Looking at a Thurs to Mon long weekend, and can’t really expand the number of days. That means 3 full park days, with one park crammed into either arrival or departure day. AK and HS are penciled into Sat and Sun due to the crowd calendar, so the options are:
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Super early flight in on Thurs (if I can find the right one), land at MCO around 10am, and go to EP which has the latest opening time. (Would leave my house at 3:30am to pull this off, and using uber and not DME) MK would be Fri. Relaxed departure day.
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Same super early flight, get to MK a couple hours after opening, but stay until closing. EP would be Fri. Relaxed departure day.
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Any normal flight on relaxed arrival day, no park. Late departure flight, RD MK and stay as late as possible before leaving for MCO on Mon.
I don’t necessarily need a full day at MK. I would consider 8 of the 10 open hours there to be worth it, as we would hit some highlights and take in the decorations but not have a lot of must-do’s. We were there 2 days last year.
Thanks! I want to make sure I’m not overlooking anything that would tip the scales as far as what is most ideal. Gotta book the right flight (and everything else) very soon. If these all seem too flawed or cumbersome, I might give in and try for a late Wed flight in, but that’s another night’s stay of cost that I was hoping to avoid and possibly too much time away from home in our situation.
When are you going?
We have a similar situation (Fri - Tues). We’re going mid November so right now I don’t know if food and wine will still be happening. That’s making me question 1 or 2 days at Epcot.
We’re skipping AK. Would like some time at HS. And then probably arrival day at MK and one other full day.
We usually take the super early flight (last trip we left the house at 3am).
Then the absolute last flight on departure day.
This time, we have a mid-morning flight to MCO and an early afternoon flight home. Those were the best priced flights and we don’t really want to feel exhausted on either end of a short trip.
I think the availability of flights might make this decision for you. With flights how they are, will you have a choice? (I hope you do, for the record.)
Something else to consider, AK is good for a short day on departure day. Based on the little graph that TP just sent out, Sunday seems to be not too bad at MK and not much worse than Friday.
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Ah, ok, then the holidays will be in full swing at Epcot & MK.
So, assuming this is not your only trip ever to Disney… my recommendation is to not wear yourself out on either end of the journey. On longer trips you can recover by having a resort day. On the shorter trips you want to have enough energy to maximize the park time.
The Wednesday night idea isn’t bad as long as you aren’t shelling out too much for a place to sleep that night. No sense in paying a premium at this point. All the parks open so late now, it’s not like there’s a big advantage to hitting MK at 6:00 am at the moment.
Looks like im moving 2 -6, lol. Maybe. Hopefully, the flights for this week have been finalized