Do you plan park days around.....?

[SG131]

I mostly plan my days based on putting my harder to get ADR and FP toward the end of the trip. Then put the easiest ones at the front. Then I just build from there so I don’t do the same park two days in a row. I’ve given up on crowd calendars. I don’t plan around DAH but I do plan around MNSSHP and MVMCP so that I get to see HEA once.

 

[monkyby87]

The only thing I would make an effort to avoid are the MNSSHP and MVMCP, since those do lessen actual park time with party nights. Plus they're generally busier times of the year anyways. Other than that, no. Crowd Calendars I have never looked at (and I think they're getting very unreliable anyways), and EMH only affects RD plans, not general park attendance. At least not in my experience.

 

[maryj11]

First I consider the EMH and DAH days and park hours. Then decide if we should go to either of the EMH or DAH. Then I look at the crowd calendar.

 

[EdnaMarieMode]

If we're going when it's MNSSHP or MVMCP time I avoid MK on party days (simply because the park closes earlier). I don't really give much thought to EMH (AM or PM) because we don't use them. I've also seen Disney add more EMH after I've made my plans, so it's not always useful to just avoid them because the day you choose to go might end up having EMH anyhow. EMM and DAH have no weight in my decision. They don't change crowd levels dramatically enough to bother.

Speaking of crowd levels- I don't bother with crowd level calendars either. Predicted crowd levels really don't mean anything (mine have changed at least 3 times since I started planning my May trip and I guarantee I'm getting one more update before we leave) and there really is no difference anymore visiting on a "level 3" or "level 5" or "level 9" day.

So, here's what I DO consider-
-if it's Food & Wine or any other festival at Epcot, I like to avoid Epcot on a weekend.
-if I want FP for FoP or SDD then I try to plan AK or HS toward the end of my visit (this doesn't always matter, so it's not the top consideration- for my plans).
-if I know I want a particular meal on a particular day (like a Sunday brunch or an anniversary/ birthday meal) I plan with that in mind. If I want anniversary dinner at Shula's then I try to be
-if I'm visiting a park more than once I try to split up the days and not go to the same park back-to-back
-we like to begin and end with either Epcot or MK, but that's really just tradition more than anything and not a necessity.

 

[cropper]

I start with crowd calendars but MK is our first day tradition....makes us feel like 'we made it'!
After that, we avoid EMH (which usually effect the crowd calendars anyway)
It’s just a place to start.

 

[GillianP1301]

I mostlly plan around special events (MNSSHP, DAH, EMM, tours, etc...) and fill in the rest from there. We get hoppers though and most days I do plan for more than one park and if I need to, I adjust on the fly. I book fastpasses for my first park of the day and then leave the afternoons and evenings more flexible. We don't go during a super busy time, so I tend not to worry about crowd calendars too much.

 

[Disney Bubble Lover]

I’ve found crowd calendars to be increasingly unreliable because Disney has made so many changes to paid events, ticket prices, ticket structure, etc in the last couple years that the historical data used to predict crowds is no longer as useful.

I personally would do the following:
*put any parks with hard to get fast passes toward the end of the trip *never plan MK on Saturdays, period
*avoid Epcot on Fridays and Saturdays during Food & Wine
*only worry about AM EMH or EMM if you’re planning on using the EMH or rope dropping on that day
*if planning a trip during party season I would definitely add a park hopper to take advantage of the lower MK crowds during the day on party days but still be able to hop back to see HEA during the madness one non party night without having to endure the non party day MK crowds for an entire day

 

[greg9x]

Planned around hard to get FP's.. then use crowd calendar as guide for rest of days....even though not all that accurate, would rather take a chance on the predicted lighter crowd park vs defiantly being in the busiest. Usually do midday break, so pick one park for morning and one for evening depending on shows/fireworks, etc.

See so many people get frustrated can't get FP for rides because they put their park days in concrete (usually because of ADR), and don't be flexible enough to change days. Have never not gotten on a ride we wanted at least once because make that the priority.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

I'm just wondering if most people plan which park which day around EMH, DAH, etc. Or if people plan around crowd calendars? Or if people plan around when they are able to get the FP they want?

