What Strategy for Deciding What Parks on Which Days?

[marie8461]

Does anybody have a strategy they use to plan which parks to visit on which days? I need to book my dining on May 5 and am trying to come up with an itinerary for which parks we will visit each day so that I can plan the best location for ADR’s based on where we intend to be. The problem is that that I am working blindly because park hours and EMH will not be fully available at the time I have to book. I have access to the crowd calendar on Touring Plans and I took a look at Undercover Tourist and they don’t agree. Also, wondering if all bets are off with regard to these calendars when Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge opens. I know to avoid morning EMH and Epcot on weekends during the F&W? What else? I used to hear that MK was bad on Sundays, but according to the crowd calendars, that does not seem to be the case. We are visiting during the first week of November, which coincides with Jersey Week and the Epcot F&W. Thanks.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

No one strategy works for every person and every situation of course, but for us....

The only real thing I purposely plan around is avoiding the park with EMHs that day - an old EasyWDW (and other blogger) crowd calendar recommendation that has tended to stick in how we approach things. These days I half-way do it just as something to help give structure to an otherwise blank slate, which to me is more of a benefit than any perceived or actual crowd level benefit that may or may not be experienced on the ground. Sometimes when you’re sitting there with a blank calendar and you’re questioning where to start, ‘something’ to give some structure can be a big help just to get the planning juices going.

Touring Plans usually posts predicated hours (which includes EMHs), presumably based on educated guesses or sources.

Looks like you’re going in party season, so have to factor that in as well (unless you’ll be missing it in between MNSSHP & MVMCP).

Other than that, I just plan things out given whatever we’d like to do on any given trip on days that I feel might flow well together, balancing nights and mornings where applicable.

I concede this is easy to say as someone with an AP who visits a few times a year, but to me a good touring plan and being flexible usually trumps trying to strategically pick park days based on crowd calendars, IMHO.

 

[Tigger's ally]

Not really. To us, three constants to our trips are

1. Never go tot he MK on Monday. Most families arrive on Sunday and Monday is their first park day and we avoid that.
2. Epcot on our last full night. Ever since seeing Illuminations in its beginning, we always want the last night there.
3. Last morning at MK. We have a long drive and always split it so we stay till about two or three on the last day. We seem to always gravitate towards the kingpin for the last hours.

We adjust accordingly but those are our tried and true. We leave a week from today and the only difference this year is the Studios has always been a morning/half day for us. This time however we decided to do a half day there but just not arrive till about 3 and staying late. Never was a huge fan of Studios but need to see TS before SWGE opens. Also my grandtinker has never been to Fantasmic so we opted for night time there.

 

[EdnaMarieMode]

I tend to sort my days by the following:
-Avoid morning EMH (we don’t use them)
-Avoid MK on Saturday/ Monday
-Avoid Epcot on a weekend if there’s a festival going on

I also consider holidays/ special occasions (for instance if I want an anniversary or birthday meal somewhere)

Lastly I consider how difficult an ADR might be to get on an early day in my trip, and same for FP. If I want FoP FP for the last day, I don’t plan dinner at MK that same day for example).

 

[Klayfish]

"Crowd calendars" are snake oil, don't bother with them. There really isn't any "strategy" beyond doing going to what parks you want when you want. Know a few things...Weekends are busier than weekdays, MK is the busiest of the parks....holidays are busier than non-holidays...and then go from there. Personally, I don't think EMH, ABC, 123 really makes any difference. Pick the parks you want to go to. If you want to go to MK on a Saturday morning, go for it. It'll be busier than it would be on a weekday, but so what?

The only "strategy" we have is to always start with MK, because it's tradition for us. Doesn't matter if it's Saturday afternoon, we go.

 

[sponica]

I guess i sort of plan around my harder to get dining reservations, but since we always get hoppers it's a moot point.

