Ok so we have the 14 day tickets for our April trip and I am overwhelmed with too many ticket days. We have not used Park Hoppers in many years and I am at a loss as to how to plan which days. I need to figure out a few ADRs and most importantly LLMP. Please give me some advice to start picking which parks which days!
April 17-21 we will be at the Boardwalk so I want to target DHS/Epcot. The 21-25 we will be at Boulder Ridge so should target MK. My boys are 7 and 10 and my parents will be with us.
Puzzle pieces: Fantasmic, MK fireworks dessert party, 1 day each of LLMP @ DHS, MK and Epcot.
Where would you start at choosing park days? I was thinking of picking the best days for Fantasmic and the dessert parties. I was also going to try and do LLMP at Epcot on a weekday. Should I try to hit the deluxe evening hours or avoid them? Any other recommended tent poles?
We did Epcot deluxe hours in December. We definitely took advantage of it, and got 3 rides in (Frozen, TT, and GotG) that we otherwise would have taken time away from the Festival of the Holidays for. Since it was our only Epcot day, and we didn’t enter the park until 1:00 pm, it was worth it. BUT, if you have multiple days planned for Epcot, and one of those includes LLMP, then it probably isn’t necessary. I mean, if you have the energy for it, no harm no foul!!!
I would put the days that have EEH to be those parks so that either your parents could go or your parents watch the kids.
Just because you have park hoppers doesn’t mean you have to hop. It is useful, though, for days where you go to a park that closes early (I’m looking at you, AK). Also for days that we want to do things over or things we didn’t get to already.
Definitely choose Epcot and HS for those days that you are staying at BW.
Same! We are kind of opposite for location, although we overlap at WL.
[Springtime Surprise April 17-19 - not thinking that will affect anything except maybe driving?]
April 17 = Fri EP AM / HS PM
What time do you arrive? Do you want to settle in at the hotel?
Alternate: AK AM / HS PM, or depending on when you get it, only HS PM
Do you kids want to see the castle first? It’s a hike but not a bad day of the week for MK
April 18 = Sat AK
Alternate: HS; Not the best for AK, but Saturday’s one of the hardest for me to figure out.
could do an evening EP/MK or dinner at AKL / Disney Springs / even CSR
April 19 = Sun HS PM [rest in the AM]
as long as you get there early enough at least one day to do HS daytime items
You might want to save rest mornings for after late nights? Could do a night show Sat night?
April 20 = Mon EP [MK AH, so might be EP EEH?]
Alternate: AK
Enchantment probably shown at 11pm. Can your family watch the kids?
April 21 = Tues [transfer day / rest day? Disney Springs?]
April 22 = Weds ?? [might be MK EEH?]
AK AM / EP PM??
I would normally say not AK from WL, but this is Earth Day / AK birthday, so might be worth the trip in the AM? That said, they don’t seem to do much. sigh
April 23 = Thurs MK [EP AH]
April 24 = Fri ??
More MK? EP AM (monorail to front entrance) / MK PM?
You could do something like a Stitch breakfast and Lyft to Poly / walk to TTC. Then take the monorail from Epcot to MK mid-day
Also not a bad day for some resort / pool time. Everyone will be tired…
April 25 = Sat whatever last things people want to do?
I don’t have TP numbers in front of me (I need to renew), but cross-referencing decent internet sources:
MK - Best Thursday, Friday, Sunday(?); Avoid Saturday and Monday
AK - Best during the week
Epcot - Best Wednesday, Thursday, Friday AM only; Avoid Friday PM - Sunday AM
DHS - Best Sunday PM, Wednesdays, Thursdays
I am going to share a little (maybe a lot ) of my thoughts in case it helps.
For park hopping - the way I do it is to have partial day TPs. So I do AK morning, Epcot evening, HS evening, etc and match them up. Usually, I have a break in between (resort break, non-park restaurant). This works for me even if going back to the same park, because usually the break can flex shorter or longer depending on how things are going.
Last trip, I only did one day of LLMP (because it was a “chill” adults trip), which was MK morning / EP evening. So you do need to take LLMP into account when hopping, but really only for the pre-books as long as you’re getting to the first park at a reasonable hour. So AK / MK should be fine, for example.
