Your Strategy for the Parks

[sugermouse]

We are trying to figure out our strategy for hitting the parks. We have heard a ton of people talking about how they go to the park in the morning, go back to the hotel in the afternoon and hit the park in the evening again.

What do you do for a strategy?

THANK YOU!

 

[The Phantom Blot]

Me and my family don't normally take a brake in the day. We get up early and go to the parks, unless we have breakfast somewhere else first. Then we eat lunch in the parks. Then we'll go to dinner, wherever it is, and normally finish the day by doing the really late extra magic hours at one of the parks. We go full force the whole day. Caffeine plays a big part.

 

[buzz2400]

We just returned from June/July vacation. We always get to the park when it first opens. We also did the park that did not have an early morning or extra evening hours. We also had park hopping so we hit a park, left in the afternoon for a swim and then went to another park at night. And use the fast passes.

 

[joanjett1976]

another touring warrior here!

we usually have a quick breakfast at the resort, arrive in the park shortly after rope drope, tour the entire day. break for a nice sit-down dinner in said park or adjoining resort. complete touring. sleep like babies. repeat!

 

[swilphil]

If you don't want to wait in line for popular rides, get to the parks when they first open and do morning EMH at MK. Whether you leave in the afternoon, depends on several factors: if you have young kids, what the weather's like, the size of the crowds and how late the parks are open. If you are going this time of year, taking an afternoon break helps because of the heat and crowds. Afternoon is also a great time to take a dip in the pool. The parks are open late and it is so much cooler in the evening.

 

[MommytoMJM]

We parkhop, are at them from open to close (usually) and (unless we are with others for a meet) follow the MJ touring plan (she points, we go)

Of course, we don't stay in a resort since we live soooo close and we go everyweekend, so if we don't hit something one weekend we can get it another weekend....so our plan won't help most people.

 

[klwdisney]

It's just me & DH (32 & 33) - no kids. And we tend to travel in the Fall when it's not as busy.

We wake up around 8... quick food court breakfast and are in the park by 10 am at the latest. Sit down lunch in the park and back to the hotel by 4-5:00. I nap, DH makes new friends at the pool bar. Mickey wake-up call for 45 mins later... I shower and change and head to the food court for a quick supper - grabbing DH on the way so he can head back to the room to shower/change. Then we eat in the room quick and head back out to either fireworks, or shopping, and then end up at Pleasure Island. I NEED that nap!! haha

If a park is super busy, we'll leave and go to another. If there are lines we use FastPass. If the FP time is too late, then we skip the ride and come back later in the week. I would go crazy trying to follow an itinerary, and getting up at 6 am on vacation to get to the park early, I hate PS's, etc. etc. hahaha But that's just me!! Everyone has their own way of doing things... this way just works for us.

 

[Loriannf]

We just got back from our first trip (week long) on Saturday. DH, DD 3.75 and I for the first 3 days, DH returned to his office, my Dad and his wife and my DD for the remaining 4 days. We got the park when it opened (MK on Saturday and Tuesday) and managed to ride everything in Fantasyland and BTMRR and Splash all before 11:30 both days. My daughter grew addicted to BTMRR and Splash and thereafter didn't really want to ride anything else, so we did alot of fast passing and standing in line and would leave the park around 2:30. We would go back to our off-site resort, swim, have an early dinner, and then a couple of nights, returned to Epcot. The touring plan for Girls 4-8 worked really well for us, even when we had a 9:10 CRT on Saturday.

Overall, I think we had a great Disney experience, and I don't think it would have been as nice had we not followed one of the touring plans from the UG and left the parks in the early morning.

Lori