Spending a week at Disney

[KristenCH]

We are currently planning a trip for next year in which we will spend a whole week (Saturday-Saturday) at Disney World! We have never had that much time to spend at the parks before, so we are getting park hopper tickets. For anyone who has done this before, what has your itinerary looked like? I know everyone vacations differently but I would like to see some of your touring plans to get some ideas, please.

 

[lynnzrae]

We like a long trip like this. The arrival and departure day as well as a day in the middle we don’t go to the parks. We enjoy the hotel pool and chill-ax.

 

[tguz]

W do not ever take a non park day during the middle of our vacation. We drive so we arrive the afternoon before we check in to our Disney resort. We stay at an off site hotel on I-Drive and just enjoy the area and do some shopping. We leave early on departure day so we have breakfast at the resort and then start the long drive home.

 

[MICKIMINI]

I'd watch carefully as the parks will likely reopen with a lowered capacity making it more difficult to park hop. You may be better off with single day tickets. You can always upgrade your tickets when you arrive.

 

[Boopuff]

We always buy park hopper tickets. We stay about a week each time we go. The beauty of the PH is that you can easily eat wherever! We don't like many of the places to eat at HS so we always plan a dinner at Epcot. And now that the busses have some park-to-park routes makes it even easier! We rarely spend an entire day at one park.

 

[BalooFan]

I go to the parks each day, unless my flights are such that I can’t spend at least a few hours in a park on arrival and departure days. I usually spend the morning/early afternoon in one park, take a resort break, then go to a different park in the late afternoon/evening. On some days, I may go to DS, a meal at another resort, or some other non-park destination instead of heading to a park. I take advantage of morning EMH, but not evening EMH because I don’t see a great benefit to them. I have at least one table service meal per day.

 

[rwdavis2]

By having that many days you should be able to do every attraction you want to. We slept in several days and used FP+ later in the day. If we did do rope drop we would head back to the hotel pool for a while then hop to another park later in the day. Its a pretty easy way to make the trip relaxing and still doing everything you want.

We had tickets for every day except departure since we were leaving earlier in the day. I picked which park each day and then made FP+ reservations depending on when we got to the park. Questions?

 

[Heavens2Betsy]

We usually do 5 day park hoppers. 2 mornings MK, 1 morning at each of the others. We may do two mornings at DHS and no Epcot mornings on our next trip though. We book all our FP as early as possible, rope drop, and leave around lunch to nap at the resort. Then we play the evenings by ear - go back to the same park, or a new one, or try to snag a last minute ADR, or hit Disney Springs, or just chill at our resort. We take one resort day during the trip and don't do parks on arrival or departure days.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We typically buy PH's, but the point is, with limited capacity likely at the parks into next year (or who knows), you may have to get to a park for rope drop in order to get in. Who knows what the bus situation is going to be...

If parks reach capacity, it may be a huge waste of time to travel to another park only to be turned away, not to mention a waste of money. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

I like starting my vacation at Magic Kingdom and also spending my last day there. One important thing I look for in my plans is the MK Fireworks schedule. I absolutely have to see them!!

 

[Kaadk]

We've always bought the park hoppers... but have rarely used them. We usually plan a dinner ADR @ 180 days out, based on picking a park for the day based on the hours/EMH schedules, then, see what FPs we can get in that park @ 60 days out. Based on the need to plan things way in advance, I'd be very tempted to just not bother with the park hoppers, but they're usually required as part of the Free Dining or whatever package deal we're leveraging.

I miss the good old days where you could actually be spontaneous at the parks, without it being to your detriment to do anything. Back in those early days, we park hopped more. But the last few trips, you pretty much have to vacation on a schedule.

 

[SaintsManiac]

OP, I wouldn't worry about reduced capacity for next year yet. Just pay attention and go ahead make a plan as if everything will be normal. Then you can adjust accordingly. That's what I am doing.

We are going Saturday-Saturday next May as long as everything is normal.

We used to go to the parks every day, because we had APs. This time we have 6 day hoppers that I bought a long time ago, so the plan is Sunday-Friday in the parks every day. MK is always first for us. We plan to push HS and Epcot to the end to maximize our chances of Rat FPs and Rise FPs (if they are offered). We'll finish up Friday night with MK fireworks.

