Crowds, Early Entry and Park hopping

[mugglemom]

We are headed to Disney. Since we are staying on site we figured we would take advantage of the early entry for each park but have heard that later in the day that early entry park gets busier than other non-early opening parks.

So my question is are we smart to take 1/2 a day in the early park and then hop to a different park to finish the day?

I am certain we are doing this on the Monday, as Animal Kingdon is the early park and MK is open that night until 11PM. So we plan to spend the morning and eat lunch at the Rainforest and then spend the evening at MK.

Is this a smart thing to do with MGM on Tuesday? But I see MGM has the Fantasmic show twice that day at 7:30 and at 9PM. I have heard the 2nd show is less crowded. Is this true?



Does early entry really affect the admission that much?

Advice from you experts please!

 

[Letsbgoofy]

We always do EE - 1/2 day at the EE park and the other half at a different park. The EE park will get quite crowded by 11:00 or so.

The later Fantasmic show is usually less crowded. I would do Fantasmic on a night that is not the EE day. Epcot Wed. am and MGM Wed. night? If you want lunch at MGM, do it Tues.; if you want dinner then make the reservation for Wed.

I think that EE can be a big influence on crowds depending on the time of year you go. If the MK is open until 11:00, it seems as if that is a pretty busy time of year. I like to spend the 2nd half of the day at the park that had EE the day before.

 

[crisi]

I agree. We love EE - particularly for the MK and Fantasyland (our kids are Fantasyland age)....less so for AK, MGM or Epcot - but the park will get REEEAAAALLLY crowded by about 11 am. You might want to park hop for lunch (although we usually ate right at 11:00 in MK and then hopped out). So it isn't even half a day you are spending in the EE park. BTW, going back to that park the next afternoon is a good strategy.

 

[mugglemom]

Thanks those are some great ideas!

The only night that offers two showing of the Fantasmic is Tuesday and that is the EE day for MGM. I figure they are anticipating a crowd too!

 

[BrerMama]

What I am planning is to go to the EE park, then usually schedule a sit-down restaurant lunch for 11 am. After our lunch, if there's a show we still want to see, we may go back into the park to catch it. Otherwise, I plan to be on our way back to our hotel for a break. Knowing my family, the break won't be long, but with transportation times, I'm thinking we'll have a 2-3 hour break. Then we'll go to another park or DTD/DQ for the evening. Because we're having a large lunch, I'm thinking we may get by with just snacks in the evening, but we'll have to see how it works.