Extra night or not

[Mercdesman]

I have a question, for those who make multiple trips to Disney in the same year. Is it worth flying down the night before for your trip? I mean if your trip is booked let’s say Thursday to Sunday is it worth not having to get up super early for a early flight and fly down or drive down depending on where you are but night before and paying for a room just to sleep. Seeing that you were Down the night before you have the full first day of your trip to do with what you want. If we come down the day of the earliest you could get to the parks would be in between 10 and 11 in the morning. I currently am a DVC member, but I’ve also paid cash for the rooms as well. I could save a lot of points and/or money by just getting up early and flying down the day off. Thoughts

 

[gottalovepluto]

I always fly in the day before but my journey is longer because I’m West Coast. The buffer time vs an overnight flight decreases my stress levels during the travel itself because if/when things go wrong I’m not missing my vacay time. I also love being in the parks first thing so to arrive at Disney at 11am would feel like wasting half a day.

Since you’re DVC why don’t you try the day of thing once and see what you think? If you love it you’ve found your travel style, if you don’t you’ll have plenty of other trips to not do that again and you’ll stop wondering if you made the right call.

 

[Little E]

I fly from the midwest to MCO when I go to WDW. I have owned DVC for a little over a year, but I have been going to WDW a few times a year since 2011. My house is two hours from the airport that offers direct flights to MCO. I have done lots of different variations from staying at a hotel near the airport the night before a flight/shuttling from a park & fly parking area, to staying at the hotel connected to the airport and using their valet service, to getting up at home before dawn and driving that morning to the airport. Also, I have booked an extra night at my on property resort at WDW so that I can get up and go on the first day of my time at WDW, and I have booked a cheaper resort on property resort for cash for the night before and then transferred to my DVC resort. I hope that all makes sense!

Each trip is different, so different things make sense for each trip. However, I have found recently that I like getting a room the night before on property (even if it's a cheaper room on property for cash and then transferring to use DVC points at a DVC resort) so that I can start my trip first thing in the am at Disney. I like sleeping at the resort and getting up knowing I have the full day at WDW, rather than traveling/flying and then getting a partial day at Disney. I would say if you can swing booking an extra night on property at the beginning of your stay, it's worth it! Even if you stay at a value for cash and then transfer to your DVC resort, that's less hassle than flying and getting a partial day on property. To me, it makes more sense to spend the $ to book an extra night on property rather than booking a hotel near your home airport and then flying the next day to WDW.

Whatever you decide, have a magical trip!

 

[Stitch'sCousin]

This is something that we do for our parks or cruise vacations every time. We tend to fly in during the afternoon/early evening and stay in a value resort or Disney Springs hotel for one or two nights before moving over to our “real” Disney resort to start the parks part of our vacation. The extra cost is minimal compared to our overall vacation cost.

 

[mrsap]

I have a question, for those who make multiple trips to Disney in the same year. Is it worth flying down the night before for your trip? I mean if your trip is booked let’s say Thursday to Sunday is it worth not having to get up super early for a early flight and fly down or drive down depending on where you are but night before and paying for a room just to sleep. Seeing that you were Down the night before you have the full first day of your trip to do with what you want. If we come down the day of the earliest you could get to the parks would be in between 10 and 11 in the morning. I currently am a DVC member, but I’ve also paid cash for the rooms as well. I could save a lot of points and/or money by just getting up early and flying down the day off. Thoughts

We usually drive down a day before (drive straight through). If I have extra points, I’ll do a DVC room, otherwise we’ll pay cash to stay the extra evening. Worth it to us not to cut into our first day! Enjoy!

 

[maxbuffmelvin]

Even though sleep is minimal, I always take the first flight in the morning and arrive at MCO early to be at the Disney parks by late morning. I also like the early morning flights because of less chance of delays, and they are usually cheaper.

 

[PalmettoPath]

We always maximize day one by taking the 6:30 a.m. flight and landing at MCO around 9:00 a.m. We don't get the room until later obviously but we have that full day to enjoy. Getting up in the wee hours is worth it for us.

 

[baozi]

To me the deciding factor is one more PTO day. West coast to MCO is about 5 hours, so to get there by midnight (9PM in west coast), we would have to be free around 2PM. So the choice is really between a red eye flight v.s. a vacation day on the flight.

 

[snikki]

I prefer flying in the day before. We did it for the first time last trip and I think that’s how I’ll do it from now on. We felt so much more relaxed and rested.