I am not spending the early afternoon at Epcot if it’s trending hot, because that happened my last April trip and it was a very cranky time.
I take the day only items and use them to anchor the mornings, and the evening items the same.
Daytime:
outdoor character meets
live shows (Voices of Liberty, Jammitors, Green Army Drum Corps, AK drummers, Matsuriza…can you tell I like drums? )
Pirate’s Adventure
Festival of Fantasy parade
Flower and Garden topiaries
Rhinos at AK?
Mid-day outside park:
pool
Trader Sam’s, Garden Tea Room?
Resort activities like AKL beads
Evening:
Toy Story Land (including Slinky Dog)
Tomorrowland (including Tron), Rapunzel’s lantern magic shot, BTMRR if back
Future World (Spaceship Earth show, Journey of Water)
Flower and Garden topiaries lit up
HEA
Fantasmic
Other:
Monorail crawl
Starlight Safari at AKL?
So for me, I need at minimum:
1 MK daytime that goes through Festival of Fantasy
1 MK evening for HEA
1 DHS evening for Slinky Dog + Fantasmic (start around 3pm to get Green Army Drum Corps; need earlier to see Grogu though)
1 AK full day
1 Epcot daytime
1 Epcot evening
I have been known to take a touring plan and move it to another day to see how the timing changes…
I didn’t actually answer your specific questions, but I thought I’d share and see if any of this helps, even if you think it’s all wrong but it helps you figure out what’s right.
I had the same question before my September trip, and my reading of peoples’ recent experiences is that - if your group can handle the late nights without them interfering with next day’s plans - EEH are worthwhile at MK, but not necessarily at Epcot. I disregarded that advice and made a spontaneous decision to try Epcot EEH after all FWIW, my personal experience was that you can get a decent amount of rides and even headliners done with an aggressive approach (for example, hitting the rides in the following order: Remy SR, FEA, Soarin, TT SR and finish at GotG), but I find the park just totally lacks the atmosphere that it has during regular park hours (restaurants/shops are closed and all of WS starts shutting down). So if you’re looking to get in a few extra rides (like looping TT/Remy using SR), it could be a fun night, but I would definitely not see it as replacing the much-better Epcot day time experience.
I would also always choose RD over EEH, both because I feel it’s more efficient and because I love the vibes of the parks first thing in the morning (especially if you’re zigging where others are zagging).
Agree with others that I love starting with AK on a park hopping day - it opens earliest and has the chillest RD vibe of all the parks since not many guests are willing to get up that early. As a bonus, it’ll save you money since AK LLMP is usually around $10-15 less p/p than MK/DHS LLMP (which for a party of 6 is not nothing). If you can tap into one or two LLs at AK in the first hour, you should still find good selections for your afternoon park, and can combine that with drops for the most competitive LL selections (which for my short trips have often not been available in advance at the times I wanted - might not be the case for you thought with 14-day tickets!)
This is how I planned for our trips, if it helps at all.
Certain things were a given, such as always start at MK, vary parks but not necessarily repeating the same pattern.
Then I’d insert the offsite days - Universal, Kennedy etc. Sometimes they’d be fixed (a special tour at KSC), otherwise to break up the Disney days.
Identify any tours, special events, must-do dining, evening shows, evening entertainment like Yee Ha Bob etc.
Since most of those things can be booked at 60 days, and have a split window, that’s where I started planning in detail.
Once those were sorted, occasionally with a back-up date (for dining), I could finalise which park on which day. I never once looked at crowd levels in planning - that’s probably got my Liner card revoked!
And then with 2 days per park, I’d work out a touring plan for each day. If you’re going with one LLMP per park other than AK, I’d add a second for MK to make it easy. And none of my plans involved rope-drop or more than 4-5 hours in a park; that left room for chilling, resort hopping, a shopping mall trip etc.
And there’s still room for flexibility, like making sure you’re not trying for an LL for Slinky on Day 1 of the split stay.
The park hopping allowed us a few options for things like evening shows. And also impromptu “who’d like to go to EEH at Epcot tonight” or even “anyone want to close out a park after dinner”.
