Going for 3 days in Dec with teens...need planning advice on which parks to visit

[earpoker]

Hi,

We have NEVER been to Disney parks. I have two teens, and we have decided to visit mid-December. My kids LOVE Universal Studios, and have never had a ton of interest in visiting Disney. They are into thrill rides, and our goal is to enjoy some of the Disney nostalgia while fitting in all of the fun/big thrill rides that Disney offers. One night, we will go to Mickey's Christmas party at MK.

So - keeping in mind that we will be spending 4pm to Midnight at MK for the Christmas Party...how should we prioritze our three days (Friday-Sun)? We will be going to the Christmas Party Friday night. Would it be too much to go to a park during the day if we go to the Christmas Party at night? Do we need Park Hopper? Which parks should we go to and on which days?

Thanks for any suggestions.!

 

[loves to dive]

No you won't need a park hopper if you just go to MK that day but you will need a separate ticket for MK for that morning/afternoon. I'm not sure you would need to go during the day of the party unless they aren't running Tron that night. There aren't really that many "thrill" rides at MK. As for Sat. and Sun. if you don't want to buy a hopper, I'm guessing Epcot for GoTG and HS for the Star Wars rides and RnRC and ToT. If you do buy a hopper I'd split Epcot and AK, making your park reservation at Epcot so you could get a virtual que for GoTG (unless you want to pay for an ILL) then moving to AK in the afternoon. You would need to watch park hours because AK shuts down a lot earlier than the other parks. They would want to ride FoP, EE and Dino. at AK. If you want to buy an ILL for GoTG, you could do AK in the morning then hop to Epcot since there aren't really a lot of thrill rides there.

 

[earpoker]

No you won't need a park hopper if you just go to MK that day but you will need a separate ticket for MK for that morning/afternoon. I'm not sure you would need to go during the day of the party unless they aren't running Tron that night. There aren't really that many "thrill" rides at MK. As for Sat. and Sun. if you don't want to buy a hopper, I'm guessing Epcot for GoTG and HS for the Star Wars rides and RnRC and ToT. If you do buy a hopper I'd split Epcot and AK, making your park reservation at Epcot so you could get a virtual que for GoTG (unless you want to pay for an ILL) then moving to AK in the afternoon. You would need to watch park hours because AK shuts down a lot earlier than the other parks. They would want to ride FoP, EE and Dino. at AK. If you want to buy an ILL for GoTG, you could do AK in the morning then hop to Epcot since there aren't really a lot of thrill rides there.

Thanks! Do you think going to a park during the day the same day as the Christmas Party would be too much??? I want everyone to have fun and not be too exhausted. I don't think we would MK during the day since we are going to the party at night.

We definitely need to do HS and Epcot. Those two parks are our priority (my kids will never forgive me if we don't ride GoTG!)

 

[loves to dive]

Given the fact that they only want to do thrill rides, I wouldn't think they would need to do MK on party day. There are really only Tron, Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain as far as kind of thrill rides. I don't know if Tron will be running on party night. They would probably enjoy Pirates and Haunted Mansion and maybe Jungle Cruise as well. It depends on what your interest for the party night is. Do you want to watch parades and stage shows and FWs and meet characters or do you just want to ride rides? It would be hard to get it all done at the party if you are interested in parades and stage shows as well as ride the 6 rides I mentioned. Not impossible but it really would depend on how crowded the party was, what the weather is doing (if it's raining BTMRR would most likely shut down) etc.