Skipping one park?

[winnieofpooh]

My husband and I were supposed to go on our trip with his side of the family the week before Christmas. They've all cancelled their reservations and are planning to rebook for 2021. My husband and I are on the fence if we want to cancel this year, or try to go both this year and next year. We're trying to look at the numbers and see if we can afford to do both trips. Currently, we're booked for 6 nights with 4-day tickets. We plan to drop it down to a 5 night, 4 day ticket stay, but now we're considering if we drop it even further to a 4 night, 3 day ticket stay. It could save about $400 extra by cutting off another additional day. In addition to skipping, it would also limit our exposure to other people a bit from a COVID standpoint, since we'd be doing one less park.

We go to Disney fairly frequently (about once a year), but this would be our first Christmas trip. We'd probably skip Animal Kingdom, since Epcot is my husband's favorite and we want to see Galaxy's Edge at Hollywood Studios. But we've never done a trip where we didn't do all 4 parks. Anyone have any thoughts? Would you cut the trip down to only 3 park days? Or would you just skip the trip this year entirely and wait until 2021?

 

[gatorlisa]

I live in GA and take long weekend trips more often than week long trips. I've skipped AK on these weekend trips many times and been totally fine with that. Even with the addition of Pandora, it is my least favorite park and the easiest to skip. If you are wanting to focus on seeing Christmas decorations and atmosphere, in my opinion, AK is the best park to skip. Even with the watered down holiday experience of 2020, the other parks all have more to offer in that regard. Given the choice between not going at all or going, but having a shorter trip and having to choose only 3 parks, I would absolutely choose to take the shorter trip and skip AK for that trip. It will still be there the next time you go for a longer trip.

 

[Erzengel]

It's hard for me to say skip AK because of FOP as I feel that's arguably WDW's top 2-3 ride. However, we did AK the day we left Orlando. We got there at 9:30 AM. We did FOP twice, Navi' River Journey, Everest, Safari and wanting to beat traffic, we left around 4 pm? We probably could have done Dinosaur and been "done" by 5. MK even though personally and I'm not as overly ecstastic about the rides as I would be a FOP, any Star Wars ride, Tower of Terror or Soarin, I would say with the abundance of attractions, you can easily spend a full day here.

If park hopping is available and you'd only have 3 days, I would do full day HS, full day Epcot, half day AK and the rest MK with extended hours.

 

[winnieofpooh]

It's hard for me to say skip AK because of FOP as I feel that's arguably WDW's top 2-3 ride. However, we did AK the day we left Orlando. We got there at 9:30 AM. We did FOP twice, Navi' River Journey, Everest, Safari and wanting to beat traffic, we left around 4 pm? We probably could have done Dinosaur and been "done" by 5. MK even though personally and I'm not as overly ecstastic about the rides as I would be a FOP, any Star Wars ride, Tower of Terror or Soarin, I would say with the abundance of attractions, you can easily spend a full day here.

If park hopping is available and you'd only have 3 days, I would do full day HS, full day Epcot, half day AK and the rest MK with extended hours.

The trip would be this December, so no park hopping unfortunately. We typically do all the trails and shows at AK and still leave before park close, so we were thinking we'd only spend a few hours there now that there aren't any shows going on.

 

[teach22180]

I have watched a stream that showed how pretty AK is with the decorations. If you can afford 4 park days, I would keep it. If not, I guess that's the one to skip.

 

[HunterRose13]

My family and I are going after Christmas and skipping AK. While we enjoy Everest and Dinosaur we are pretty much done after those two and struggle to find something else we really enjoy at AK. We never feel we have enough time at MK so we are doubling up there and then a day at Epcot and HS.

 

[NotANewbie]

That's our week. We are doing 3 nights and 3 days, skipping AK this time. Was a group decision - 3 adults and 1 teen.

 

[RanDIZ]

I would keep the 4-day and hit each park once. You’re already down there so might as well. Also, if you’ve never been to WDW around Xmas, it’ll be worth it! We have a 5 day coming up and will hit each park with MK twice.

 

[DSLRuser]

Animal Kingdom or Magic Kingdom. We frequently do 3 day trips and we alternate between the 2 as skipped parks. We never skip Epcot or the Studios.

 

[disneygirlsng]

AK is far and away my favorite park, I could never imagine skipping it.

 

[crazylady]

I would skip Epcot. With no entertainment, not having cms from the actual countries and construction, it doesn't sound like much fun to me.

 

[SugarSweetLee]

If you really want to reduce your exposure to other folks, MK would be the most populous and likeliest axe (bar HS, but as you said, you really want to do GE).

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

If you haven’t been back since reopening, I’d consider skipping Epcot. Between all the construction in the front of the park, no international CMs, so much shopping, dining, and shows closed, it really felt the most affected by covid. We are going again in June and are considering skipping it since most of those things won’t be back yet.

 

[cjlong88]

This is tough. All personal preference, and each park is truly great for its own reasons. Follow your heart. Whatever you choose, you will have a great time!

P.S. I did a trip last year where we only could visit 3 parks and we skipped MK. It was a good decision for us. We love MK, but we are more attracted to the thrill rides at AK and HS as well as the festivals at Epcot, so that's what swayed our decision.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

I would skip Epcot. With no entertainment, not having cms from the actual countries and construction, it doesn't sound like much fun to me.

100% agreed here

 

[boop0524]

We did three-day tickets last week with MK, HS and AK and felt it was perfect. We had planned to do Epcot originally since it’s our fav, but didn’t seem like it was worth it. When we went in Aug we really just did Food & Wine, no rides. And while the holiday food is great it wasn’t really what we were looking for this time. Have fun!!