Also the extra days allowed for dropping into MK for 90 minutes after getting back from an offsite day.
Also the park hoppers help if say you booked dinner at 50s Diner but then realise that’s not good for booking LLs at DHS. No problem, head to AL that day and hop over for dinner. You’ve still got days to visit Pandora after dark.
Great question! I don’t have plane tickets yet… (But I also have a studio booked on the 16th so we will hopefully fly in on Thursday.)
This is super helpful. I think that is what I am trying to get to.
Can we handle them? Unclear lol. But maybe we will try at MK at least. Epcot does not seem worth it.
I sort of forgot about AK!
What are these???
I used to more when we went in October, but for April they all seem within 1-2 points of each other. I think this is one of the things that is making it hard for me to choose days!
I’m looking at re-working my AK plan. My parents and my younger son will not do EE or FOP. I will gladly pay for LLMP and SP for those but I’m not feeling like we would need/want to get there for EE. Any thoughts on how “late” you would think would work for an AK arrival?
We used this last trip to pop into Japan for a restocked shirt and then duck into MK for a last minute item at Crystal Arts.
Or while at BW, quick stop at Les Halles at any time…
We don’t usually manage to get to parks before 9, if that helps?
Without LLMP, depends on if you’re doing Safari mostly? Maybe Na’vi too (my non-EE kid loves that ride - however, she will ride FoP I think).
If that’s your only AK day, I would work back from when you want to leave and see how much time you need. I think shows make a big difference, because they are only at set times.
Not sure if you have a list - mine is perhaps a little non-standard:
NRJ
Fop LLSP
Shopping / Sa’tuli at least for mousse
Nomad Lounge (requested for churros)
Africa drummers (prob with breakfast)
Gorilla trail
Maharajah trail
Bird show
Parrot show
Meet Kevin
Tree of life paths
EE single rider with one kid
Conservation Station (love the train; kids are fans of the AK show on Disney+ so want to see the vets at work if possible)
Safari (DH says we can skip, but kids will want to see animals from the show)
Probably shopping again
Optional:
Festival of the Lion King
Scavenger hunt to find all the animals
Wilderness Explorers - at least if they have Earth Day specific ones?
Zootopia
We had 14 day tix for our December 2025 trip. I think your basic plan is sound, given where you’re staying.
We put our plan together (for two adults) knowing:
we are early risers willing to rope drop for early entry
We wanted to experience most major rides
We wanted to do character meetings and photo stations—we have very few photos of the two of us together as adults.
We wanted to try extended evening hours
We wanted to optimimize for lower crowds levels if possible because we don’t want to buy LLMP
We ended up buying LLMP for our arrival day, because the TP was showing longer waits for the afternoon at DHS. That was totally worth it. We also bought it for an AK/Epcot day when we had extended eve hours at Epcot. Not sure we needed it, honestly—but Epcot had much higher crowds than the other parks that week and that was one of our first couple of days on property.
We planned our first 4 days pretty closely (our priorities for attractions, character M&G and food.) My sister hasn’t been to WDW since 2002, and I hadn’t visited since 2022, so we had a checklist of priorities.
We had looser plans for the rest of the time because we were revisiting places we wanted to spend more time in, doing multiple rounds of Mickey and Minnie photos at AK, in hopes of the auto-camera finally catching us all facing the camera, taking time to see shows, wander in the parks and visit resorts we weren’t staying at—for instance getting a Dole Whip and sitting on the beach at the Poly.
We park hopped most days, usually after taking a park break of some kind. We also took several resort days, or half days in the parks.
If I had a do-over, I’d have paid more attention to what was open during the extended hours in Epcot and AK. We wandered around more because we weren’t sure what was open. And AK at night is neat, but as people who didn’t know the park well, there were areas that seems so dark that we don’t know what we were looking at. (My sister works at an engineering firm and said they design for 25% more light for spaces that will be heavily used by people 60+, and we were feeling our age in a space meant for younger eyes.) Neither of us felt like we would prioritize Extra evening hours again, especially if there was a big differential in accommodations. (We rented DVC at prices similar to what the Values were priced at, so hadn’t paid a premium for extra evening hours.)
