Given MDE, ADRs, FP, and who knows what else, it feels to me like an effective trip to the World these days needs to be better planned than the invasion of Normandy.
I’ve planned many trips that have never come to fruition, but it’s all a useful ‘thought exercise’. That said, I’m thinking of shaking things up next time - we’ve long had a family tradition of having TMK as that “last park” on a multi-day trip before we head home. Just wondering aloud, What do you all do? Any particular order to visiting the parks on a multi-day trip that might be more efficient or “funner”?
And in-context, we’re looking at a split stay next time, and Animal Kingdom Lodge is on our short list for a deluxe. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to use DAK as that last day park, especially since it closes a little earlier and we’d not be wiped out on bug-out day. But I’d sure miss that parting shot of the castle.
AKL is definitely my favorite resort still, so I like your plan around it. The other half of me says MK has to be the last day… we always visit MK twice on a trip, even a short one. So… yeah, hard call.
What we did for our 3 and a half day trip recently was like so…
Day 1: HS based on need to get on ROTR, figured if we missed a BG on day 1, we could try again.
Day 2: MK based on the fact we didn’t want two MK days back to back.
Day 3: AK and EPCOT, since TestTrack and Kali River were down for refurb, easier to fit these two together.
Day 4: MK. MK just never gets old for me… I could do so many rides there over and over and over and never get tired of them.
In an ideal world, we’d have at least one day per park and open and close the trip with MK. The rest we just plan based on park hours, where we’ll need better FPP availability, etc.
In practice, the above plan never seems to pan out. Somehow we always end up at Epcot on day 1 which is fine because FPPs are easy there.
I like to plan Epcot and AK for the first day and the day after a late night because as long as you have decent FPP scheduled, you can do well at those parks without rope-dropping. Same-day FPP seem to be more available at those two parks. HS I do whenever the crowd is lowest.
I only have 3 days in parks on my next trip. Starting with Epcot because I want to go to the F&G festival but know it will feel a bit un-Disney with all the construction. DHS second to put the madness in the middle and MK last to end in a high note and end in me running a day like a well-oiled machine (I can FPP that park in my sleep at this point). I have a first timer coming with me, so we plan to kick the trip off with a monorail cocktail crawl, watching HEA from CG on the first night. Set the Disney mood
To date, we have always started and ended with MK. Just something special about this park to us and so much to do. It is just the perfect book end for us.
This trip is the first one I planned with FPP schedule as a major factor in the rest, leading me to place HS’s and AK’s on the back part of the trip to get better FPP availability. This is also the first time we are visiting a park on departure day. So the last full day we are starting HS’s, hopping to MK for desert party that evening and then hitting MK again the next day before heading home.