How long are your park days?

[720L]

I'm curious what a day in the park is for everyone. We've always gone rope drop until 7 or 8pm, sometimes later. I told my husband I doubt most people in the parks are doing this. They take breaks & come back later, particularly in the summer heat.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

I'm curious what a day in the park is for everyone. We've always gone rope drop until 7 or 8pm, sometimes later. I told my husband I doubt most people in the parks are doing this. They take breaks & come back later, particularly in the summer heat.

Prior to the trip we are taking in 6 days, our park days were from rope drop or EMH till about 1pm. That was it. We might have returned to AK in the evening once and EPCOT in the evening once, but never MK. As I think about it, I don't think my family has really gotten our monies worth. This trip though, we are doing rope drop to 1pm and then returning in the evening around 6 or so and staying till close.

 

[bluezy]

We visit Disney in mid to late June so it's pretty hot and humid most trips. Our typical day is rope drop and stay in the park until about 1:00. Back to the resort for swim/nap. Return to a park around 6:00 and stay until closing. On sleep-in days (once or twice during a 7-day trip) we don't get to the park until about 2:00 and then we'll stay straight through until closing. And on the rare occasion when it's not hideously hot and humid with might do rope drop and stay in the park until about 6:00-7:00 and then call it an early night, but I think that has only happened 3 or 4 times over 8 visits. No matter what, we usually spend about 9-10 hours in the park most days.

 

[StarSpeckledSky]

I'm curious what a day in the park is for everyone. We've always gone rope drop until 7 or 8pm, sometimes later. I told my husband I doubt most people in the parks are doing this. They take breaks & come back later, particularly in the summer heat.

We really only go to AK tbh, it's our favorite park by far. We don't rope drop (and never do unless we have to). Typically we arrive at around 9-10am, do some rides (FP+ and standby), shows, then more rides. We always end the day with Na'vi River Journey and exploring Pandora at night and typically exit the park 30minutes to an hour after official closing.

 

[SG131]

In August our park days were not rope drop but usually within a half hr of park opening until park close. We did do two days out of 9 with an afternoon break, one of which was for a nap and outfit change before the Halloween party. But we hadn’t been in awhile and it was foster kids first (probably only) time so we wanted to see everything. I also personally hate afternoon breaks because transportation eats up so much of the time.

When I go solo I tend to go rope drop to close. I am going again this August though and upgraded to stay at the contemporary so I plan to take the trip a bit slower and enjoy the resort. Plus, it’s my 4th trip of the year so there’s nothing I want to do that I haven’t recently......

 

[agavegirl1]

Completely Variable...
Rope Drop for EMH two days followed by relaxing afternoons and dinner in parks evenings
Normal Rope Drop one day with all day visit.
Late morning for F&W event followed by hopping to another park one day
Pool and relax morning with late night one night.
Super early morning with no plans afternoon another day.....
Yup...variable.

 

[Gehrig1B]

We definitely mix it up. We enjoy the parks at night more than morning so we don't make rope drop that often. We usually arrive in time for our first FP+ which is usually scheduled around 10:00 am. We are mostly at a deluxe resort making it easier to get back to the resort if needed. Sometimes we will just park hop in the middle of the afternoon, sometimes we will return to the resort for awhile. We often close the evening park.

 

[Woody412]

We usually only do 2 park days per trip so I prefer to stay in the parks all day. Show up after rope drop and do our fastpasses plus whatever additional FPs we can get. We do a sit down lunch in the A/C around 1 to unwind then get back to the grind. We’ll catch a show if we can’t score a fastpass we want. I don’t have the patience to keep refreshing so we usually don’t get any headliners after our initial 3. I like to close the park but most times either the kids or DW have had enough by the time the fireworks start.

 

[DisneyandBeerLover]

Typically we try to be in a park around 9, sometimes for RD, sometimes a little after 9. We make FPs for first thing to help optimize being able to get more than 3. We usually stay in a park long enough to use our FPs, do other attractions, eat lunch, etc.

When we leave depends on what's happening the rest of the day. We try to make our ADRs for dinner around 5, or our next FP for a park different from where we were in the morning for around 5. If we do that, we try to leave the first park around 1-2.

The next trip we take is the first time we're going less than a week so I'm not sure what we're going to do. We also usually stay at WL or BC so taking breaks is a lot more reasonable since we're closer to the parks but this time we're staying at AoA and during a busier time than we're used to. Taking a more leisurely pace isn't going to be something we can do so I'm interested in others' strategies too.

