My friend has asked for help planning her trip next year - arriving 6th April for 16 nights. But she’s staying offsite and there’s also a marathon weekend in there.
Marathon weekend is 13th-17th. Is she going to have trouble getting to the parks?
Thanks!
I’m not going to be any help with any of your questions except to say that if she’s already complaining about wait times and she doesn’t go for months she’s setting herself up to be unhappy and not enjoy it. She has 16 days! That’s plenty of time to do everything she wants!
Does she plan to rope drop? Does she plan to buy Genie+? Who else is she going with?
HS: I would start with RNRC and/or ToT, perhaps MMRR, and then move to MFSR. Genie + for SDD first.
Complaining was probably a bit strong! But she doesn’t want to have long waits. The 16 days aren’t all for Disney - they will have 14 day tickets but also have 3 days at Universal, want to do Seaworld and Busch Gardens, possibly a beach and plenty of downtime.
It’s her, husband (who visited as a teen) and her DS17. She says she will rope drop but she’s always late so who knows. I will definitely be adding in some later starts, but I think she’ll have to do some RDs unless they get Genie - which is undecided. They may buy some ILLs but again, undecided. Our post-covid trip was onsite (using EE) and with Genie+ so I’m not sure the strategy will be the same.
I’m also not sure whether to just send them to other parks over marathon weekend.
You see that was our strategy 100% in July but we were using EE and had G+ and they definitely won’t have EE. I will probably push for them to get G+ for HS at least.
Agreed. That will soften things if she hits a particularly busy day.
Whichever way they will slice and dice the days, 16 days is still a long time to be in Central Florida! I’m envious. I would think that should give them lots of time to do everything and not have to wait in super long lines. RDing would really help but it they can’t, maybe the last 2 hours? Though that can be iffy. Genie+ definitely for HS and maybe MK.
Oooh. Just occurred to me that she will get to ride Tron (if she wants to). That may make MK nice and busy (busier), so I second that suggestion to get G+ for MK.
You’d be surprised, we do 14 and don’t have time for Seaworld, Busch Gardens or the beach, and I’d like 4 days at Universal but we only have time for 3.
Anyway, they are definitely more night owl people than early morning - except her DH - and I have suggested getting in line late on for headliners. I’m not concerned about getting them on everything - I just don’t want them to be wasting those early hours. At AK for example I’ll definitely tell them to avoid FOP first thing. But at HS everything has a long line by regular opening.
I haven’t even told her about Tron yet!
Perhaps with such a long stay, if they get partway through the trip and assess that they aren’t getting to do enough at Hollywood studios, they could add genie for a repeat day there?
They’ll definitely have 2 days at all the parks and if they’re willing to pay for Genie I’ll probably suggest getting it at least one day at each. Depending on their ride priorities and if they are hopping.
ETA all UK tickets include hopper.
That’s interesting. I did not know that.
And waterparks and more.
So it’s like the top tier of tickets that includes all of the things?
Yes. A 14 day ticket also costs the same as a 7 day ticket. Because they know we’re going for two weeks and they want us spending that second week there and not at Universal etc.
Makes sense.
The UK ticket is amazing. A friend of mine got them for us on our 2019 trip. We only needed 6 park days but got a 10 day “everything” ticket for the same price, and it had memory maker too.
I don’t have much to add to the advice people have given, and I can’t speak for RD while staying offsite. We arrived later than RD to avoid the crowds since onsite get EE anyway.
Yes I forgot to say they include memory maker. You can’t get a 10 day though, only 7 or 14. The 21 day went away with covid.
Hmm maybe it was 14 day, unless back then there was a 10 day. Either way it was a much better deal than we priced out here, even though we left several days unused since our trip was shorter than the ticket.