Air you cannot get to HS on Saturday, I would consider DTD, although it may be crowded. I have a really short attention span so I would also suggest that since your plan only has a half day at AK, I would do it on my party day ( maybe a late day and just use your FPs there?)
Do you mean a late day at AK?
I am a little concerned about doing two parks on Sunday. It is supposed to be a low crowds day on MK, which would be nice. Also, since we will arrive the day before, I did not want to put too much pressure on the morning of the first full day we will be there. This is why I was more comfortable with a long day at MK, because we would likely not start very early anyway. Iâm also afraid that if we go to AK first, DD may want to nap around the time we would like to commute to MK. Itâs hard to predict when she will want to nap when we are on a trip. The stimulation and different hours tend to change her schedule, so we usually remain flexible allowing for this possibility. I wouldnât be able to take her out of the stroller to a bus without waking her up, and that would make her very cranky.
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Great plan. If you wanted to save $ by not buying Park Hoppers, you could do a different park Sunday by day, and make Monday and Epcot day. Or make Monday MK day and make Tuesday Epcot day.
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MK. Everything else is pretty easy to get FPP for unless you think youâll want Toy Story at HS.
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No. Crowds are more indicative of Wait Times, not chaos around WS. I would expect way fewer locals on a Monday night. Every evening is going to be busy at Epcot, but I think itâs a reasonable option, especially if you head into WS earlier rather than later for exploring/F&W snacks.
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AoA is a mini theme park unto itself. My kids love it there. Walk around and see the cars, the Little Mermaid statues, explore the Lion King area and the Elephant Graveyard⌠Exploring is worth an hour of your time. Pool is worth another hour. Playground another half-hour. Food court there is great. If youâre late, the resort is a wonderful place to play. Alternatively, if youâre there not too late, play âBus rouletteâ - get on whichever bus arrives first and go explore for an hour or two without a plan. DTD will be unpleasantly busy.
Thatâs just my thoughts⌠Iâm sure others will have better ideas. Which area in AoA are you staying in?
Perfect⌠FPP were MADE for people like you. Donât worry about being up at the crack of dawn, because youâll get great lines and perspective with a 2-year-old at Late-Night WDW. 
Thanks for the answers! I will look up the price of the Park Hopper option for Monday and see if it is worthwhile for us. You eased my mind about EP.
We are staying in a Lion King suite. I asked for a high floor and lake view in the hopes of getting Building 6 with a view. Given you recommendations I think that the best plan would be to stay in the hotel if we canât make it to HS on time.
Park hoppers are based on your length of your tickets. That is why there have been a couple of suggestions about moving AK (thinking your plans work for full days on the other days). I always buy park hoppers for the flexibility but not buying them is a strategy that can save money. You know whatâs best.
Yes, I looked it up and it would cost $68 per person to add the Park Hopper option. As you said, one cannot add a park hopper option for just one day, and it is priced according to the length of the tickets. This seems indeed too expensive since we only intend to use it one day. So, I guess I am back to planning what to do each day. I am not too keen on going to AK on Sunday. Itâs our first full day there, I am pretty sure that we wonât be able to wake up early enough, so we would not enjoy AK properly. On top of that we would still have to deal with the hassle of changing parks, perhaps even inconveniencing a nap (which would be very bad for enjoying the party at MK until late). I am leaning towards doing:
Sat - HS arriving late afternoon. If it does not work out because we canât make it on time, we will spend the evening at the hotel.
Sun - MK all day, stay for party
Mon - EP
Tue - MK
Wed - AK
So, this plan cuts HS harshly, and we may not even get there at all. On the other hand, it does allow us to enjoy MK for two full days, and EP for a full day. It is also nice that we will have time to do the World Showcase earlier in the day instead of at dinner time, and thus avoid some of the crowds. Unfortunately we will only go to AK at the end of the trip, but we will get nearly a full day there, and on a day with crowd level 2, which should be nice.
How does this look?
AK will be a short day. Do you want your last day to be your short day? I would flip Tuesday and Wednesday.
Our return flight is on Wed at 7 pm, so the last day would have to be a short day. I also wanted to go to MK on Tue because I got a reservation for a haircut for DD at Harmony Barbershop, and I also got fast pass reservations for the Seven Dwarves mine train on that day. It doesnât hurt that on Tue crowd level at MK is supposed to be 4, the lowest of all parks.
