How do you choose which park to visit?

[fishhunter]

I have a touring plans subscription plus I also use the easywdw site to assist with my planning. We are a rope drop family that stays on site, and I really believe this is the best strategy to get things done efficiently. Although, I'm finding that easywdw and touring plans normally do not recommend the park with early magic hours on that particular day. So the question is do you follow their suggested park or do you use the magic hours?

 

[BenKling]

For us it all depends on the park. We love late night EMH at MK, so we always try to do that at least once.

I know touring plans will tell you to avoid them, but we have had a lot of luck with the extra time!

 

[lmmantini]

We are also a rope drop family and I have a subscription to touring plans. I do not always follow their advice to avoid the park with the extra magic hours. We tend to go to the park with the morning extra magic hours, get as much done as possible and then hop to another park in the late afternoon or evening.

To steel a line from the POC movie I feel the park ratings are more like "guidelines."

 

[PJ]

We are lucky enough to Winter in FL 20 min from WDW, and for 2 seasons we've relied on easywdw and haven't been disappointed.

DH is NOT a morning person and has back problems if he stands for more than 30 minutes. Advance FP's weren't available to us yet with our AP's so we only went on days where the easywdw overall crowd level estimates were 4-5 or less, and only to his most recommended park.

 

[minnie mum]

We almost always go to the recommended park (easywdw.com). There is just no way for me to haul my butt out of bed early enough to get to morning EMH. And since we almost never get PHs, it makes sense for us to avoid the more crowded parks. On the rare occasion when we DO have PHs, or if the crowds are generally low, we may go to MK on an evening EMH day.

The only time I would foresee doing the morning EMH parks would be either in the summer (going earlier in the morning to avoid the afternoon heat), or during a high crowd period like Christmas. But in those cases, I'd have to have PHs, so I could hop to the recommended park in the afternoon/evening.

 

[katt789]

I usually just look at Disney's park hours, and throw down my park itinerary like that. Then I'll head over to TP & easywdw to compare crowd calendars and narrow down what would be the best place to be.

I like using am emh, the parks are nearly empty, and in that first hour, especially at MK, you can accomplish a TON, and then if it does get crazy, just park hop somewhere else.

Evening emh I usually only use if there's no kids with us, and no parents with us (groups of 20 somethings thrive off the parks being open til 2am ) so we'll be sure to park hop over there and check things out

 

[fishhunter]

I guess I forgot to mention that our upcoming trip is during the Christmas break. I have just found the mornings work well during this time.

 

[minnie mum]

I guess I forgot to mention that our upcoming trip is during the Christmas break. I have just found the mornings work well during this time.

yeah, that little tidbit of info makes a bit of difference. Morning EMH is about the only thing that does work well during that time.

 

[ConvenientTruth]

How I feel that day...

 

[DisneyMomma2000]

It depends if you have park hoppers. You can take advantage of the AM EMH and then park hop to the preferred park if crowds are too much. Also depends on your trip length and if you plan to have 2 days at certain parks.

We have done park hopping in trips past, but with the changes of FP+ and a longer trip, we have decided not to park hop this time and maximize our time in park and not in transit. With that in mind, we are only going against easywdw recommendation and that was only because we always do MK our first day and it has the late EMH. We fully know that it being Memorial Day Weekend, the crowds may get cray cray, but we are also ending our week at MK to catch anything we missed the first day.

 

[W.E.D.]

Be there at RD for the EMHs. Don't listen to those sites.

It all depends on tons of factors. We've never bought into the touring plan sites, hit a.m. EMH as close to RD as we can for whatever park on whatever day, and have always had a great time. But so many factors can effect a day at any of the parks. I say do what works best for you.