Combining Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom into one day

[taleasoldastime]

So my family is taking a big trip this upcoming October.

I will be arriving on a Saturday and leaving on the following Saturday.

We will not be going into parks on the travel days, that gives us 6 days to work with. We are purchasing 4 day park hoppers, and getting tickets to go to Universal for 1 day. This leaves one rest day.

This is my dilemma, usually when I go to Disney I prefer to have 5 day tickets so that I can go to a park a day, and then spend one day hitting up anything that I missed or would like to redo. The difference now is that about half of Hollywood Studios is down and when we go Animal Kingdom will have a night time show.
Do you think i can comfortable fit Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom into one day on this trip? I do really love taking time to look at all of the animals in Animal Kingdom but combining them would free up that fourth day to redo anything that I would like. Or do you think that fitting those two parks in together will be tricky? How much is there really left to do in Hollywood Studios? I have been considering skipping Fantasmic in favor of the Animal Kingdom night time show but I would also like my boyfriend to see both because he has never been to Disney before. I also really want to keep my day to rest by the pool and do nothing.. So adding on another park day ticket isn't an option for that rest day.

If fitting them both into one day ends up being too difficult, I am considering adding on another day to our vacation. I am just really on the fence.

[Speedy1998]

I think you can if you keep in mind that you probably won't get to do as much as you are used to doing at either park.

[Maleficent_vf]

I can't speak to this with the current situation at DHS and AK, but we have done this in the past and found it less than satisfactory. The biggest problem, for us, was at AK. It is a BIG park (and we have old legs), so just navigating it takes longer and the activities we were most interested in ran on specific schedules, which slowed our progress.

Could you split your parking hopping day with DHS and give AK an entire day? Then you could get the evening shows at both parks too.

[taleasoldastime]

Yes I suppose that i could do that. I guess I will have to look up a list of what is still open at Hollywood Studios. If it is enough to take up most of our day, then that wont give us much time to go back and do other favorites that we want to redo. If I do not end up adding an extra day to our vacation, this does seem like the best plan though.

[Dream'nDisney]

We have never spent more than 1/2 of a day at AK. That being said, we would always arrive at rope drop in the morning. We would go back to resort for a swim/nap and then usually head to Epcot or DHS in the evening. We always go to Epcot and DHS another day too, so not seeing everything that night has never been an issue.
Now that they will be having the night time show at AK, our plans will probably change.

[titleistboy]

I think it's just hard to say without knowing exactly how night time at AK will work...in the past, when it was just my wife and I, we were able to arrive at AK around 2:30 in the afternoon, and do everything we might be interested in in one big loop...with basically no lines at all, because it's been a half day park for many...but with a new nighttime show, nighttime safari, etc., it would probably be jammed. If it was me, I'd add the extra day to your tickets, if nothing else, since it's not much more money for that extra day, and then you can always hit the studios for the couple rides there one morning...

[faline]

I think you could do the highlights of each park by spending half a day in each but you won't do it all. And, how would you work your fast passes? If you start at Animal Kingdom on an early extra magic hour, you could probably hit the "big" rides before the park gets crowded and save your fast passes for Hollywood Studios.

[#1donaldfan]

I would guess that if you rope dropped AK it's possible to see most without FP's, (make sure you hit the Safari and EE first), then do the rest of the park till noonish ... save the FP's for HS later that evening. You will miss many attractions but anything is "possible". For us tho, AK is an all day park. ( make sure to try this on a day with extra magic hours ) ....