What would you do next time?

[mshanson3121]

So, kids will be 10 & 7, various special needs (sensory issues, ASD, bowel disorder etc) who do not like coasters (with the exception of Splash), thrill rides, dark/scary rides etc... We'll be traveling during summer, so between heat, crowds and needs, we'll likely be a max of 5-6 hours in park max per day. We're not going till next summer, but I'm trying to figure out how many days we would want per park, whether we should get park hoppers, water parks etc... so I can get a potential budget going, and I'm going to try and buy a ticket every few months as we can save up for them. The kids really want to do a water park this time, as well as Lego Land, but budget is tight so they may have to pick one or the other (my guess is they'll pick Lego Land).

So, for what we would want to do in each park:

HS: anything and everything Star Wars (launch bay, M&G, fireworks, JTA, Star Tours, Galaxy Far Far Away), Muppets 3D, Beauty & Beast, Frozen Sing a Long, TSMM, Disney Jr (maybe), Fantasmic (maybe, already did it once), meet Mike & Sully, Olaf. Will we want/need two days?

EP: I honestly really don't care if we go back. And I'm sure the kids wouldn't either. But, if we were to go, they would enjoy Frozen Ever After, Gran Fiesta Tour, Figment, Soarin, Nemo, Living with the Land. Is it worth using a day's entrance for this?

AK: This is my son's favorite park, and there's (hopefully) a good chance Pandora will be open by the time we go back. So, we'll want to do the trails, Wilderness Explorers, Safari (probably day and night), ROL, walk through Pandora (definitely do the boat ride), Kali, evening dance parties, Lion King, Flights of Wonder, Nemo, meet Baloo & Louie and Tarzan . I'm guessing we'll want two days here?

MK: Barnstormer, Buzz Lightyear, Dumbo, Haunted Mansion (despite earlier warnings on scary, they REALLY want to do this), Jungle Cruise, Riverboat, Mad Tea Party, Magic Carpets, Pooh, Monsters Inc, Peter Pan, POC, Pirates Adventure, Pirates League, Pirate Tutorial, Spash, Swiss Family Robinson Tree House, TSI, Speedway, Festival of Fantasy, Wishes, meet Buzz, Merida, Peter Pan, Tigger & Friends, Move It Shake It Dance Party. Definitely two days here I'm assuming.


So what would you recommend?

 

[rteetz]

So, kids will be 10 & 7, various special needs (sensory issues, ASD, bowel disorder etc) who do not like coasters (with the exception of Splash), thrill rides, dark/scary rides etc... We'll be traveling during summer, so between heat, crowds and needs, we'll likely be a max of 5-6 hours in park max per day. We're not going till next summer, but I'm trying to figure out how many days we would want per park, whether we should get park hoppers, water parks etc... so I can get a potential budget going, and I'm going to try and buy a ticket every few months as we can save up for them. The kids really want to do a water park this time, as well as Lego Land, but budget is tight so they may have to pick one or the other (my guess is they'll pick Lego Land).

So, for what we would want to do in each park:

HS: anything and everything Star Wars (launch bay, M&G, fireworks, JTA, Star Tours, Galaxy Far Far Away), Muppets 3D, Beauty & Beast, Frozen Sing a Long, TSMM, Disney Jr (maybe), Fantasmic (maybe, already did it once), meet Mike & Sully, Olaf. Will we want/need two days?

EP: I honestly really don't care if we go back. And I'm sure the kids wouldn't either. But, if we were to go, they would enjoy Frozen Ever After, Gran Fiesta Tour, Figment, Soarin, Nemo, Living with the Land. Is it worth using a day's entrance for this?

AK: This is my son's favorite park, and there's (hopefully) a good chance Pandora will be open by the time we go back. So, we'll want to do the trails, Wilderness Explorers, Safari (probably day and night), ROL, walk through Pandora (definitely do the boat ride), Kali, evening dance parties, Lion King, Flights of Wonder, Nemo, meet Baloo & Louie and Tarzan . I'm guessing we'll want two days here?

MK: Barnstormer, Buzz Lightyear, Dumbo, Haunted Mansion (despite earlier warnings on scary, they REALLY want to do this), Jungle Cruise, Riverboat, Mad Tea Party, Magic Carpets, Pooh, Monsters Inc, Peter Pan, POC, Pirates Adventure, Pirates League, Pirate Tutorial, Spash, Swiss Family Robinson Tree House, TSI, Speedway, Festival of Fantasy, Wishes, meet Buzz, Merida, Peter Pan, Tigger & Friends, Move It Shake It Dance Party. Definitely two days here I'm assuming.


So what would you recommend?

I recommend a hopper. It's been a while since I've done a water park. If you have limited vacation time I'm not huge on doing a water park. MK is always at least two days. AK at least one day. I think DHS is do-able in one day. What you could do is on that second DHS day hop to Epcot for a few hours to do a couple things.

 

[momof2n2]

How long can you be in FL for?

