Ideal Vacation Length?

[Thing2008]

This can be a good conversation. What do you guys think is the ideal vacation length if you want to do all the parks and maybe a water park ect....Also, what do you do when your on vacation (ie. # of days , park hop or not, rest day)?

From my experience the ideal length of time to go to WDW is around 7-10 day's. That gives you one day for each park without having to hop, then you have two or three days to do the other activities offered atWDW such as DS, ESPNWWOS, Disney Quest, The water parks ect... And one day to just chill at the hotel and do some resort hoping if staying on site.

I also think I know it could be expensive but staying on site is the best option of you want to have the most convenient stay and not want to pull your hair out. It's always been my favorite thing to park our car get the luggage out and not go back to the car for the rest of the vacation. I can't imagine staying off site and having to drive to the parks spend a whole day at the parks and not just jump on a bus or monorail and go back to the hotel. Instead you have to go back to the Trams WALK to your car after your dead tired and then wait in the traffic to get off property it's a mess.

Thanks for reading Have a magical day!

 

[mister morrow]

usually 7 days, 6 nights, no park hopper, 1 rest day.
if we want a more chilled and relaxed vacation we usually add a day or two.

 

[Mikie]

Constrained by vacation time and budgets, we usually go for 8 days (1st and last being travel). We have never done the water parks because we focus first on the Big4 and have no time left. We are also exhausted by the end of our go-go trip. So. . . I'd say ideally, the vacation would be at least 10 days if you want to allow a water park visit and a much-needed rest day.

 

[kj2mom]

I think 10 days would be good for me. One week just doesn't ever seem like quite enough.

To add a bit of a side note, we stayed off site last year (ex-mother in law let us use her time share) and while I was nervous about it initially, we never encountered any traffic, our walks from the park exit to the car were usually very short (we rope dropped and closed every day and it was before the implementation of preferred parking so we were right up front, no need for a tram). It was typically no more than 15 minutes from park exit to resort door (unless we stopped at Steak N Shake which became a habit) and our parking spot at the resort was right outside our door so no walking from the bus stop to our room.

I completely understand that staying on site and off site have their own positives and negatives and each person needs to decide for themselves what works best for them (we have done both) but I hate when I see posts that do not necessarily reflect the potential experience.

We were there 4th of July week and I totally did expect traffic (based on things I had read here actually) but we never once encountered any at all. It most definitely was not anything close to a mess.

 

[DLmama]

We are taking our first trip to WDW in June 2017 for 10 days, 1st & last being travel days. I wanted to have the option to have 2 days for each park, as we are not interested in the water parks. We'll probably have dinner at DS on arrival day, if the flight gets in early enough.

We usually spend 3-4 days at DL, which is perfect.

 

[Networth]

7-8 nights anything beyond that and I am done.

 

[BabyFu18]

I'm used to longer vacations, I like 14 days ideally and I like to take a rest day every other day. So 14 days gives you plenty of time to do each park and then double back if you want to, plus plenty of "down" days. A longer vacation gives you plenty of time to see and do everything you want to do, but still have enough time to rest and relax so you don't end up needing a vacation from your vacation.

On our down days we love to swim all day, visit other hotels to try new restaurants, go shopping, etc. tons of fun stuff to do and still relax!

I don't like a go go go type of vacation even at Disney so building in some down time is what works best for me, but I know plenty of others who love to be on the go all the time while on vacation, so whatever works!

 

[lustergirl]

I like to go for 6-7 days, and more often.

 

[Mousemommy1]

We go anywhere from 8-10 nights. We enjoy lots of downtime at the resort. We are also annual visitors, so we never really feel pressured to see everything in any one trip. Nice, long, leisurely trips are the way to go for my family.

 

[DWDan]

My last trip to DW in May '16 (and my first as an adult), we did 9 nights/10 days (10th day was a travel day), but we were on the go everyday (would probably not do this again, as it wore my family down). I did buy 9 day PH tix with water park option and we went to TL one day and BB the other and that was fun. We really enjoyed the water parks, but I don't think we would do them again on our next trip. During our trip, I tried to incoporate midday breaks, but it was more difficult than I anticipated - My family also proved to be late sleepers, so getting to the park for RD did not happen (If we got to a park by 10 or 11am then we would not get back to the hotel until 3 or 4pm and we had ADRS at 5:30-6pm so downtime was minimal. Next trip, which will be another 10 days in Nov '17 (really loved the length of stay) will have pool days (if the weather is warm) and then we'll go get dinner and do evening park time. With 9 days at the park you can do everything you want and still have time to relax, I think.

 

[maltdizzy]

After 6 days, we start to see the cracks in the facade and are ready to go (I think we could do longer if we add in some non-park days)...and it takes two more years before we even start talking about going to WDW again.

Disneyland? We would go every few weeks.

 

[kangamangus]

Due to my husband's business the longest we can go is 8 days, but I think 10 days would be ideal. Someday he will be able to take more than a full week off but that won't be for another 7 years or so!

 

[beck00]

9 days, 8 day PH was our best trip yet! No rest days, but allowed us to visit all parks multiple times & Downtown Disney several times too, at a much more relaxed pace.

 

[addiln]

I have done 2 weeks before and that felt too long in the end. I was ready to go home by the end. I have also done 5 days and felt it was too fast. Now we end up doing 7-8 days. It works well for us. This next trip we arrive on Saturday morning and come back Saturday night. This one feels like it will be the perfect length for us. Also I like coming home on Saturday instead of Sunday like I use to. It gives us that extra day to get back into the swing of being home.

 

[CounselorX]

We like to do each park at least two to 3 times, have a rest day after every 2 park days, and a rest day before our departure day, so 14 nights/15 days is ideal for us.

 

[Disfan5]

We've always done 7 days (not counting travel) but I think 10 would be perfect! We don't take a full day off from the parks but usually have one day where we sleep in, go to the pool, and then head to a park for the evening. Hoppers are a must because we love spending our last day going around to do all of our favorites one last time. We also stay on-site (I can't imagine not!) and do a day or two at universal because oldest DD is a huge HP fan

 

[Dis703]

Ideal for me would be 2 weeks. We've done as many as 10 days but traveled on two of them and I could definitely have gone longer.

 

[cluvsdisney]

Ideal for me is 7 days, maybe 8. After that, I just want to be home.

 

[alex9179]

I think it depends on what you want out of it and who's traveling with you.

We spent 7 nights our first trip with an AOA/Poly split and exhausted ourselves with parks every day, we hopped once or twice. My next trip was 5 nights with my mom and it was very relaxing. We visited all the parks, hopped a couple of times, and rides weren't prioritized. It was a great length for what we wanted to do and I got to see new things. Our third family trip was kind of last minute for 5 nights and the best with the kids, so far. We RD'd the parks every day but it wasn't quite as manic! The short hours in January helped. We didn't see or do everything, of course, but we didn't worry about that.

Depending on vacation assignments, we're looking at spending 11 nights away from home. 2 while driving and 9 at WDW for another split stay. I have 5 day PHs and am resisting the urge to add more days because I REALLY want several days where schedules don't take priority. I know that if I add park days we'll spend most of our time there and relaxing/exploring won't happen. It will be hot and tempers shorter so I want to slow the pace down. I hope we get that 2 week block!

 

[DougK]

10000000 days