Dd19 and I will be visiting in October (1st -5th). We have almost four full days and most of our departure day (8pm MCO flight) and I am second guessing myself about evertything.
As of right now our park reservations are:
Friday 10/1 - EPCOT
Saturday 10/2- MK
Sunday 10/3 - DHS
Monday 10/4 - AK
Tuesday 10/5 - MK
Staying at AoA (Little Mermaid), have Park Hoppers, and will be using WDW Transportation (possibly Uber/Lyft) during our stay including DME. Dd and I will be doing all the things that we normally can’t do when dh and ds are with us, including dining opportunities that we have not been able to experience before.
My indecisiveness revolves around two things RotR and Disney Springs.
RotR - Currently I only have one park reservation for DHS which means only one chance at riding it. Is it worth not rope dropping AK and/or doing a last day at MK for a second (third?) opportunity? Maybe switch both the AK and MK days to DHS reservations and if we don’t get a boarding group, change them that morning? …and if we do get a bg then just hop after riding? I am concerned that we may not have time to hop to MK on our departure day w/ our 8pm flight. It would include a good bit of traveling for a very short last goodbye to MK.
I should add that DHS is dd’s favorite park and we are both SW fans so missing it would be really bad, and being able to ride RotR more than once is probably a good thing.
Or do we completely give up EPCOT (CL 10) on the 1st because of the crowds and hit AK (CL3) instead? While I am sure it will be amazingly awesome to be at EPCOT on the 1st…how much will be different than say on the 4th (CL 5)? …and then do a second park reservation for DHS on our last day.
Disney Springs - I have been to WDW more than 25x, 5x since Disney Springs opened (we slowed our visits down a bit due to life stuff) and I have never been to DS. We were big fans of Downtown Disney (I SO miss the Adventurer’s Club!) but recent visits have been much shorter and it has been difficult to give up park time to make our way over there. I am finding the same to be true for this trip.
I keep hearing wonderful things about some of the restaurants and am starting to feel almost guilty about not trying them. However, I look at our 4.5ish days at WDW and I just can’t figure out what park time to give up for DS.
Thoughts? Opinions? Strategies?