Help choosing days during President’s Day Week

Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar
1

In the past we have always avoided EMH parks and utilized RD. I have read that avoiding EMH is less important in the FP+ era. We are doing 2 park days during President’s Day Week, EP and MK. I was thinking of trying both on days that have EMH nights. I am especially intrigued to have the extra hours at MK. We usually do a pool break and a dinner ADR (this year we’re planning The Wave) outside the park so by the time we come back to MK there is little time to do much else in MK but the fireworks show. Epcot with evening EMH seems less helpful because we are usually done with rides before we leave for a pool break (except for maybe trying to snag one more ride on Soarin’), and spend the evening wandering WS with no ADR because there are so many fun quick service options.

I’m looking at the calendars and having second thoughts. We were planning to drive in from visiting family (about 1hr away) right to rope drop, staying 2 nights on property, and spending the last day at the resort before driving back to family. With this plan we have EP 9 (overall 8), MK 10 (overall 8). The 10 at MK scares me, plus TT is down at Epcot so I think RD lines will build even faster than normal.

We have a few options to change. I am leaning toward making our first day the resort day, which would open up Thursday for a park day with overall CL of 6 rather than 8. It might also may make more sense to start with the resort day to get settled in, and have the park days to look forward to. We can handle RD to late night for 2 days without any problem.

Currently have scheduled (note I only just got these FPs 3 days ago and don’t mind refreshing and hunting for new ones):
Tues - EP 9 (overall 8) with evening EMH (drive in from visiting family right to Epcot, in line by 8am, afternoon pool break, 2 nights at resort) - morning FP for SSE, early evening for FEA
Wed - MK 10 (overall 8) with evening EMH (afternoon pool break and ADR at the Wave) - morning FP for Pirates and PP, early evening BTMRR
Thur - resort day, drive back to visiting family at some point in the evening

Option 1 (utilizing EMH, one evening, one morning):
Tues - resort day
Wed - MK 10 (overall 8) with evening EMH
Thurs - EP 6 (overall 6) with morning EMH

Option 2 (no EMH, lowest CLs):
Tues - resort day
Wed - EP 6 (overall 8)
Thurs - MK 7 (overall 6)

I appreciate any feedback! I think I am pretty set on changing, just need help deciding if I should go for option 1 or 2. Option 1 may be a little too much with back to back evening/morning EMH. But we are always at RD insanely early, like first at the tapstiles, maybe with that plan we would arrive at a more normal time and still do fine. With the extra morning hour at Epcot, we would get into WS earlier and then out for an earlier pool break, and possibly a nap if needed.

2

I think either plan is fine, it’s hard to predict exact crowd levels by the day, just know that presidents week is going to be extremely busy at every park regardless. However, a good touring plan will make the trip enjoyable. We went president’s week last year, and ended up with crowd level 10 pretty much every day we were there. It was our first time experiencing that level of crowds, but because we made a good touring plan, we never waited in line more than 30 minutes. That, and using some of the other tips on this forum like the fast pass modify tip will allow you to get a lot done even with those crowds. Other than a couple of choke points, such as the walkway between Fantasyland and liberty square, the crowds were easily navigable and we were able to have a very relaxing and enjoyable vacation, even with our youngest son being only one and a half at the time.

3

Thanks for your feedback. We have visited during this week 3 times before so we only know high-ish crowds. The FP modify tip is great, will definitely try to utilized this if I can get FPs early enough in the day. Looking at the actual hours that we would be out of the room and sleep time, I calculated that our original plan allows for 6.5hrs of sleep on night 1, and option 1 has only 5.5hrs of sleep time on night 2, and option 2 gives 8hrs of sleep on night 2. So as much as we like to do a lot, option 1 sounds like a terrible plan, and original plan sounds pretty bad, too. It is supposed to be vacation after all! I could throw in option 3, park days on Tues and Thursday with a resort day in between on Wednesday. I know option 2 or 3 look like the answer, I just REALLY wanted those extra park hours…