Frustration with trip planning

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warfelg

Mar 16, 2016
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Ok, so this thread is going to be a bit of a rant. For while I've been trying to plan a trip (solo) to hit up parks I either haven't been to in a while or have never stepped foot it. Personally I would love to go to WDW, but with SWGE I was waiting for that to open, then BOOM the Epcot overhaul is announced, and I don't want to go when half my favorite park is under construction. I wouldn't mind going to UO again, but with Epic Worlds being built....I feel like it's a bit of a waste. I've never been to DL, but with Marvel Land being built again, I feel like it's going to be a bit of a 'blown trip' (despite everything else there).

I wouldn't mind doing a "Texas Swing", or a "Cali coast swing" of the collection of parks. But as I price out, there's a chance that it could be much more expensive to get tickets to each park, moving hotels, traveling city to city, and getting there in the first place. I could do a non-UO/WDW Florida swing, and hit up Fun Spot, SWO, BGT, and maybe nab a day at UO or WDW; but then it feels like a 'so close but so far'.

Basically my frustration, especially with Universal and Disney, is there's never a great time to visit. There's always something coming down the pipe that makes it a 'damn I missed that' trip. And with going other ways it would end up costing me more than I wanted to spend.

So, what would be you suggestion? Hit up a bunch of amusement parks I've never been to and end up spending a little more? Or do I go to UO/DL/WDW and just bite the bullet and realize that about a year after I go there, something I really want to see is going to open and miss out or feel like I have to go again?
 
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Okay, hear me out. There's an Midwestern/Appalachian trial of parks I've been planning for next year, and it could work out for you.

You do Cedar Point, Kings Island, Holiday World, Kentucky Kingdom, end it with a bang at Dollywood.

Much parks, much fun. And if you go in the spring they are all regional enough that they probably won't be super busy.

(You basically cut out and back to go to Holiday World, so if you wanted to shorten things up, that's an easy place to do it. But I've never ridden The Journey ?)
17589
 
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I think with UO/DL/WDW they will always have something new in the pipeline. There's never a perfect time for a trip. I think that's just par for the course. They want people to feel like they have to come back every year or two because of something under construction. That being said I say do the Florida and go to SeaWorld and BGT and spend a day or two at WDW and UO. Personally I think that those two parks continually trying to one up each other is great. We win in that scenario because we get these great innovative experiences that they might not have achieved without competition. You think Disney spends the money they spent on SWGE without UO building Harry Potter first? I don't think they do. That's my two cents
 
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Not sure when you are planning this trip but right now is the time to go to get that last look at classic Epcot Center. We were there a week ago and the only construction was the tombstone removal at the entrance and the widening of the path between Canada and Imagination for the increase of morning crowds from the Skyliner. The rest of the park looks great and you can have one last meal at Electric Umbrella, one more Illuminations and one more ride on SSE.....at least thats our plan for this upcoming weeks trip. Studios is looking great and SWGE is pretty cool and if you worl it right with getting there early a ride on Smugglers Run should be a short wait. By the way the best seats are either pilot seat and the food at Docking Bay 7 is delicious....the Blue Milk with rum was our best and the overall detail is amazing. The overall land is much larger than I expected and you are totally surrounded by Batuu. There is no where on planet that you can see anything outside, not even Tower of Terrror. Then you still have MK and AK whick are both looking great. To me right now is a great time to go before they ramp up for the 5oth construction.
 
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After Rise of the Resistance opens in December, I think a "I only go once every five years or so" WDW trip is reasonable. The only really notable things you'll be missing out on in the immediate future are Runaway Railway and Ratatouille. I personally believe they will both be great rides, but they're both easier to overlook given the promise of Rise of the Resistance almost certainly being the best trackless darkride yet conceived.

A return in 2024 or 2025 as the Epcot Overhaul nears completion will then net you a ton of new, already confirmed attractions—Runaway, Rat, Tron, Guardians, SpaceshIP Earth, Poppins, etc—and a bunch of others that are almost certainly in the pipeline to be completed by then too—Stitch replacement, Brazil pavilion, Imagination update, Aerosmith retheme, the blackbox darkride, whatever-is-happening at AK, etc.

So yeah, I really don't think January is a bad time for a Disney trip at all.

That said, I always support road trips to explore new parks too. You can never go wrong with one of those. As I always do when someone is talking about a road trip, I'll drop a link to Coast2Coaster here as well. It's a coaster road trip planner's dream.
 
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I'm definitely going to take this all into consideration. I think what I consider is this may be one of my last chances to do all of this solo. I think, for what effects me the most, is that Epcot Overhaul is going to include a lot of things I really want, along with Tron, and many other things at MK. I feel like that's too much that will be "damn I missed that" and I really don't want that feeling. It is my gripe about Uni/Mouse House is they do almost too much to keep people coming back that it feels like 1/3 of any park might be "closed" at a time.

I'm contemplating, since I've never been, what a 5 day trip would look like to DL, with 1 day at Knotts and 1 day at UH would look like. Even though I've never done AK, I'm still not interested enough to really want to go there (despite Avitar and Everest). The fact that DL and UH would be 100% new to me is a bigger deal than to see the things that have changed (Toy Story Land, SWGE) at WDW or to see things that have changed (Kong, Hagrid's, Jimmy Fallon, F&F) at Uni.

My Cali swing was:
SFDK -> CaGA -> train -> Knotts -> train -> SWSD
Texas idea:
SFOT -> Train -> SFFT -> SWSA
 
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One thought on Epcot, if you are planning a January trip. You can probably plan to be there for the Festival of the Arts, which I personally love. While admittedly I go to all of the Florida park’s regularly, so the FOMO isn’t as big a problem for me, in my experience if I focus on a new special event and/or attraction, I don’t feel as if I should have waited.

That said, I was on business in the Bay Area in California, and we were able to hit Discovery Kingdom, Great America, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Gilroy Gardens, and Sonoma TrainTown. We were also able to do some wine tours, of course. It was a great trip.
 
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I will say that if you're amusement-park-ing in the Bay Area, Gilroy Gardens and Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk are must-dos. Their rides naturally aren't as enticing on paper, but those parks stand out in my memory way more than SFDK or CGA.
 
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