Hey Howdy Hey Shaquitta and welcome to planDisney!
Strategy for visiting the parks can be a super stressful situation. There are so many recommendations online as well as things to consider for your personal goals during your vacation and can be tough to make the "right" call. Not to worry Shaquitta, you've got a friend in me to give you a few pointers. Let's discuss it!
If you are torn between Disney's Hollywood Studios and EPCOT, you need to start with your "must-do" attractions and experiences. What are the big things you want to hit at each park? Hollywood Studios is a smaller park than EPCOT and has several big attractions. This park is very popular and does tend to fill up quickly making mid-morning on more difficult to experience attractions due to the increased wait times for lines. There are several things to consider before making this decision though.
During your upcoming visit, if you do stay at a Disney Resort hotel, you have access to
Early Theme Park Entry which you get 30 minutes in the parks before the general public. This may allow you to experience 2-3 attractions before the parks really get busy and you might get everything done in Hollywood Studios early and then hop over to EPCOT for the rest of the evening or vice versa.
The other option would be
Lightning Lane Multi Pass or Single Pass options. If you did plan to purchase these options, you can always stack your experiences in the first park early so you can get done what you would want to and then hop to the other. The best part about Multi Pass is after you redeem your first selection, you can make another selection either in that park or another park as long as you have the Park Hopper Option on your ticket. So you can start in EPCOT and then make Lightning Lane reservations for Hollywood Studios as long as there is availability.
OK, now let's talk about the crowds. If you do an internet search for "Walt Disney World Crowd Calendars" you can find several free options. These will take into account the current calendar, and past crowd-level history and make predictions on what crowds in the parks will look like. They can give you recommendations on which parks may be super busy and others that might not be. This can be huge for planning your trip.
EPCOT is one of the larger parks and can be hard to reach capacity. If you are concerned about this, make sure to check the crowd calendars which may help you make your decision. I personally love EPCOT at night and towards the end of the day the vibe there is more relaxing and Hollywood Studios to me is a lot more hustle and bustle. If I had to choose, I would keep Hollywood Studios at night because of
Fantasmic! These fireworks are amazing and our whole family loves them. I would just be aware that I may not experience many attractions due to the parks being busy.
The right answer to your question depends so much on your goals of experiences in the parks. Hopefully, now you have a better grasp on them and some tools to consider what is right for your family during your trip. Let us know if you have any other questions, we are always happy to help!
To Infinity and Beyond,
Nick