Help me pick a Park-Hopping plan for a weekend in early December. Please!

[Artygal90]

My early December trip keeps changing. My sister is now joining, she's gifting us all tickets to the Christmas party (yay!), and we moved to a hotel with early entry ("EE"). I needed to make reservations for Oga's, Savi's, and 50s Prime Time like, yesterday, so I want to figure this out ASAP. We are now doing MK on the evening of Thursday 12/5, and probably Sunday 12/8 so that's taken care of. I know we'll be tired doing EE the morning after the party, but that's what coffee is for!

Hollywood Studios (HS) has the most priority attractions for us, but we also want to fit in Epcot (EP), Animal Kingdom (AK), and a quick Disney Springs visit. Please pick what you think would be the best game plan below, or, feel free to come up with one of your own!

1) The "One Day at HS" plan:
Friday 12/6 - EE Galaxy's Edge, midday break at EP or hotel, return HS late afternoon for non-GE attractions, Fantasmic @ 7:30 or 9 p.m.
Saturday 12/7 - EE AK, hop to EP, Candlelight Processional and Luminous Fireworks @ 9:30 p.m.
Sunday 12/8 - EE MK, see monorail resorts, dinner at Disney Springs, leave for airport @ 6:30 p.m.

2) The "HS PM/AM" plan:
Friday 12/6 - EE AK, hop to HS midafternoon for Galaxy's Edge and Fantasmic @ 7:30 or 9 p.m.
Saturday 12/7 - EE HS for non-GE attractions (OR, do GE this morning?). Hop to EP around lunchtime and stay through Candlelight Processional and Luminous Fireworks at 9:30 p.m..
Sunday 12/8 - EE MK, see monorail resorts, dinner at Disney Springs, leave for airport @ 6:30 p.m.

3) The "Epcot Evenings" Plan
Friday 12/6 - Rope drop to close HS!
Saturday 12/7 - EE AK, hop to EP in time for Candlelight Processional and Luminous Fireworks at 9:30 p.m.
Sunday 12/8 - EE MK, hop to EP until ~6 p.m.

4) The "KISS - no park hoppers" plan:
Friday 12/6 - Rope drop to close HS!
Saturday 12/7 - Rope drop to close EP!
Sunday 12/8 - Rope drop to close AK! (pro: Pandora after dark! con: no extra MK time)

(Did I mention I love rope drop? Yes I know we will be very tired, we'll take breaks at the hotel if we need.)

We could swap the days we see Fantasmic and Luminous, but 12/7 is Jollywood Nights so only one Fantasmic is showing at 6:30 p.m. I'm guessing that means way more crowds fighting for a good seat and then shuffling out of the park.

Anyway, this is long. Please help me solve this logic puzzle. Thank you!

 

[Disturbia]

reread post - NA

 

[Anna131517]

Option 4. Don’t waste time park hopping on such a short trip. Are you sure the rest of your party will be up to rope dropping after MVMCP? I couldn’t do that.

 

[Disturbia]

What resort are you staying at? If you do early entry, you will be exhausted by the late afternoon. Park hours will change 2 weeks before-keep an eye out. Plan on family messing up all your carefully laid plans and adults melting down (let them take a break if needed). I take Olly stress pills (has Ashwagandha) with me!

We never do EE a family as it’s not worth the extra 2-3 rides waiting 2+ hours in transportation/check in lines. Now we do split and allow our teen and a parent to say rope drop AK for FOP (line wrapped around to outside Pandora). The rest of the party joins later. If you’re set on experiencing early entry then either take a mid day break or plan on leaving parks before close. I would enjoy MK rides until close on your MVMCP day and plan on sleeping in the next morning (no EE).

If you’re set on Fantasmic I would go on the non Jollywood nights day. The line is over an hour even on regular

If you booked Mears, it picks up 3.5 hours before. Checking out luggage from bell services at AOA took us 30 mins (they’re short staffed; depositing luggage took even longer and the line wrapped all the way around to the pool; we almost missed our first pass 9-10 am). Deluxe resorts are better in this regard. But Kona cafe took forever and we sprinted to catch Mears with desserts to go.

Are you staying at the Poly? You would have to leave luggage with bell services-budget 20-30 mins for retrieval.

 

[Artygal90]

Option 4. Don’t waste time park hopping on such a short trip. Are you sure the rest of your party will be up to rope dropping after MVMCP? I couldn’t do that.

They insist they will be! But we are doing Epcot that morning and it has fewer early AM priorities for us, so it’s a bit more forgiving if we sleep in a bit.

Edited to add: we also decided to limit our hopping to Epcot and Studios so at least the Skyliner is pretty efficient.

