defies most attempts to identify patterns (just like a two to three year old human)
Fridays and Saturdays are heavy at MK, but not as heavy as Mondays. Generally, Saturdays are heavier at all four, and all of these generalities are to be totally ignored during peak days and holidays (New Year's Eve was on a Sunday... we closed the gates before 10am)


Bill From PA

 

[OldSchoolDisney]

Well, we have a 7, 6 and 3 yr. old and we're going for the first time in a couple years (since 3 yr. old was born)......and all we like to do, are planning on doing is kicking back by the pool, with our face in the sun watch the kids splash and play in the pool and sip a couple ice cold frozen drinks.........contemplate the running we have ahead of us (although fun running) and be glad we're there.......we've found in our many trips that the slower pace you set the more fun you have in the long run...........just my opinion......................Oh and if you're picturing us sipping our drinks it will be at POR for first 4 nites then Fort Wilderness Cabins last 5 nites.....late Apr 2004................

 

[joshsmom]

When we've been lucky enough to stay on-grounds, we have gone to MK the first day, even if it was only for a little while. Then we hop on the Monorail and head to Epcot for Illuminations. We usually have time to go on SE when we get to Epcot. We take our time and enjoy our surroundings. Obviously you can't get through MK in a few hours. We just ride whatever sounds good at the time. We always like to end our first day with Illuminations because we are so totally overwhelmed by the spirit and magic of it all.

Have an AWESOME trip!

 

[dj2]

we opted to not go into the parks for only a 1/2 day. instead, after we settle in, we'll shop for souveniers for the folks back home and try to catch the 6:00 showing of cirque du soleil. i hear it's supposed to be great, but i'm not buying tickets until we get there, just in case we arrive late for some unexpected reason. i keep checking their web site, and seats still seem to be available in the further front rows, so it seems so far we're ok....

 

[dmonroe]

Usually we don't do a park on our arrival day. We normally check out our resort and head to DTD for shopping/browsing and dinner.

This year was an exception. We were checked into our hotel by noon, so we decided to do MGM. The reason we picked that park was because MGM is tpyically our shortest day park. (Ds is 4, so other than Playhouse Disney, Indiana Jones and the Great Movie Ride there isn't much there that interests him) Anyway, we got in the rides that we wanted to do and the shows that ds wanted to do, had dinner at 50's Primetime then watched Fantasmic. It was fun; but I missed having our regular, laid back, relaxing arrival day. Next year we will be back to our old routine!

 

[Alice28]

I have done these three options:

Went to a park upon arrival
Went to a big hoo-ha dinner (chef Mickey's with our two kids)
Relaxed, unpacked, had a nice dinner and toured resorts

And I liked option three the best by far. On our honeymoon, we were go-go-go- we got there on a Monday afternoon (in January) and we dropped our stuff off at the WL (another coincidence!) and headed straight to Epcot. I was overwhelmed. I was tired. I hardly remember a thing about it. Side note about January crowds---there are none! At least not when we went. The only crowded day was Saturday. I believe the EE park for Monday is Animal Kingdom-fyi.

Option two in what we did last March. Again, I was very tired, as were our two kids....while Chef Mickey's was fun, and many people think it's a great way to kick off a vacation, I think we needed something more low key.

I did option 3 in October and loved it. We got to our room around 5, unpacked and headed over to Kona Cafe...had a GREAT dinner, looked around at the gift shops there, at GF and of course the Contemporary (where we were staying), got some chocolatey snacks and watched the fireworks from our room. It was a great start.

If I were you, I would unpack, get a snack at Roaring Forks, explore the Lodge, and perhaps get a PS at the Contemporary, Poly, or GF and have a nice dinner; then watch the fireworks from one of those resorts and head back to the Lodge for a good night's rest for a great day at the parks!