Spending a week at Disney

[ladyjubilee]

Our last few trips have been short...just 8 park days. Our longest was 12 park days, with 1 special event day. But we do try to have 1 non park day for every 4 park days.

We found 3 visits to AK, EP and HS with 4 to MK to be exhausting, even with a break. But my son was ready to go right back... probably because he gets to ride in a stroller.

I really like having the non park day built in for a rest, and frankly to do other things like horse back riding, the resort activities, resort hopping, and shopping.

 

[lluv3971]

We are going for the same amount of days during the same time frame!

We are two adults, so we are able to get a lot done relatively quickly/easily. We are out-of-state APs and typically go to WDW 2-3x a year, so we don't have to see/do everything on any given trip.

We have found that what really "makes" our vacation is staying in a great location. We are staying at the Yacht Club, which makes park hopping easy (no transportation needed).

This trip we are taking a more balanced approach to touring and relaxation (usually we are "go-go-go") .

That said, here is our rough outline for our next trip:

Arrival day at Coronado- eating and drinking and setting in to "Vacation Mode." We may hit up DS or get a "nice" dinner reservation at a resort. For the first time ever, we are adding this "slow start" and I could not be more excited. THIS will be our only "down day."

Park Day 1: MK, rope drop. Leave mid-day.
Monorail crawl for dinner and drinks, fireworks viewing at MK resort.

Park Day 2: DAK - Wild Africa Trek tour in the morning; leave mid-day; return to DAK for dinner, evening FPs, and ROL.

Park Day 3, 4, 5 - DHS - early arrival for boarding group; morning FPs; leave mid-day. Make rolling FPs for EPCOT; Spend the evening at EPCOT.

Day 6 - Transfer to Universal Studios Resort for one day/night.

We would probably have a different approach if we didn't stay in close proximity to a park (or 2). Going back and forth to your resort can eat up a lot of time so when we stay moderate or value, we typically don't take breaks. We would rope drop a park, stay for about 4 hours, then hop to another park for a few more hours. We would return to our room around 6 or 7 and call it a night. Either way, I feel like we get the same amount accomplished.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

y'all are insane. I always do 6-8 days at the parks, but at my age, I NEED a non-park day in the middle. Since I usually have an AP, I MAY go into a park on my non-park day for a meal or ADR. However, in general, I need a resort day for my legs to recover. I start off this early with preliminary plans on which park for which day based on crowd calendars (those won't be any help now). but you will have to be able to adjust depending on what FP+ you get.

In general, I try to do Epcot or a resort day on weekend. MAYBE AK. However, HS and MK should never be done on a weekend.
But for me, the name of the game is "pace yourself". It's a long time at the parks, but you will hate life by day 5 if you rush, rush, rush.

 

[nkereina]

We always do 7+ day trips with park hoppers. It allows us to tour the parks at a slower pace, and gives us more flexibility in our schedule. We have plans to go in October (depending on the status of things), and our schedule looks like this:

Day 1 - Arrive AM, AK PM
Day 2 - MK
Day 3 - DHS
Day 4 - Epcot
Day 5 - Sleep in / Pool / Disney Springs
Day 6 - AK AM / DHS PM
Day 7 - MK
Day 8 - DHS AM / Epcot PM
Day 9 - open / leave PM

During the evening on days we only have one park planned, we leave it open and free from ADRs and FPs so we can go where we want. If we don't accomplish all we want at MK on Day 2, perhaps we go back in the evening of Day 4. If we don't make it back to DHS the evening of Day 6 because its raining or we're tired, we'll do it the evening of Day 7 or on Day 9. We try to do all our FPs in the morning of whatever park we have planned so we can maximize the 4th FP+ bookings, and we often will book or move ADRs on the fly, keeping only a few must-do ADRs in tact. We're always able to find an ADR, and sometimes its a good excuse to try a new place or one we may have not considered otherwise.

 

[mkla2015]

Most of our trips are 8-10 days and we always get park hoppers. Our ideal trip is arriving in Orlando early (we fly out of Austin, TX and usually arrive around 10am), magical express to resort to drop off bags then head straight to the parks- usually MK until park close. The follow days we plan to rope drop a park in the morning and stay until around 2pm then head back to the resort for nap/swim. After our break, we head to a different park at night to grab dinner, see fireworks, and close down the park. On our departure day we try to take the last flight home so we can go to MK for the majority of the day before heading home.

That's the way we plan it, the plans don't always stick. Our last trip was this past February over President's day week and crowds were crazy so we had to tweak our plans here and there. The park hoppers definitely came in handy though as we were able to rope drop HS on 4 different days to ride ROTR and then hop to another park or 2 in the same day.