How many park days to purchase?

[Artygal90]

I'm currently planning a relaxed USO trip for September, just me and the husband. We're staying at Hard Rock and have flights set. Now we need to decide which tickets to buy.

We've been to USO and IOA before for almost 2 full days, but not Volcano Bay, so we definitely want to do 3-Park PTP passes. No parks on arrival or departure day due to flight times, so we'll have five days to work it. I was thinking 1 day per park, then one day for re-rides/enjoying ambiance, and a forced "down" day to visit family in the area, sleep in, sit by the pool, etc. Or Uber over to Galaxy's Edge if the crowds aren't completely awful

Do you think 4 park days and one "down" day are enough for all 3 parks if we have EP and take advantage of early entry? Or should we pay for a fifth day even though we may not use it? I'm booking all of this on points and would like to stretch them as far as possible, so every little bit of savings does count.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

I think you should be fine with 4 days. I would not think of it as "one day per park" though, since Volcano Bay especially is best enjoyed as a chunk of day here and there, combined with hopping at your convenience to the other parks.

Are you doing Halloween Horror Nights?

 

[Artygal90]

I think you should be fine with 4 days. I would not think of it as "one day per park" though, since Volcano Bay especially is best enjoyed as a chunk of day here and there, combined with hopping at your convenience to the other parks.

Are you doing Halloween Horror Nights?

Oh heck no! Tim Tracker's videos are as close as I want to get to that event! (Looks cool but I'm a huge scaredy-cat.) Our park days will be Monday - Friday, with HHN running Thursday and Friday nights of our trip. So I was thinking maybe Thursday could be a down day or offsite day and Friday could be the re-ride/ambiance day. We might do Blue Man Group one night too. Any particular reason you would suggest doing Volcano Bay over multiple days?

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Depends on your touring style. And whether enough of your group are water park people. I'd rather enjoy VB than pool time, but then again I don't really do resort days which some people enjoy.

I went in Feb 2018 - gorgeous weather, but VB was slow. Everything was "ride now" all day, so I didn't have to worry about lines (there are still waits, but like 10-15min). My friend spent the day at the rivers since she isn't a water slide person, and we headed out mid-afternoon. If you do the volcano slides, the hike up the stairs is a workout.

We just hit VB once in 5 UO days, which worked well for us. Of course, we also did DC and Aquatica, so a lot of aquatic days for my not-a-big-fan-of-swimming friend. If your group is more into pools and water slides, it may alter your plans - plus the hotter month will alter the VB crowds.

I feel a lot of people pop in and out over several days when VB is busy - avoiding the long afternoon lines. Early in the day (or even better, EE), or late afternoon, will have significantly lower waits.

 

[Sue M]

As Caplock says, it depends on your touring style. Last time we went we did 3 day, 2 park ticket. VB wasn’t open yet. So we had 3 days at the parks, still didn’t do all we wanted, and wished we had 4 park days. We aren’t commando park open to close tourers and enjoy a mid day break at the pool. So for me I’d do a 5 day ticket, 4 park days and 1 VB day. And we stayed at Portofino so had Express Pass.
We got to the parks at opening, came back to hotel mid day and relaxed at pool then went back to parks late afternoon for the evening.