My son and I will be arriving in Orlando on NYE. We are coming from New Zealand. Our 1st park day will be on New Year’s Day. I’m aware that this is the busiest time to go and also aware of the crowds. We have 2 days’ park tickets with hopper.
My plan is to go to rope drop HS to make most of the “not so crowded” morning ahead of the NYE sleepyheads and then hop to EP.
Not sure if this is the best plan. We will have Genie+. Or should we do it the other way around and stack? I believe that taking advantage of the NYD morning is the way to go but keep overthinking too much. Would appreciate hearing your thoughts
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Welcome! I think either way you’re going to have some ‘dead’ time in your day. If you get there an hour before rope drop and can knock out a few rides first thing at HS you would probably be fine with getting LL using drops with other rides and knock out most of the park early. I actually prefer stacking bc the lines build so fast at HS and there aren’t many easy people eating attractions.
What are your EP priorities? I feel like it’s easier to knock everything out in that park with only a couple attractions being major time sucks like Remy, FEA and TT.
Thanks for your input. I wouldn’t mind stacking, the idea of rope dropping HS on NYD is mainly to avoid the crowds in the morning and use LL as ‘tap and go’ as I believe might there be a bit more LL availability as people not yet in the park might be either sleeping or at the resorts stacking for later in the day. If I am to stack we will be “competing” with everyone else not in the park. Does this make sense at all? All thinking about park reservations for the day, NYD should be busy and having HS as our park day before hopping would guarantee us HS entry. But HS at night might be good to enjoy.
If stacking for HS my 1st park choice would be AK instead of EP.
I’m not much worried about what we can accomplish on EP, most likely ILL for Cosmic and LL with the flow with everything else. We could do Remy near the closing time.
Are we gambling too much not stacking for the arvo?
I definitely prefer the AK/HS split with stacking. I would do that honestly. It will be a less stressful day for sure. I don’t know much about the parks closing for entry. I don’t think that’s really happened since park passes became a thing, aside from MK on 10/1.
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I believe you might be right. It will be less stressful for sure. I better change my park reservations then haha
Many thanks 
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You’re welcome! Hope it’s a great trip!
The first few hours on NYD are a dream. Even at MK the park was deserted until about 11am - this was 6 years ago. Mostly just families with young children, who’d presumably watched the early fireworks.
What I’d be far more concerned with is your arrival on NYE. Where are you staying and how will you be getting there?
When we were there, DH had taken the boys off to a Mall in the morning and when coming back around midday he couldn’t get onto property. The main entrance road was gridlocked and remained so for hours. He ended up going to Disney Springs, where we met for dinner.
I would be tempted to book with Mears, who I assume will have some priority for getting around. Ubers and taxis will be stuck like everyone else.
I hope with park reservations things won’t be quite so bad as they were then.
Yes, that’s why my plan was to go to HS. I think we could get a lot acomplished in the morning.
We arrive in the middle of the afternoon and staying at Disney Springs hotels. Not planing to do much that night maybe a walk around at Disney Springs. Cheers for the Mears tip. What your thought on Lyft?
We only have 2 park days so I’m trying to figure/plan out a way to do everything we want. Stacking might be less stressful but the idea of HS on NYD morning sounds a dream allright.
Thanks for your concerns
Staying at the DS resorts should be easier to get to than those within the WDW area.
Not used Lyft, just Uber. I think many drivers do both.