We are officially on our 5th Orlando trip and 2nd in the same year. This was not on my bingo card. We went to Epic x 2 days with EP in Jan 2026 and missed SD as it had valleyed that morning. We also never managed to RD Epic. We are heading back end of August for my bday and will be at Epic on a thursday and friday with no EP but yes to EPA. EPA rides have changed since we went. We did not like Mine Cart, are fine doing single rider for rides, didn’t get to meet toothless, and DD13 promises to appreciate vibes this time. Strong priority to multiple SD rides. Nintendo is not a priority during the daytime (too crowded and hot but awesome vibes at night). Given these preferences, what has been the RD strategy / touring plan strategy that seems to work?
One strategy I’ve seen is RD Berk with Toothless, Glider, Rally, Fyre (opens later). Then maybe Werewolf (since times build) or straight to SD? This would assume we are front of line for Toothless. Where would you go after?
We plan to take a long afternoon break during storms (either at Stella or restaurant).
Evening / Nighttime Darkmore, nighttime SD, nighttime Nintendo. We noticed very short MarioKart times in the evening in Jan esp with single rider. May also do single rider at MoM at night.
Because I’m obsessive, I’m trying to track wait times over the next month via a claude.ai generated html. I’m not sure how well it will work but I find thrill data and queue times to be too much information for what I want. I’ll share any patterns I notice here.
Also, I think current EPA is listed through August 31 so will be interesting to see what happens after.
If you are at Helios, absolutely RD BatM, unless it’s not a priority for you.
Otherwise, I would recommend starting at Berk with Toothless, Dragon Racer’s Rally, and Hiccup’s Wing Gliders (in that order). Only do Fyre Drill if you want to get soaked!
After that, Curse of the Werewolf is a good option, but Dark Universe is cooler at night. Waits will be longer but tolerable, IMO.
IME, Stardust never really gets an intolerably long wait, and EP isn’t much of an advantage since most of the line is after the merge point / security anyway. So just do it whenever you want. Save one ride for evening, if you have time (but sounds like your evening will be crowded with Nintendo and Dark Universe).
If these are your priorities I would stick to this plan. I would try to get Rally in early, since that line builds so fast. Also, if you are planning on Monsters, I would just do that after Werewolf, but that line is usually on the short side. I agree with @Jeff_AZ you can do stardust after BUT if you see any weather coming- go to that right away.
Oh yes, definitely keep this in mind when managing your priorities. You can always spend 2-3 hours indoors at MK and BatM in the afternoon if there are thunderstorms and there’s nothing else to do.
We’re staying at Stella for 3 night and then 1 night at Pacific Royal which will be our first express unlimited.
I’m actually ridiculously excited to do water rides (Fyre, Barges, Dudley) since we’ve only ever been there when it’s been cold. Sadly we will miss the Jurassic Park River Adventure yet again.
We def want to do SD at night. It’s a bit of a bummer that there’s really only 1 hour of darkness each night with park closing at 9. We want to see the fireworks AND see Dark Universe and Nintendo and SD!
Yes on the weather. Do you have a good app with radar warning? We plan to hit up SD late morning.
I use MyRadar. I have never used it with notifications but it might have that capability. I have found its short term rain predictions to be fairly accurate and helpful.
I personally have not used any since I usually travel with my family. I think I did SR on Velocicoaster and for sure Hagrid’s. Definitely worth shaving a few minutes of that one.
We’ve just come back from 5 nights at UOR, which included two Epic RDs and you plan sounds great to me. Knowing that Mine Cart is not a priority takes a LOT of stress out of your day.
On our first RD day, we went with the Berk strategy on a day that ended up being a CL5 - here’s a link to that day in my trip report. We were second in line for Toothless (even though the main gate crowd beat us/the Helios crowd to Berk), and finished with the M&G, Dragon Racers and Hiccups (as @Jeff_AZ says, in that order) at 8.45/50 (so within 45/50 min of EPA).
I like the idea of heading to Dark Universe next - we “second rope dropped” that land at 10am on our second drop drop day, which ended up being a CL3 day. Most people head to Monsters, which doesn’t make sense to me as Werewolf has much lower load capacity and I’d knock that out before doing Monsters. On our CL3 day, we did Werewolf as a walk-on twice (and could’ve ridden Monsters as a walk-on twice thereafter but sadly my kids didn’t like it enough to want to re-ride!) I think the waits would still be relatively short for the up to at least 10.30 even on a higher-level crowd day.
If SR is a priority, I’d probably try to do that at least once around this time (and hope you can re-ride once or more in the evening). Echoing @Jeff_AZ that in our experience this rarely requires EP as the main wait is after the lockers/merge (and unless there’s significant downtime, there’ll probably be moments in the day where you can walk up to here even in the regular stanby queue, and certainly single rider.
Then maybe back to Berk for Fyre Drill before your break (to change clothes/dry off) - it’s not the same level of wet as the IOA water rides are, but you also won’t stay dry!
Molly from Mammoth Club just did a video specifically on this question. Again, unless those rides had/have significant downtime, I’d expect you’ll be good for Mario Kart and BatM in the evening.
For the “enjoying the vibes” part, we LOVED hanging out in Wizarding Paris in the evenings to do spells. The interactive experience with the portraits diagonally opposite the Gobelet Noir was one of the highlights of our trip, as was sitting in the empty square outside of Bar Moonshine with nice drinks while chatting with the French Auror (we did not see the other wandering characters that are sometimes in this land but I suspect they are all worthwhile). Both of the QS restaurants in this land have great food too (during our visit Gobelet Noir had pretty early closing hours in the evening though). We also enjoyed riding the carrousel in the dark (and thought SR also looked so pretty at night - we chose not to re-ride as it was a bit too intense for us when we tried it the first time during the day).
Thanks for the reply! I loved and was inspired by your trip report so I really appreciate the added detail and recommendations.
I love Mammoth Club and got my DD13 watching Molly (she’s the best) in prep for this trip. It has actually made such a huge difference in her level of wanting to engage with the details, VIBES, and food this time. We just watched the new snack video and DD13 is ridiculously excited for the pretzel box at Nintendo.
We just watched the single rider video a few days ago and added it to my notes. For those who want the jist - yes to Mario Kart (skips preshow and awesome queue), BatM (skips queue and preshow), Monsters - usually not needed, misses preshow but can be very fast in single. Don’t use - Minecart Madness - often closed and slow, Stardust - never needed, Werewolf - no, very slow.
Would you still consider Bar Helios worth a visit? I feel like there’s such little nighttime with the park closing at 9pm that I’m hesitant go unless it was after the fireworks.
Also just learned of the side entrance to Nintendo that avoids the warp tunnel and makes getting to DK faster. Too bad we have zero intensions of RD’ing it. Especially given how often it’s delayed.
We went to Bar Helios and Flora Taverna. We enjoyed the food at Flora Taverna more than Bar Helios. We often go to small plate restaurants, but we were very confused with the sequence of food at Bar Helios. The cold/raw plates don’t usually come out last.
One thing to keep in mind. The only way to get back to Stella Nova from Helios after Epic is closed, is a bus to city walk, bus back to Stella Nova- or a Lyft/Uber. We did a Lyft.
Waits will be longer but tolerable, IMO.