Dec. itinerary ?s. Please help.

[dbal]

O.k. Now that the dec hours are here. I have 7 days to get my days in order before I can call for my adrs.
I haven't been since 2004 and I was off site, and there were only a.m early hours. This time we will be onsite, taking advantage of a.m EMHs, and parkhopping. Why is this so hard? Please help w/ my days
Thurs 12/7 MK emh hop to ?
Fri 12/8 ????????????
Sat 12/9 MGM EMH hop to ?
Sun 12/10 ??????????
Mon 12/11 AK EMH hop to MVMCP
Tues return home.

We are early risers and want to take advantage of the least crowds. (sounds like everyone else on these boards)
Do my other free days and afternoons really matter where we go as long as it's not an emh day, or are there certain days NOT to go to certain parks.

TIA- I know these ?'s are way too specific to us and not to everyone else planning their own trips.

 

[TikiGoddess]

Hi,
You might want to check out touringplans.com It tells you what days are the busiest at what parks. You might not need to hop since you're going the first week of Dec. I think that's one of the slowest times. Also, I haven't been to MVMCP, but I have done MNSSHP and what worked out great for us was to go back to the hotel and have dinner and then go from there to the park. You could leave AK, have a short break and then go to MK...just a thought. Another thought, if you are going to take advantage of EMH in the mornings, you might want to go a little later on every other day. That way you can enjoy the evening parades like Spectromagic and Fantasmic on those days. HTH! Have a great time. We're going back in January and can't wait!

 

[TikiGoddess]

Click on crowd calendar on the left hand side of the page. It will tell you the best times for your particular days. Sorry, should have put that in my first response.

 

[Amy&Dan]

You might also want to consider Tourguide Mike. He has a whole section devoted to "least crowded days for each park". He keeps his site very updated and has all sorts of information you can print out and take with you. I use him for all my WDW trips and learn some good tips each time. Going to AK for the early part of the day on your MVMCP day is a good bet. We have always done that when we do MNSSHP and we are doing that same thing on the 18th of December when we do MVMCP. When we have gone in October for MNSSHP, we go to a park early (usually AK), go back to the hotel to rest, then get to MK about 5:00 for dinner. Even if you only have a MVMCP ticket and not just a standard park one, they generally start letting party guests in the park around 4:00. But getting some rest at some point of the day is crucial. For what the party will cost you, you should take advantage of every hour you can be there, and if you are too exhausted to enjoy it, thats a shame. Of course if you have really small kids, that might not work and you will have to leave earlier regardless.

As for hopping on your other days. Start out at the EMH park, then go over to another park when it starts to get crowded. Hop to the park that had EMH the previous day if possible, since that park is generally the least crowded. I find that you can use two strategies in the same day. That is, going to the EMH park but then going to a different non emh park later in the day, the one that will be the least crowded. Thats why I always pay for the hopper option, so that I can do EMH but don't have to stay in that park all day because they do get crowded once all the offsite people begin to filter in. Whether you use a service like TGM or just use the WDW website to get your hours and information, just know that Disney loves to change their schedules and hours A LOT! So you may have to tweak things a bit more than once. MVMCP won't be changed however, those dates are set. Hope that helps you a bit!

 

[dbal]

Thanks for the replies
Amy&Dan- when you say hop to the park that had EMH on the previous day- Does that include both a.m and p.m EMHs? I know I'm really overthinking this.

 

[DaddyBrady]

I, for one, don't think it's possible to over-think this!

The Unofficial Guide people (which is TouringPlans.com, recommended above) say pretty emphatically that you should avoid the park that has extra magic hours, in particular morning EMH.

More specifically, they say that the additional crowds that come on EMH largely negates the advantage of being there earlier. Len Testa (co-author) talked about this a couple of times on the WDW Today podcast. He said that MK and EP are good for EMH, Studios is a "push," and you'll actually wait longer if you go to AK on an EMH day. All of this is reflected in their best days / worst days recommendations.

I like Amy&Dan's strategy as a variation, but one thing I'm wondering about is time in transit from park to park, in particular if you're using Disney transportation rather than driving.

I've only been to WDW once, last year at Thanksgiving week, so I'm no expert, just passing on what I've learned from a pretty solid six months of podcast listening!