How do you pick park days?

[North of Mouse]

If you are traveling in August, how do you pick park days?

By the touring plans suggestions, by the EMH's, dining reservations?

I'm having a hard time with picking park days, ie we want to do MK on Sunday, touring plans says it's "not recommended", but there are EMH's and dining available, etc...

I'm wondering what "not recommended" really means...

We totally relax (with park hoppers) and go wherever we want to go on any day - most of our ADR's are in the resorts. I 'hate' being tied down to a park and love the freedom of choosing at any time - that's a vacation to us.

The crowd level calendars are often wrong - we use our eyes to tell us when it's time to 'move' on.

 

[PlutoTheDog89]

My family has fallen into a bit of a ritual. When we arrive, we always go to DTD to walk around and grab a bite to eat at Wolfgang Puck Express.

On Christmas Day, we always do Magic Kingdom.

Outside of this, we base our plans on our reservations and EMH.

It's so difficult to tell what the park hours will be at our 180-day window. As a result, we'll book our reservations and hope that they coincide well with the park hours.

For example, I'll share our plans from this past year.
- We arrived on Tuesday, December 24th

We booked EPCOT - Chefs de France for Christmas Eve dinner. EPCOT closed early, but so did the rest of the parks. This didn't matter because we wanted to go to bed early to wake up early for Xmas Day.

Wednesday, December 25th
Xmas Day we booked dinner at Cali Grill. We would spend the morning at Magic Kingdom, head back to our resort, then head to dinner. It worked because we knew we wanted to go to Magic Kingdom at night after the fireworks (as that is when the park typically clears out.)

Thursday, December 26th
On the 26th my parents slept late, but my sister and I woke up and went to DHS. This was pre-planned. Our thinking was that we had already been to EPCOT and MK, so it would be a DHS day. DHS had either late-park hours or EMH, so we returned that night as well.

Friday, December 27th

We know from prior trips that the Friday after Christmas is typically very late EMH at MK, so we do MK that night. We had a breakfast reservation at Kouzzinna, so we ate then went to Animal Kingdom. It was a rainy day, so we hit a few rides and then went back to the resort. Not having a dinner reservation opened up the night for us. As a result, we relaxed until around 8pm then went to the park. This was the one year where the Friday late night lost its luster. Between FP+ and planning, we had actually done such a good job with accomplishing rides on Christmas day that we were done by 12am. I didn't want to leave, however, so I grabbed a Starbucks Iced Coffee and went on the Goofy coaster a few times.

Saturday, December 28th
We had Narcoossee's booked this night. It was a 9pm reservation, so we slept in a bit to catch up on lost sleep. We woke up around 10am and went to EPCOT to eat around the world. We will always dedicate ourselves one day to the rides in EPCOT (while walking around the world) and one day to just walking aorund the world and sharing snacks.

We instilled a strict "no food after 4pm rule," however, as we wanted to save room for Narcoossee's.

Magic Kingdom was open until 1am and we finished dinner around 11. Instead, we decided to head back to our room and grab some sleep.

Sunday, December 29th
By now, we've seen everything. We usually leave one or two days open for anything. We woke up a little later and grabbed a late-breakfast-early-lunch at the Boardwalk Bakery. We sat our by the Boardwalk, then walked to EPCOT and once again around the world. That night we had reservations at Primetime Cafe. We decided to do Primetime, jump on a ride or two, then watch Fantasmic!

Monday December 30th
It was decent weather (cold in the morning but it got sunny) so we rented a boat and drove around the Seven Seas Lagoon (I definitely recommend this!!!) Magic Kingdom does a late night every year in which they count down to the new year. It's sort of a "dress rehearsal" and a must-do if you want to experience NYE at MK, but want to avoid the crowds on the actual day. Knowing we would be up late, we relaxed on the boat a bit. It got beautiful outside after we returned the boat (figures) so we decided to salvage the day and go to MK. It was very crowded, but we walked around and watched a parade and show or two before heading back to our resort.

On NYE we know the parks are crazy crowded (we don't use crowd forecasts, we know from experience) so we avoid the parks. We had a dinner reservation at DTD, so we spent the day there. In hindsight, I would have liked to eat earlier and closer to EPCOT and then went there for the night.


We don't use crowd calendars or forecasts. Maybe on a short trip we would use them to help us strategically choose our parks, but on such a long trip we are able to make up time. I refuse to let some crowds affect my decisions - I simply use EMH to my advantage or arrive at the parks very early to accomplish what I want to do.

 

[daisy87]

The past two trips (our only 2 times in the world) we went to whichever park had EMH and didn't find crowds to be too much of an issue. We loved evening EMH but rarely stayed til closing,we found we got everything we wanted done pretty early most nights (travelled October and end of August)

This coming trip however,we are staying offsite (end of August again) so we are following recommendations from easywdw this time around. Will see how it works out for us! I do wonder if everyone follows the recommendations then does that make it busier but I'll give then a go since everyone seems to say they work lol

 

[AliceandAriel]

If you are traveling in August, how do you pick park days?

By the touring plans suggestions, by the EMH's, dining reservations?

