Need park planning advice-which parks which day?

[SeiterClan]

Hi! Longtime DISers but first time family of 8 to WDW with six kids ages 7-18 & have 5 day/1 park/day tickets & planned to go Monday-Friday to the parks but not sure which day to go to AK? Currently have these booked but need to firm up reservations before there is no flexibility to change: Monday-HS, Tuesday-MK, Wednesday-Epcot, Thursday-HS, and Friday-MK Hours have been extended & TP calendar makes it look not too busy but wondering which park should be our first day--HS or AK? We do want to try to get on ROTR but only really want one day there so we can have 2 at MK and definitely want to experience AK too, but afraid if we wait that we can't switch while we are there. :/ Any tips or advice??? TIA

 

[GBRforWDW]

I would say it mostly doesn't matter as most days are similarly booked right now. Do you plan to make Table Service reservations? If so, they're usually harder to get at HS, so having that park later in your stay, if you're staying somewhere onsite or in one of the hotels that gives you the 60+ length of stay booking window, is your best bet. I do like the option to have 2 HS days going in and trying for Rise the first morning and switching it out with AK if you don't get the boarding group, but swapping parks is iffy now, so might be best to do AK on Monday.

 

[glocon]

I know you said you have 1 Park per day, but if you got hoppers, your stress level would probably decrease. Not a die hard “must have hoppers” person here, we’ve enjoyed parks both with and without hoppers, but with all that is going on now it seems like hoppers would make things easier and less stressful. You could leave your reservations as they are and just hop to AK.
Otherwise, I think you should keep the first HS day for sure, then possibly change that second to AK if you get on Rise the first day. That should be a less hard to change reservation.

 

[Fangorn]

It truly does not matter.

Steve