What time do the parks open during summer break and how early before that should we get there? When do they normally close. I know what is posted will change between now and then, but our Dining window opens this weekend. What time does it get unbearably hot? I am hoping we can get at least 3hrs of touring in before it is terrible, then go back for lunch, a swim and a nap, then head back around dinner time. I am planning on us doing all our FP's in the morning, is this the best strategy? We don't normally go when it is super hot, so this is totally new planning for us.
TIA
This will all depend on your own style, preferences, heat tolerance, etc... We are summer WDW lovers...2018 will make our 4th straight summer trip, and 9th or 10th overall. We stay for 2+ weeks each time, so we've logged tons of summer days there.
Park hours will vary. They'll open at 8 or 9am...water parks at 10am. Closing can be 9pm, or MK will be open to between 10pm and midnight, depending. This doesn't include EMH (we don't participate, as we're offsite).
How early before park open do you need to get there? Again, depends on your goals. We never show up before park open...ever. To us, it's a waste and doesn't really get you much of anything over showing up right when the park opens, or maybe 10 minutes after. But that's just our opinion, doesn't mean it's wrong to show up early.
What time does it get unbearably hot? Well, what's unbearable for you? In the summer, it's pretty hot a lot of days by time the park opens. By 11am, it's quite warm. But we don't subscribe to the "go back for lunch/nap/swim philosophy. Not that we never do it, because sometimes we do...but not specifically to avoid the heat. If we do it, it's just kind of a spur of the moment thing...we'll be done the things we wanted in the park and just decide we're ready to head back. Sometimes we come back to the parks at night, sometimes we don't. There are SO many places that are air conditioned...most of the rides, and many of the queues...that taking mid day breaks because it's hot is simply unnecessary, IMO. Plus, we'll often stop at a QS place as we walk between rides and get a cup of ice water, which is great.
As for when to do your FP+, again up to you. Yes, we always try to do them as soon as we get to the park (some days, we sleep in and don't even show up at the park until after lunch). We'll schedule them back to back to back and blow through them quickly. That way, we can get 4th, 5th, 6th, etc... On mornings we show up at 9:15am, we can easily get on 8 or 9 rides all via FP+ by 2pm or earlier. We are the opposite of most people here. We don't plan anything, especially in summer. We very much wing it. We try not to cross the park all day, but sometimes we do wind up going back and forth a little bit or backtracking (not the entire park, for sure), and that's OK. We'd very much prefer that than have a spreadsheet/schedule we have to stick to...that's not "vacation" for us. We want to do what we want, when we want.
We LOVE summer, it's the best time to go for us. FP+ are super easy to get, something about warm days at WDW just seem "right" to us.
We usually do our FP starting at 10 and over by 1 so that we can do a resort break if we want (we don’t always). That gives us an hour or 2 of short lines before our FP start. Sometimes our “break” is lots of indoor AC attractions (CoP, Country Bears, American Adventure, etc.), a TS meal, etc.
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