We’ve done the 6 am flights and been in the park by 10-11 am and stay until park close but we just feel drained the next 1-2 days. The trip before last my teen daughter had a mini meltdown on day 2 and we had to stop for a long nap after just arriving to a park.

We now will do an afternoon flight, leisurely unpack and maybe hit DS. I’m not a big DS fan but I didn’t mind as much last trip for just a few hours. I figure I can get some new ears and any shirts I might like for the trip. If it’s an adult only trip I may hit up Epcot instead.

 

[Genie+]

We come down the evening before. We’ve done 1 night decent offsite with breakfast or onsite value, then move to our intended resort. But now we just tack on that first night and pay extra for the ease of not moving resort.

We splurge on front and skimp on the end. Flights in/out NYC are cheapest very early and very late in the day. 6am flights are PITA (and keep you tired that first day) but wwe can handle 6p-9pm flight going down. Coming back we’ll take the latest flight possible, often landing after midnight and take it easy that first day back home. I often make stew or bolognese and freeze before our trip so a nice easy meal on recuperation day.

 

[CynBeth]

We always maximize day one by taking the 6:30 a.m. flight and landing at MCO around 9:00 a.m. We don't get the room until later obviously but we have that full day to enjoy. Getting up in the wee hours is worth it for us.

Same here.

 

[T.G.I.Friday]

We’ve done it a bunch of different ways and have decided that, for us, it’s best to fly in the evening before - we target the flight around 5:00 - to land around 7.

We fly in, get to the resort and can settle in. Then we can wake up and hit the ground running the next morning.

When we left in the morning, taking the early flight means we leave home pre-dawn, and would arrive to the resort around 11. It’s already been a long day, then the room isn’t ready, so we go to a park, but it’s the hot and crowded time of day, so we struggle.

 

[sponica]

Back when SW had a zillion flights from my airport to MCO, I used to take the first flight of the morning. I think I was usually at the resort by 11? One time, my room was actually ready with my luggage already delivered.

Now they only run one or 2 flights a day, so it depends on my mood. Right now we're on the flight that arrives mid afternoon on a Saturday and I'm almost tempted to move it to the Friday night, even though we won't get to the hotel until almost 10

 

[roydavid7771]

I'm a DVC member as well, and I always plan on staying a night or two at POR before we move to our villa. We like to do Disney Springs on our first night for dinner and relaxing before the theme park madness sets in. I also like taking the first full day to play golf, swim, and otherwise do all of the things my family wouldn't do once we're on the theme park schedule. I've found that by doing this I'm much more relaxed and don't feel the pressures of trying to cram everything in a short amount of time.

 

[DSLRuser]

I prefer getting in very late on a Thursday like 10pm......then I can work all day Thursday, catch an 8pm flight.....wake up Friday morning and be ready to go.

what's another 25 points

 

[Chief Powhatan]

Similar to what others have said, I like to work a full day, and then head to the airport for an evening flight. I am usually staying at Pop or AOA, so that extra nights resort stay is not a financial killer. I love having that extra morning and waking up at a Disney resort.

 

[snikki]

We come down the evening before. We’ve done 1 night decent offsite with breakfast or onsite value, then move to our intended resort. But now we just tack on that first night and pay extra for the ease of not moving resort.

We splurge on front and skimp on the end. Flights in/out NYC are cheapest very early and very late in the day. 6am flights are PITA (and keep you tired that first day) but wwe can handle 6p-9pm flight going down. Coming back we’ll take the latest flight possible, often landing after midnight and take it easy that first day back home. I often make stew or bolognese and freeze before our trip so a nice easy meal on recuperation day.

We fly out of Philly and it's the same way with flight prices.

Last trip I wanted to fly in the day before because those 6 am flights and then going to the parks can be brutal so we wanted to try something new. I also wanted DD to have a full day of school (I always take off travel day and if it's a 6 am flight I take off the day before too) so we did a 6:30 pm flight. I just felt it was a little too late for us since we landed around 845-9 pm, we were a bit hungry and food options become limited that late, and we were a little amped up to be at Disney but there wasn't much to do. We did grab food at Three Bridges, walked around the resort for a bit and then unpacked and were good for RD the next morning being all refreshed. Next trip I may opt for a 2-3 pm flight if prices are decent.

Coming home our flight was almost 10 pm. We had breakfast at Toppolino's and spent the day at DHS.