 

[BlueFairy]

With that heat and various issues limiting your park time, I'll be the one to say skip the hopper. Do early entry and quit after lunch or sleep in and head to the parks at parade time. Don't waste time hopping unless the break on the bus will help your family.

For Epcot and HS - we are slow at touring. The shows also slow us down. I think you should devote a day to each, even if you are not trying to do the whole park. It will give you the freedom to take it slow and get out of crowds and heat as needed without feeling pressure to cram it in.

My girls are 7 and 10. We just returned and our HS day was 8 hours. We did JTA (sign up and show), ST, shopping, snack, JOTLM, Frozen, Launch Bay x 2, watched Streetmosphere, QS dinner and fireworks.

We did a 8-9 hour Epcot day that was characters, 2 WS countries with snacks and shopping and Canada movie, play break, Imagination, Seas, Turtle Talk, TT and QS dinner.

I agree on 2 days for AK. You seem like you want to soak in all the details and really explore. We didn't have enough time for that with just 1 day.

 

[pa. dad]

ONE day at the studios is plenty.
Epcot- they may like Test Trak as it's just fast with no hills or dips? I would think that Mission space also? There is an orange version and a green (stronger) version.
if you are going to do a park more than one day, seems like the MK is your best bet though. Haunted mansion is not scary really. It's more of a dark humor than a fear fest. And I doubt you'll hear other guests screaming for their lives on it. I think when kids see a lot of other kids their age in line for a ride, they're more likely to be comfortable with it.

And if you are budgeting for next summer, you will have to budget for the next price increase that will arrive BEFORE then. They NEVER go 15 or 16 months without a price hike. 3 to 5% should be safe.

 

[lovethattink]

Legoland has a water park.

 

[dachsie]

You might consider doing the Disney Vacation account: https://disneyvacationaccount.disney.go.com/?int_cmp=INS-intWDWtoDVA-DisneyVacaAccount/

Instead of buying the tickets one at a time, put the money in the account and then when the packages are out, book the trip and you might get more for your money in the long run.

So many things are closing or closed and HS, you will be able to do that in a day or less. THey do have the kidcot stations at Epcot that your kids might enjoy at their ages. My niece and nephew went around the worlds collecting pressed pennies. LOL
Definitely try MK in 2 days.

 

[mshanson3121]

How long can you be in FL for?

It depends on if we fly or drive. If we fly we'll have to stay a couple nights less to off-set the extra cost. But, we'll probably have 10 full days in Florida, but we want/need at least 3 rest days. We learned the hard way last time, not to do more than 2 or 3 park days in a row.

 

[mshanson3121]

With that heat and various issues limiting your park time, I'll be the one to say skip the hopper. Do early entry and quit after lunch or sleep in and head to the parks at parade time. Don't waste time hopping unless the break on the bus will help your family.

For Epcot and HS - we are slow at touring. The shows also slow us down. I think you should devote a day to each, even if you are not trying to do the whole park. It will give you the freedom to take it slow and get out of crowds and heat as needed without feeling pressure to cram it in.

My girls are 7 and 10. We just returned and our HS day was 8 hours. We did JTA (sign up and show), ST, shopping, snack, JOTLM, Frozen, Launch Bay x 2, watched Streetmosphere, QS dinner and fireworks.

We did a 8-9 hour Epcot day that was characters, 2 WS countries with snacks and shopping and Canada movie, play break, Imagination, Seas, Turtle Talk, TT and QS dinner.

I agree on 2 days for AK. You seem like you want to soak in all the details and really explore. We didn't have enough time for that with just 1 day.

Yes, we did a FULL day at HS last time (save for a 3 hour afternoon break), and still didn't see/do all that we wanted to, easily could have gone back for more. That's why I'm wondering if we'd need more than one day there. We're not "rush" from thing to thing people. We are more, take our time, see what we want to see, whatever strikes our fancy people.

 

[mshanson3121]

ONE day at the studios is plenty.
Epcot- they may like Test Trak as it's just fast with no hills or dips? I would think that Mission space also? There is an orange version and a green (stronger) version.
if you are going to do a park more than one day, seems like the MK is your best bet though. Haunted mansion is not scary really. It's more of a dark humor than a fear fest. And I doubt you'll hear other guests screaming for their lives on it. I think when kids see a lot of other kids their age in line for a ride, they're more likely to be comfortable with it.

And if you are budgeting for next summer, you will have to budget for the next price increase that will arrive BEFORE then. They NEVER go 15 or 16 months without a price hike. 3 to 5% should be safe.

That's why I want to figure this out now, because I plan on trying to buy tickets this year, before next year's price increase.
They absolutely HATED Test Track, came off it absolutely sobbing, so that will definitely be a no go. I think my son would probably enjoy Mission Space, but DH gets sick easily on rides and I'm claustrophobic, lol, so not sure if that will work or not.

 

[mshanson3121]

Legoland has a water park.