Basically, my park days are set. AK, MK, EPCOT, and MK...no matter when we visit. MK is determined by when I get the headliner ride I want. This year it was Mine Train, and I got it on our 2nd MK day. So that sets land visits into place now. First park visit Liberty Square, Adventureland, and Frontierland. Second MK day: Fantasyland and Tomorrowland along with Main Street Greets. EMH also played into this year. I was VERY lucky that EPCOT's and MK's EMH evenings were on the days I had those park visits on. On our next visit EMM will also come into play on when I visit parks as my son and I will be taking advantage of one of those at MK. We will also be visiting HS again as SWGE will be in full swing. My son has NEVER visited that park and my husband and I haven't been in 18 years!

Yup, that's what I do too-plan to go to the park the day AFTER EMH. So far, there hasn't been a FP+ that I've wanted that I couldn't get for the day I wanted. That may change next trip-I'm planning to go to MK my first day, and I really want SDMT. We'll see what happens at my 60 day mark.

Today, April 3rd, I tried for Mine Train on my 60+1 day....only had late afternoon times starting at 4:30. On 60+3 I got 1:50. Still not ideal, but I remember the DISers saying to take it and try to modify as the days pass. I'll have better luck the closer we get and especially the night before and day of.

 

[disneycat321]

We ignore crowd calendars completely. We’ve found them to be largely inaccurate, as others have said. As DLR vets, crowds at WDW don’t bother us too much. DLR tends to feel much more crowded in general because of its smaller size.

We like to visit MK first, and then Epcot the same day after lunch. That’s tradition. We also love evening EMH at MK and Epcot and plan around those. This trip, we’re throwing in in DAH at MK and EMM at HS to plan around. ADRs are very important to us, so we plan around being in the general area for those.

We haven’t been since before FP+ (yikes! Too long!), but I did put AK on a later day to hopefully up our chances of snagging a FOP FP.

 

[Rach3975]

It depends! (I know, helpful, right?) On our past trips it has been all 5 of us (3 older kids/teens and 2 parents) and we haven't bought hoppers. So we've looked at crowd calendars and steered away from EMH. (I know people say that crowd calendars aren't accurate, but unless you already know which parks to choose or avoid on certain days of the week and why, I still find it helpful to see what the calendars predict. We don't always follow their recommendation and know it may change, but it's usually still better than my guesses.) If we want a hard to get FP like FOP, I try to put that park near the end of our trip. We generally do 1 day each at Epcot, AK, and HS and 2 days at MK. So I plan one MK non-party day so we can see the evening shows and 1 MK party day for the lower crowds.

This next trip will be very different. It will be just me and DH, we will have hoppers, and instead of 5 full park days we'll have half a day on arrival, 2 full days, and the morning on departure day. So all of my usual strategies are out the window. We wanted a full day at MK and a full day at Epcot, but because of the party schedule we're going to have to do our MK day on a party day then go another night for HEA. So I guess the MK schedule is dictating a lot of our trip this time. Our other full day will have to be Epcot. After that it gets interesting...we have our arrival afternoon before hopping to MK for fireworks, the evening when MK closes for a party, and our departure morning. Each of those will be spent either at AK or HS. We'll pick based on park hours, HS crowds after Galaxy's Edge opens, and FP availability.

 

[cmwade77]

I'm just wondering if most people plan which park which day around EMH, DAH, etc. Or if people plan around crowd calendars? Or if people plan around when they are able to get the FP they want?

We generally pick ADRs loosely around a crowd calendar and then let the chips fall where they may as far as FPs, hours, etc.

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

I plan my park how we want to tour and do not pay attention to EMH. First day is always MK. Last day is always MK. This upcoming trip for 8 days starts on Saturday ad we have Dinner at Jiko. We may go to MK and we have FP + booked but may just relax. first park day is on Sunday which is MK. Monday HS then hop to EP. Tuesday AK. Wednesday resort day (pool time). Thursday HS. Friday EP. Saturday MK. We do not Rope Drop as we like to take it easy on vacation.

 

[yorkieteacher]

We look at crowd calendars, but only as a guide. If they have a park at a high crowd level and there is one with low crowds predicted, we do pay attention, especially if all three crowd calendars we look at agree. As many others have said, we avoid Epcot and Animal Kingdom on weekends. We avoid EMH parks totally, but love MK on party days (we went during MVMCP)even if we aren't going to the party ,because crowds are usually lower in the mornings. Sundays seem to have always been a good day for MK and Mondays for Epcot and Tuesdays for AK. We have changed some days if we were dying to try a particular restaurant (BOG). This is a great thread, BTW, and I am loving reading everyone's strategies.

