One Day in WDW - MK/HS Hopper

ctwalen

Earning My Ears
Joined
Feb 21, 2020
Messages
4
We only have one park day and want to make the most of it. Youngest kid is 12 and we want to hit the headliners! Hopping all around. What is your best advice if we want to do the following:

Park date: don't kill me but a Tues in mid-March!

MUST
MK - Space Mountain
MK - Pirates
MK - BT Mountain
MK - Mine Train
HS - ToT
HS - RnR
HS - RotR
HS - Smugglers
HS - Slinky
HS - GotG

NICE TO HAVE
AK - FoP
AK - EE
 
I'm going to be honest. This is a brutal itinerary, but I love the challenge. You want to do headliners at all four parks in the same day during the busiest week of spring break? Let me guess, you are not a resort guest either? You are going to have to bite the bullet and make some sacrifices and temper your expectations. Your big issues are Rise, Slinky, Guardians, and FoP. There is also an unknown as to whether Guardians will still have a virtual queue, and whether mine train will be an individual attraction selection (IAS) or if it will be Tron at that time (Tron probably won't be open then, though). I'm throwing out AK initially, because it's just too much. Let's say you book Slinky as your first LL and standby Rise at official park opening. This is what I expect your itinerary to realistically be. Any time savings or shorter lines is just gravy.

Rise - 8:30-10:30 (you will not get an IAS for this since you are not a resort guest, and you will be about an hour and a half wait right at park opening). You will need to be at the park well before early entry so that you are at the front of the regular park guest entry. They will hold you at the tapstiles until official park opening. No waiting in the park for a rope drop.
Slinky G+, smugglers, Tot, RnR (3 hours) - 10:30-1:30. Pick 2 of the 3 remaining, because avg wait times for these three on March 15, 2022 was 90-140 minutes. I'm even being generous by saying you "may" get 2 of the 3 in that day. You may get lucky by refreshing and getting a G+ for one of the three remaining during this time, and skipping a MK stack until later.

Let's say you get lucky and at 8:30am, you grab a Guardians LL for 5:00pm. Extremely lucky. This is a big unknown and can completely derail your MK time later on. You get to MK by 6:30? Again, being generous.

At 8:30, you also grab a mine train IAS for the evening. After your Slinky G+ (let's say 10:30am), you start stacking for MK.
G+ Space Mountain 6:30-7:00
G+ Thunder 7:00-7:30
G+ Pirates 7:30-8:00
IAS Mine Train - whatever time is booked. Or, you standby as the last ride of the day.

Looking at this, it could be done. Your big unknown is Guardians. If you get a 2-5pm IAS, you are gold. If you are stuck with later than 5pm, you are screwed. If you don't get one, you are not riding it that day.

If you scrap Guardians, you can do AK. You would have to bite the bullet and standby FOP, unless you get really lucky at AK park opening and get an IAS return time between 2-5. You could also use one of your MK stacks for Everest, but that generally doesn't get over an hour. I would probably recommend this actually. At best, you are spending 2-2.5 hours in line for both of those rides, and leaving AK by 5ish to go to MK. FoP could have an insane line mid-march.

If you scrap Guardians, you could complete HS by 3-4 and won't be so rushed to get to MK.

This would be easier to plan if it wasn't spring break. According to Thrill Data, these were the average wait times for your "must rides" for 3/15/22:
MK - Space Mountain - 71
MK - Pirates - 50
MK - BT Mountain - 61
MK - Mine Train - 118
HS - ToT - 138
HS - RnR - 94
HS - RotR - 159
HS - Smugglers - 94
HS - Slinky - 121
HS - GotG - closed

NICE TO HAVE
AK - FoP - 128
AK - EE - closed

In closing, all I ask is that you ask yourself, is this fun? Is it worth it? Only you can answer that.
 
Hopping over to Epcot to ride GotG is a huge time sink- your use of transportation is going to have to be on point. Car? bus? Minnie van?

Don't forget that with guardians, even if you purchase the ILL, you still have to stand in line after showing up for your return time and entering the queue. Some people have been reporting up to an hour.
 
I'm going to be honest. This is a brutal itinerary, but I love the challenge. You want to do headliners at all four parks in the same day during the busiest week of spring break? Let me guess, you are not a resort guest either? You are going to have to bite the bullet and make some sacrifices and temper your expectations. Your big issues are Rise, Slinky, Guardians, and FoP. There is also an unknown as to whether Guardians will still have a virtual queue, and whether mine train will be an individual attraction selection (IAS) or if it will be Tron at that time (Tron probably won't be open then, though). I'm throwing out AK initially, because it's just too much. Let's say you book Slinky as your first LL and standby Rise at official park opening. This is what I expect your itinerary to realistically be. Any time savings or shorter lines is just gravy.

Rise - 8:30-10:30 (you will not get an IAS for this since you are not a resort guest, and you will be about an hour and a half wait right at park opening). You will need to be at the park well before early entry so that you are at the front of the regular park guest entry. They will hold you at the tapstiles until official park opening. No waiting in the park for a rope drop.
Slinky G+, smugglers, Tot, RnR (3 hours) - 10:30-1:30. Pick 2 of the 3 remaining, because avg wait times for these three on March 15, 2022 was 90-140 minutes. I'm even being generous by saying you "may" get 2 of the 3 in that day. You may get lucky by refreshing and getting a G+ for one of the three remaining during this time, and skipping a MK stack until later.

Let's say you get lucky and at 8:30am, you grab a Guardians LL for 5:00pm. Extremely lucky. This is a big unknown and can completely derail your MK time later on. You get to MK by 6:30? Again, being generous.

At 8:30, you also grab a mine train IAS for the evening. After your Slinky G+ (let's say 10:30am), you start stacking for MK.
G+ Space Mountain 6:30-7:00
G+ Thunder 7:00-7:30
G+ Pirates 7:30-8:00
IAS Mine Train - whatever time is booked. Or, you standby as the last ride of the day.

Looking at this, it could be done. Your big unknown is Guardians. If you get a 2-5pm IAS, you are gold. If you are stuck with later than 5pm, you are screwed. If you don't get one, you are not riding it that day.

If you scrap Guardians, you can do AK. You would have to bite the bullet and standby FOP, unless you get really lucky at AK park opening and get an IAS return time between 2-5. You could also use one of your MK stacks for Everest, but that generally doesn't get over an hour. I would probably recommend this actually. At best, you are spending 2-2.5 hours in line for both of those rides, and leaving AK by 5ish to go to MK. FoP could have an insane line mid-march.

If you scrap Guardians, you could complete HS by 3-4 and won't be so rushed to get to MK.

This would be easier to plan if it wasn't spring break. According to Thrill Data, these were the average wait times for your "must rides" for 3/15/22:
MK - Space Mountain - 71
MK - Pirates - 50
MK - BT Mountain - 61
MK - Mine Train - 118
HS - ToT - 138
HS - RnR - 94
HS - RotR - 159
HS - Smugglers - 94
HS - Slinky - 121
HS - GotG - closed

NICE TO HAVE
AK - FoP - 128
AK - EE - closed

In closing, all I ask is that you ask yourself, is this fun? Is it worth it? Only you can answer that.
your points are all...on point! Re-reading my OP, I'm crazy lol.
Need to really consider what's most important. We tend to get to Disney once a year so we don't have to do EVERYTHING...
 






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