So our plan is as follows and I’m just curious of recommendations, alternatives, and especially thoughts on dining. Thanks in advance…
Epcot on Sunday Aug 11
Rest day Aug 12
Magic Kingdom Aug 13
Hollywood Studios Aug 14
Magic Kingdom Aug 15
Animal Kingdom Aug 16
Now that being said we chose HS d/t the crowd level that day and from reading in the book we could start later in the day and still see the entire theme park, thoughts on that being true?
With the Magic Kingdom on Aug 15 being our 2nd day there as well from reading we should have a much more leisurely pace versus being rushed and finish up with Animal Kingdom, so that’s my thoughts for trying to see all 4 yet not wearing ourselves out completely. Thoughts and feedback are greatly appreciated?
With regards to dining, we are for sure going to do a sit down restaurant on Tuesday at MK and Friday at AK, but I’m curious how much we’d need to do an advance reservation at Epcot and could we go to HS say early afternoon and still see the whole park to where we could eat lunch at our campground?
Appreciate the feedback, sorry if I made it too long, just want to make our trip the best possible and there are just so many questions with regards to logistics
A rest day on day 2 then 5 days without a break seems odd to me. Is there a reason you have put it in at the beginning instead of the middle? I also wouldn’t go late to HS unless you have a FP for SDD and only want to ride it once. But others may disagree.
We’ll be there 2nd-16th Aug! Maybe we’ll bump into each other.
It’s 4 days after our day of rest and my thought was Epcot sounds like a lot of walking, so a day of rest after sounded logical. We’re going to do two days at MK with HS in between and from what I’ve read you can start HS later and still get everything in? So I thought if we were tired after our first day that HS would not be as strenuous and our 2nd day of MK shouldn’t be as strenuous as well?
EP is the most walking but not by much. As I said, I wouldn’t personally arrive late to HS and if you’re doing everything, you can struggle even with a full day because of all the shows. As for a second day at MK being less strenuous, again if you want to do everything I don’t think it will be. There are a lot of rides there, it could easily take 2 full days to do them all. But it depends what you want to get done. And how many of you (and ages), how quick you’ll move through the parks, how much time you spend refreshing for FPs to reduce your wait times.
You can make those days less strenuous. I just don’t think you’ll get everything done if you do. And even then I think you’ll regret having your rest day so early. But that’s just my opinion.
Truly appreciate the advice. That’s why I’m posting, cause I just don’t know. Last time I went was when I was like 10, so 25 years ago. It sounds like a few things have changed and I of course didn’t do much in the way of planning back then So trust me missoverexcited I appreciate the feedback
Everyone tours differently so it’s hard to generalise! Have you tried making touring plans? Really they’re your best bet to know what you can do, and it might be that if you see you can’t fit something in, it helps you decide what are your mustdos.
My DH kept track of the miles walked for our trip. We were at AK from about 11:30 to 8 and Epcot from about 8am to dinner time. We did more miles at AK.
What are the ages/# of people in your group? Are you more eager for rides or shows or do you want to try and fit in everything? Do you plan to use your meals to take long rests while in the park (Table Service vs. Quick grab and keep moving)
As an aside, every trip, my Fitbit tells me Animal Kingdom is my highest walking day, followed by Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios
Do you have park hoppers? I’d push your rest day back a bit. I found EP the most relaxing as it never felt as crowded as the other parks. Unless you only want to ride 1 of the Toy story rides you need to get there early, or allow a couple of hours of waiting time later in the day, same goes for AK. Over an hour before opening if you want to ride SDD or FOP first, 30 mins for Navi, TSMM, & ASS.
Ages will be for sure 2 adults 36 years old and an 11 year old. Possibly a 19 year old, we figure to have table service at MK and AK.
We’d like to try and fit in the highlights, but that was my thought on doing MK twice so we could fit everything in at a more leisurely pace, we had originally planned to do each park one day at a time, but the more I read the 2 day plan at MK sounded better.
AK we plan to be there early, but with HS I swore I read in the unofficial guide you could start early afternoon and still get mostly everything in? Especially with the construction that is apparently underway…
I would rope drop HS with my family. The shows do cause a lot of complications with time and they are a great way to take a break. Now AK, if you have a FP for FOP and you don’t care about Navi (or vice versa), we have done starting around lunch time. We did FOP (Safari for those not doing FOP), EE, Dinosaur, FoTLK, dinner ADR, saw a bunch of characters, did a couple of the trails and got an extra FP for EE. Others would not agree with me as there may be a lot more they want to see. So I think it really depends on what you want to do at each park.
I agree Hollywood studios is tough if you want to watch a lot of the shows… we only did half day there in the fall. We saw muppets did aliens saucers abd tsmm abd dinner at sci fi. I think we got there at 3 left about 7:30. Maybe that will give you an idea! And had fast passes…
I don’t know what your crowd levels look like during your visit, so this may not make sense. …but I personally I like to save my repeat day for last. That way, if we find that we missed something at one of the other parks too (or a show rains out or something) we can plan to incorporate that into our final day (it happened to us last trip with Fantasmic getting canceled due to lightning).
So trust me missoverexcited I appreciate the feedback