Fitting in a water park

[poodledogs55]

Hi Everyone!
My mom and I will be staying at the Polynesian (yay!) in August for a short pre-Disney Cruise, Disney World trip. We have 4 day base tickets that include a ticket to one of the water parks (we got this deal through a TA or otherwise probably wouldn't have added a water park). We have to make our dining reservations soon, so I need to get our park days planned out. Here's what I was thinking:

Day 1: Morning arrival, then Animal Kingdom for the day (I want to see the new nighttime safari and show, otherwise I'd do AK and TL in one day, it's also my favorite park).
Day 2: Typhoon Lagoon in the morning, Epcot rest of day
Day 3: Magic Kingdom
Day 4: Magic Kingdom in the morning
Day 5: Cruise

I should also mention that on Day 4, my dad is joining us and is adamantly against going to the parks. I figured my mom and I would have a little park time before his flight gets in.

Is it imperative to get to rope drop for Epcot and Animal Kingdom or can Extra Magic Hours make up the difference? Is there a better way to split our days to try to fit the water park in? Should we downgrade our tickets to just 3 days?

 

[sharonabe]

I think I'd leave it as is. It sounds pretty relaxing. We usually only spend about 4 hours at the water park, and that was with two kids in tow. If you don't feel like you got enough EP time, you could always go there on your Day 4 instead of MK.

Rope drop is not imperative, but you'll definitely want to plan your FP+ well for both of those parks. It does mean that you'll either have to choose between Soarin' and TT or do the single rider line at TT. Of course, if you make Day 4 another EP day, then you can be there at rope drop and probably do both with FP+ and standby.

 

[skuttle]

My only concern is that I always find water parks to be VERY tiring, much more so than just going to a park. If I went to a park after a water park, it would be in the early evening after a nap! What about doing MK that day? You can get to MK whenever you feel rested enough to go, and no pressure to do/see a ton of things since you'll be there the next full day. Then you could do Epcot on Day 4 when you might not be as tired? I love AK too, so I wouldn't cut any AK time.

 

[poodledogs55]

Thank you both! We wouldn't be doing water parks for more than a few hours as well. I also think having a break between TL and a park is a great idea. Since we're fortunate to stay at the Poly this time, traveling to MK or EP should be fairly easy either way.

 

[Accident]

I'm not a water park person but that looks like a nice pre-cruise visit to me.

 

[1234lucky]

We did what you proposed (TL then Epcot) with four kids under 11 and we actually wished we'd brought our change of clothes and had gone straight to EP. We hit the slides hard in the am and then did slower stuff like the wave pool and lazy river in the afternoon so we weren't exhausted at all. The trip back to the hotel seemed like wasted time to us.

Also fwiw my kids much prefered blizzard beach.

 

[poodledogs55]

We did what you proposed (TL then Epcot) with four kids under 11 and we actually wished we'd brought our change of clothes and had gone straight to EP. We hit the slides hard in the am and then did slower stuff like the wave pool and lazy river in the afternoon so we weren't exhausted at all. The trip back to the hotel seemed like wasted time to us.

Also fwiw my kids much prefered blizzard beach.

Thank you! We plan to rent a locker, so bringing a change of clothes should be easy. Do you know if the water parks have showers we can use to maybe rinse off/wash our hair?