 

[chris benton]

OP - you gotta decide based on what makes sense for you and your group.
We always use hoppers and stay Epcot Area, so hopping time to or from two parks is only a few minutes.
We are early risers, so AM EMH is mandatory and easy.
We can guesstimate EMH days based on previous patterns to guess on dining needs, BUT, unless it's CRT, a reservation finding app always gets us anything we want, so we have no real need to plan dining very far out. And, since we don't stress dining at specific places that much, planning dining is kind of low on our priority list. You can also make a bunch of reservations, and discard them when your plans get more solidified. Plenty ppl do that, and that's one reason why reservations open up all the time - which is another reason why we don't worry about dining.

 

[chippydale33]

We kind of plan based on length of trip, type of park ticket, dining needs, when we want to head over to Disney Springs, and what rides we want to go on. I'm not going to plan to go to HS day 1 and AK day 2 anticipating to get on FoP and SDD with 9AM fastpasses, it just won't work that way (usually!). So we normally save those parks towards the latter half of our trip in hopes of more and better availability for the hard to get rides.

 

[dizneefan13]

We don't worry about ADR's 6 months out. And sometimes our trips are planned after that window anyway.
Our next trip, we will stay 2 weeks with a split stay. DH and I have AP's, this time our daughter and granddaughter are coming with. We talked it over and decided they only need one park per day tickets. We will either go in early and leave mid or late afternoon and go back and relax at the resort. or we will go to parks later and take our time in the mornings. I love spending less on hotels and staying longer. Really helps us enjoy the moment and not have to rush at all. I don't have to worry about getting ADR's we really want. I usually find something even booking a couple months out. You just have to keep trying.
Sorry I didn't really answer your question. Just decide what you most want to do and see and go from there. Figuring all this out may take a trip or two. And figuring it out for me means just a basic plan. In my case, FP's are more important that ADR's
Is this your first WDW trip?

 

[SaintsManiac]

Here's how I do it:

We go to MK first. No exceptions. Doesn't matter what day of the week it is.

We do AK toward the end to get the best chance for FoP FPs. This is the most important FP for us.

We like to have the option of doing EMM, so I plan for those.

We avoid Epcot on Saturday, especially if there is a festival going on.

 

[Disneypro1]

Avoid EMH completely. Goto a park with no emh that given day. It will be less crowded.
This is a very common suggestion in the planning guides. And it’s correct. We always have success with crowds this way.

 

[bettymae1121]

...but to me a good touring plan and being flexible usually trumps trying to strategically pick park days based on crowd calendars, IMHO.

This! Out side of obvious things like "maybe July 4th isn't the best day to visit MK" just do the parks in the order you want. For us, we always do MK the first full day and the last full day. We fill in the rest of the trip as we please. At most I'll look at historical park hours and party dates to so things won't (probably) interfere with our evening plans (fireworks and such) but beyond that I don't care, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.

Outside of CRT, BoG and other hot ADRs I'd also not worry about restaurant reservations right at 180. Sure go for them if you're pretty sure of what you want but it's not critical either.

 

[Kbosch]

September will be my first trip back in 15 years. I definitely over-planned, looked at every crowd calendar and thought I had as close to a perfect schedule as I could get. Then the news about SW:GE came out and my plans went to crap lol. I had enough time to replan everything before we made out ADRs and then the news about Illuminations ending came out, which is ending when we’re there and so now I’m changing our plans again. So basically I think that for the next few months after September all bets are off, and just do whatever works best for you!

 

[Day-Day]

Our plans on parks to visit often changes once we get our fastpasses selected since this takes place well after the time we first book ADR's.

We book multiple ADR's including several that we end up canceling after we do our fastpass selections. It is not usually possible to get ADR's near the same time but sometimes it happens. We may schedule a meal at a specific restaurant for a couple of different days and only plan to go there once during our trip. We may schedule ADR's for supper in one park and lunch in another park for the same day but likely will cancel one. In general, we do not do more than one sit-down restaurant a day.

We sometimes have an in-the-park character breakfast reserved for one hour before scheduled park opening but also have it reserved for late morning on that same day. If the park opening gets moved to 8am instead of 9am, we will likely cancel the earlier one and keep the late one.

