2 Day Hopper Strategy with teens?

[WDWRook]

Howdy group,

My family is heading back to WDW for the first time since pre-covid. Lots of changes that I'm trying to catch up on and now I need to figure out what a teen and preteen want to do vs little kids. We are going from July 15th to 18th at the Poly DVC as an add on after a week on Hilton Head to use up some points before they expire. We will have our car with us. My kids are DS 16 / DD 12 and both have been to WDW several times. We are normally rope droppers to close people. We have never used hoppers before and never had a car on site before. We have also never been for just two park days before so I'm not sure how best to strategize this. I'm expecting Food and Wine at Epcot to be open by then. Our kids are not big on roller coasters generally, i.e. they won't do Space Mt, Rockn Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Everest, etc. I'm not sure if I'll get them on Tron or GOTG but tWife and I will definitely want to get on those if possible. Kids also I "think" will not be big on characters anymore

My current thoughts and questions:

We definitely want to visit MK but I'm unsure if we will want to go all day or just a half day. tWife wants to see the closing fireworks, but I want to do Tron. The kids are thinking all day we may run out of things to do, so I'm on the fence on how to plan for MK. Epcot and AK we can just half day it and I was thinking to start in AK then hop to Epcot for F&W, GOTG and Remy (and whatever other rides we squeeze in). If we do MK all day, we will skip HS. We already did Star Wars land and will miss that, but something has to give. Really the bigger miss is I'd love to see Fantasmic again now that it's back.

If we go all day at MK my plan is:
Saturday: Arrive at Poly, relax, pool, Mai Tai's, hopefully O'hana.
Sunday: Rope Drop MK, hopefully get Tron virtual que, and get G+ to try and make the day easy.
Monday: AK morning rope drop to get Flight of Passage, then hop to Epcot. Thinking get G+ with the plan to prioritize getting GOTG and Remy, and only adding extra G+ at AK if all works out.

If we go half day at MK:

Sunday: Rope Drop AK, hop to MK. G+ but prioritize for MK in the afternoon. Not sure how to figure out Tron in his example.
Monday: Rope Drop Epcot for Remy and GOTG, then F&W for snacks and lunch, then hop to HS to try and squeeze in ROTR and Fantasmic. Not sure on G+ in this plan.


Tuesday: Both plans we live Tuesday. It's a long 16 hour hike back to Ohio. Originally the plan was to get up early and make it in one day. But, if we can swing one extra day off I'd like to hang out at the Poly through lunch, drive halfway and hotel somewhere (hopefully somewhere interesting).

I feel like I'm missing some better strategy here, but it might just be trying to squeeze too much into two days. I also have no idea on dining plans. We like to try new places generally, but tWife is suggesting Ohana which we have been to a few times. I'm considering if we do MK all day to take a break for an early O'hana dinner. Epcot we normally have F&W for dinner and since we will be there only a half day I'm not sure there is time for a sit down dinner, but we have not tried many of the sit down places there. I also want to look at any of the extra paid tours and events since we have never done any of those.

Any suggestions in trying to plan a short trip with a teen/pre-teen?

 

[R&RsMom]

We did a 3 day weekend trip in early December (2.5 park hopping days). We did a lot and walked a huge number of steps. It was a great trip. we had Genie+ all 3 days. To me, your Monday looks fine. Sunday I think you are sort of at the mercy of Tron, assuming virtual queue, And what park hopping looks like by then. Disneyland just pushed hopping back to 11:00. I’m hopeful the World will do the same, but who knows?
i don’t think I would try to squish a tour into your weekend, unless you wanted to spring for a VIP tour, which is literally several thousand dollars.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

So our girls are 14 and 15 and we go to disney fairly often, I will say as my kids have gotten older, our park plans have evolved a good bit. We used to be big rope droppers but now that they're older, I can usually only get one, maybe two early days out of my family on 4/5 day trips, I think for the short amount of time you have planned, you're probably good with two days of hustling but you'll all be beat. I think your current plan you first proposed is your best option that allows a good amount of time in the park without running on fumes and hopefully minimal whining lol. Given you've not been to WDW since pre-covid, do make sure you're familiar with G+ and the VQ drop times. Read/watch videos as much as you can and be sure you have your MDE app updated before you arrive. My kids are not into characters anymore but they do enjoy making our trips more about atmosphere and food now, which is a lot of fun for us. They enjoy window shopping and just exploring too. We've done one day trips, weekends and full weeks but we're only 6 hours from WDW. I do think squeezing your trip into a weekend when you're 16 hours away is way too labor intensive for me.

