After much debate I went ahead and booked a trip for myself, DS16 & DD13 for 10/21-27 (WDW & UOR). We’ll be in WDW Thurs-Sun. With the new booking system I’m of course doubting my daily park selections.
The super low crowds I had read about in August planted the seed, but since Labor Day I’ve heard about crazy crowds, avoid HS & MK on the weekends, etc. I’m a little confused because the Crowd Tracker shows most days/parks within +1 of the projected level 1, with the exception of EP on the weekends.
I ended up booking Th-HS, Fri-MK, Sat-AK, Sun-EP, but after looking at the crowd tracker data I’m thinking I should instead avoid EP on the weekend.
Thoughts? Advice? Firsthand experience?
Either way, I’m looking forward to a much-needed break with my kiddos.
Sounds similar to our plans. DD15 is in need of a break (so am I) and we are taking a quick trip. My wife can’t join us but looking forward to a fun father daughter trip. Arriving late the 21st. Currently planning:
TH - HS
FR - AK
SA - Discovery Cove
SU - MK
MO - Travel home
The weekends are tough regardless of which parks you choose, but I think AK and Epcot are your best bet. If you do switch out Epcot, go for MK. Keep AK on the weekend for sure.
These are my impressions watching trip reports and crowd tracking from the various blogs. Hopefully those who have been recently will weigh in as well.
Personally…I would swap AK and HS.
HS is generally at or close to capacity every day. That means there isn’t a huge difference in crowds at HS on a weekday vs a weekend, it will be busy regardless.
At AK, however, there is a big difference in crowds between a weekend and a weekday, so you’ll get more payoff there on a weekday.
My experience this past weekend was pretty on par with my expectations on this. I did AK on Monday, and it was definitely the least crowded of my park days. I think @DumboRunner did AK on both a Sat and a Mon, so she may be able to give a little more concrete comparison for weekday vs weekend there.
I don’t have “good” advice since I don’t have post Covid experience but my DD13 gets off two days of school for Columbus Day weekend so we’re going a little ahead of you Oct10-17 (for the same reason that we saw the crowds looked low like you plus we feel our cabin fever is increasing). DS16 (our kids are the same age!) is coming too. Based on what we read we are doing Universal Studios/IOA with park hoppers on the first Sunday and last Saturday before we head home late afternoon because we can buy Express passes for the first Sunday and Universal never feels as crowded to me as Disney does so even with weekend crowds I still think it will be okay. The last Saturday we’ll just do early entry and then shows we don’t need Express pass for (I read there will be a scarecrow scavenger hunt and on weekends you can get Virtual passes for Hagrids plus the Haunted Houses too). For Disney we are doing DHS on Tuesday, Epcot on Wednesday, Animal Kingdom on Thursday and Magic Kingdom on Friday. Every day said 1 in the crowd calendar when I had to get my park passes so I couldn’t discern the difference. DHS is now booked out everyday that week. We are doing Volcano Bay on Monday with Express pass as well since it’s still technically a weekend being Columbus Day. So my philosophy was to do Universal parks on weekend days and Disney parks on weekdays given what I’d read and that the crowd calendar had 2-4’s on weekends for Epcot and Animal Kingdom. I also took a look at the UndercoverTourist crowd calendar and compared that to Touringplans when trying to decide these things.
This is a good point, although right now Saturday is fully booked for all parks for all three categories of guests. On Thursday / Friday, there is availability for all four parks for both Theme Park guests and Resort guests (edit: no availability for Theme Park guests for HS on Friday). So it might be marginally better at HS Thursday / Friday compared to Saturday.
Personally, I would do whatever I could to make HS as smooth as possible since it has the most big ticket rides (and the ones I would most want to ride), whereas it seems like AK can be easily completed in a day regardless of how busy it is.
But that’s just my preference - if you’d prefer to have one super chill day, AK would be great on a weekday!
I think your plan looks good, I would probably even choose the exact same thing (Th-HS, Fri-MK, Sat-AK, Sun-EP). Any park on the weekend is not great but Epcot is large, I would just make sure to be there early. HS is still better on a weekday (lower average wait times) even if both weekend and weekdays are reserved. The locals who go to HS on a weekday, tend to arrive later or leave early. Enjoy!
Every time I tell myself “This is the trip I’ll do a trip report for”…and it never happens! I guess I get too caught up in the trip itself. So no promises, but I will try to check back in with at least some basic crowd observations.
We’re doing Universal at the end of the trip. On past trips, booking a night a Royal Pacific & getting unlimited express pass for 2 days has worked well for us, so we’re doing that again. But after weekend Disney crowds, I might regret that decision! Love that you’re taking your teens as well. Part of the reason for our trip is I feel like I’m running out of time to do these kinds of things with DS. Have a great trip!
I agree. I have had that same thought too. Can you believe they grow up so fast? I did a last minute trip to DLR and USH for Halloween horror nights and Oogie Boogie party with DD13 (she was 12 then) and I’m so happy we did. Not but a couple months after that she doesn’t want much to do with me and I’m very uncool now of course. I’m so happy I did that last hurrah with the little girl version of her and I will treasure it always.
This year she wants to be able to go off with DS16 within the parks and just meet up for meals. Which made me sad at first but if we do some of that I’ll try to enjoy the alone time with DH lol.
I plan on skipping Disney Springs, which is unfortunate since there are a lot of good restaurants there. I had hoped to take the DGDs to see the trees there, but not worth the risk of crowds and poor mask compliance.
Yeah, my heart sunk a little when I saw that. For the Disney portion, we’ll be at an offsite condo. We generally do breakfast before leaving for the parks for the day & with parks closing relatively early, I think we’ll do dinner at the condo as well & take some time for homework/work check-in in the evenings. For lunch & snacks we’ll try to keep it pre-order QS & outside. I’ll share my observations when we get back
