Help planning park visit schedule

[ForTheGlory]

Hi all,

We are going to be traveling to WDW in December. Group will consist of my wife and I, our 4 year old son, our 8 month old son, plus my wife's sister.

We've got 6 full days (we are not going to parks on flight days) allotted to going to Disney parks and I'm trying to figure out how we are going to spend them. I was wondering if anybody could provide any insight.

Here's what I know so far:

Base tickets- no park hopper
1 full day at each of the 4 parks.
We aren't interested in the water parks at all.
On a fifth day we will attend Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

The two things I am trying to figure out are:

Which park should we go to before 4pm on the day of the Christmas Party?
Which park we should go to on the sixth day?

Does anybody have any thoughts on what would be the best use of our time on those two days? Is a full day plus the Christmas party enough time at the Magic Kingdom? Note that on that day of the Christmas party (which we plan to schedule roughly in the middle of the week), we are going to plan as if we are going to a park before 4pm, but we may end up scrapping it if we feel like it is too much since we are traveling with a baby.

Thanks in advance for any ideas anyone has!

 

[missangelalexis]

I think it's most dependent on what your family likes! I am in the mindset that more time at Magic Kingdom is always better! At that time of year, Epcot may also be a nice choice to do for 2 day since there is a lot of Christmas stuff plus the Candlelight Processional.

I would say maybe plan a "rest day" the day of the Christmas Party. It might be too much planning a park day + party night, especially if you plan on staying for the full party (midnight). You could always do something besides a park like Disney Springs or plan a meal at one of the resorts!

 

[DFII]

Hi all,

We are going to be traveling to WDW in December. Group will consist of my wife and I, our 4 year old son, our 8 month old son, plus my wife's sister.

We've got 6 full days (we are not going to parks on flight days) allotted to going to Disney parks and I'm trying to figure out how we are going to spend them. I was wondering if anybody could provide any insight.

Here's what I know so far:

Base tickets- no park hopper
1 full day at each of the 4 parks.
We aren't interested in the water parks at all.
On a fifth day we will attend Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

The two things I am trying to figure out are:

Which park should we go to before 4pm on the day of the Christmas Party?
Which park we should go to on the sixth day?

Does anybody have any thoughts on what would be the best use of our time on those two days? Is a full day plus the Christmas party enough time at the Magic Kingdom? Note that on that day of the Christmas party (which we plan to schedule roughly in the middle of the week), we are going to plan as if we are going to a park before 4pm, but we may end up scrapping it if we feel like it is too much since we are traveling with a baby.

Thanks in advance for any ideas anyone has!

For what it's worth, I would recommend renting a double stroller. If your kids are good about falling asleep, it could come in handy on the long days. At least for me, my kids were able to do that and it didn't matter that it was such a long day. If you do see that as a concern, plan for a park close to where you're staying in the morning, taking a couple hours to relax in the early afternoon, then head to MK. On the 6th day, you could just see which park you would like to go back to and head there. Of course that means you won't be able to do fastpasses in advance or if you do, just be flexible with changing them that day to a different park.

Edit: Forgot you said no park hopper. So I would either go with the stroller route and hope the kids sleep, or do something else and enter MK at 4pm. That would still give you lots of time in MK if you were there until close

 

[VAfamily1998]

I think it would be too much to do a park day plus the Christmas party in one day. I might use that morning/early afternoon to enjoy your resort, go to Disney springs, or have lunch at another resort. Go back to the room and nap a bit, then head out to the Christmas party.

 

[ForTheGlory]

Thanks for the input guys. We are planning to go to Disney Springs on the day we fly in. We are going to have strollers for both kids. I personally would like to do a second day at Epcot but I'm worried it would bore my 4 year old.

I guess I should have been a little clearer. I'm not looking for advice on whether to go to the parks at all on a given day (we know very well what our older son is capable of and will adapt to what our younger son can handle), but rather I'm looking for advice on just which parks to go to on those days because we don't know what we like. We went to just Magic Kingdom just for the Hallloween Party when our older son was 6 months old but other than that I haven't been to the parks since I was a grade schooler (Animal Kingdom didn't even exist). So I'm not sure how to prioritize parks for the extra days.

I could really break this down into two questions.

1) Given the fact of 1 full day at each park plus another night at MK for the Christmas Party where would you suggest spending the next full day.
2) After that, where would you plan to spend the day of the Christmas prior to going to it, assuming you WOULD go to a park that day. We very well may end up taking a rest day then, but the marginal cost of 6 day tickets vs 5 is so low that I would rather buy them and book FastPasses and not use them, then not be prepared.