I’d also have paid more attention to when the character greetings were and what the photo areas were — we didn’t realize until we got home that there was a Bean Bunny photo spot. (Remedied with photoshop once we got home—but not quite the same.)
If you don’t have LLMP, I’d try to arrive right at the end of early entry and ride NRJ right before regular park opening, then wander over to KS directly afterwards. Both of those should be walk ons or short waits then, but you’d have to loop back to Pandora at some point for your FoP LLSP.
If you’re getting LLMP/LLSP anyway, then honestly I think you can just arrive whenever you feel like it, especially in April when temperatures won’t rise as quickly as they do in summer!
Maybe prebook LLSP for FoP and LLMP for NRJ for whenever you’d like to arrive, have a lovely breakfast at Satuli, and then take the walkway to Africa for KS/Gorilla Falls and maybe FotLK (LL for best seats). Everything else in the park should still have short LLMP return times (and EE SR is normally short in the mornings if anyone wants to loop that a few times). Then afterwards you can choose your preferred order of Asia, Discovery Island and the remnants of Dinoland. If standby waits in AK are still short across the board, you could even start booking your afternoon LLs in your next park. Either way, I’d definitely have lunch at AK before leaving, there are so many good options!
I love AK. I can’t wait to see the new Zootopia show.
On our trip in June, we did AK on arrival day getting there about 11:30, went straight to lunch at Rainforest and then went into the park around 12:30. We were able to do everything we wanted (with LLMP): KS, then Rafikis (for badges), to Pandora for FoP and Navi, then Dinosaur and meeting Goofy. KRR was down otherwise would have done that too (but got an anytime that we moved to Epcot next day so that made the LLMP worth it!). Took pics, shopped, and got WE badges. Left about 4:30/5pm. Not grueling by any means but I kind of liked being there on the later side. Tons of people leave around 2pm and the park really empties. Downsides are it is hottt later in the day, and the shows end sooner than park close, so if you want to see a show make sure you get there.
I was playing around with this - I split AK into 1 day and one evening, because TP anticipates AK will close at 8pm on 4/26 - which means the possibility of Pandora / EE close to sunset (too much to hope for Awakenings playing on the way out).
This could be evened up into two half days with the rides better distributed, or combined into one full day (because I love AK ).
Day (9am-3pm)
Conservation station, drummers, Safari, all trails, all bird shows
Conservation station first (opens at 9:30) in case there are vet procedures happening. That increases standby for Safari from est 32 min to est 44 minutes. All the other rides are in the evening plan. Food break during Tam Tam Drummers, but I should add another one versus ending up back at the hotel hangry at 3pm.
With LLMP, Safari wait is reduced to 6 minutes, but I’d only do that if I could book for a different evening park. I do like to start with Safari though. Possibly add EE after Maharajah Jungle Trek on the way out.
Evening (4:30pm - 8pm - just need to be there in time for the 5pm FotLK):
Zootopia, Festival of the Lion King, Nomad Lounge, Zootopia, EE, NRJ, FoP (with or without LLSP)
It’s just sad that I have to choose between Pandora or EE when it gets dark. If I moved EE to daytime (single rider) and just focused on Pandora, it would save a lot of walking. Although, if the lights are on in Asia, that walk would be pretty.
So these are my two AK TPs with MP and without. They both end at the same time I think due to the timing of Wings in Flight but not sure I want to pay to save 4 minutes in line! Without MP I just have to start a little sooner which it appears I can do without even doing EMH.
) of my thoughts in case it helps.
FWIW, my personal experience was that you can get a decent amount of rides and even headliners done with an aggressive approach (for example, hitting the rides in the following order: Remy SR, FEA, Soarin, TT SR and finish at GotG), but I find the park just totally lacks the atmosphere that it has during regular park hours (restaurants/shops are closed and all of WS starts shutting down). So if you’re looking to get in a few extra rides (like looping TT/Remy using SR), it could be a fun night, but I would definitely not see it as replacing the much-better Epcot day time experience.
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