Fitting everything in at HS is a struggle!

[picklethings]

I've seen several people say that HS is a half-day park, but I'm assuming they have been there before and don't need to rewatch shows, or aren't interested in all of them, because I am struggling to fit everything in! Between my 3 kids, we want to do everything related to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Frozen, Sofia, and Doc McStuffins. How can we fit everything in? The various show times are killing me! I hate to overschedule and feel inflexible. We have a PPO H&V, and want to see the evening Star Wars show and (probably) Fantasmic, so we will need a decent afternoon break. Is the Beauty & the Beast show a must-see? We were already planning on skipping out on VotLM. Are any of the Star Wars, Disney Jr, etc activities not worth wasting time on?

 

[TexasPrincess1]

I enjoyed beauty and the beast, but I am a fan. I also thought Disney junior was cute, but I have a kiddo that likes Disney junior. We had Indiana jones scheduled for the last show of the day and it ended up being cancelled due to lightning in the area. I also found it necessary to plan the day out. Meals in the DHS took longer than I thought due to wait times for tables and food. I like DHS and I think you need a full day. We ended up taking a nap the afternoon of our first day so we needed another half day to finish everything.

 

[picklethings]

Yes, I'm wondering if I will need to squeeze some time out of a different park on another day in order to fit everything in! Glad to hear that I'm not the only one who struggled with this!

 

[TexasPrincess1]

Btw, we had a ppo at H & V and it didn't give us any advantage over the rope drop crowd so ymmv on that. At least it got us up and in the park. My favorite part was the omelet station there. My sons favorite part was their Mickey waffles.

 

[TexasPrincess1]

I was surprised that we did everything at animal kingdom so fast so maybe that is the one to look at taking some time from. Epcot took us a day and a half, too!

 

[picklethings]

I'm wondering about RnRC- we were hoping to fit it in first thing after our PPO H&V breakfast, but I'm wavering on it. My husband and I like roller coasters, and we've had a couple friends tell us we "have" to do it, but our youngest is too short. We could do rider swap, of course, but I'm wondering if our time would be better spent seeing the stuff our kids want to see, instead of standing in line for a coaster that they otherwise wouldn't know we missed. I just don't want to skip it and then hear "I can't believe you missed the best ride!"

 

[TexasPrincess1]

It our favorite ride at Disney world! It is so smooth even though you go upside down twice. They have a single rider line that moves pretty fast after rope drop. Within 10 minutes of opening we saw the standby line jump to 30 minutes.

 

[picklethings]

We are mainly doing the H&V breakfast for the characters (Sofia and Doc) and for early JTA sign ups, not so much for RD. The only thing we would need to rush to is RnRC, and I'm not sure if we should waste our time rushing through breakfast for that. I need to cut something!

 

[picklethings]

Ugh, that's not what I wanted to hear!

 

[TexasPrincess1]

Try to get Fastpasses for it or for to story mania. Those seem to be the two most popular rides. Tower of terror had a much shorter wait.

 

[picklethings]

I would like to keep with our plan of 1 day in the park and see how the day goes. We have a day on the back end of the trip where we are more flexible in the evening, but I don't want to count on it.

 

[picklethings]

I have wimpy (well, easily scared) kids, so no ToT for us. We have FP for TSM.

 

[TexasPrincess1]

We left breakfast about 8:40am after an 8am ppo adr. We saw all 4 characters. I did see people going over to sign up first thing for jta. That is something you can do right away. Then, get back in the herd to go to rnr if you don't have a fastpass.

 

[picklethings]

That was our original plan. It would work a whole lot better if some of the shows would go later. Our afternoon break cuts into most of the show times, but there's no way we can do breakfast to close without a break.

 

[TexasPrincess1]

Can you single rider rnr? Then it won't be much wait at all.

 

[picklethings]

That's good to know on breakfast timing. We are pretty fast eaters, but I didn't know how it would work with the characters. Our ADR is 8:05. I see lots of recommendations for allowing 60-90 min for a meal.

 

[TexasPrincess1]

FYI: I gave myself plenty of time to get to the shows and ended up waiting for them to start. It did guarantee us a seat and a good one but in hindsight we could of cut it closer.

 

[picklethings]

I don't think we'd do single rider. If we did RnRC, we'd take our older 2 kids on it and do rider swap. They are technically old enough to ride alone, but we are doing this trip for them, so I hate to send them on alone - see ya, kids! Our daughter has special needs, so I don't think I'd have her ride alone anyway.

 

[TexasPrincess1]

Show up to the gate at 7:45am to get checked in.

 

[picklethings]

Which shows in particular? That's good to know- most blogs seem to recommend showing up 30 min early to everything. I'd rather just walk right in.