Do you buy length of stay park tickets or only a specific amount of days?

[Bullseye]

We usually stay for twelve days so we don't do parks first or last day. First day we hit the water parks and last day is chill at resort until the
sad sad sad departure time.

 

[PolyRob]

It depends on my flight, resort, and what the best deal currently is! Im always excited and have to go to a park on arrival day, unless none are open since I am taking a late flight. I prefer to take an afternoon flight home and just hang around my resort and either have a late breakfast or early lunch on my last day.

For one trip I got 7 day hoppers cheaper than 4 day tickets so I burned 1 day for 2 people since we only went to the parks 6 days. Felt strange, but saved us money.

 

[Accident]

We have a 9 night/10 day trip in October, but we purchased hoppers for 9 days instead of 10. 10 is our travel day and we like an early flight out.

When I was traveling here, we would hold back about 1 day per 5 we were staying but for 10 I would probably get only 7 day tickets... Generally there is an interest to go somewhere non-disney at least 1 day and a 10 day trip is a great time to hit other places around orlando (or other theme parks)...

At the end of the trip we would usually need to upgrade 1 person for 1 more day and save about 40ish dollars per person. Fastpasses can get interesting for that extra day but on a 10 day trip you'll probably be ok with same day or just getting in a line or two...

You can't get money back but you can hold back giving disney some money.. You really need to decide if your going to be in a theme park. If your planning a couple waterpark days for example, you don't need a themepark day ticket for that, you get separate waterpark entitlements so you can go to parks 7 days and waterparks for 3 days on 7 day tickets.. (or go into a water park up to 7 days).

 

[Mickey's Best Girl]

I'd like to buy length of stay passes but they don't offer more than 10 day tickets in North America and there's a point around 12 days where buying an AP doesn't make sense for some financially.

 

[unrequited23]

Wow, we are the crazy people who like one rest day for every two park days and don't go to a park on travel days.

 

[mshanson3121]

We don't like to be in the park every single day, and like to have days that are just R&R, or that we can perhaps explore something else, so we just book a set number of days. Last time we stayed 11 nights and spent 7 days in park, next time we'll be staying 12 nights, still doing 7 days in park.

 

[mshanson3121]

Wow, we are the crazy people who like one rest day for every two park days and don't go to a park on travel days.

Haha, count us in that. We definitely don't go to the park on travel days, since we have a 3 day trip (28 hour drive) to get there. We don't arrive until around 4 pm, and have no desire to be in the park that night. We also learned the hard way last time, that we need more rest days, so our next trip this is exactly what we have planned: a rest day for every 2 park days.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Wow, we are the crazy people who like one rest day for every two park days and don't go to a park on travel days.

This! We also purchase tickets for the number of days we plan to be in parks. For an 8 night/9 day trip we would normally do a 5 day ticket (2 days at parks followed by a rest day). You can always add more days if needed.

 

[Beer Me]

Extra days (beyond 4 or whatever) are cheap. On arrival day we might go to a park just for fireworks or hit a favorite ride one last time before we leave. But there also nothing wrong with a non park day. It's pretty easy to find something to do.

 

[loves to dive]

I've had an AP for the last 4 years but before that we always got length of stay tickets. When we first started going that was really what they were called, length of stay and you got those instead of x amount of days. We have always gotten park hoppers as well. We drive down from Georgia and get there around 2 or 3 so we settle into our room and head to a park first day and usually head to one the morning of our last day just to get in that one last ride or buy what we forgot or I just have to say bye to ToT.

 

[JerseyJanice]

I replied already but I want to add that we have run into a hurricane, sickness and injury on trips that kept us out of the parks on days we planned to be there.

Last trip, two members of my group had to go to the hospital in two separate incidents. Plus we had a hurricane. Another year, my son won a snake-in-the-can at the resort arcade and accidentally shot the snake into my husband's eye. Scratched cornea and a lot of stress, we skipped a day of park going.

Anyhow, unless I get a good deal, I always hold back a day or two because it is easy to add days, but if you don't use them, you lose them.

 

[dixiegirl]

We get length of stay since we do early flight down and later flight home - this year we are upgrading to AP though as we hope to move to the area in the next year.

 

[Bobb_o]

I never like to do a park on arrival day, that's usually a Disney Springs night or a resort night. Then it's pretty much a park a day. If I can get a late flight I'll do a park on departure day.

 

[TheBigErn]

We do not buy tickets for day or arrival or day of departure. My thinking is that tickets are so expensive, I want to get as much use out of them as possible. We plan other things, outside of the parks to do. For example on our trip this July we will arrive in the afternoon and go to Hoop-De-Doo for dinner then over to DS for shopping. On the day of departure, we're doing a character breakfast at GF before heading to the airport.

 

[SgtTibbs]

If I'm anywhere in the state of Florida and at least one park is open I will have a valid ticket for admission. The extra day of admission is like $20 on a four day ticket. We've come in late and only had time for one attraction (Test Track) and it was still worth it to me.

 

[Jules76126]

We don't usually do parks on arrival or departure day. So for an 8 day trip, I would most likely buy 5 day park tickets. We also like a rest/pool day in the middle of the vacation. The last trip we took, we did go to the parks on arrival day and I found that way too stressful. We tend to take a really early morning flight and after traveling all day, I prefer an afternoon by the pool and an early bed time as we are RD type crowd. We also tend to book early flights home so no time on departure day. However, if there was a special going on, I would be opposed to buying additional days if it was a good deal as I am sure we would use them.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

With FP+ we get park tickets for everyday of our stay. Even with a rest day, by 6 pm or so the kids want to go into a park so it's easy enough to get 3 FP+, pop into a park and kill a few rides in a few hours.

Before FP+ we would get one less day of park tickets than our length of stay. That way we had a rest day in between.

We always hit the parks on arrival and departure day since we drove and began and ended our trips visiting family. Driving in a day early, staying with them and leaving the next day bright and early to check in and hit RD. We would leave WDW in the afternoon, visit family and leave the next day for home. When we fly we get early flights going into Orlando and late flights coming home.