Planning your days in the parks

[Lisaj13]

We (me, 51, DD1 18, DD2, 14) leave in 21 days (hurray!), but this is my first trip in the summer, so I'm worrying more than usual (if that's possible).

How do you organize your days in the parks - what park, which day?

I've looked at Touring Plans for crowd levels and used them as my guide, but they change! What was a Neutral Park became a Park to Avoid and is now a Neutral Park again. I've only made three lunch reservations, so we're pretty flexible, but I was wondering how other people do their planning.

Thanks.

[snowflakegirl]

When I'm there in the summer, I make lunch the big meal of the day most days, and schedule us a later seating table service. This gets us out of the heat for a decent amount of time mid-day. Other than our lunches, which we stretch out to take at least an hour, we stay pretty flexible so that we can take breaks as needed and duck into stores and cool off with some window shopping.

[faline]

Personally, I don't pay much attention to the predictions of how crowded a particular park may be. There are some things I take into consideration. If a park is closing early due to a special event (such as a park party), I might select that park for the day as many avoid it due to the early closing. When Fantasmic runs sporadically, I usually try to avoid Disney Studios on a day when Fantasmic is running. Other than that, I go to whichever park I feel like going to an a particular day. If I find it unreasonably crowded, I'll hop to another park (one of the reasons I like that option)!

[BrerSchultzy]

It is sooo much more important to get to the parks at opening during the summer, as the crowds are very light, and it's much much cooler. As the temperature rises, so do the crowd levels.

If you are early risers, it really does benefit resort guests to go to the parks with early opening, then at lunch time, head to one of the other parks, or head back to the hotel for some time by the pool.

Those touring plans that tell you to avoid certain parks on certain days are just as accurate as pulling the name of a park out of a hat. Go where you want to, but seriously...go early. Go early. Go early.

Did I mention, go early? Go early.

[Tink#64]

We were just there the end of June/early July & we did nothing differently than any previous trips, always when it was a bit cooler. We arrived by or before park opening, & hit only major attractions in the morning, lunch around 11:00 - 11:30 beating the crowds, a few more big attracttions & then enjoy A/C'd shows, or shop our way out of the park. We go back to the resort for some A/C in our room & usually some pool time, maybe dinner by the pool & we're refreshed & ready to go again in the evening! :thumbsup:

[jazzy]

It is sooo much more important to get to the parks at opening during the summer, as the crowds are very light, and it's much much cooler. As the temperature rises, so do the crowd levels.

If you are early risers, it really does benefit resort guests to go to the parks with early opening, then at lunch time, head to one of the other parks, or head back to the hotel for some time by the pool.

Those touring plans that tell you to avoid certain parks on certain days are just as accurate as pulling the name of a park out of a hat. Go where you want to, but seriously...go early. Go early. Go early.

Did I mention, go early? Go early.

I agree whole heartedly last year i arrived to HS @ 1pm, big mistake, it was unbearably hot and crowded and wanted to stay to see Fantasmic but the heat sucked the energy out of us we just couldn't do it.
For the rest of the trip we arrived at or near opening And enjoyed 0 to 5 min waits for most attractions and cooler weather, you have a better chance to ride all popular attractions before the heat wave and beat the crowds. My advice, get there early as well and be done by 3pm. Even better if your staying on Disney property you can take advantage of the extra magic hrs.
Try not to let planning over welm you your gonna have the time of your life have fun

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

We do not follow crowd predictions or go by EMH necessarily....each trip is unique for us depending on how long we stay...on our upcoming trip, I knew we wanted to see Fantasmic and it was only showing the first full day for us or the last full day...being DHS is our least favorite park we didn't want to spend our last day there so therefore we are going to DHS our first day....we also like our last day to be in MK and next to last Epcot...the rest was easy.

[brivers222]

We figure out where we want to eat and then base the park days around that... makes for an enjoyable trip :) Only as it gets closer do I glance at the crowd forecast and change a bit if needed.

[iceicebritney]

When I was allowed to plan our park days, I'd plan them based on which parks were having extra magic hours, what events were taking place in each park that day, and where we were eating our meals.

Unfortunately I'm an obsessive planner and become a bit of a theme park commando on our WDW vacations. (Hi, My name is Britney, and I have a problem over-planning my vacations:blush:)

I promised my husband I would not plan a thing on this trip since it is our honeymoon... And I'm having a VERY tough time with this one:(

[AllDisney]

I make ADR's and we plan the park around that. I don't over think this otherwise it would drive me crazy.

If you are flexible go early ride all the rides before crowds arrive then take a break from the heat

[BigRedDad]

We usually decide by which ever bus is there first.