I'm having a hard time with picking park days, ie we want to do MK on Sunday, touring plans says it's "not recommended", but there are EMH's and dining available, etc...

I'm wondering what "not recommended" really means...

I guess it really all depends (at least for me it does.) Sorry in advance if this gets a little long.

Typically how I handle park selection days is this; first, I always figure out if I'm buying a hopper pass or not. Until the whole FP+ business, I've never gone without a hopper, but with each prospective trip now, I weigh the idea of skipping it and only choosing one park per day. Unfortunately, I'm a huge MK nut, and a player of SOTMK, and from PA, so when I go to WDW, I make that park hopper worth my money spent come heck or high water.

After that little debate is down, I move onto what I want to do while I'm here. I look at from a broad spectrum of simple questions, such as;
- Do I want to eat at ______________?
- How many times do I want to play TSMM without standing in SB?
- Am I celebrating anything while on vacation? (Birthdays, Anniversaries, First Trips, etc.)

If I answer yes to any of those generalized questions, I note that and move on to the next part.

Park days. I check all the times for each park, EMH times as well (if staying on property), and pick what I want from there for specific things. Example? My next trip is this October, and I'm celebrating a (belated) birthday with myself. After looking at all the park days, I found October 27th to be the perfect day for a dinner at CRT, and I'd take my time almost all day in MK for character photos, rides, and anything I wanted. However, based on crowd calendars, this is supposed to be the worst park to be that on that day.

Do I care? Nope. A lot of people base their choices on crowd calendars, but unless I'm there for Christmas or any other major holiday, I don't care what the crowd calendars say. I pick where I want to go based on what I want, pure and simple.

It should also be noted that, while I do this system, I do try to keep things open, too, in case I want to switch things about. I can't tell you how many times I've promised myself to wake up at 6AM so I can get to a park early and wait in the front of the lines for rope drop, only to look at my alarm at 6AM and want to kick it out my window. Unless I plan an ADR for the early morning, I almost never get up on time, not really. And that's okay, because it's my choice to do just that.

Overall, you should be planning your park days on how you want it. And as much as people on here swear by not using EMH, I'm always kind of baffled at that. If you're staying on property, that's a freaking perk. You essentially 'paid' for it by staying on site, use it!

 

[mcd2745]

WWJD (what would Josh do)?

 

[RWishbone]

We use to not plan at all (Where do you want go go today kind of idea) but when we are part of a larger group, we found that did not work well. Some kids wanted to go the MK, others to MGM, etc and it just did not work. Now with large groups, we have a pre-Disney planning party and we talk it out before hand and plan the days around dining reservations and EMH. We never got to park early with EMH. We also like to always take a break back at the pool so we like the parks that stay open late. I also find the planning part to be a lot of fun so the planning party night is fun for me!

 

[wallskm]

We use easywdw as a guideline (I like the fact Josh gives rationale for his decisions) and plan out which parks for which days, then pick our ADRs from there. Though this time out of our 2 full MK days neither has the MSEP. So we are planning to hop over just to see it on another day. We also try to stick to ADRs that are within the park we want to be at or are very easy to get to from said park. (Like O'Hana or Chef Mickey's for example).

 

[shyjade]

Park Hoppers!

We might go to a morning EMH at one park, then head to another when the crowds start to grow. If MK is going to be open super late, we might show up at 9pm to watch the parade and fireworks, then enjoy the nighttime EMH after the crowds have cleared out. If we know we're going to be closing down the MK at 2am, we plan to sleep in the next day and maybe head over to DTD late morning and spend some time there.

We choose the "must do's" for our trip and allow for flexibility after that (e.g. if we have FP+ scheduled for TSMM we make sure we are in HS when we need to be because that's not something we can likely reschedule on the fly).

 

[Son of Gadsden]

Well, I suppose it's different for everyone. For us, we just take every resource into account and then add a little bit of tradition.

For example, we are going to MK on our first day no matter how busy it is. As for the other days, we check easywdw for crowds, check our undercover tourist apps on our phones for crowds as well, avoid morning EMHs and try to hit parks with late EMHs. Of course, another part is weather. AK is probably the worst rain park, closely followed by Epcot. I would think Hollywood Studios wouldn't be too bad in the rain, and MK is alright. We also look at hopping. If we go to AK, we are likely going to hop to wherever offers EMH that night or wherever is open the latest. So we weigh what day is best for that based on park hours, crowds, etc.

I really think Disney planning is almost an art, and it takes a lot of researching.

 

[Anna114]

I go by touring plans crowd calendar. List the best to worst park each day. Then figure out our intentions... i.e. food and wine etc. Then make the best picks. I don't usually care about EMH but do care if we are going during party times. I won't go to MK the day of MVMCP or MNSHP. I've usually had great luck.

 

[rbrbnd]

I've stopped using the crowd calendars for specific park days but use them more for planning when to go to wdw. Basically, in my experience, the day before a park had EMH is the best day to go. Many people wait and go on the EMH days leaving the park less crowded the day before.

 

[CdnCarrie]

Another WWJD here!!