Best Days to Visit Parks?

Wow! Bless your heart for trying to figure all of that out!

I think that the best thing you can do is expect crowds where ever you go, and that slight variations probably won't be that remarkable in the middle of the summer. I don't know if you and your gf are early risers, but I would also recommend taking advantage of rope drop and fast passes, both because of crowds and because of heat.

Honestly (and I have never subscribed to TP, so please take my opinion with a grain of salt), I wouldn't worry about it to that degree. I think you could probably stress yourself out, trying to predict. And no one knows for sure.

So take it all in...then go with your gut. And be prepared to be flexible. Flexibility is your greatest friend

Can't wait to hear how it all turns out!

Listen to Lizzy she is absolutely correct. Go early, Take a break to relax in the noon, early afternoon then back to the parks in the late afternoon. And if you have park hopper passes, it may even be a different park. and be prepared to change plans at a moment's notice, like Lizzy said be flexible.

I agree with both VL and Lizzy B.

I use Touring Plans just to get some perspective, and I do think they do a great job, but I would not completely do my park schedule around that.

A few key things to keep in mind. Generally they will note a park to avoid if it has extra magic hours in the mornig or the evening. I beleive the theory is that when you have EMHs, you have your normal everyday crowd, PLUS all the resort guests that choose that park so they can go early and avoid the crowds in the morning. The assumption is that most people go to one park and stay at that park all day; hence, the larger the crowd.

There's also some historical info that shows certain parks just tend to be more crowded on certain days of the week.

Again, I take it all in, but I gave up a long time ago trying to make my plans around all that. I pick the parks I want on which day, and then always have the park hopper in case we want to go somewhere else.

We're early risers no matter what, and we always are at the parks for rope drop. If we happen to be at a park that has mornign EHMs, we are there at opening and get everythign we want ridden out of the way, usually by 10:0 or 11:00, before the waits really start to peak. Then, after that, we grab lunch, go back to the resort for a swim or a nap, and then return. Sometimes we go to the same park, and sometimes we will just go to another park int he evening that did not have EMHs and generally are less crowded in the evening.

Hope that helps!

I have no idea if this true or not, but it was the advice we were given. It seemed to work and falls in line with what others are saying here. Go to any park that does not have EMH BECAUSE --- those without parkhoppers will go to that park to get more for their money. So, those WITH parkhoppers should go elsewhere to avoid crowds.

Does that make sense?

- Dreams

Dd that is what I have always done and it seems to work out, but no matter what it is July and no school so it still gonna be buisy

Exactly.... usually go to the places that have EMH or LMH and go the day before or after. Usually before for early, and the day after for later.... but thats my opinion.

I agree with avoiding the park with the morning EMH. I have always tried to hit the park with the evening EMH late in the afternoon. My theory is that the guests with little kids have gone and the day visitors will be gone too. In fact, I tend to avoid all the parks in the morning. Yup, I have never seen a rope drop.

My crew sleeps in, so I usually have the mornings to resort hop, explore, and have a nice breakfast somewhere. Most times we hit the first park around noon or later, and by then I've already talked to some CM's to get a read on the actual crowd levels. Generally if you ask a boat or bus driver about current park attendance levels, they know.

This worked well at Christmas time one year, where an FW bus driver advised us not to go to the MK because they were about to stop admitting people. He was able to tell me that HS had the lowest crowd level and we just went there. HS also happened to be the EMH park that day and we ended staying until 1 or 2 am. We were the only family in the Muppet theater. The six of us had the whole place to ourselves.

As Yoda would say, "A dark side, WDW planning has. By planning and researching too much, you will see what is there not. Use as a guide, predicted and historic crowd levels. Many variables each day, there are. In your mind have a plan, but to change and adapt be ready. Yeesssssss."

Sorry, we can not help you with this one. We do not plan our park days at all. We do make our ADR's. Sometimes we go to the park closest to where we will be eating and sometimes we do not. We honestly just do whatever we feel like doing at the moment. We have even gone to Animal Kingdom to have breakfast at Tusker House and then once we ate, we left the park. The only park we avoid is Magic Kingdom on Saturdays.

It always seemed slower the beginning of the week rather than the end like Thursday thru Sunday.

Yeah.... our ADR's determine where we go for the night.... but we rely on iPhone apps to tell us what park is the best for the day