 

[djc9699]

We typically rope drop to close several days and then have a few late arrivals (to us that means 10 or 11 am) to close splattered about with DAHs mixed in. We rest in air conditioned rides or restaurants in the afternoon.

 

[indoshakespeare]

Depends. if it's DHS, it's rope drop to about 2pm. if it's Epcot, rope drop to about 4 or 5. if it's AK or MK, rope drop, 2 hour break after lunch, then come back till close.

 

[disneygirlsng]

Rope drop to close every single day. Only exception is RD trips.

 

[Tomh]

We visit in August every summer. Typically, we stay in the park from rope drop to park close.

 

[Christinecinti]

We usually go in November- Some days we rope drop (or close to it) and stay till 4:00/5:00ish... other days we'll sleep in a bit (especially if a late night the night before) and go around 11:00 if we plan to stay till close. But we have a July trip coming up- and we're planning to do it much differently due to summer heat. We plan to rope drop and stay till 1:00-1:30ish... then break at hotel and back around 5:30 for evening. It meant planning fast passes for earlier in the day than what we usually like, but trying to plan for that heat LOL. Our rope drop is a bit different- we'll get there prior to opening a couple times and brave the crowd going in... but it usually is us getting there very close to opening so crowds still down but we're not necessarily in the "running of the bulls" madness! I'd love to get there for actual RD each time but the huge press of ppl getting in is a bit stressful for me LOL

 

[KenHutch]

Now I rope drop to close but the girls usually take a pool break for a couple of the days. They hit the park and after about 4 hours go to the hotel pool.

 

[siren0119]

We are commandos! Arrive at rope drop and stay until closing. We plan breaks via a sit down meal for lunch, take frequent short water breaks when we find a wall or a bench we can sit on. We always plan at least one full "recharge" day outside of the parks in the middle of the trip when we can sleep in, have no agenda, use the pool, maybe hop into Disney Springs for a meal. We come home tired and happy

 

[Klayfish]

We do things a bit different than a lot of people.

We never rope drop
We never "commando"
We never do planned mid-day breaks

Typically, we do either what we call "AM parks/PM freestyle" or "AM freestyle/PM parks". AM parks/PM freestyle means we hit the parks from roughly 9:45am until 2 or 3pm (or whenever we're ready to leave) and then spend the PM doing whatever we feel like. That could be just relaxing in the rental house, go swimming, going out to a gift shop or dessert, or once in a while returning to the parks. AM freestyle/PM parks is basically the opposite. Mornings we do what we want (swim, DW and I workout, go to DS, relax, whatever....) and then hit the parks from 3 or 4pm until we're ready to leave (which could be anywhere from 8pm to 11pm at the very latest).

 

[Ellie Webbs]

We are from UK so usually stay for 14 nights. We always rope drop the first few days and plan to stay until close but don't force it. A midday break is necessary though, the plan for next year is to retreat to our resort (AKL) for a couple of hours or to a resort near the parks. After a nice cold beer, an hour in air con and decompressing by reading a book you feel ready to start again! The last day is always rope drop to fireworks but the couple of days before that is usually a pool day and a Disney springs day.

 

[Mark Hammond]

I think that a lot also depends on how often you visit, particularly if it’s a ‘once I a lifetime’ trip, which it could often be for some overseas visitors.
We’re here right now, with our only other visit being at the same time of the year in 2016, and it will probably be another three years until we come back again. (although we do have two full weeks each time we ‘vacation’)
For us, the small side-shows and other minor things that a frequent visitor may just by-pass are also a big part of our experience, almost as much the main attractions and headliners are.
I’ve mostly tried to plan our days as full park days followed by a bit of a lazy wake-up, and then either a water park or hotel pool morning followed by a half park day the next day.
Even though we’re staying on property, the travelling back and forth involved in taking a midday break would eat into our precious time here. Our 2nd/3rd visit to each park will then be shorter and more leisurely.
We did a 7:00 RD until 10:00 close at AK with our 6 & 8 year old girls yesterday, and did literally everything that we’d planned to do. This morning we’re around the hotel pool until whatever time suits us, and then hitting Epcot until park close.
I can definitely see the benefit of park hopping with a midday break for more frequent visitors though.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Our default is rope drop until 1 or so, then back in the parks from 6 until closing. Exception might be if it's cool enough that a mid-afternoon break isn't necessary to recharge and/or park hours are short that day.