Looking for input on my Aug. itinerary

[brkn3467]

Hi all.

I am taking the family on out 1st WDW vac. in August. The group: me and wife, kids (8 &12). Here is my current itinerary (base tix):

Sat 25th - arrive at mid day/pool/DTD (no park passes till Sun)
Sun 26th - MGM w/ Brown Deby Fantasmic! dinner pkg
Mon 27th - Epcot FW till Coral Reef lunch/ rest/ HDD - 5pm show
Tues 28th - MK till Crystal Palace lunch/ rest and freetime (pool, DTD?)
Wed 29th - MK all day and wishes in eve.
thurs 30th - AK for morning/early afternoon/rest and free time
Fri 31st - travel home

My problem - Epcot is getting squeezed. Should I eliminate one MK day and do more Epcot instead? Skip AK altogether in favor of Epcot? I'm a litle worried about giving Epcot only 1/2 day. Advice is welcome!!

Thanks

P.S. MGM with Fantasmic! on Sun is set in stone, as is HDD on Mon. eve

[Justin M]

I'm stumped. What is HDD?

[Justin M]

I think you need to gauge your kids interest in things. At 8 and 12, the extra time in the Magic Kingdom is probably well spent. Especially with the lines in August.

[ChipNDale]

HDD = Hoop Dee Doo Review... It is at Fort Wilderness...

1/2 day at Epcot it not too bad as long as you do not want to look around the World Showcase. FW could be done in a half day so long as you take use of the single rider line for the more popular rides and if you do want to ride SOARIN' then you will have to get to Epcot as soon as it opens and rush right over to it and get a Fast pass.. But I think spending a day and a half at MK is good. Maybe your rest and relaxing time you could actually go back to the park instead of relaxing? Depends on what you and your kids decide. That is just my opinion.

[mini-V]

Your schedule looks pretty good. You do have some free time on Thurs., so you can always think about going back to any of the parks to catch something that you really wanted to see. I'm curious as to what HDD is too. Must be good if you have reservations.

[Kick Save]

Where are you staying? If you have the energy and aren't too far away, you could spend Tues or Thurs afternoon/evening at World Showcase and take in Illuminations.

[eyeinthesky]

Looks to me like you have a full day for Epcot unless I'm missing something. YOu have base tickets which I'm sure you know allows for one park per day. Based on the ages of your family, assuming all adult tickets and one child, your looking at approx. $800 for your passes. For $200 more (easier said than done, I know) you can upgrade to park hopper tix. But here is why I say this:

Epcot and the MK are both full day parks whereas MGM and AK are really half day parks. A full day at MGM and especially AK is going to feel a little long I think. Everyone heads to AK first thing in the morning because thats when the animals are out. Also, AK is a "hot park" meaning there are little to no air conditioned buildings like in other parks. By noon, many people head to another park or back to the hotel having done all the major attractions.

With MGM, there are really on 3 major attractions, Rockin Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, and the Great Movie Ride. The rest are mostly shows. You won't need all day there either.

The best thing to do is to review the online park guide maps that show all the attractions. I think this will help you plan what you want to see, and what you might want to skip. These can be found on Disney's website. Hope this helps and good luck!

[jacketsfan683]

I agree if you can upgrade to hopper passes you can catch Illuminations or even more time at MK whenever you schedule allows.

[tizzo]

I personally tend to combine AK with MK. Use Disney's calendar web site to find out what times the parks close on various days, and pick a late MK day to do the pair. Go to AK until it closes (or until you're done), and then head over to MK for the rest of the day. If you do this later in your stay, you may stil be able to buy base tix and upgrade to park hopper the day before you're going to park hop. I know that you can upgrade Magic Your Way tickets up until they expire, and I imagine that if you buy five days and upgrade when you only have two left, you should not have to pay the full price for upgrading all five days. (I'm not sure of this because I don't generally buy tickets this way, so make sure you check).


You also might be able to squeeze MK into a single day if you go on a day with late hours and skip Wishes. The lines should be shorter during the show, and the park really empties out afterwards, so if you can go on a day when the park is open til at least 11, and you have the stamina, you can get a lot in during that last hour or two. I absolutely do not advocate missing Wishes, but there are a number of places outside the park where you can view the show, complete with soundtrack. The only one I've tried is from the TTA itself, where they pipe in the soundtrack and you can see it pretty well, but if I remember correctly they left all the lights on and everything. I've heard that you can also see it well from the beach at the Polynesian, and that they also pipe the soundtrack in there too, but I've never watched from there.

Perhaps the simplest thing of all might be to exchange Monday with Thursday. You'd be leaving AK a little early to make it to HDD at 5, but AK usually closes pretty early anyway. Then you could spend more time at Epcot on Thursday, and also catch Illuminations.

Or, switch Monday and Tuesday, since you were planning on leaving MK early anyway on Tuesday. Do it instead on Monday, leave early as planned and go to HDD, then do Epcot for a full day Tuesday. Won't work if you've already got reservations for Crystal Palace, but in that case you can make Tuesday your all day MK day and do a full day at Epcot on Wed.

Anyway, just some ideas. You have to keep in mind park hours, and if your staying on property EMH as well.

[tizzo]

Does anyone know how it works upgrading to parkhopper after you've used some of your days? I remember hearing more than once that you can upgrade a MYW ticket any time until it expires. I think you can even add days after you've used your last one. It seems to me that if you buy five days, and upgrade to PH after you've already used three, you shouldn't have to pay the full price of upgrading a five-day ticket to PH, but I'm not sure.

[hgraber]

I hate to be the party pooper here, but you need to plan for a lot of rain. Keep in mind that AK always closes several hours before the other parks, so you can always use the end of that day to go to DTD or back to another park if you have the parkhoppers.

I don't think you can really classify any park as a half day park because some people love one park and could spend 2 days there while another person will hit the big rides and head to another park. I think it's great advice to check online and plan which attractions you want to see at each park. (You can have really cool personalized maps printed and mailed to you by Disney for FREE on the Disney website!)

One other thing I noticed...You've got more than a day total for rest/pool time when you're technically paying to be in the parks. The kids can go swimming at home, but how often can they be at WDW? A little R&R is great, but make the most of your money!

[eyeinthesky]

Does anyone know how it works upgrading to parkhopper after you've used some of your days? I remember hearing more than once that you can upgrade a MYW ticket any time until it expires. I think you can even add days after you've used your last one. It seems to me that if you buy five days, and upgrade to PH after you've already used three, you shouldn't have to pay the full price of upgrading a five-day ticket to PH, but I'm not sure.

They have a way of pro-rating the tickets I think. In the past, I've upgraded to park hoppers and they have a way to calculate it--but that's when they had length of stay passes. Hohpefully its the same with MYW.

The only time that I know of where you cannot extend tickets is if you want to switch hotels during your stay. The tickets would then start over. For example, I wanted to stay half the time at the Wilderness Lodge and the other half at the Contemporary, but Disney told me I would have to start new park tickets when i moved to the Contemp. and lose out on my multiple day dicount.