So basically, just like the ride?
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Food wasn’t good and it was very loud inside.
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Well, you could say that about any restaurant at WDW 
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Hubby’s favorite ride is FoP and he also loves EE. He is nothing like me and doesn’t go for rides like PPF, iasw, etc. He’s all about the thrills. He’d agree with you about starting with those two attractions as a good wow factor. But his and my teens favorite park and every teen I’ve taken in the last couple of years’ favorite park is DHS so that’s also a good argument for first if you want to wow them with attractions because RnRC, ToT, RotR, TSM, MFSR all have appeal in that same vein. Shucks my teens and hubby even like MMRR better than all the other iterations of dark ride.
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My problem with DHS is that the park has no entrance wow factor, unlike the other three. And it’s quite a long walk before you get to a good ride, all the while being not that impressed by the environment. I guess the approach to TOT is cool, but even so it’s still a walk before you first see it.
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Without a doubt AK has wow factor with the tree and it’s a beautiful park.
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Totally agree with you on this except at Christmas the decorations improve the situation. Still no wow, but at least something. But I would stilll start with AK.
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You’re right about that!
I can’t wait for the trip report to see what your friends think of everything.
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Not me. I are sophisticated. 
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So I did not like Disney much the first time I went as an adult. My wife brought me there and I felt like we were the only couple without kids there. It was only after coming back that I learned how many of the people I know go often and have liked it more on follow up trips. Going when it was cooler the second time definitely helped.
We started at HS that first trip which was the most up to date park at the time. That really helped me feel more comfortable. I think starting with AK is good. It will feel more adult oriented to your friends and with new rides. I think taking frequent breaks or one long break in the afternoon is a great suggestion. Because of how large AK is it can be grueling.
My wife saved MK until the third day for our first trip. By then I was ready to try out the classic rides I had heard about.
It sounds like your friends have similar misconceptions I did back then.
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My husband wasn’t as excited about Disney the way I thought he should have been. I hyped it up a lot and before we got there he was meh. We boarded Magical Express and first stop was OKW. He was blown away with the beauty. That’s when I knew I had him. 
People who have no familiarity with WDW tend to imagine it as just MK. They don’t realize the beauty that is WDW resort. Palm trees, perfectly manicured lawns, aesthetically beautiful hotels, etc. They don’t imagine those parts. And … WDW at Christmas time is all of that - on steroids. The parks are the cherry on top. It will punch your friends in the face for sure.
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One of the things that sold DH on Disney on this year’s trip - aside from a lot of his memory not being present any more - is the time available to chat up folks. He’s always loved people and only really liked rides if he was enjoying kids’ experiences. Since we had teens that were doing their own thing, I finally realized where our focus needed to be and it worked well.
A real nod to Flight of Passage is that more than 2 months later he still recalls the experience. He says you can’t really call it a ride - you don’t go anywhere. 
eta: he did enjoy SSR a lot more than he thought he would.
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LOL! So funny. So make time for Walmart! I cannot stand Walmart but to each his own.
I think that Epcot is actually a super unique park and with the festival of holidays, I’d just make sure you have enough time to spend there. I know that I had about 2 days and didn’t have enough time to hit all the storytelling, and that was last year when it was not even full-throttle (I think they were missing some storytellers) and there was no Guardians. So as long as you have enough Epcot time… I mean, MK is my least favorite park so I’d always opt for more DHS and more Epcot vs MK. DHS has super fun holiday decorations.
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I agree with your AK plan. It highlights the uniqueness of WDW while giving some really great experiences and rides.
When I go with different folks, the trip is always different. With my Dad, the closest we got to MK was watching the fireworks after our California Grill Sip, Savor and Sparkle event. We did a total of 3 rides and that was at Epcot during Food & Wine. Never set foot in other parks and he LOVED it. With my son, we have one day and that’s at HS. Thrill rides and Galaxy’s Edge are his jam. My niece we have one day, we do the Every Ride challenge. One of these days I will do a solo trip so I get to do all the things I want to do.
I think it’s really great that you are putting this much thought into how to make your friends have the best time possible and hopefully set yourself up for their coming away with as much of an appreciation of the parks as you have.
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FWIW, my ride loving kids would pick MK as their least rated park. On my daughter’s birthday trip, after we rode all the rides at Epcot, we made a game time decision to hop over to AK for FOP and EE and hopped back to Epcot for dinner.
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We (me, wife, son 14) just got back from doing pretty much every attraction at all 6 parks in 6 days (starting w/ UOR), and there’s very little at WDW that competes with the thrilliest thrill rides at UOR.
We didn’t plan it this way intentionally, but doing EP with an early morning GotG right after UOR kind of reset our son’s brain. Might have been everyone’s favorite ride. EE is great (we did it multiple times), but if you’ve just done Velocicoaster it seems tame.
We did MK last, at which point adrenaline expectations had been recalibrated. No adult who isn’t super nostalgic for the IP is going to love PPF, Pooh, UtS, etc., but the mountains, Buzz, even Monsters and Philharmagic were all hits, and BTMR and Splash at night were among the highlights of the trip.
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What what I heard about your friends, probably a wise choice. I never miss it, but that’s probably due to nostalgia - I saw the original iteration at the NY WF in '65. It’s a great bit of Disney history (kind of like watching vintage Mickey Mouse cartoons), but if you don’t have a historical perspective, it’s pretty much a sleeper - literally.
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I’ll offer my 2 cents…
I went to WDW at Christmastime 2021 with my family that included several first timers, and I also started our group at AK on the first day. We hit a few snags that derailed my plan right at the start and we never really recovered, which left my group members exhausted and frustrated. I spent the whole day trying to make things better and get back on track, but in the process I ended up having a less than magical day at my favorite park.
Here’s what went wrong: First, there were problems with the bus at our resort and I should have made the decision to get a Lyft, but my mother was bemoaning the fact that the trip cost so much and we had complimentary transportation, so we shouldn’t shell out more money for a ride service. In retrospect, I realize that this was the biggest error in judgement of the day. As a result, we arrived only slightly before the gates opened and were way behind the crowd as we worked our way toward FOP. Additionally, my mom is 77 years old, so walking with purpose looks different for her. We waited in line for nearly 90 minutes for the ride, and the whole time my family was complaining about how early we had to wake up only to have to stand in the line. This set the tone for the rest of the day. Again, I should have made a different decision, but we waited as I had never been on this ride I didn’t want to risk missing it. Then, because I had never used Genie+ before, and I’m not a WDW regular (we live in CA and go to DLR regularly), I struggled with using the system and found that we were zigzagging the park all day long to try to use our LL reservations. Finally, it was quite hot for December and we were feeling the heat big time. When we left AK, my group was spent and not looking forward to getting up early and doing it again the next day at another park. Fortunately, things improved and the group enjoyed the rest of our trip, but that first day was brutal. At the end of the trip, we realized that on our first day we actually walked more steps at AK than we did on our other days at the other parks.
I should also add that in addition to my mother, my group included my sister and our teenage daughters, so perhaps our family dynamics impacted the experience in a different way.
I hope your day 1 with your group goes better than mine did:)
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Oh no!