Which Disney Park is your favorite? It’s like asking you to say which one of your kids is your favorite. How can you possibly choose? Okay, maybe it’s not that tough. But it’s still hard. Perhaps a better analogy is that it’s like choosing a favorite flavor of ice cream. There are many good choices, and very few bad ones.
So which Disney Park is our favorite??
Disney has 11 Theme Parks worldwide, so there a few to choose from to pick a favorite. Unfortunately, we’ve only visited the 4 theme parks in Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, so we can cross 7 Disney Theme Parks off the list for consideration.
That leaves us with the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
Round 1…
Right off the bat, we’re going to eliminate Disney’s Hollywood Studios. To put it simply, if we only had 3 days to spend in Walt Disney World, this is the park we’re most likely to skip and spend our days at the other 3. This doesn’t mean we hate the park. There are many things we love about it. For our kids, it’s got Disney Junior and Pixar characters and attractions. For myself, it’s got 3 major rides in Star Tours, Rock n Roller Coaster, and Tower of Terror. Lisa loves Fantasmic! But overall, the park seems disjointed and doesn’t keep us occupied the entire day. By the afternoon, we find ourselves killing time until Fantasmic! We are also not enamored with most of the dining options, and find ourselves doing more snacking here than we might otherwise.
For our upcoming trip, we’re planning on taking a break from Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the afternoon to go enjoy our resort, have dinner, and then return for Fantasmic!
And then there were three…
Up next on the chopping block is Disney’s Animal Kingdom. This was a tougher choice to make as DAK has really grown on me over the years since it opened. Just the other day I put together our 10 Best Things about Disney’s Animal Kingdom list, and when you look at it, it’s an impressive park with a lot to offer.
I think what holds Disney’s Animal Kingdom back are the early hours, and lack of attractions. It can’t be an all-day park because it closes early, for understandable reasons. It boasts both mine and Lisa’s favorite rides in all of Walt Disney World, as well as two of our favorite shows. But it’s also the largest of the four theme parks and we feel like we spend a lot more time walking from attraction to the next. The animals are amazing, but not always cooperative throughout the day.
Down to the final two…
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Okay, so that leaves us with The Magic Kingdom and EPCOT going head-to-head. For me, both these parks score major “nostalgia” points. I was very little in the early years of Walt Disney World, and I have very few memories of the Resort before EPCOT opened in 1981. So my childhood memories of Disney World are a mixture of the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. For Lisa and our kids, there have always been 4 parks, but I think Lisa will agree that there is a certain amount of nostalgia for any Disney fan who enters the Magic Kingdom, no matter how old they are or how many times they’ve been there before.
Entertainment wise, the scales are tilted toward The Magic Kingdom. There is a lot of entertainment to be found in EPCOT, but with two daily parades and more rides and attractions, the Magic Kingdom just offers more. If EPCOT has an edge in anything, it’s food. It easily has more restaurants than any other park.
EPCOT often gets called an “adult” park because of the World Showcase, but we found many things for kids to do if you know where to look.
And the Winner is….
So which is the winner??? If we have 5 day tickets and spend 1 day at each park, where do we use the 5th? For us, it’s the Magic Kingdom! All things considered, the Magic Kingdom has the most to offer the entire family. We can do many more things that we all enjoy together there. As a parent, that’s huge.
What is your favorite Disney Theme Park?
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