What would you do? 1 park a day or 2?

[Stephanie Isaacson]

We are going Nov 27th-December 1st. We have park hoppers (needed for free dining). We are a family of 7. It will be myself, my husband, my almost 7 year old son, my 4 year old son, a 5 month old girl, and my parents (both older, but in good condition, and can walk around just fine).

I have used TP to map out mornings and pretty much all mornings until about noon seem like most rides can be done walk up with little waiting time. I would hate to waste my FP on something with a 15 minute wait. So, here is my dilemma.

So, here are my choices:

DAY 1: Animal Kingdom until 1ish, eat at Sanaa, then an adult go home to rest with baby, and everybody else go back to AK and use FP for rides they want to do again.
OR
Do AK until 1ish, eat at Sanaa, go back and rest (cabins) and possibly swim, then use FP to go to another park (probably HS.)


Day 2: MK for the morning, quick lunch, go back to cabins to rest, go to Epcot (make FP to Epcot) for later day (4 or so) and dinner.
OR
MK all day, only baby goes home with an adult to rest, everybody else does TS dinner at MK and then go back and do the rest of the day at MK

Day 3: MK again in morning, and then HS or Epcot in evening (with dinner at one of the parks).
OR
???? not sure.

So...full day at MK for one day or break up into mutiple parks and use FP for afternoon parks.

I feel I am making this way too complicated.

 

[BrianL]

Have you considered the nighttime entertainment in each park? If you do 2 MK mornings and hop to other parks, then you have no shot at seeing the Main Street Electrical Parade/Celebrate the Magic/Wishes. Epcot has illuminations and HS has both Fantasmic! and Star Wars fireworks. Animal Kingdom is also adding nighttime options as well.

I would pick which of these you would like to see most, and make sure you are there in the evening. MK is almost certainly a full day park, though you could break it up into one morning and one evening (though hopping eats away time so you might just keep that as one day).

 

[dreiwhit]

For us, we don't get park hoppers. We take one park per day. We will spend two full days at one park though.

For a park like AK or DHS, we will have a sleep in day and arrive around 10am.

 

[richmo]

Remember with a large group trying to do most things together, you're limited by the slowest person. I don't necessarily mean physically slowest, but latest up and ready to go in the morning, etc. As much as I like park hopping, I think it will be hard for your group to deal with two parks a day. You've got three kids that are likely to hit the wall at different (unpredictable) times. I'd plan for flexibility as much as you can, and you do have some of that built into your plans. I just think dealing with one park will be easier.

 

[GillianP1301]

With 3 days, I would probably do Day 1 split between AK/HS (with the timing you have noted), Day 2 full day at MK and Day 3 start at EP and do the full day there, then hop to MK for the evening.

 

[dreiwhit]

Remember with a large group trying to do most things together, you're limited by the slowest person. I don't necessarily mean physically slowest, but latest up and ready to go in the morning, etc.

We've run into this frequently in the past while vacation with different groups of family members. It got old very quickly waiting around for an hour or two, or having to change our plans to wait on someone.

It may sound harsh, but what we do is we leave them. If my family is ready to go wherever and do whatever, you're welcome to come along. If not, we'll meet up with you sometime later. Its our vacation too.

 

[StirlingSilver83]

We use to have park hoppers and also we would do 2 different parks when our trips were shorter and we were staying off property. It seemed like the best way to get the most out of our vacation. Now we stay on site and are there for at least a week. I find that park hoppers are really useless because it takes so long to park hop over the the other park, specially if you are throwing a sit down meal into the mix of things. Now with animal kingdoms new night time things I would hate to miss them. I think you are better off staying at 1 park and doing everything in that park than having to rush around to different parks to experience some of the other parks things. Anyways just my view on things...I was considering possibly getting park hoppers for our next trip, but the only day I would more than likely use it would be for HS/AK, and I can't justify the cost of only using it for 1 day, lol

 

[Miss Frankie J]

Usually I do one park per day. However I cannot spend a full day in MK anymore. it is too crowded, hot, and sometimes frustrating. Last year I did two half days and we loved doing that. one night and one morning.

But if MK is your favorite among the group I would do a full day. you dont want to worry about getting your favorites in before hopping.

 

[Disney Mom 7272]

For our family, we do 1 park per day. I think too much time is spent on transportation to the other park and then you miss out on stuff. This has always worked for us. We do 2 days at Magic, 2 at Hollywood, 1 at Epcot and 1 at Animal!

 

[dreiwhit]

I think too much time is spent on transportation to the other park and then you miss out on stuff.

I agree 100%. On one of the days when we went to MK last March, the monorails weren't running, so everyone had to take the ferry. From the time we parked until the time we got through the ticket scanners took 1 hour and 15 minutes. On a busy day, you can lose a lot of time getting out of the parks, getting to the parks and getting into the parks.

 

[Eandbmom]

It really depends on your family, we hop every day. We spend a morning in one park, get put of the heat for a bit and then go to another park (we like eating in Epcot so most evenings are there).

 

[Stephanie Isaacson]

These are all good points! We will have out own car, so we will probably drive most days because we are way out in the Cabins. Not sure if that is best or not though. I am so indecisive. I need to make a plan and stick to it. My ADR 180 days is May 31st, so by them I pretty much need to make my decision. Lol. Thanks for all the help!