Is it worth doing 3 park days for WDW?

[shosh1530]

Can I just say your son sounds like mine? He's 10 and won't do Incredicoaster and refuses to go on Guardians/ToT again. He loves Cosmic Rewind and FOP though.
Since it will be crowded I recommend including some no line activities in your itinerary. My kids liked collecting the country postcards from Kidcot in the world showcase and the pirate adventures in the MK. Since you said he's excited about the 50th, maybe trying to find as many of the character statues as you can. There is also Wilderness Explorers at AK.
On a 3 day trip you certainly could skip AK, but because you normally do DL, I'd skip HS. If you do AK I probably wouldn't bother with Kali unless you happen upon a very short line. Grizzly River Run puts it to shame.
My son's favorite park is Epcot because he loves trying different foods (but only at Epcot. Not at home). He also loves test Track and Cosmic Rewind. I would consider Epcot to be your must-do park.

I will definitely make a list of non-ride/non-line activities. My son enjoys pin trading/pin shopping and we've things at Disneyland like Animation Academy, Tom Sawyer Island, the Main Street cinema, Tiki Room, etc.. I'll check out the things you've mentioned. So much to learn!

Epcot will definitely be the must-do. I'm wondering if the Park Hopper might be worth it just to be able to visit Epcot another evening. I'm also going to keep checking plane flights as I'd love to switch to a leaving one day earlier and getting 4 full days.

Interesting to know that Kali isn't as good Grizzly River Run. That is one of our favorite rides as a family.

 

[shosh1530]

Thanks everyone for all the thoughtful replies. We have the plane tickets in place, now I just need to make sure I can work it out with my work schedule.

I was looking at the hours and reservations for the week I'm going and realized there is a hard ticketed After Hours event at HS on March 22. This could possibly be another way for us to do all 4 parks if we didn't do park hoppers. The price would be about the same.

Any thoughts on if these After Hours events are worth it? I normally would be worried about staying up so late, but with the time difference from Arizona it might not be so bad.

 

[persnickity]

Thanks everyone for all the thoughtful replies. We have the plane tickets in place, now I just need to make sure I can work it out with my work schedule.

I was looking at the hours and reservations for the week I'm going and realized there is a hard ticketed After Hours event at HS on March 22. This could possibly be another way for us to do all 4 parks if we didn't do park hoppers. The price would be about the same.

Any thoughts on if these After Hours events are worth it? I normally would be worried about staying up so late, but with the time difference from Arizona it might not be so bad.

That is a great idea! We love the After Hours events, and Toy Story Land and GE are so pretty at night. You could combine that with AK, which closes pretty early anyway. Epcot the following day, so you can get a later start.

Note that there is potential for the After Hours event to sell out soon, and MK reservations may be limited for those busy dates in the near future, as well, so it would be good to nail things down in the very near future!

 

[Anna131517]

Go for it! We actually just did 1 day after a cruise and it was a blast! I think it’s especially doable if you prioritize as you’ve indicated and get DAS, Genie+, and ILLs. Definitely do the after hours at HS, maybe on the same day as AK since that park doesn’t take as long. That way you could rest a bit before going to the AH event.

 

[Sacahara]

I've never done any of the special ticket events or After Hours but I think it'd be a blast! Earlier this month I drove 12 hours there and back for 1 day at Epcot's FARTs and I was able to do everything without G+ or $LL including GOTG and Remy, so I completely think that 3 days is worth it! (But, obviously, I'm a bit biased! ) Just know your must dos and prioritize them!