I realize this is an ambitious plan but we’re doing it, one way or another! Lol.
A little background info, 24 year old + my fiancé, no children, and we’re driving from north GA. Staying on site. The F&WF is a MUST, as are as many nighttime shows as possible (HAE, F!, etc) we will have a 3 day PH ticket. So my issue is, fiancé and i will get to Disney around lunch time or a little later on Wednesday September 5th, all day Thursday, and all day Friday. Don’t currently think we’re going to have tickets for MNSSHP but it’s an option. I’m trying to optimize our days. Currently, I think our plan will be
Wednesday- get to MK (CL 4) around 2pm, HEA is at 830, take part in EMH till 11pm
Thursday- Epcot all day, EMH are at 8a and the park is open till 9. Illuminations at 9p which is a priority.
Friday- HS and AK but I’m unsure which to do first, as I’m torn between ROL and F! Will ROL even be going on? The calendar doesn’t mention it. Both parks close at 830p I believe.
Is this the best plan to use our short time wisely? Any suggestions or considerations welcome!! Like I said, I know it’s an ambitious plan but it’s really all the time we can spare!
Looks decent. I’m sure ROL will be going on so you’ll have to decide between that or Fantasmic. Maybe hop to HS on Thursday afternoon for a little while since you’ll have hoppers and knock that out. 13 hours at Epcot is a lot in the brutal sun! Then maybe you can hit Epcot again on Friday sometime for F&W. Really depends on priorities of rides, food, or shows but I think you can do a lot…
You might want to look at You Tube videos and see which one appeals to you more. I would rate them as HEA, Illuminations, Fantasmic, and Rivers of Light. But it is really a personal preference. I would actually watch MK fireworks every night if I could.
You aren’t going to be able to do it all but you can surely do highlights in each park. I would make sure to hit up your EMH - It looks like Epcot on Thursday morning and MK on Friday morning. You might want to hop to HS and Epcot on Thursday. Friday I would do a MK - HS - AK or MK- AK-HS depending on which show you choose to see.
Not too much of an opinion although I’ve been several times the last few years and have never seen Fantasmic so I guess that’s the bottom of my list! More of a function of prioritizing early mornings for me when traveling with a child than anything else.
I like the idea of rope-dropping Pandora on Friday and hitting the must-see AK attractions that morning and then hopping to the studios in the afternoon/evening. We haven’t done ROL yet, but it is generally reported to be a snoozer, compared to the “most ambitious nighttime spectacle ever attempted in a theme park” or however the Unofficial Guide describes Fantasmic.
This is a tough one because of the tiering at the parks. So it really depends what you want to do at each park.
I think all day at MK on Wed is a good plan.
Then EMH at epcot on Thursday and you can knock out all the FW rides by lunch, trying to get a FP for something at HS. Then hop to HS for a couple rides then back to Epcot by 3 or 4 and do WS plus Illuminations.
Then RD HS on Friday for whatever you still want to ride, then hop to AK for prebooked fastpasses including FoP, then back to HS for Fantasmic. But that’s a lot of hopping.
Fantastic is definitely better than ROL IMO, especially if you like Disney stuff. Even Illuminations is better than ROL I think.
I guess sit down and figure out which rides you really want to do and which you want to prebook FP for and then go from there!
I love this plan! We’re totally ok with hopping, as long as its in our best interest and allows us to do the most. HS doesn’t seem to have bad wait times for anything we want to do (basically just TSMM, RnR and ToT) so the second round of HS on friday AM might not even be necessary. Do you think it’s better to go to Epcot in the morning on Thursday to take advantage of the AM EMH and F&W or focus on rides in the AM and do all our F&W when we get back in the afternoon?
based on the 2-4 hour wait times i’m seeing for FoP it’s a priority for FP, especially since HS is pretty much a CL1 every day we’ll be there, but i may try to take advantage of the modify trick after FoP for some stuff at HS.
F&W won’t open until 11am so maybe do rides from 8-11 and then go to Canada and then UK then walk to HS, then pick back up in France for food and wine in the late afternoon.
That assumes you go thru international gateway to get to HS, which I’m not sure about.
Do you want to do the new toy story land rides? If so maybe use your pre-booked fastpasses at HS that afternoon. At epcot you could rope drop Soarin and do single rider for TT and ride the other stuff standby. Except FEA. Did you want to ride that?
Absolutely FoP is your top FP priority, but you most likely will still want to rope drop that park and get in the other Pandora attraction that you don’t get a FP for.
We are likely to be in the same situation in December. We are cutting back our WDW days because kids really want to check out UOR. This has been such a puzzle to figure out how to do the most in only 3 days! But the plan that I came up with is this exact one!! So glad to hear that someone else thinks it is doable! My only difference is that since it will be Xmas we are choosing between Jingle Bell Jingle Bam and ROL. We had previously seen F! (we chose it over ROL on our last trip). Eventhough I have yet to see ROL in person, I would still choose F! again.
After watching the TP “which ride to ride first at Epcot” video (not sure how to put link in here), I was considering riding FEA and then Soarin at RD and then other rides standby before hopping to HS. Another option I have considered is the FEA dessert party when we come back to watch Illuminations. But after eating around the world I am not sure that we would be up for a dessert party. The FP for FEA is tempting though.
Yes, I saw that video! We rope dropped FEA in March and it was a breeze. Even now at Soarin at 845am the eait is posted at just 30 mins. I would follow wait times for Soarin on EMH days for a few weeks leading up to your trip. Also can you do TT Single rider? If so then you can knock them all out without using a FP!
