How to choose which parks on which days?

[DollBabyKG]

Help! I'm overthinking myself to death! We are planning a trip in January (20-28), with my husband and I and our 4 kids (11, 8, 3, and 1). We will have 6 day non-park hopping tickets (though we would consider upgrading on arrival if we find we really need it), with park days Jan 22-27. We are staying off property at WBC, but I did book a throwaway room for the night of Jan 22, so we would have access to EMH on Monday the 22, and Tues the 23. But, I keep reading such conflicting data on whether we should go to the parks with EMH or do a different park that day. I'm pretty sure we'd like to see Epcot and MK twice (but my husband's wondering if we'd rather see Epcot and AK twice, because we go to Disneyland at least once or twice a year, and many of the MK rides are the same as Disneyland)

According to Touring Plans, our best park per day, would be: 1/22: MK, 1/23: AK, 1/24: Epcot, 1/25: HS, 1/26: Epcot, 1/27: MK.

But, if we take advantage of EMH, that would have us in: AK, Epcot, MK, HS, Epcot, MK.
Though, I highly doubt our little kids will make it until 11:00 pm to take advantage of evening EMH at Epcot on Tuesday anyway.

The other snag I'm having is that I REALLY want to see BOG, and I was only able to snag a lunch reservation on either 1/24 or 1/26. So, do I ignore the crowd calendar suggestions in order to keep my BOG reservation, or do I skip my BOG reservations in order to keep our lines and days in the park the most manageable? There are just so many more moving parts to this trip than to a Disneyland trip, or than there were on our last WDW trip in 2008!

Which one of these plans would you suggest? Or would you suggest a different order altogether? We make our FP+ reservations this month (!!) so I totally need to nail this down!

 

[Alesia]

I think this is actually pretty simple: go to the park that had EMH the day (or night, but preferably day) before.

 

[Lightsoutx12]

Your original plan seems pretty good (local AP here) since kids here will be back in school around that time you should really have no problem doing anything in the park. I would maybe say keep what you have for now and when the time comes for your FP selections see if you can get everything. I would say also to keep you BOG reservation as it is easily one of the hardest ADR to reserve and maybe if possible see if you can try and get an earlier selection if you want.

 

[chiburple]

I agree with keeping your BOG reservation if that's something you really like. Especially if you are willing to rope drop that day. You can try to use a restaurant finder to get on a different day but it's a hassle. If you want an easy fast pass for FoP (who wants to stand in line for 1.5-3 hours?) then you need to move your AK day back to the 4th day or beyond (since you book FPs for onsite guests at 60 days + number of days of your trip). If you don't park-hop (I don't for more relaxing vacations) avoid EMH. If you really want to park-hop, go to a different park for the main part of the day and just do the EMH hours in the EMH park.

Edit: Since you are going end of January, check when fireworks and parades are since they won't be every night. You'll want to make sure to go the days those are offered. Your crowds should be lightish no matter what you do. Also check for refurbishments of favorite rides, there are a lot in January.

 

[chiburple]

PS: If you really like shopping or exploring what's going on in the different countries, you can do Epcot twice but personally I would recommend doing AK twice or park hopping with AK in the morning and spending an evening at Epcot for dinner.

 

[DollBabyKG]

I agree with keeping your BOG reservation if that's something you really like. Especially if you are willing to rope drop that day. You can try to use a restaurant finder to get on a different day but it's a hassle. If you want an easy fast pass for FoP (who wants to stand in line for 1.5-3 hours?) then you need to move your AK day back to the 4th day or beyond (since you book FPs for onsite guests at 60 days + number of days of your trip). If you don't park-hop (I don't for more relaxing vacations) avoid EMH. If you really want to park-hop, go to a different park for the main part of the day and just do the EMH hours in the EMH park.

Edit: Since you are going end of January, check when fireworks and parades are since they won't be every night. You'll want to make sure to go the days those are offered. Your crowds should be lightish no matter what you do. Also check for refurbishments of favorite rides, there are a lot in January.

Oh! I didn’t even think of fireworks and shows not being nightly! Thanks so much! I need to go look now!!

 

[SarahC97]

I think you should just go to the parks you want. I'm going the week after you and don't have hoppers either - I'm totally doing Epcot on a Tuesday for EMH and MK on Wednesday for EMH.

 

[hllb]

Oh! I didn’t even think of fireworks and shows not being nightly! Thanks so much! I need to go look now!!

The shows are all nightly on the calendar for January. I hope that’s right since I made plans around it!

 

[txcorey]

If you want to do BOG on a different day you should try the restaurant reservation finder on the touring plans site. I was able to find a ppo breakfast reservation without much trouble at all.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Our park choices are dependent on schedules of events and when we get our ADRs. Fantasmic! only showing every other day at DHS? Well, we go to DHS a day of Fantasmic!, regardless of what the crowd calendar says. BOG reservation on a Tuesday? We go to MK on a Tuesday!