Picking Days of Week

[friendoffigment]

Now that specific touring calendars are a thing of the past because Disney is always crowded, such as tourguide mike, Josh's easywdw how do you pick the days you will go to a specific park. anyone have a formula.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I put HS and AK near the end of the trip for Slinky and FoP FP.

MK first and last days.

 

[tnolan]

We go most often for a week when we go, and day of arrival is an abbreviated visit to MK, then next day is Epcot, then a day for a trip to DS, then second day for Epcot, a full day to MK, then HS, and we finish up with AK.

 

[need2travel]

The only park we rope drop at is MK so we do that on our first full day. We figure we were up at 3:00AM the day before to get to the airport so getting up at 5:30-6:00 to make it MK feels like sleeping in.

 

[mom2rtk]

I put HS and AK near the end of the trip for Slinky and FoP FP.

MK first and last days.

That’s funny. That’s almost exactly how I planned our upcoming trip.

 

[Malestrom Troll]

We tend to plan our park days around what ADRs we want to do.

 

[kiford]

I still use Touring Plans calendar and find it relatively accurate. It helps to distinguish between a very crowded park and a less crowded one.

 

[Klayfish]

Yes, pick the park you want to go to on the day you want to go. It's really that simple. There is no magic formula or no secret.

 

[Disneylover99]

I tend to avoid the parks with extra magic hours, though I might hop to one of those parks later in the day.

 

[DisLiss]

We start with any special events we're booking. For example, our next trip will have a Halloween Party on a Tuesday night. We know that we'll be tired the next morning, so the next day we'll personally schedule a water park, since they are very laid back and they open later. Now, if we were not planning on hitting the water parks, then we would go with whichever park we felt most laid back about, or perhaps Disney Springs or a resort day/morning.

We will probably schedule the day before the party to be at a park that closes the earliest for the same basic reason---to get us some extra sleep before a busy day at MK.

We schedule our first and last days based on what our family wants to see first and do last---total personal preference, no care in the world about crowds. For us, we'll hit MK when we first arrive to do the things that don't require FPs or long waits....low crowd attractions, Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom, that Pirate thing with the maps that I forget the name of, Tom Sawyer's Island, poking around Main Street, etc. Then we'll head over to Epcot in the evening, because DH needs his Epcot on the first day no matter what.

And the rest we'll fill in based on what's left. We like to split AK in half. That way you get to check out the early morning hours and the evening hours, since the animals tend to be more visible then, and we actually do like the animal portion of AK, LOL! And any free evening we like to go back to Epcot.

So basically that just leaves HS as a full day to schedule in somewhere, and some daytime hours at Epcot. We always get hoppers, so we never have to choose one day to be just one thing, although we will do that with MK on the party night. It will be MK all very long day.

Our departure day is always Disney Springs, and the night before that we will definitely be in Epcot, so that can't be our HS day.

We basically write down how we want to visit the parks in terms of chunks of time and start shuffling until it seems right. But we're flexible, so things can change when we actually get started on the trip, LOL!

 

[Afabena]

I looked at the calendar for the same week the previous year to get an idea of park hours then I hoped for the best and went from there. We are staying 6 nights with our travel day a resort day. I tried to schedule it so that we would have a morning and an evening in each park. So with 5 day hoppers my schedule is MK/EP, HS/AK, EP/MK, AK/HS, MK/(night is undecided). The MK and Epcot days we are planning to go back for a swim - not sure that we will do that when we hop from the other two.

Have fun planning!

 

[Afabena]

Also if you want a SDMT FP you should also try to schedule MK towards the end. On my first MK day we have a BOG PPO and planning to do SDMT after breakfast, then head to Peter Pan. On our last day we have a SDMT FP, so we’ll hopefully get to ride it twice.

 

[GBBTomorrow]

I do three things when I plan days:

1. I rely on touringplans.com, which doesn't typically steer me wrong.
2. If I park had PM EMH, I go there the next morning.
3. Never go to MK on a Monday.

 

[parasail_of_congress]

I tend to avoid the parks with extra magic hours, though I might hop to one of those parks later in the day.

From what I can tell, this seems true only when the hours are at night. I guess people don't like to get out of bed, but the early morning crowds seem the lightest.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Its always crowded, yes. But there are still WAAAY less crowded times than others. So we always chose to travel at times such as those and Touringplans does an excellent job predicting those crowds. Our daughter is out of school Presidents day week and April 5-11th and we'd love top spends that time at Disney, but we know better so we dont.

 

[monkyby87]

In general, I just decide on which park I want to go to on a specific day, just based upon how I feel, not according to a calendar or anything. From there I see what FP+ I can get. If there's a ride I really want that isn't available, I might then see if I can switch days around. FP+ and ride availability is really the only thing I really use to help me determine. Otherwise, it's just what I feel like it. Regardless of what crowd calendars or predictions say, I've always had successful trips this way.

 

[OhMari]

I do three things when I plan days:

1. I rely on touringplans.com, which doesn't typically steer me wrong.
2. If I park had PM EMH, I go there the next morning.
3. Never go to MK on a Monday.

Why do you way do not go to the MK on a Monday? On Tuesday, they have EMH that you have to pay for. Is Disney getting smart to their off crowded days?

 

[GBBTomorrow]

Why do you way do not go to the MK on a Monday? On Tuesday, they have EMH that you have to pay for. Is Disney getting smart to their off crowded days?

I don't go to MK on Monday because so many people tend to go there because it's the first day of the week and they sort of see it as going "in order." It just always tends to be a little zoo-like, with a too-hyper vibe, on Mondays.

 

[OhMari]

I don't go to MK on Monday because so many people tend to go there because it's the first day of the week and they sort of see it as going "in order." It just always tends to be a little zoo-like, with a too-hyper vibe, on Mondays.

OK. It used to be just me and my husband, but now I have 4 grandchildren, and we are planning way differently now. I was going to go on Tuesday, but I saw they have the EMH where you pay the extra money and I thought that is going to make the park extra busy.

 

[GoofyDad_4427]

I don't go to MK on Monday because so many people tend to go there because it's the first day of the week and they sort of see it as going "in order." It just always tends to be a little zoo-like, with a too-hyper vibe, on Mondays.

I actually completely disagree with this. We avoid MK on Saturday (more locals and always the most crowded day of the week at MK) and Sunday (most Americans vacation Saturday-Saturday, so Sunday is their first park day). We find Monday to be a great day to go there.