Which parks with 5 1/2 days to spend?

[starjazz]

Hey all - so, we have a big group heading to Disney World in early Feb 2020. We have 6 day tix. One of those we plan to do a half day with a half day of rest, so really planning 5.5 days in parks.

That'll give us all four parks, plus 1.5 days extra. Now, our kids are ages 9-11, but the lucky little punks have been to Disney 5 times already, so they know the ropes, although they definitely forget a lot about the early trips!. We're wondering how to plan on spending that extra day and a half. I kinda wanna keep the half day open so that we can decide on the fly, but that extra full day is the question. In the past it woulda been no brainer MK, but as the kids are getting older, maybe another park is better for a second day? How long do y'all think HS will take with Star Wars being there? Still doesn't seem like its enough to make that park a 2-day park, does it? Epcot may be the most obvious answer here, but eventually I may come back around to two days at MK.

To make it trickier, half of the group doesn't want to do Epcot at all, so that half really has 2.5 days to fill. What then? 2 MK, 2 HS, 1 AK? 3 MK, 1 AK, 1 HS? Juggling a group of 10 gets tougher as the kids get older, that's for sure. But we sure enjoy going with my Sister's fam and our parents!

Thanks all!

 

[serenitynow]

Where are you staying? Maybe a pool day?

 

[mkla2015]

I think it really just depends on your family and what they want to do. I would ask for some input from the kids if you are having trouble deciding. We've gone as a group of 12 lots of times and it does get tricky at times- what we've decided is that if certain people want to go to a certain park and others want to go somewhere else, then we break up for a few hours. Same with dining- its fun to vacation together but we don't have to be at the same place at all times.

For my family, if we were doing 5.5 park days, I would plan for 2.5 MK, 1 EP, 1 HS, 1 AK. But, we LOVE MK.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

I agree with MKLA2015, it really depends on what the groups want to do and how they like to park tour. We do 4 or 5 days and usually allocate our breaks to just midday park day breaks. Only on a longer trip will we take a full break from the parks since I feel like we get more done early mornings and later in the day. But that's what we like.

We like all the parks but we do prioritize. For us, we would probably do MK on the first day and the last day and sandwich the other parks in between since MK is our favorite. But you may have other priorities. For rest days/times we like to swim (may be too chilly in February), shop at disney springs, nap, eat at the resorts, do some resort tours. Nothing too crazy.

 

[starjazz]

Where are you staying? Maybe a pool day?

We're staying at Pop. We'd love a pool day, or at least half day, but the big pool will be closed and its Feb. Anything is possible, as there's two more pools there, but we're not counting on it being a full day if any at all. Thank you!

 

[delgrec]

Because of the new tier structure at DHS, I would vote for DHS as your full day.

 

[Akck]

What I did was to base the extra day on fast passes. For instance, I wasn’t able to get SDD on our HS day, but got it on our extra day. If we end up riding it standby, we’ll likely cancel the FP and decide there which park to repeat.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

If the group is interested in Galaxy's Edge and thrill rides I would say at least an extra half day and possibly full at Hollywood Studios. I would then use whatever is leftover in MK as the park is so big that it's hard to do everything in 1 day.

 

[Jenn1976]

We are in the same type of situation with my sone being 9 and our trip planned for February. We have decided to spend our extra day at DHS due to the toy story land and Star Wars land.

 

[Sjm9911]

What I did was to base the extra day on fast passes. For instance, I wasn’t able to get SDD on our HS day, but got it on our extra day. If we end up riding it standby, we’ll likely cancel the FP and decide there which park to repeat.

I did the same, so an extra half day at HS just so we could get the SDD. I would use the other day at MK. Even if you just half day it there, there are some bigger rides for the kids. Epcot, when i was little only had like 2 rides. The kida might get board. At least if at MK you can get a few FPs in and then take a break if needed( half pool day?) Or just nap and stay up late for the fireworks.

 

[disneycountrygirl]

6 days is the standard for our trips, and we always go in a large group too. We always do the same thing because it has proven to work so well. The first 4 days we schedule 1 park per day. We tour the whole day without stops back at the hotel. On your Epcot day, half the group would have to figure it out on their own since they won't be with you. I'd try to schedule that day last for that reason...…..because our last 2 days we introduce "swing day" options involving park hopping. For the non-Epcot group, they'd just have one extra "swing day". On swing days, we plan minimal FPs and ADRs, knowing we can abandon them if we want. This year we are doing it in this order: HS, MK, AK, Ep. Swing day 1: whatever park we feel like in the morning, Ohana dinner ADR, MK fireworks. Swing day 2: AK (only b/c we have a FoP FP then) or if we want to forgo it and do another park we will, but we will close the day at MK since we have a late lunch at CRT. Since the park closes early that night, we may finish off at HS depending on how much we enjoyed it or go to Disney Springs then. I love the mix of hard, fast plans and freedom.

 

[Wild4Walt]

For our family we'd probably do either 2 days at MK or 1 day MK and a pool or mini golf day. My husband is a big MK fan so he likes the 2 days so we can take our time and not run from ride to ride. I like a mini golf day because I can sleep in some and get a slower start.