On my last trip, I was asked how I go about “planning to Park Hop” and I also see threads popping up every once in a while where people are unsure how they want to approach such an ability. So since I have new trip coming up (that’s juuuust about to get underway for planning). I figured it might be interesting to some to see what I do. Hopefully, you might be able to find some inspiration on how you want to undertake your own planning.
Step 1: Which park, which day.
After I figure out my time frame (in this case, first week of december) it’s then down to see what the parks’ hours are and what their CL is expected to be. To do that, I have TP track those days and select every park.
Oof, looks like crowds are going to be heavy this year. Now, usually, my trips start with being in MK. It’s just where I like to start, but with that being an 8, I’m not sure that’s where I want to start this trip at.
while I don’t pay TOO much attention to CLs, I do use them when they’re at the extremes of the spectrum. A 3 vs 8 will feel very different, but a 4 vs 6 …not so much.
Epcot is looking like a 3 on Monday, so let’s slot that in for our starter. At this point, each park is blocked out to have its own day. So at first glance, it looks like
Mon: EP
Tue: MK
Wed: AK
Thu: MK
Fri: MK
Sat: EP
Sun: MK
But we now have to factor in that I haven’t done HS yet and SW is there(must see)…sooo we now need to pick out a [currently expected] low-crowd HS. Looks like Monday is lowest number of the week. That might just work out perfectly.
So instead of EP, let’s switch out Ep for HS as the starter. And slot EP in for Wednesday morning, and AK for night(I personally can’t do AK for a full day and I love it waaaay more during the night). Aaaaand we have our first Hop planned.
Mon: HS
Tue: MK
Wed: EP → AK
Thu: MK
Fri: MK
Sat: EP
Sun: MK
Obviously more changes needed, but for now, let’s get the schedule-sheet and load in current-known hours, parks, and activities.
This is the empty version. (Shamelessly stolen and modified from @JJT)It has the hours at the top, and then broken down into half hour increments. This is about as granular as it’ll get.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1n27tMre_eqCvdLMteN9uPSQambczxvbT
MK – Ok, so known hours are only up to the 5th right now (and even those aren’t 100% as the app doesn’t even go into Dec yet, and SWGE hasn’t even started its recordable impact) but already looks like I’m losing a LOT of MK nights to the Xmas party. For some reason, on Monday MK is shutting down at 4:30P. Not sure if that’s going to stick, but if it does it looks like I might have to bail on MK all together. While I intend on visiting one night of the Xmas Party, certainly can’t do all and so we need to make some adjustments already for night time.
HS – I’d be an idiot to think that HS’s hours are, at all, solidified right now. SW is going to have those hours expanded greatly, I would imagine. Additionally, it might lead to the other parks getting extended hours too. But for now, we’ll work with what we got.
Currently, our mornings are roughed out. But this will change at the 180-day mark (which should be this weekend!) when I can snag my prelim ADRs. As per my usual, I want to get at least 2 BOG Pre-park-opening breakfasts and we’re looking real good to do that right now.
To be continued…
(this will be an ever evolving document until I feel further changes will not be helpful.)
) looking forward to seeing how it comes together!
)