I wondered about that! But, would it be too much to try and do Legoland and their water park in one day? The house we rent has a private 24' pool, so... it's not like we won't be enjoying lots of water time, DH honestly thinks the water park is a waste of money when we've got a private pool, lol.

 

[lovethattink]

My son doesn't do thrill rides either. But he is big on doing what he likes over and over. We spend hours at Launch Bay each time we go to DHS. We go to one or two singalong shows each time.

We went to Epcot yesterday and after a couple hours he was ready to go home. We only did Living with the Land, the new Pixar Shorts and got a dole whip.

A pool is good enough for him if he doesn't know water slides were an option.

 

[BlueFairy]

So this is 10 full days in FL -

Travel day?
2 days WDW
rest day
2 days WDW
rest day
Legoland
rest day
2 days WDW
travel day?

The HS day I outlined above had a 3 hour break. You will be adding the new SW show, Phasma, new fireworks and Olaf (expect lines). I think you need the whole day.

You can't do EMH if you are off site. Another reason to avoid EMH parks, don't hop, and quit when you get tired.

You could put the water park in on one of your rest days if you get closer and find you have the money. I'm not aware of a reason you have to plan those in advance. Is it cheaper to buy the WP&M option than 1 day at a water park? I think you could bridge a ticket after you use the 1st day in the parks and upgrade to WP&M at Guest Services if you wanted. There are some ticket experts around here and the FP board that could say for sure.

Also, ST is pretty intense and thrilling. If they are not fans of TT, proceed with caution (and also on MS, either version).

 

[glassslippergirl]

I wondered about that! But, would it be too much to try and do Legoland and their water park in one day? The house we rent has a private 24' pool, so... it's not like we won't be enjoying lots of water time, DH honestly thinks the water park is a waste of money when we've got a private pool, lol.

At the pace that you're talking about going, I'd recommend two days at Legoland. First, it's about on hour's drive from Orlando, so tack two hours on to your park day for travel time. Legoland has many slower rides to appeal to your crew. There's also Mindstorm classes to sign up for-- really cool (sign up early). Throughout the park, there's plenty if kid-friendly diversions like play areas with giant Lego bricks that we can't pull our son away from (he has a few sensory issues, too). Finally, the water park is worth the time and only costs a few dollars more to upgrade one day's ticket. It's slow-paced, too with a lazy river, wave pool, and kids' play area that's kind of a create-your-own experience that gets slightly more daring the higher you go, but never hits high intensity like the slides at WDW water parks-- far more awesome than the pool at your condo. Based on what you've told us, take the money you'd spend on WDW water parks and park hoppers and invest in two days at Legoland.

 

[mshanson3121]

So this is 10 full days in FL -

Travel day?
2 days WDW
rest day
2 days WDW
rest day
Legoland
rest day
2 days WDW
travel day?

The HS day I outlined above had a 3 hour break. You will be adding the new SW show, Phasma, new fireworks and Olaf (expect lines). I think you need the whole day.

You can't do EMH if you are off site. Another reason to avoid EMH parks, don't hop, and quit when you get tired.

You could put the water park in on one of your rest days if you get closer and find you have the money. I'm not aware of a reason you have to plan those in advance. Is it cheaper to buy the WP&M option than 1 day at a water park? I think you could bridge a ticket after you use the 1st day in the parks and upgrade to WP&M at Guest Services if you wanted. There are some ticket experts around here and the FP board that could say for sure.

Also, ST is pretty intense and thrilling. If they are not fans of TT, proceed with caution (and also on MS, either version).

That's kind of the schedule we were thinking. Adding the Water Park option works out to about the same as buying a one day ticket. We can add it once we get there, as we did that last time (and then ended up unable to use it, blah).

At the pace that you're talking about going, I'd recommend two days at Legoland. First, it's about on hour's drive from Orlando, so tack two hours on to your park day for travel time. Legoland has many slower rides to appeal to your crew. There's also Mindstorm classes to sign up for-- really cool (sign up early). Throughout the park, there's plenty if kid-friendly diversions like play areas with giant Lego bricks that we can't pull our son away from (he has a few sensory issues, too). Finally, the water park is worth the time and only costs a few dollars more to upgrade one day's ticket. It's slow-paced, too with a lazy river, wave pool, and kids' play area that's kind of a create-your-own experience that gets slightly more daring the higher you go, but never hits high intensity like the slides at WDW water parks-- far more awesome than the pool at your condo. Based on what you've told us, take the money you'd spend on WDW water parks and park hoppers and invest in two days at Legoland.

I never thought of two days there. We're hoping to get the "kids free" entry from the Lego Magazine in the fall, I don't know if that includes the water park or not? I'd almost be tempted to stay the night in a hotel down there, if we were going to have to spend 2 hours driving there/back two days in a row. I guess in the end, all of this will boil down to budget. I'd be just as content to skip LL, but the kids really, really want to go.

Haha, if I had my way, and unlimited budget, we'd do a week of Disney, both water parks, a couple days at Legoland and a day at Discovery Cove, lol.