Help me plan a 7 day Park Hopper trip with swimming breaks, please? (Feb. 20-26)

[hodad]

I've never used park-hopper tickets before and every time I try to plan our trip (Flying in late on Feb 19 and out late on the 26th) I end up with entire days at single parks with no hopping.

Surely since this is a fairly common amount of time there exist established and tested weekly plans that allow families with kids ranging from 3-7 years old to see all four parks with sufficient break time either in the morning or in the afternoon, returning to the hotel after fireworks at the very latest. The week should get increasingly less busy as it moves from President's Day to the Princess Half Marathon, so I'm thinking of back-ending the hard-to-get fastpasses and ADRs.

Mind sharing yours if you have one, or providing advice? Thanks!

 

[Julylady]

Our WDW stays include lots of resort time. We usually are at the park in time for rope drop most mornings. We then spend about 8 hours each day in the park. Some days we stay until about 1pm, return to resort until about Five, then back to park for fireworks or parade. Other days we stay at park until about 5 pm and then return to resort for the evening. We usually schedule fast passes for late morning, or early evening. Late February might be cool for swimming?

 

[Tonberry]

Park hoppers are great if you are in a resort that has good transportation and/or is within walking distance to parks. They're also great if you have dining at different places. We had park hoppers when we stayed at the Poly. One day, we did rope drop at the MK and stayed until about 3. The kids got tired and we took the monorail back. We got dole whips and took a walk on the beach. Then we went over to Hollywood Studios for dinner and saw the Osborne Lights.
Another day, we did Animal Kingdom until closing, then went to the MK for a late dinner and watched the parade and fireworks.

Our trip before last, we stayed at the All Star Movies and found that our park hoppers were put to waste. We found the back and forth traveling of the busses very tedious.

A good strategy that worked for us was to do rope drop in one park and use fast passes in a different park for later in the day. In our case, we did rope drop at Epcot. We did Soarin, Mission Space and a bunch of others before the crowds. We made late fast passes for the Magic Kingdom. From Epcot, we went to MK late and used our fast passes for 7DMT, Peter Pan, and Space Mountain.

 

[sharonabe]

The way we plan it is to do the parks with an early EMH (and make sure we get up and to the park for that early opening), and stay through lunch. Then back to the resort for a nap or pool time. Evening we go to the most recommended park. We make sure we're in each park at least once for the evening entertainment. Sometimes we do dinner at the park; sometimes we do dinner at our resort.

If you're not morning people, you could do this backwards. Go to the most recommended park for the morning, break back at the resort, hop to the park with evening EMH for the night.

 

[HatboxHaint]

I use easywdw to pick best park for the day. I try to RD MK as much as possible. I get an ADR at 180 out for the best park each day. If you want to take midday breaks you should stay close to the park you will spend the most mornings in.

 

[nicki.momof3]

This is the plan we used everyday with our kids when they were that age. We actually still use this schedule but we stay up later now that the kids are teenagers.

1. Pick a park with EMH in the morning - go early and hit all the kids favorite rides. Early in the morning their is no lines
2. Have lunch in the park at 11am - leave the park after lunch
3. Resort pool and nap time (if kids needed a rest) noon-5pm
4. Schedule a ADR at or near a park we want to go to for the evening (we usuallyl do dinner at 6pm)
5. Spend the evening using our FP (since the lines will be longer by now) and seeing shows and fireworks
6. Exit park before the kids "hit the wall". No one wants a grumpy end to the day.

Hope it help Have a great trip