best parks for late in the day dash?

[14jessica]

On our non-park days / water park days I'd like to give ourselves the option of popping to a park late afternoon/early evening to take advantages of our FP for that day and to have dinner there. Which is the quickest/easiest park to get into for this? I'm assuming not MK because of the need to get monorail/ferry from the car park? Thanks

 

[Tuvalu]

DHS ~ parking is easy and the size of the park is small, so no long walks to get to attractions or restaurants.

 

[BigRedDad]

DHS by far. The park is miniscule in comparison. AK is usually closed pretty early. Epcot is a possibility. MK can be done as well via bus.

 

[BrianV]

Well, massively depends on where you are staying as many resorts are located near to one theme park or another. Assuming you are staying off site, I'd tend to agree with DHS.

I'd also want to factor in the park hours. AK often closes early. Followed by DHS and Epcot. MK is often open the latest, though all of these vary. If you wanted to make the most of your evening, you'd want to be able to have some time.

 

[MattC]

Agree with the above. We hit up DHS late in the day pretty often. We get FPs for the major rides, walk the streets, catch Mulch, Sweat and Shears, and get a little food. Works well for us.

 

[14jessica]

Sounds great, thank you. Shame that DHS doesn't seem to have the best dinner options but it sounds like it would work well and perhaps we can do a couple of rides and one of the shows. Children are only 5, 7 and 9 so we won't be bothered about staying out too late, so maybe AK would work as well? We are staying off-site, probably closest to AK but we're really close so the drive to any of them shouldn't make much difference.

 

[totaldisneygirl]

DHS or Epcot are normally our pop in parks! Epcot is fun at night for dinner and the World Showcase

 

[Pocahontas]

DHS or Epcot. DHS seems kind of crowded in the late afternoon/evening, though - moreso than in the morning. Also, all of the rides there will most likely have long waits - ToT, RnR, TSMM for sure, even Star Tours.

I'd go with Epcot personally because it's more spaced out, there are more rides to choose from and a better and wider selection of dining.

 

[LAKid53]

I showed up at DAK about 2 hours before it closed. Most folks were leaving, judging by my fighting upstream to enter the park. Saw Lion King and was able to ride both Everest and Safari and had about 20 minutes left before park closing to walk around, see the new pathway (and took some awesome pictures of the Tree) with hardly any crowd (other than the teenager who decided just as I snapped my photo to do a cartwheel in front of the Tree in my frame. Thanks.)

But if you want to visit a park when it's not so crowded and have a nice meal, I would go for EPCOT. However, I would avoid EPCOT on the nights with EMH - the crowd that usually stays/comes for evening EMH until 11:00PM are the crowds that want to just drink. And then you get to walk out of the park with a bunch of staggering drunks. And hope they aren't on the bus back to your resort. We had a group of drunk 20 somethings on our bus back to the resort. They were loud, obnoxious (almost as bad as Brazilian Tour Group) and I was worried the kid sitting across from me was going to hurl at any moment - he looked pretty bad. But I was glad they weren't driving.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Epcot or DHS. You can use your FPs and do a lot in DHS. The food is better over at Epcot.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Sounds great, thank you. Shame that DHS doesn't seem to have the best dinner options but it sounds like it would work well and perhaps we can do a couple of rides and one of the shows. Children are only 5, 7 and 9 so we won't be bothered about staying out too late, so maybe AK would work as well? We are staying off-site, probably closest to AK but we're really close so the drive to any of them shouldn't make much difference.

AK is close to Blizzard Beach, but tends to be open only until 5. Sometimes it's open until 7.

Epcot always closes at 9, DHS closes between 7 and 10 in the summer, sometimes later. Check park hours before you make a definite plan.