Best days to go to Parks and Planning strategies?

[CableKC]

I'm sure that there is some thread that has been created for this very discussion....but I am about 3 days from my 60 day mark...and I am starting to plan which days to go where so that I can figure out which dining reservations to make on which days.

I have 8 full days to plan at DW for. I was thinking of going with the "Go to the parks the day before or after the days that the Parks have their Extra Magic Hours" strategy. I was thinking that if Thursday has "Extra Magic Hours" for MK in the morning....then I would plan to go to MK either the day before or after, mainly to avoid that small percentage of crowds that plan to go on those days with "Extra Magic Hours". The one thing I prefer to avoid is overcrowdedness at the parks and planning my FP around those would allow me to accomplish this.

The only exceptions that I am considering are the days with Late Night "Extra Magic Hours" specifically at MK and HS....just to take advantage of later hours at those parks.

I am guessing that the real answer is that it comes down to what we prefer and that any strategy will ultimately work out....but if any of you have used this strategy to plan.....do you have any thoughts on how that turned out?

Any Pros and Cons to using this strategy?

Thanks in advance for any responses and suggestions.

 

[clshirk]

Check out http://www.easywdw.com/category/calendar/

Park with Extra Magic hours definitely dictates business. I do recall when we went 5 years ago we were only in the parks 3 days but let the crowds calendars dictate where we went and it was perfect.

 

[minnie mum]

I'm sure that there is some thread that has been created for this very discussion....but I am about 3 days from my 60 day mark...and I am starting to plan which days to go where so that I can figure out which dining reservations to make on which days.

I have 8 full days to plan at DW for. I was thinking of going with the "Go to the parks the day before or after the days that the Parks have their Extra Magic Hours" strategy. I was thinking that if Thursday has "Extra Magic Hours" for MK in the morning....then I would plan to go to MK either the day before or after, mainly to avoid that small percentage of crowds that plan to go on those days with "Extra Magic Hours". The one thing I prefer to avoid is overcrowdedness at the parks and planning my FP around those would allow me to accomplish this.

The only exceptions that I am considering are the days with Late Night "Extra Magic Hours" specifically at MK and HS....just to take advantage of later hours at those parks.

I am guessing that the real answer is that it comes down to what we prefer and that any strategy will ultimately work out....but if any of you have used this strategy to plan.....do you have any thoughts on how that turned out?

Any Pros and Cons to using this strategy?

Thanks in advance for any responses and suggestions.

Did you mean fast passes rather than dining reservations? Because you have been eligible to make ADRs for the last 4 months. At this point, some of the more popular restaurants may already be pretty booked up.

As the PP recommended, look at easywdw's crowd calendar and read his recommendations for each of your days. He generally will not recommend a park with EMH hours because of their higher crowd levels. If you have a PH, though, you can go to the recommended park for most of a day and only go to the EMH park for those hours.

Once you have picked your park days, you can make your ADRs for a restaurant in or near the park you will be at each day.

Before selecting your FPs, I would recommend that you read Mesaboy's thread on FP strategies on this forum and/or Josh's cheat sheets at easywdw.

 

[Mikie]

I have always followed the recommended parks that avoid extra magic hours and find the crowds very much as I expected based on the easywdw predictions or Toring Plans crowd calendars - worked great for me. However, on future trips, I'll be trying actually going to evening EMH parks. My kids have not been old enough to stay up too late yet, so avoiding crowds and going home by 9-10 was perfect. From all the tips I've seen, as long as you FULLY USE extra hours, they're great - it's just wise to avoid that extra crowd level if you're not going to get the full benefit of the extra time.

 

[CableKC]

Thanks to all. I TOTALLY forgot about the easyWDW planning schedule.

I will see if I can work out some schedule where I can go to the Recommended Dates. The only exceptions that I will consider are going to MK and HS on the days with Late Night Extra Magic Hours.