 

[Artygal90]

What resort are you staying at? If you do early entry, you will be exhausted by the late afternoon. Park hours will change 2 weeks before-keep an eye out. Plan on family messing up all your carefully laid plans and adults melting down (let them take a break if needed). I take Olly stress pills (has Ashwagandha) with me!

We never do EE a family as it’s not worth the extra 2-3 rides waiting 2+ hours in transportation/check in lines. Now we do split and allow our teen and a parent to say rope drop AK for FOP (line wrapped around to outside Pandora). The rest of the party joins later. If you’re set on experiencing early entry then either take a mid day break or plan on leaving parks before close. I would enjoy MK rides until close on your MVMCP day and plan on sleeping in the next morning (no EE).

If you’re set on Fantasmic I would go on the non Jollywood nights day. The line is over an hour even on regular

If you booked Mears, it picks up 3.5 hours before. Checking out luggage from bell services at AOA took us 30 mins (they’re short staffed; depositing luggage took even longer and the line wrapped all the way around to the pool; we almost missed our first pass 9-10 am). Deluxe resorts are better in this regard. But Kona cafe took forever and we sprinted to catch Mears with desserts to go.

Are you staying at the Poly? You would have to leave luggage with bell services-budget 20-30 mins for retrieval.

I wish we were staying at the Poly We are going to be at the Doubletree Suites in Disney Springs and will be using ride share to and from the airport as well as for any early morning plans. I have some slack built into our plans midday so our travel party (three adults, two of us totally fine going rope drop to close and one who likes a midday nap) can take breaks as needed. Good tip about the ashwaganda!

 

[Artygal90]

Thanks for the suggestions! I wanted to provide an update since I had my dad and sister over last night for dinner and we sat down to discuss our priorities. After much deliberation (including a chart with color coded post it notes) we decided the best we could do is:

Thursday 12/5 - MVMCP (changing flights so we come in earlier)

Friday 12/6 - Epcot/Hollywood Studios for Galaxy’s Edge and Fantasmic

Saturday 12/7 - Hollywood Studios/Epcot for Candlelight Processional and Luminous

Sunday 12/8 - Animal Kingdom/Magic Kingdom (not committed to Magic Kingdom this day - but it’s there in case we have anything we MUST do and didn’t get to during the party).

Here was our thinking:

-Minimizing hopping to once per day, and mainly between HS and EP, will reduce time spent on transit.

- We are doing the bulk of EP, especially World Showcase, on Friday rather than the weekend to hopefully avoid crowds. Also, EP has the latest opening time and we don’t have any priorities that strictly require a super early wake up call, which will be advantageous after a party night.

- We are hopping to HS that evening as well to see Galaxy’s Edge earlier in the trip (our #1 priority there) and take advantage of a later Fantasmic showtime.

- Plans (ADRs, LL reservations, etc) are generally loose in the middle of the day so we can Uber to the hotel for a rest when needed.

I feel much better having this set. Now if they would just release Candlelight Processional information I would be all squared away.

 

[Disturbia]

Thanks for the suggestions! I wanted to provide an update since I had my dad and sister over last night for dinner and we sat down to discuss our priorities. After much deliberation (including a chart with color coded post it notes) we decided the best we could do is:

Thursday 12/5 - MVMCP (changing flights so we come in earlier)

Friday 12/6 - Epcot/Hollywood Studios for Galaxy’s Edge and Fantasmic

Saturday 12/7 - Hollywood Studios/Epcot for Candlelight Processional and Luminous

Sunday 12/8 - Animal Kingdom/Magic Kingdom (not committed to Magic Kingdom this day - but it’s there in case we have anything we MUST do and didn’t get to during the party).

Here was our thinking:

-Minimizing hopping to once per day, and mainly between HS and EP, will reduce time spent on transit.

- We are doing the bulk of EP, especially World Showcase, on Friday rather than the weekend to hopefully avoid crowds. Also, EP has the latest opening time and we don’t have any priorities that strictly require a super early wake up call, which will be advantageous after a party night.

- We are hopping to HS that evening as well to see Galaxy’s Edge earlier in the trip (our #1 priority there) and take advantage of a later Fantasmic showtime.

- Plans (ADRs, LL reservations, etc) are generally loose in the middle of the day so we can Uber to the hotel for a rest when needed.

I feel much better having this set. Now if they would just release Candlelight Processional information I would be all squared away.

lightening lane availability for LLSP will be sparse but I’ve seen decent availability day of for LLMP except the top 2 rides (check day 3+ on thrill data below). On the holiday weekend (Columbus Day) I refreshed the app and FOP LLSP did show up at 1:51 est.

You can book a VQ at MK at 7 am and I believe you need to be scanned into Epcot to get GOTG at 1 pm or vice versa

https://www.thrill-data.com/lightning-lane

 

[Disturbia]

This so the best video I’ve seen so far