which order do you do parks

[Tiggeroo]

I am going from Thurs. evening August 24th til Sun. Sept. 3. We will be doing two days at Universal and want to stay one or two nights there. I've got free dining so I need to make the dinnrer ressies. But in order to do this I want to have an idea which park I will be in on which night. What order do you do the parks. Do you base it on what parks are more likely to be crowded on what nights? I want to see every night time fireworks/parade as i've always gone in the fall when these were suspended. So any advice would be great.

 

[GeorgeG]

I guess for no other reason than it's our favorite, we always went to Epcot right after arriving, and still do, sort of. When we made advance dinner reservations we would plan around those for which parks we would go to, but would often just go where we felt like at the moment, sometimes even getting on the first bus that came along and then moving to where we had dinner reservations later in the day.

We started going to WDW 20 years ago and really structured our days for the first 8-10 years. Since then, we enjoy going with the mood and a more relaxed schedule. What we don't get to do we can always do another time.

Now that we live just over an hour away, we still just go with the mood of the moment, but still like Epcot the most. We still stay at an onsite resort for several days now and then because that was always a big part of the experience.

We have never been to WDW the time of year you are going, so I have no first-hand knowledge of crowds that time of year, but Epcot is usually the easiest for dealing with heavy crowds since there is more room to spread out. The Magic Kingdom is a more shoulder-to-shoulder experience when crowded.

I would suggest making dinner reservations at your favorite restaurants and working the parks around that. If reservations are difficult to get for the restaurants in the parks, try the resorts. The deluxe resorts have some of the best restaurants in WDW.

 

[Christine]

Tigerroo,

I plan my touring days based on the best days touring plan that I found on one of the trip planning websites. I never do early entry, so if Magic Kingdom is having early entry, I won't go there that day. That's basically how I plan my days and it seems to have worked well for me. I can't remember the website but I could probably do a little searching for it if you can't find it.

 

[Kimberly]

Always start off at the Magic Kingdom, and then it's either off to MGM, and then after that it is pretty much random. We always do Epcot last, and always have a dinner on property there... just a nice way to cap off a family vacation. Oh yes... we usually go to Islands of Adventure or Sea World the second to last day. Never can miss those two parks!

 

[wdw4us2]

We always start our vacation with MK and end it there, too. It doesn't matter which order we go to the others in between, but we do AK the least of any of the parks.

I have lost count of how many times I've been to WDW (somewhere over 300) and I've always gone to MK first. That's what happens when you spend many years going to WDW with MK being the ONLY park available!

 

[Tiggeroo]

I always do MK first too. Just because to me that's Disney. I love to see the castle, main street and believe it or not, Dumbo. But it's likely we'll be doing Universal first, since I have a great disney price and now I want to add the days on for Universal. I'm just trying to create a loose sort of schedule. I've never been there this time of year or without kids.

 

[simba928]

For us, it is MK first just because out of the four, I think that is our favorite. Then we go to MGM on the second day. The third day we usually split between AK and Epcot (the past few times, we have learned to go to AK first because if we ride Kilimanjaro first thing, there are more animals out, but before that it was which ever park was open earlier was the morning and the one later was the afternoon). The fourth day we just go back and do whatever we want. Sometimes we'll just spend the whole day in MK or other times we split between MK and MGM. I ALWAYS make sure to see Fantasmic, though.

Last trip was a band trip and I had no control over the order of the parks. We did MK on the first day and performed in the parade. Then we did Epcot and symphonic band performed. Our last day was MGM just as a fun day.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I don't do a certain park first. I base it on whether or not I want to do the extra magic hours (depends on which kids I have with me, etc), which days they are offered, etc. I map out which parks are open early and late and decide which extra hours I want to do and how many days I think I want at each park. I then try to have an open day at the end so I can return to whichever park I want to spend more time. So it varies depending on which day of the week I arrive.

 

[redshoes]

On our last trip (with free dining) we let the ADR make the decision about what order we did the parks. We started at MGM because we got in late from our flight and it had extra magic hours and was still opened. Our first full day was spent at MK, for my boys that is what they think of when they think of DisneyWorld. For the rest of the trip, we just worked around where we were going to be dining that day and that determined which park we visited. I need to stay off of these threads, it makes me green with jealously.
Have a wonderful trip full of .

 

[ScoJo15]

We do AK on Monday, MGM on Tuesday, Epcot on Wednesday, MK on Thursday and then favorite park/rides on Friday....

Seems like you do the most walking at AK and Epcot so we try to space them out with an easy park in between (MGM). For the AK day, since the park is closed at 5pm, we'll go to either Epcot for dinner or go see Wishes in MK.