Help with which days for which parks in January? It's a struggle this year.

[DisneyDreams15]

Last year we took our first family trip and went the very last week of January. This year hubby is getting his master's online so he only agreed to another trip if it was non-school time. That left us with January 10th-18th as our best week. Unfortunately the tail end is a holiday weekend so we are looking at high crowds compared to last year. Highest predicted crowd level during last years trip was a 4, this year it's a 7 on multiple days. I use the easywdw crowd calendar and am having a hard time making decisions about which days to go where mostly due to the crowded weekend.

We do 7 park days (11th-17th) with no PH.
3 MK, 2 EP, 1 HS, 1 AK. MK days are planned as first priority.

My first thought was to do 12th, 14th, and 17th at MK since those are the only 3 green days. What I'm struggling with is the 17th of course. I know it's technically recommended but just barely. *I am wondering if the 11th (even though it's a Monday) would be a better choice than the 17th since crowds are a 3 vs a 7.* Maybe even the 15th since it's still a weekday and just a morning EMH? I just don't have enough experience to know if this is a good/bad idea based on crowd levels. If I can figure this one thing out it will help to finalize the other days as well. We are very unlikely to go again next year so I really want to make this go as smoothly as possible. I'm sure I may be overthinking it but that's just how I roll with my Disney planning.

What would you do for your 7 days in this week given my stipulations? Thanks for any insight!

 

[kcpinwdw]

I would go the 11th, touring plans has the day as a 3/10 for MK. They rate MK on the 17 to be a 9/10.

 

[amylevan]

My thoughts:
11th: It's a monday and least recommended by Josh, but it's still only a resort level 3.
15th: It's the friday of a holiday weekend, so crowds will start filling in. That said, if you can be at EMH at 8am, you should have at least 2 hours of great touring. It will start to get busy though, and you don't have a hopper to go somewhere else. But it is your 3rd day there, so you can fill in with things that can handle the crowds and have done all the headliners the other days and in the first 2 hrs.
17th: Barely recommended, a holiday, and a resort level of 7. I don't think I'd choose this day.

We don't normally do more than 2 days at MK during our trips, so I would think you could cover pretty much everything you want to in your other 2 days. This would mean it's not as big of a deal if your 3rd day is less than ideal.

 

[showers2flowers]

We're going the same week, but have had less trouble scheduling b/c we are using marathon wknd (which comes with its own issues, but still leaves more choices re. park days) as our start and heading out on the 16th. We are sticking with 12th and 14th as our MK days. PP is right, you should be able to do pretty much everything at MK during those two days, especially with judicious use of rope drop and FP+.

That would leave you with two EP days: if you split into FW East and half the WS one day and FW West and the other half of WS the second, the days of the week you select will matter less than getting there early and having your FP+ lined up for the attractions that are important to you. Maybe Wednesday (13th) and Friday (15th) for EP?

Then you could do HS on the 11th and AK on the 17th. Your other day (Saturday) you could do a rope drop at a park of your choice and then spend the rest of the day relaxing at the resort. I'd avoid MK on the 17th for the reasons the other posters stated above.

 

[DisneyDreams15]

Thank you all so much!!!! So much to think about.

I see that the consensus is to just plain avoid the 17th at MK and likely pick up the 11th instead, but would the 13th be better than the 11th at all even though there's evening EMH? Or would the evening EMH still make for worse overall (day & evening) crowds in MK than Monday? I know it's a level 2 overall day versus level 3 on Monday but I'm doubting that's too crazy of a difference from that angle. We can't really take advantage of EMH on either end anywhere because have a 3.5 year old. It's all we can do to get to 9AM RDs and we would be unwise to stay out crazy late as we don't do mid-day breaks (too time consuming going back and forth and parks close so early in general in Jan. anyway). We have purposely tried to avoid all EMH previously for obvious dual reasons.

The TP info is so helpful that you can see crowd levels by park. Extra thanks for that info! I am wondering if anyone can possibly tell me what level the first two green parks on this easywdw calendar are for the 15th, 16th, and 17th? Would be helpful to nail down parks for the busy weekend where I am most nervous. Also useful to strategize an 'Ohana ADR to try to be at least nearby. It's looking very doubtful I'll ever get an ADR for the 10th like I was so hoping so will probably have to do it on a park day.

 

[MermaidMommy]

Josh often answers questions on the easyWDW forum, so you might want to post your question over there, too, and see what response you get.

I've subscribed to Touring Plans many times in the past, but I think Josh's calendars are much more reliable. TP has been way off the mark of late. Personally, I wouldn't prioritize their recommendations over Josh's.

 

[ariane37]

If you want to avoid MK on the 17th, I'd go the 11th over the 15th since the 15th has EMH. Also going the 12th and 14th does give you good days to do your 2 Epcot and your AK & HS all on recommended days.
BUT, personally I'd go on the 17th ( and I may-DH and I will be there the 15th-20th ). It'll be your 3rd day in MK so presumably you'll just be redoing favorites, and technically Josh doesn't have it as non-recommended. Just my 2 cents, but I also like to do MK the last day of our trip or at least the 2nd to last day. If you do the 11th, 12th, and 14th that's no MK the last 3 days you're there

 

[amylevan]

We can't really take advantage of EMH on either end anywhere because have a 3.5 year old. It's all we can do to get to 9AM RDs and we would be unwise to stay out crazy late as we don't do mid-day breaks (too time consuming going back and forth and parks close so early in general in Jan. anyway). We have purposely tried to avoid all EMH previously for obvious dual reasons.

I believe the general rule is to avoid EMH days if you don't plan to partake. We don't do EMHs for the same reason (little kids).