 

[WDWRook]

My kids are not into characters anymore but they do enjoy making our trips more about atmosphere and food now, which is a lot of fun for us. They enjoy window shopping and just exploring too. We've done one day trips, weekends and full weeks but we're only 6 hours from WDW. I do think squeezing your trip into a weekend when you're 16 hours away is way too labor intensive for me.

Thanks. I definitely think food and shopping will be far more important than it used to be, and they have always liked the Epcot festival booths. We will be in Hilton Head for the week prior to WDW and just added a few days to extend our vacation and use up some points. It's only 5 hours from HHI, so that won't be terrible. The 16 hour drive back will be terrible, but I'm trying to get everyone to agree to hang out at Poly for a bit the last day, and stopping for the night on the way back home.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

Thanks. I definitely think food and shopping will be far more important than it used to be, and they have always liked the Epcot festival booths. We will be in Hilton Head for the week prior to WDW and just added a few days to extend our vacation and use up some points. It's only 5 hours from HHI, so that won't be terrible. The 16 hour drive back will be terrible, but I'm trying to get everyone to agree to hang out at Poly for a bit the last day, and stopping for the night on the way back home.

I love HHI. We are from Fl and as much I love some of the beaches in Florida, the SC coast has my heart. Having some beach time post WDW is one of our favorite ways to wrap up a Disney vacation. Enjoy sounds like you’ll have a great trip!!

 

[notatallmagic]

We're going for a four day trip in June; with only two days of Park Hopper tix. We used to be Annual Passhoders, so this is new for us as well.

We are planning to do a Hollywood/Epcot day, and a AK/Magic Day. We wanted to capitalize on the closeness of the parks (Hollywood and Epcot being so close to each other) and the hours (Hollywood and AK open early; Magic and Epcot stay open later, especially with evening hours for deluxe resort guests). We are big Happily Ever After fans, so will definitely end at Magic one night. Probably the same for Epcot.

We are using our two non-park days for dining, swimming, relaxing, and Disney Springs. We've made a list of our "must haves" and then will fit in other things around those. Our short list is Tron, the railroad, and Happily Ever After at Magic; Guardians and Soarin at Epcot (plus festival food); Avatar and the safari at AK; and whatever we can at Hollywood.

When it comes to coasters, a short trip might not be the time to experiment with what the kids might/might not ride. When mine were that age, they each picked one "must have" ride; and one other thing, and we made our list that way. Good Luck!

 

[WDWRook]

Alright, so after much discussion our plan is to stick to two park days. There is a bit of disagreement between mom who wants a full MK day, and teens who want a full Epcot day. Experience tells me mom's going to win this. If that is the case, we will be splitting AK and Epcot via park hopper. All the "rules" say to start in Epcot to get GOTG and Remy. However, AK closes much earlier so I think we will drop AK. My assumption is that GOTG will no longer be on the virtual que. If that is true, how do I play this with G+?

My thought is: start by trying to get a LL+ for GOTG and an afternoon G+ for Remy (after 2:00 or hopefully earlier if they change the hopping time). Head to AK and rope drop FOP and then hit Safari before it gets too hot for the animals. THEN: after the 2 hr rule book an early return in AK, ideally for Navi. Then start stacking for Epcot for a couple of rides (Frozen, Soarin, MS, maybe Test Track if lucky) but spend most of our time eating/shopping drinking. What are the flaws in this plan?

 

[WDWRook]

Any thoughts on whether to have a full day at MK and a hopper day at AK/Epcot versus full day at Epcot and a hopper day at AK/MK?