Ok. I’m just about 3 months out from our trip, so I thought I’d start working on personalized plans again. Just so happens, another tweak in wait times came out this weekend, so it’s a good time to look and think.
Anyway, I’m REALLY second guessing what I’ve already planned.
We currently have dinner reservations booked for the “blue” schedule above. We’d go to the Christmas party on 12/9, in addition to a full-ish day at MK beforehand. I have not bought tickets yet.
As I look, though, the “orange” schedule is pretty attractive, too. We could really take advantage of EMH, at least at HS and AK. We’d skip the party, but maybe that’s OK. We’ve never seen HEA, and it would save us like $400.
We’re staying at Boardwalk the first night (12/7 to 12/8), so it would be nice to walk to HS that morning. Then we move to BLT - again, walking to MK and monorail to Epcot. I’m just not sure how much to take location into account, here.
How crazy is it for me to consider rearranging? skipping MVMCP? The only dinner reservation I really worry about giving up is Sci-Fi. I think I’d be able to get everything, even that, with the res finder.
So, master planners? What would you do?!
I’m not sure why you would completely change your plans. I don’t concern myself with crowd numbers, especially after I make my plans and have ADR’s. As long as you have a good flexible plan for your park days, you should be fine.
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I take little notice of crowd predictions. They frequently change as you get closer to the days themselves and I don’t really know what they mean. And I’m not sure I trust them.
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Ahem.
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Do you want to change because of crowds or because you think you may want to see HEA and overall you prefer the hours for each park?
I would keep your plans and your ADRs. I travel in the week prior to you. I Wonder if anyone else has been experiencing this but I have had a real difficulty booking ADRs. Any ADR! I hypothesize that it may be due to free dining being offered during that time.
@PrincipalTinker has it right… it’s not so much about crowds as about EMH, HEA, MVMCP. @profmatt, I don’t believe you! I’ve been around long enough… 
With the ages of my kids, I’m not sure we’d take full advantage of the party… (just 6 and 10). I think we’d take more advantage of the early morning time… and maybe get easier access to SDD, TSMM, ASS, FOP, etc. Those are all new things since we went two years ago, and I’m really looking forward to them all.
OTOH, we really wanted to make this trip about enjoying the parks at Christmas time. We’ve only ever been in Oct before.
As far as changing plans, I don’t think they’d really change all THAT much… just switch the plans to different days, and work to get the ADRs moved…
@kjsprouse_577366, I didn’t have much trouble with my ADRs (at 180 days). However, the only hard-to-get one was Sci-Fi, which I got fairly early… a 4:30 dinner. I’ll be curious to hear how your FP day goes.
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I’m not really a fan of the parties at Disney. We have a family of 5 and it is very expensive. I also don’t like the shortened park hours and how I have to work my plans around them. This is why I will not take my family during party season again. But I digress.
I have kids the same age and I agree, they would not have been able to stay up that late. HEA is great and worth seeing. But I don’t think I would do to much of a major overhaul of your plans at this point. Switching a few things shouldn’t be a problem though. But you know your family best, so do what you need to.
Those crowd numbers are not high enough to warrant changing your plans (in my opinion). Often times we can over plan or second guess our decisions based on the unknown. Just focus on what you can control and have a great time. 
Ok… consider me talked down. No one seems to think it’s a great idea to change it up and skip the party… even the hub-ster. I thought for sure he’d be all over it… saving $400.
Someday, maybe we’ll get to see HEA… someday…
I always plan my nights first. I think I would pick HEA over the party given your concerns. I had a trip planned (since cancelled) for those dates and at 180 plus 4 I could not get the ADRs I wanted . I think it is a free dining issue.
So, maybe I’ll go see what’s out there, for the easier ADR reservations…
I still don’t think we’ll change. I guess I’ve just got FOMO. Everyone talks about how awesome HEA is… how hard it is to get rides of FOP, SDD… I just have to remember that we WILL be back. I don’t have to fit everything into this 4 day window.
I know exactly how you are feeling. But the reality is, there’s just no way to do everything. That’s why you start planning the next trip after this one is over.
We took a 7-day trip with our 7 and 5 year old back in June. We spent seven days in the parks and still didn’t feel like we got to do everything. We didn’t do any of the night time stuff because we wanted to do well rested for early mornings when we could get a lot done each day. Next time, we will probably do more of the night time stuff but will sacrifice some of our rope drop mornings.
The most important thing is to do what is best for you and your family. Only you know your kids and how they will react to being up late/being up early, but I will say that I was really a stickler for sticking to our schedule on our trip and our kids had a great time because we made sure we didn’t push them too far.
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