One Day Park (hopping) strategy - staying offsite

[Jo-Anne]

My husband and I will be driving to Florida and staying at the Orange Lake resort between April 21-28. We have leftover non-expiry park hopper tickets uploaded to our magic bands. We have done Disney many times pre-pandemic but always stay on site. I've been reading the boards about all the changes and crowds but its quite overwhelming adding in LL and Genie! If we just want to hit Disney for one day (prob Mon or Tues Apr 25 or 26), is there a good strategy for someone staying offsite? We'd like to do 2 parks - doesn't matter which ones - since we've done most of the rides numerous times, we won't spend hours standing in lines. So any recommendations on which park to hit first - do we go for rope drop or wait a bit? Any strategies on how to hit rides without LL/Genie? Do I need to make park reservations in advance or can I just show up? Also can I make a dining reservation in advance if I"m offsite? Thanks!

 

[seashell7290]

Make a park reservation for starters! Aprils availability is going fast. Park hopping allowed after 1pm.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Make a park reservation for starters! Aprils availability is going fast. Park hopping allowed after 1pm.

Thanks - If you had to pick one park to enter at beginning of day, which would be the easiest to get into and avoid most crowds - am I reading it correctly that now every day there is a 30 minute early entry at every park for all onsite guests?

 

[seashell7290]

Yes on-site only. I would say AK is the easiest to do that. Are you planning on buying Genie +? Do you want a relaxing day like strolling Epcot flower and garden festival or are their attractions you would like to do?

 

[musicguy856]

Make a park reservation for starters! Aprils availability is going fast. Park hopping allowed after 1pm.

Park hopping doesn’t start until 2pm.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Yes on-site only. I would say AK is the easiest to do that. Are you planning on buying Genie +? Do you want a relaxing day like strolling Epcot flower and garden festival or are their attractions you would like to do?

We'd like to do a few rides (soarin, test track, thunder mountain types) but I'm not going to pay for Genie as the rides are not make or break for us, but for sure strolling flower and garden will be a nice thing to see. My son (22) will probably join us for the day - if he wants to do more rides can he just buy Genie/LL? I think we might start at Epcot and then hop to another park for the evening?

 

[loves to dive]

I'd do AK and Epcot. Start at AK since it opens earlier at about 1:45 start your hop, that should get you to Epcot near to two. I'm not sure if EE will be open by then but you could certainly hit FoP, Safari, Navi and Dino. also do both walking trails before two. Bonus, you could do a walk up for Nomad Lounge for a light lunch. ADRs day of are not unheard of, I do it all the time but I don't mind where I eat and which park it's in.

After you hop to Epcot at 2 you should be able to hit up a number of F&G booths and then hit the rides later in the afternoon early evening.

Starting at Epcot is tricky since as of right now, open hours are 10, that is subject to change. It tends to stay open later than most parks so doing it second tends to make more sense.

You could do some combination with HS but it does get crowded and pretty much stays that way. It wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility to do a 3 park hop between HS, AK and Epcot, just depends on what you want to do. I always walk between Epcot and HS, takes me about 20 min. at a regular pace. Doing that 3 park hop, I still would start at AK and then probably go to Epcot for a few hours, walk over to HS just to see what is going on then either back to Epcot or stay at HS. But, I go often and actually like to hop around. Usually I'll just play it by ear on where I hop to, maybe check MDE so see ride times and if I hop somewhere it's just too crowded for comfort, I move on.