 

[gap2368]

1 Which park should we go to before 4pm on the day of the Christmas Party?
2 Which park we should go to on the sixth day?

Does anybody have any thoughts on what would be the best use of our time on those two days? Is a full day plus the Christmas party enough time at the Magic Kingdom? Note that on that day of the Christmas party (which we plan to schedule roughly in the middle of the week), we are going to plan as if we are going to a park before 4pm, but we may end up scrapping it if we feel like it is too much since we are traveling with a baby.

Thanks in advance for any ideas anyone has!

1 MK tends to less crowded the morning of the party I often go then and if doing th party will go back to my resort to rest from about 3 to 6. ( If you need too) I see you are going with a baby so I would go back to rest.
2 this depends on you want want you like, do you want to do more rides then MK,
with pandora opining you may want to spend another day at AK
some people do EPCOT in two days as it is really big and there really is a lot to see if you spend time in the country and there are 3 really good rides and a tired system there,

 

[disneyfan314]

My vote would be to spend the 6th day in either MK or Epcot. MK will more appealing to your 4 year old and Epcot is so big, you could spread it out over two days especially since it is tiered.

 

[mom2travel]

I tend to lean towards, the more time at MK the better. There are more rides and a ton of characters. I could also argue for lots of wandering time in Animal Kingdom and Epcot.

Not knowing what your family might like, makes it difficult, but I would consider these options:
*morning of Christmas party at Epcot (could fastness whatever tiered rides you don't get to on your full day for the morning and wander World Showcase for/after lunch); spend your last full day at Animal Kingdom (with Pandora, animal trails, shows, character meet & greets, you could fill 2 days - I imagine you'll be going at a slightly slower pace with 2 strollers)
*morning of Christmas party at Animal Kingdom (use fast passes for whichever pandora tiered ride you didn't do on 1st day); last full day at Magic Kingdom (assuming there would be the most at MK your kids would enjoy)
*morning of party at Animal Kingdom; last full day at Epcot

I personally like the 3rd option the best, because that puts you in each of AK, MK and Epcot twice, Hollywood Studios once.

 

[ForTheGlory]

I tend to lean towards, the more time at MK the better. There are more rides and a ton of characters. I could also argue for lots of wandering time in Animal Kingdom and Epcot.

Not knowing what your family might like, makes it difficult, but I would consider these options:
*morning of Christmas party at Epcot (could fastness whatever tiered rides you don't get to on your full day for the morning and wander World Showcase for/after lunch); spend your last full day at Animal Kingdom (with Pandora, animal trails, shows, character meet & greets, you could fill 2 days - I imagine you'll be going at a slightly slower pace with 2 strollers)
*morning of Christmas party at Animal Kingdom (use fast passes for whichever pandora tiered ride you didn't do on 1st day); last full day at Magic Kingdom (assuming there would be the most at MK your kids would enjoy)
*morning of party at Animal Kingdom; last full day at Epcot

I personally like the 3rd option the best, because that puts you in each of AK, MK and Epcot twice, Hollywood Studios once.

Thanks for your suggestions! I see all of your ideas involve a second day at AK. A lot I have read indicates that park can be done in 1 day. Do you think that will change with the opening of Pandora and/or are you suggesting AK because of the age of my kids? I had been leaning towards your option 3 in my head but was worried AK wouldn't have enough to fill more than 1 day.

 

[mom2travel]

Thanks for your suggestions! I see all of your ideas involve a second day at AK. A lot I have read indicates that park can be done in 1 day. Do you think that will change with the opening of Pandora and/or are you suggesting AK because of the age of my kids? I had been leaning towards your option 3 in my head but was worried AK wouldn't have enough to fill more than 1 day.

I was thinking a combination of both... that you might take AK at a slower pace with younger children (especially if they might like to wander the trails and see the animals, or go out to Rafiki's planet watch). There's also a good number of character meets, if they end up enjoying that. Plus several shows which each take an hour or so by the time you get there a bit early to wait in line for seating (you could use FP+ for Festival of the Lion King) and then watch. And pandora opens another entire section to wander.

You could always do your full AK day earlier in your trip and then decide if you need a 2nd partial day there. Your needed time will also depend on how crowded the parks are and park hours

 

[ForTheGlory]

Thank you for the suggestions everyone! We are going to do AK one day and Epcot the other. Haven't decided which one will be a full day and which one will be before MVMCP yet.