Hi all,
This will be a long post so bear with me...I tend to babble on a lot.
My family of 4 is heading to WDW for the first time since 2000, and staying on property for the first time since 96, and we are super excited! I haven't been on a vacation of any kind with my parents and brother for about 12 years so it'll be extra special for us. We may be older "kids" now who have moved out, gotten married and started careers but we'll always be Disney kids at heart
Anyway, I am looking for help with planning out the trip. We've already got a family suite at AoA booked for May 3 - May 10 (Tuesday - Tuesday). To make things easier as far as this thread goes, I'm not looking for daily touring plans or anything; I can look all that up on my own once we pick which parks we want to visit on which days, which is what this thread is about. You can also ignore ADRs; we like to be somewhat spontaneous when it comes to eating. We're big snackers and might eat several times throughout the day. We're fully prepared to only eat counter-service meals the whole trip if necessary. At most we'll check out the ADRs day-of.
So basically what I'm looking for is help with deciding which parks to visit on which days. With our 60-day FastPass+ window coming up this Friday, I'd like to get this mostly planned out in the next few days if possible! Here are the main factors to consider:
- As long as our flight isn't delayed, I plan on being able to make it to the front gates of a park on day 1 by 2:00 as a conservative estimate (possibly could get there a little earlier if everything went smoothly).
- We want to do both Universal Studios parks at some point in our visit.
- The youngest person in our group is 27, so we won't be riding the kiddie rides (we'll still want to do the dark rides like Small World and the Little Mermaid ride, but obviously won't be riding things like the Dumbo ride and Astro Orbiters). We also have no interest in the character meet & greets.
- We have tickets for 7 days with the hopper option, but not the water park option.
- We are all early-risers so getting to any park at rope drop on any day (other than day 1) shouldn't be an issue.
That's about it, though if you have any other questions that will help you be able to help me, let me know.
My main questions are:
- What park should we try day 1? I've been going back and forth between Animal Kingdom (assuming Rivers of Light is going by then and the park is open later) and Magic Kingdom, with the thoughts being that we could do everything in AK that first day and not need to go back, or we could knock out a good chunk of Magic Kingdom, which is a 2 day park anyway.
- Should we try to do both US parks in 1 day with EP, or go there 2 days? Even if we did 2 days we still might get EPs for one of the 2 days just to make sure we did everything we wanted to do. I think it could be possible to do everything at both US parks in 1 day with EP, but that'd be one long, exhausting day. The downside to spreading it out over 2 days is we'd have to pay for transportation to/from twice, plus that's one less day to spend at Disney!
- Should we try to avoid MK and/or the US parks on a Saturday, or is there not enough of a difference to worry about it?
I know this is a lot but my head is spinning thinking about all the options! Any help that you all could give would be much appreciated
This will be a long post so bear with me...I tend to babble on a lot.
My family of 4 is heading to WDW for the first time since 2000, and staying on property for the first time since 96, and we are super excited! I haven't been on a vacation of any kind with my parents and brother for about 12 years so it'll be extra special for us. We may be older "kids" now who have moved out, gotten married and started careers but we'll always be Disney kids at heart
Anyway, I am looking for help with planning out the trip. We've already got a family suite at AoA booked for May 3 - May 10 (Tuesday - Tuesday). To make things easier as far as this thread goes, I'm not looking for daily touring plans or anything; I can look all that up on my own once we pick which parks we want to visit on which days, which is what this thread is about. You can also ignore ADRs; we like to be somewhat spontaneous when it comes to eating. We're big snackers and might eat several times throughout the day. We're fully prepared to only eat counter-service meals the whole trip if necessary. At most we'll check out the ADRs day-of.
So basically what I'm looking for is help with deciding which parks to visit on which days. With our 60-day FastPass+ window coming up this Friday, I'd like to get this mostly planned out in the next few days if possible! Here are the main factors to consider:
- As long as our flight isn't delayed, I plan on being able to make it to the front gates of a park on day 1 by 2:00 as a conservative estimate (possibly could get there a little earlier if everything went smoothly).
- We want to do both Universal Studios parks at some point in our visit.
- The youngest person in our group is 27, so we won't be riding the kiddie rides (we'll still want to do the dark rides like Small World and the Little Mermaid ride, but obviously won't be riding things like the Dumbo ride and Astro Orbiters). We also have no interest in the character meet & greets.
- We have tickets for 7 days with the hopper option, but not the water park option.
- We are all early-risers so getting to any park at rope drop on any day (other than day 1) shouldn't be an issue.
That's about it, though if you have any other questions that will help you be able to help me, let me know.
My main questions are:
- What park should we try day 1? I've been going back and forth between Animal Kingdom (assuming Rivers of Light is going by then and the park is open later) and Magic Kingdom, with the thoughts being that we could do everything in AK that first day and not need to go back, or we could knock out a good chunk of Magic Kingdom, which is a 2 day park anyway.
- Should we try to do both US parks in 1 day with EP, or go there 2 days? Even if we did 2 days we still might get EPs for one of the 2 days just to make sure we did everything we wanted to do. I think it could be possible to do everything at both US parks in 1 day with EP, but that'd be one long, exhausting day. The downside to spreading it out over 2 days is we'd have to pay for transportation to/from twice, plus that's one less day to spend at Disney!
- Should we try to avoid MK and/or the US parks on a Saturday, or is there not enough of a difference to worry about it?
I know this is a lot but my head is spinning thinking about all the options! Any help that you all could give would be much appreciated
