Should we book 5 days or 4 days in the parks?

[halfmonkey]

We have a question and hoping the Disney Veterans can help answer or give us some helpful advice to consider. We're planning a roadtrip to include a stop at Disneyworld. We would arrive at our Disneyworld Resort on a Saturday night and currently plan to go into the parks Monday-Thursday and leaving Friday to hop on Disney Wish. The day in question is Sunday after our arrival. We're currently thinking of keeping it a chill day and checking out Downtown Disney and the reason why this question came up is because I don't think there's enough to do at Downtown Disney to occupy a whole day and adding a 5th day would cost us about $256 more. My thought is, we could do Downtown Disney half day and then spend the other half at one of the parks.

So for those that frequent Disneyworld and Downtown Disney often, what are your thoughts on adding a 5th day or is there enough to do at Downtown Disney where we should just stick to 4 days? We've been to Disneyland a lot but have only been to Disneyworld once and since we've been, they've opened Avatar, Toy Story Land, and not sure what else. Obviously, with 4 days, we're planning to do one park a day but if we buy the 5th day, which park do you recommend we go to? We're not buying park hopper. I know this is a personal preference question but just curious what people's thoughts might be?

Of course there will be overlap of rides between Disneyland and Disneyworld but we're thinking of doing the 5th half day in Animal Kingdom because we don't have Avatar Land in Disneyland and Expedition Everest is one of our favorite rides.

Thoughts and suggestions?

Thank you.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

I think you can do just the 4 days. We'd probably do parks on Sunday and take a 'break' day in the middle - do Disney Springs, perhaps an afternoon at the pool, maybe mini-golf - there are things to enjoy without going into a park. Make a dining reservation at Animal Kingdom Lodge and go over a little early to enjoy the animals... Sleep in!

Good luck with your planning and enjoy your trip and your cruise!

 

[Dulcee]

I think it depends on your priorities. If you really want to get in all the headliner rides the extra day gives you that flexibility. Animal Kingdom is pretty easily done in a single day.

Personally - We like one day without a park. We do breakfast at a resort, pool, and then Disney Springs from midday to evening. But we go often and there is rarely any headliner ride that is a must do for us.

 

[RoseGold]

Depends on how much $250 means to you and maybe whether you will ever be back. If this is a once in a lifetime thing, then sure, I would get the extra day.

 

[Zarwozed]

A couple things. We always try for a “bonus day” that’s non park. Disney springs is definitely worth a visit and it is quite bigger than downtown Disney.resort hopping is pretty fun too, especially if your a foodie. I respect the non park hopper thing but without it, it’s tough to do a 5th park day for me personally. AK is awesome but it closes the earliest so I kind of feel like you miss out there. It’s the one park I feel like you can see the most out of in just a single day. On a three day plan it usually only gets a half day. If it’s more adults I would do Epcot and if it’s more kids in your group I would do Hollywood studio’s. Epcot is really big and the extra time will help get to everything and that long wait for ratatouille and crapes! Hollywood studios is definitely awesome for kids and has the most re rideable stuff in my opinion. If your set on AK for your 5th day then go early and spend the afternoon in Disney springs not the other way around. Hope
My rambling was helpful!

 

[DL1WDW2]

I’m going to ask questions but I’ll give you 2 options .
First You will enjoy Disney Springs. I would consider the giant air balloon called Aerophile as the sunsets or going to the Coca Cola Rooftop Bar . The views are incredible.
Plus lots of exploring . Many different Disney Stores . You can take the Sassagoula Boat trip that floats along the water following the Golf Couse and return to Disney Springs.
The bus transportation from Disney Springs will take you to the Riviera Resort to visit and jump on the SkyLiner. I would choose the option to visit Epcot because the SkyLiner has the views of Epcot France and other resorts .
So my first question would be how much did you push the roadtrip before arrival ? You might need a day to walk around Disney Springs to unwind…
Also curious if trip includes holiday for crowd level consideration .

The next question would be age groups to consider. I suggest you download the DisneyWorld APP to understand different levels of Genie but more important to get the Virtual Q Boarding for Cosmic Rewind New at Epcot. And you will need to have that extra day to try again because you didn’t get the Virtual Boarding …. Or because you did get it and want to go again on that extra day ! Haha It’s awesome ! Hopefully you have seen the movies to understand Awesome Mix.

 

[halfmonkey]

Thank you for all of the feedback. Great things to consider. I'll try and respond to some of the main points brought up.

Seems that everybody is saying that spending half a day at Animal Kingdom is plenty so to spend a full day there and then use another half day would be overkill. I'm just thinking because Avatar Land opened and we don't have that at Disneyland, it may have been worth it to spend the day and half taking our time to explore Avatar Land especially since we don't know when the next time would be before we come back to Disney World as we're coming from the west coast.

With that being said, my option would have been to spend the extra half day in Epcot since, we don't have that at Disneyland. It seems one other person had the same thought. Hollywood Studios was the other option. We have Star Wars Land in Disneyland so we wouldn't be too focused on that but we don't have Toy Story Land but it seems that we have a Pixar area in Disney California which may have some of the Toy Story Land attractions. We don't have the Slinky ride though. Urgh. Decisions, decisions.

Regarding Park Hoppers, we generally don't do PH simply because we don't feel the need to pay extra to bounce around between parks especially if I can plan it where we hit each park for a full day. We'd be a family of 5 so it would be extra cost that we don't want to pay for. We're also not really into lounging by the pool or going to the water parks. We live by the beach in CA and frankly don't want to spend the time and energy to do a road trip to stop at Disneyworld and go to the pool when I'm close to the beach at home.

I would have loved to include the Galactic Starcruiser in this trip but for 5 people, the cost just isn't in our budget.

 

[Zarwozed]

Thank you for all of the feedback. Great things to consider. I'll try and respond to some of the main points brought up.

Seems that everybody is saying that spending half a day at Animal Kingdom is plenty so to spend a full day there and then use another half day would be overkill. I'm just thinking because Avatar Land opened and we don't have that at Disneyland, it may have been worth it to spend the day and half taking our time to explore Avatar Land especially since we don't know when the next time would be before we come back to Disney World as we're coming from the west coast.

With that being said, my option would have been to spend the extra half day in Epcot since, we don't have that at Disneyland. It seems one other person had the same thought. Hollywood Studios was the other option. We have Star Wars Land in Disneyland so we wouldn't be too focused on that but we don't have Toy Story Land but it seems that we have a Pixar area in Disney California which may have some of the Toy Story Land attractions. We don't have the Slinky ride though. Urgh. Decisions, decisions.

Regarding Park Hoppers, we generally don't do PH simply because we don't feel the need to pay extra to bounce around between parks especially if I can plan it where we hit each park for a full day. We'd be a family of 5 so it would be extra cost that we don't want to pay for. We're also not really into lounging by the pool or going to the water parks. We live by the beach in CA and frankly don't want to spend the time and energy to do a road trip to stop at Disneyworld and go to the pool when I'm close to the beach at home.

I would have loved to include the Galactic Starcruiser in this trip but for 5 people, the cost just isn't in our budget.

I know what your are thinking about with AK and pandora but it just isn’t that big. A big chunk of it is landscape and the mountain that holds the ride. It’s smaller than Star Wars land.