Would anyone ever chose to go to DTD over AK when short on time?

[andyman8]

I look at DTD as a great place to go on arrival night. We usually get to Orlando at 5 or 6pm (we live 2 and a half hours away), so it wouldn't be feasible to buy another park day (we stick to one of the four parks/day).

My wife loves shopping, but I do not. Oddly, she has no real appeal to the stores at DTD. I do enjoy the World of Disney Store and Ridemakerz. My son also likes Ridemakerz. My daughter likes LittleMissMatched. Dining, though, is great. We love T-Rex, Rainforest Cafe, Cap'n Jacks , and Paradiso 37. Plus, although quite expensive, the Cirque du Soliel Show is amazing.

 

[rafiki14]

AK is my favorite park. So no, I would never skip it for DTD.

 

[Moms]

I look at DTD as a great place to go on arrival night. We usually get to Orlando at 5 or 6pm (we live 2 and a half hours away), so it wouldn't be feasible to buy another park day (we stick to one of the four parks/day).

My wife loves shopping, but I do not. Oddly, she has no real appeal to the stores at DTD. I do enjoy the World of Disney Store and Ridemakerz. My son also likes Ridemakerz. My daughter likes LittleMissMatched. Dining, though, is great. We love T-Rex, Rainforest Cafe, Cap'n Jacks , and Paradiso 37. Plus, although quite expensive, the Cirque du Soliel Show is amazing.

DTD was always our arrival night destination too! It put us in the "Disney mood" and we could do the "just a little something for ..." shopping the first night so we could relax and enjoy the rest of the trip. We like AK but that will be the park we will skip if we have limited time ... it is the largest and hardest to navigate (for us!) and it has little in the way of indoor venues for heat of the day relief ... and of course a place to wait out the afternoon showers! We skipped it on our last trip in 2010 but will likely do at least 1/2 a day there on our trip this June!

 

[DisneyMomma81]

That is what we are doing on our trip in June. We are only there for four days and we are going for my friends wedding. So on top of only going for 4 days we have wedding events 3 out of the 4 days which is eating up our time. We really like to do our shopping at DTD instead of the parks so skipping AK this trip just makes sense. I like AK but being short on time it is the thing we decided to skip so we could still do DTD.

When I first opened this thread I thought of your thread, I'm fairly certain that's why this thread was started.

I'd go to AK *love EE* over Dowtown D any visit.

 

[Childs1stTime2Disney]

When I first opened this thread I thought of your thread, I'm fairly certain that's why this thread was started.

I'd go to AK *love EE* over Dowtown D any visit.

Funny you say that. I wrote to the OP on her thread...saying I would never skip a park for DTD. However, as the days are going by and the trip is coming soon, the more I think about, I just don't know if AK is worth our time. Something about it just doesn't appeal much to me and I have to say I don't really think my DD will prefer it over anything, even DTD.

She thinks dinosaurs and the Lion King are for boys (funny how young this starts). She prefers shopping and eating a cool restaurant and she does love rides, which there isn't much for her at AK (under 40inches). I don't think she will have the patience for the shows and I don't know if the one show, Nemo, would appeal to her much (She doesn't even know the characters, never saw it). So the more I think about it, I was thinking maybe going to DTD and the Rainforest there might be better worth our time, on our last day....but we would def finish Epcot and MK, and maybe even go back to those instead of DTD. But AK...the more I think about it, the less I see it in our plans (esp since we only have 6 days this trip). If I had 10 days, I would see it fitting...but 6, I think the time may be better suited elsewhere (even the pool, going back to the other parks, DTD, etc).

Only time will tell how things pan out based on the the crowd level (supposed be lower).

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

Nope, we have done several trips and skipped DTD completely and didn't miss anything.

 

[rafiki14]

Animal Kingdom is so underrated.

EE alone is a great reason to go. But my goodness its a gorgeous park. In terms of animals, the experience is far better than any "zoo" could dream of giving you. And the shows are fantastic. The Festival of the Lion King could be argued as the best show in all of WDW.

I just don't get why people skip AK

 

[cluvsdisney]

Yes, we usually go to DTD at least once a trip to hit up Earl of Sandwich and walk around a bit. We may or may not go to AK - I think the last time we were in AK was at least 4 or 5 trips ago.

 

[disneydiva1313]

I think it's basically a personal choice...so with that said, I would choose DTD over AK any day.

 

[ssleblanc]

The day I go to AK is usually the evening I go to DTD.

I will go to AK during the day and usually I'm done with AK by 4pm so I take a break at the resort, clean up and then go to DTD for the evening.

Some trips I skip DTD and choose to spend the evening at another park or just hanging out at the resort.

I just worked out my which park/which day plan in a spreadsheet today, and this is exactly what I'm doing. AK, starting with Tusker House for breakfast, stay in AK until around 4, then back to the resort (a bit later than I'm planning for our nap/rest on other days), then the boat from our resort to DTD for dinner and some shopping.