Coronado Springs Anniversary Trip - Advice Welcome!

carocarow

Earning My Ears
Joined
May 13, 2021
Hello, wise Disney travelers! My husband and I just booked a trip to stay at Coronado Springs Oct. 12-15 to celebrate our anniversary. This will be our first time to visit Disney since we were kids. We arrive mid-afternoon on Oct. 12 and our flight departs late afternoon on Oct. 15. Would love any advice for Coronado Springs in general and in the time of Covid.

At the moment, we've booked three-day park hopping tickets. Current thoughts are to book Epcot for the day we arrive, Hollywood Studios for the next day, and maybe Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom for the third day and hop back to Epcot in the evenings. Not sure if we should add a fourth day and do the fourth park the morning we leave, or just take it easy at the resort the final day. Priorities are definitely Epcot and visiting Galaxy's Edge.

All advice welcome. Thanks in advance!

ETA: It looks like Caribbean Beach has rooms available for about $200 more total for the trip (I've been watching a few weeks and haven't seen this option till now except for the pirate rooms) -- would we be better off staying there for access to the Skyliner with the marginally higher cost? I do really like the look of Coronado Springs. Transportation is the only drawback it seems.
 
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DH & I just stayed at Coronado in April. It's a beautiful (and very large!) resort. You do only have the bus option, which we seemed to have great luck with, but I can easily see it could have been the opposite. Full disclosure, the buses weren't operating at full capacity, but there were many times people were left waiting at bus stops.

However, if I had known how much time we ended up spending at DHS & Epcot and how much we enjoyed the Skyliner, I would have booked Caribbean Beach or Pop. For our next trip, I will book one of the two. The convenience is worth it IMO. If your priorities are DHS & Epcot and it's not a bad price difference, then yes, I would honestly seriously consider switching!

Also, if you are prioritizing Galaxy's Edge & riding Rise, I would also consider possibly making reservations for DHS for 2 of your days. It gives you a better chance of snagging a boarding group for Rise (at least once!) and then you can park hop wherever you'd like. I had DHS booked our first 2 days just for the "not getting a boarding group" scenario, but the Star Wars gods blessed us and we got a great group on our first day. That took a HUGE weight off our shoulders and we were able to just relax and enjoy.

DAK was also pretty easy to get through on our day. We went about an hour before opening, immediately got in line for FoP and then were able to get the rest of the rides out of the way by noon. We went back to the resort for a swim and then spent the rest of the night at Magic Kingdom. Worked out great!
 
If you haven’t been there in a long time, I’d consider 4 days of tickets if you really want to see the parks. I don’t think you should skips either MK or AK as both have had huge changes in the past ten years. If you stick with 3 days, I’d pick MK, AK, and HS as your park reservations and just hop to Epcot. I think Coronado is a great choice for a couple on an anniversary trip, I wouldn’t switch to CBR. The bus transportation is fine; sure it would be a tad shorter come back in the evening from EP on the Skyliner, but I think the styling and food and drink options at Coronado win out.

If ROTR is a required thing, you might need to book two days there to be sure to get it, but if you haven’t seen Galaxy’s Edge at all, I think you can still have a great trip if you don’t manage to get on that ride on your one day there. I’m a big SW fan, and I love that area, but on a 3-4/day trip, I’d still spend only one day at HS.
 

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