 

[rwdavis2]

Easywdw (below), if I remember correctly, is saying that the trends show it does no matter what day you go to each park if you are evaluating it strictly by crowd sizes. Even the avoid MK on Monday appears to no longer be holding

https://www.easywdw.com/easy/blog/d...-you-visit-each-walt-disney-world-theme-park/

 

[gharter]

Does hope and pray count?

The 3 main things we usually follow:
1. Go to a park the day after EMH. There are reports the parks are slightly less crowded. Not sure if its really true.
2. usually put AK and HS at 60+3 or later in our trip. This will all change when GoTG and Tron open.
3. In the fall, we usually go to MK on a party day. It seems to be less crowded and leave by 5 before most of the party crowd has come in.

Otherwise, I think its just a lot of luck picking a less crowded park (if there is one).

 

[marie8461]

Thanks so much! Your suggestions are helpful! Way-back-when, when my daughter was young (she's 34 now), we just sort of went with the flow and, as someone mentioned - we always began and ended with the Magic Kingdom! Maybe, it's time to stop my over-planning and just enjoy!

 

[a1tinkfans]

Nothing works for all but we avoid EMH despite staying on property. We no longer hop as it’s too chaotic/time waster. We choose restaurants Within the park we’re visiting. Typically yak n Yeti lunch and rfc for dinner for AK. Morocco lunch and some Asian meal for dinner at Epcot, MK we sometimes go to the Poly or choose Liberty Tree/crystal Palace ... and IF we have multiple days at MK... I enjoy getting to
HoopDeeDoo. We haven’t been to HS in a bit and typically ate at brown derby.
What I try to do is enjoy Dinner as our sit down meal and cs for lunch.
I try to avoid going off park as it does take
So much time!!
Enjoy, and good luck with all ur choices!!

 

[Kippa-Dee-Do-Dah]

Our TA helped us plan our days for our first trip last summer and here's what we told her:

- rope drop every day (unless we can sleep in due to FP+)
- avoid EMH
- avoid Halloween party (we went in August)
- put in resort days

So our first park day (a Monday) we did HS. This was after TSL had opened and it was a super early morning for us. So the next day (Tues at MK) we planned to hit our first FP+ around 11 am, to let us sleep in. We did a late night that night at MK, and the next day (Wed) was a sleep in/resort day. Next day, rope drop at MK but we left before dinner. Next day, rope drop at Epcot, stayed later. Next day (Sat), sleep in/resort day. Next day, PPO breakfast at Epcot, left before dinner. Last day (Tues) rope drop at MK, had dinner at GF, and watched fireworks on the monorail. The next day we checked out and did Disney Springs.

So we had long nights followed by sleeping in a bit. And rope drops following our resort days. It worked SO well for us.

 

[Rach3975]

If your ADR day is May 5th, you're going to be there the same time we are. Our trip is Nov. 2-5. We were there the same week in 2018, though in 2018 it was a longer trip, Nov. 3-8. That weekend is a bit of an anomaly. Normally people say to avoid EPCOT on weekends during Food and Wine. But last year MK closed at 4:30 on Monday due to an annual cast member party. Touring Plans is predicting that early close to happen the same Monday in 2019. What we found last year is that most people looking for longer park hours that Monday went to Epcot instead; if I remember correctly, both AK and HS closed by 8 pm. We made the mistake of EPCOT that Monday, and it was a madhouse. So if possible, I'd avoid EPCOT on Sat, Sun, and Mon. Are you going to have hoppers? If so, I suspect that Monday will be a great day to visit MK then hop someplace else by 4:30. HS is probably also good for a day that's traditionally slower, so that there are fewer locals in the park for GE. Beyond that, I have no idea! Not knowing how GE will affect crowds and hours is making it more challenging than usual to plan everything.

Our trip this year is super short; we have half days in the parks Sat and Tues and full days on Sun and Mon. Because we're so limited, we're going to do EPCOT on Sunday. But that's the night that the marathon crowds will be there for an after hours party, so if we had a longer trip I'd pick a mid-week day for it instead. This is also our first trip with hoppers; on our usual 5-day trips we pick one park a day and stick with it.