Are you taking DME to the airport on Wednesday?
I was planning to send the luggage ahead using the resort check-in, and then go to the airport straight from the park using Uber or a car service.
Will your carry on fit in a locker? Do you have one?
Yes, it will fit, I already looked up the measurements of the biggest lockers on AK and the other parks. We carry on the stroller, a diaper bag and a backpack. The stroller is outfitted with two hamster bags on the side. When we arrive at the park we can leave my husbandâs backpack on a locker. The diaper bag is also a backpack, but it can hang from the stroller, so we donât carry it most of the time. When we arrive at the park we transfer some of the weight of the diaper bag to the hamster packs (or leave a few things in the locker). We are taking a direct flight back from Orlando, just 2:30 hour long, so we donât have to worry about carrying too much. If we buy something big on the last day I will just have it shipped home.
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I will be arriving on your departure day and my youngest will turn 2 the next day, 11/5. I think you have a good plan, please keep us posted as to what are the biggest hits, especially at Epcot. I havenât done Epcot with kids yet. On our last trip, my middle son was 2 and a half, he actually loved characters, to my surprise, other favorites were the playgrounds - the Boneyard will be a great place to burn off energy before the flight - and parades. Hope you have a great trip!
Thanks, you too! I will report here after the trip. I will also post here once I have a definitive plan, even before we go.
I think the last listed plan (HS, MK, EP, MK, AK) is perfect. If for some reason you donât make HS on Saturday, you can change plans and hit it Wednesday morning instead of AK if youâre feeling so inclined, although I think both parks are great. Excited for you to have a wonderful trip.
Thanks! I am finishing up the plans and will report more details soon.
Just wanted to let you all know that I am now posting the trip report. Thank you so much for all the advice. It was very useful, and we had a wonderful trip with almost no issues. I think that it was as relaxing as it can possibly be given the circumstances. Thanks again!
@Karilynn, I hope your trip went great! Sorry I could not post before. My days got very hectic before departing because I had to review all my plans. TP was investigating the reasons for the much higher waiting times and was updating the software exactly in the days before I was leaving. So, instead of calmly packing, I had to re-do every plan. After I returned things got hectic at work, so I am trying to catch up now. Happy birthday to your daughter! I was so focused the first time I read it that I did not notice that our daughters have the same birthday!
@mossymom Thank you so much, you helped me here and in other threads I started as well! By the way, you suggested the less is more strategy of staying in the parks for a few hours at a time. An alternative strategy which worked for us was to plan a sufficiently flexible schedule that allowed for change of plans to accommodate a nap or a relaxation time inside the park. I found that my daughter did very well staying all day long at the park. She did sleep in the stroller, and sometimes she just relaxed there, but she really enjoyed the rides, and never had a meltdown. So, that is possible too, especially for families that have trouble getting to the parks early in the morning. I should say that if I could get to the parks very early in the morning I would have preferred your strategy, because it would have avoided staying at the parks during the hottest hours. Alas, since we usually arrived between 11am and 12pm, if we returned to the hotel in the middle of the afternoon we would have no time to do anything.
@lizzney22 You were right about HS. If I did it again I would have gone there on Monday instead of EP. My daughter loved rides and shows a lot more than I thought she would, and HS has more of those. I wasnât too impressed with EP myself either. I thought it was a bit dated and unnecessary. I will explain in the report. You also mentioned not trying to keep your daughter quiet during the shows, and you were right. There are so many kids, and the shows are so loud anyway, that my daughter was never much of a nuisance, or not more than other kids. Most shows we attended were pleasant, relaxing experiences, though she did jump on the people in front of us at the Lion King show at AK, poor people, how embarrassing. It was a bit hard to keep her from wandering during Turtle Talk with Crush at EP though, but I am still glad we did that.
@PrincipalTinker Thank you so much for all the help! Our strategy for the return worked perfectly. We sent the luggage ahead with the resort check-in and went to AK with our carry on (one backpack, one diaper bag and another bag that held odds like the travel pillows. We got two lockers, which were enough to fit everything (we took some things out of the backpack to make the shape fit properly). We enjoyed the park and left from there at 4:15 with a limo service (Magical Express asked us to be back at our hotel to depart at 4 pm for a 7:05 flight, so we got one hour more at AK out of this, which was useful.) If I were to do this again I would do the same thing, but I would leave the park even later at 4:30, maybe 4:45.
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