Oof. Today’s announcement has me all out of sorts. We are in the World 12/3-12/11 & don’t really care about SW. So now what?
Original plan was HS on 12/4…but I feel like this will be a busy day with people hoping for soft openings and/or lower crowds? Should we go on 12/3 instead?
What park should we visit on 12/5? I’m thinking MK to take biggest advantage of lower crowds?
Do we think EEMH will continue?
I suspect they will do something when Rise of the Resistance opens for a period of time.
Caveat: I have no idea.
But I will say, I do wonder if Disney would want to continue this considering the time of year. With daylight being quite limited, opening too early means having to increase electrical bills with lighting, etc. It is kind of odd to think they would power on the lights in the morning, turn them off, and then turn them on again in the evening. They don’t really have this problem in summer/early fall since it still is relatively light out.
Just a practical consideration that may play into things.
ETA: Then again, they could keep EEMH, but reduce them from 6-9 to 7:30 to 9 or even 8 to 9, but keep them at the three parks.
What in HS do you absolutely have to do?
Are there ADRs that are hindering a more laid back planning approach?
I think waiting until SWGE opens and we can see the impact of it in its partial state will help in planning for Dec ROTR opening.
I agree with the previous poster.
What is a must do at HS?
If I were going on your dates, I’d skip the whole park.
There are still three other parks to go to and they might be enjoying fewer folks.
Perhaps a larger question is what are your goals for the trip? Fun family vacation. Enjoy holiday decorations? Ride every ride?
Sometimes less is more.
I’m reshuffling for a different reason. I’m now going to put HS as my last park day for the best chance at FPP for RotR. I just wish I knew what they were going to do with EMM in HS.
I wouldn’t make planning decisions based on getting a FPP for Rise of the Resistence. Given that there are no FP offered for the Millennium Falcon ride, I think it’s very, very unlikely that Disney will change course and have FP for Rise of the Resistance in December 2019.
Our to do list for HS:
-TSL
-ST (maybe, if I can talk DD5 into it)
-Frozen
-BatB
-Disney Jr
-Lightening McQueen
-Mike & Sully
-Fancy Nancy
-Vampirina
-Olaf
Would be nice:
-Muppets
-Meet Mickey
-Little Mermaid
As I’m actually in Orlando, I’m out of touch with news and gossip. I have seen that ROTR is going to be open during my December trip. I’m quite possibly going to need a whole new strategy for that trip.
We have a long list too:
It’s nice to see someone else giving HS some love!! I suppose if you don’t have small children you wouldn’t want to do many of the things on that list, but I still think HS has some of the best rides. SDD and TSM are both so much fun!!
*We are not over the top Star Wars fans, but my husband has agreed that it would be cool to be able to say we rode RotR the day it opened. We will attempt MF the morning before. Of course, there’s over 130 days between now and then, so we’ll see how crazy we feel by then! 
And to the original topic, yes, I have a brand new spreadsheet now!! We’ve even switched resorts for the second half of our stay.
My people! This is how we ended up changing hotel reservations (and having more split stays) so that we might be able to say we rode MF the day it opened. Maybe. If the kids want to get up bonkers early or if there’s some sort of reservation (Oga’s/Savi) system in place that will make it possible… We’re also waiting to see how crazy we feel on August 29th but at least we’ll be sleeping at the Swan and can just walk over.
Anyway, @BoilerMomPharmD, you have my sympathy because there were three extra sheets in my original spreadsheet figuring out the options and relative costs for changing our plans, and then a total starting over of spreadsheets once that was done. The nice thing about the actual touring plans was for most of them I just had to change the date.
Yup. Switched the second half of our stay to BWI about an hour after the date was announced!!
I feel your pain. We do love SW but was not counting on this when we planned for 12/8-12/11.
Just finished revising my touring plans. Copy and edit on the TP site was so helpful. I now have three sets: with EMM and dessert parties, with Extra Extra Magic Hours, and a set without anything extra.
If I wasn’t worried about having my ADRs sorted out, I wouldn’t have bothered but it helped to identify a couple gaps. None of my plans include entering SWGE.
Which is a lot faster than the 2 months it took to change our stays after the August date was announced… but this is my first rodeo, and it wasn’t until the Disneyland opening was sane that it started seeming like a possibility. I’m excited to be able to read along here in December.
I have a feeling your time in SWGE is going to be far more tame than mine!!
I have that feeling too!