 

[richmo]

I'll still look at some of the free crowd calendars to get some trends, but I'll agree they're not nearly as reliable as in the past. They will give me a basis to start planning what park on what day, and what park to schedule FP's. Other factors filter in, like the schedule of night time shows, if there's a hard to get ADR that might have an influence on that day's park (or hopping park), usually a selection of Epcot on the last day (because I find that the easiest park to exit when heading to the airport; MK would be the least reliable because of the monorail/tram uncertainties), and other outside the bubble activities (visiting semi-nearby family, spring training baseball games, etc.). Usually I wind up with something that covers the parks pretty evenly (maybe a little heavy on Epcot) and spreads them out. Whether I/we dodge the crowds, I don't know since it seems to be busy all the time now, but I can say I rarely spend a lot of time waiting for anything.

 

[DisLiss]

We have a basic game plan waaaaaaay ahead of time, based on our own preferences and any special events. So, perhaps we know we want to go to MNSSHP, and we know that will likely be Tuesday, so we plug in MK for Tuesday. And we will be there the week Food & wine starts, so we'd like to skip EPCOT on opening day. Beyond that, we have a possible itinerary and we take a "wait and see" approach. We hop, so if we need to move to another park for any reason it's no biggie. So if there are EMH we might hit the park for those extended hours, but not stay there all day.

We habitually go during one of the very slowest times of year (You know...relatively speaking, that is!) and we're mostly counter-service at this point in our life (Our youngest is not fond of sitting in restaurants at the best of times, and certainly not when all of WDW is beckoning.) So we really don't pay any attention to crowd calendars. We figure we're at WDW at a pretty ideal time, crowd-wise (bit tough int he heat department, though!) so we'll just deal with whatever the crowds are and not stress over them that much.

We're not ride driven, so we don't worry too much about the FPs. We'll likely book our few advance ones based on the temporary itinerary, but if it changes then we'll just change or cancel them. We like to be low-planners. We plan a little bit, but we're super flexible about changing plans and we often hit 2 parks per day, so it's not like if we miss an attraction one day we'll not have another chance to try to get in/on it.

 

[Dug720]

Overall it depends on the trip.

Examples:

July pre-cruise trip. I knew I wanted Animal Kingdom on my birthday (Up Close with Rhinos and ROL Dessert Party all the way!), so that was set for the 20th.Left MK and Epcot to plan, and for some reason I like starting off my trip with Epcot - not sure why. It's just gotten to be habit. So Epcot on 7/18 and MK on 7/19. I was open to switching those two depending on ADRs, but as it turns out I got the Illuminations Dining Package on 7/18 and 'Ohana breakfast on 7/19...so it remained.

Last Weekend in September. I don't get in until late on the 27th, so I only had the 28th, 29th, and 30th to worry about. MNSSHP is the 29th, so that makes it MK - well, it will actually be Disney Springs brunch with a friend and then to MK for the duration. I snagged the FOTLK Tier 1 package on the 28th, so that bacame AK day.Which left the 30th for Epcot - which is fine since I didn't want to battle weekend crowds with Food and Wine. And if I decide I want more MK (and/or Epcot gets overrun with people who cannot get into what they really want), I can always hop over on the monorail for the afternoon and evening.

And no, Studios not being on there is not a mistake. Even before it was taken over by my least favorite Pixar series and my 100% least favorite movie series ever, it was at best a half day park. Now? It is dead to me and I pretend it does not exist.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

1. Determine the number of days in each park.
2. Put AK and DHS near the end of the trip for better FP chances.
3. Decide which nighttime showed we're going to. After doing this 4 years with kids, it's been beaten into me that we cannot do more then 2, maybe 3 pm shows. The kids can't stay up that late and make it through the week. Put 1 day with a night show before our rest day and one after.
4. Decide if any of the EMHs on the remaining open days work for us (usually not more than 1).
5 If there are any open days left, consult a crowd calendar or easyWDW's latest crowd analysis post to see if there is any possible benefit to ordering them in a particular way.

 

[starry_solo]

I plan mine around ADRs...food...