 

[ejdmomma]

We are early risers and like to utilize the morning extra magic hours. We scheduled our week around which park had AM EMH. Every day we would take a break around lunch time back at our resort and take a nap. Then finish out the day at a different park with our fastpasses in the afternoon at the second park. It has worked well for us. You could always do your fast passes in the morning and then look for extra at your second park.

 

[JETSDAD]

We buy AP's and go to parks every day. I put parks towards the end of the trip that have hard to get FP's in order to ensure that we'll get to ride those at least once with FP (though we'll often ride multiple times throughout the week). FP's set to first thing each day and we will show up around open....sometimes there for RD, sometimes a bit later. Normally we take an afternoon break for pool, rest, etc. and then head to another park for the evening. Being able to hop can allow you to just head over to Epcot for dinner or go to a park because you happen to find a hard to get FP after having done rides at the first park.

 

[loves to dive]

We always have PHs and are total non-planners, we have been going for over 30 something years so we have the luxury of not worrying about whether we are going to miss out on anything. We go to a park every day of our trip, we rarely spend all day in the parks and I can't remember a time we did only one park a day. We drive down and arrive around 2 or 3, put our stuff in the room if it's ready, go to the bus stop and hop on the first bus to arrive. Our arrival day is usually about getting something to eat when we get there since we only snack in the car on the way and just enjoying actually being there. If there are any rides with shortish waits, we will ride something but it's not necessary that first day. After that, we normally get up and decide what park to go to, I hop on MDE and see if there are any FPs within 30 to 45 min. after we are getting there and we go from there. I rarely make more than one FP at a time and it's usually while standing in line for a ride. After we get tired of that park or it's too crowded, we usually hop to another park. At some point in the afternoon we might go back to the resort to sit by the pool for a hour then head off to another park for supper and just kind of hang out. We also make ADRs on the fly, I just hop on MDE and find what's available, that is the good thing about having hoppers, you can be flexible.

 

[KenHutch]

Next year we will be going for 10 days. We go every 3rd year and spend 10 days at WDW with an additional 2 days at Daytona Beach. One of the only constants is about day 5 or 6 the girls go into town for a day of shopping and I spend the day wandering the resorts taking pictures, its a good way the check out hotels.

 

[epcotobsessed]

Our typical trip is 7-8 days, split stay (always Beach Club so we can walk to Epcot, then something else), no park hoppers. As you probably know, once you get past four days on your ticket it's only $10 to add another day, so we always buy tickets for the length of our stay (or one day less if we get a 2pm flight or earlier) because it's worth it to us even if we only go to a park for 2-3 hours one day. My kids are teenagers now and we've migrated from rope drop every day to rope drop maybe 1-2 days (will definitely get to HS early next time - our last trip was only a week before Star Wars land opened) with 1-2 days not going to a park until dinner time, and the rest a late morning arrival. We go to the pool every day at some point - I think that would feel wasteful to me, in terms of missing out on park time, on a shorter stay, but it's great for a longer stay.

 

[Kaadk]

... As you probably know, once you get past four days on your ticket it's only $10 to add another day, ...

Actually, with the date based tickets, that's no longer true. I've run the numbers for different scenarios in the past, and sometimes it might be up to another $22 or so for that extra day. You really need to do your homework on the exact days you're targeting to understand what that extra day is really costing you. I don't book park days for arrival/departure, but I do normally book everything in between.

 

[epcotobsessed]

Actually, with the date based tickets, that's no longer true. I've run the numbers for different scenarios in the past, and sometimes it might be up to another $22 or so for that extra day. You really need to do your homework on the exact days you're targeting to understand what that extra day is really costing you. I don't book park days for arrival/departure, but I do normally book everything in between.

Strange, it's been true for us every single time we've gone for years now. We have never gone over Christmas/New Years, maybe that's why.

 

[Oneanne]

I prefer trips of 6 to 7 days and always get hoppers, with enough ticket days to cover even the shorter travel days. I'm usually at the parks for rope drop, or shortly thereafter, and book my FP+ starting mid-morning. Then it's back to the resort for a mid-day nap and a freshen up and out again in the evening. I've never done an entire day without going to a park, but have done short days where I stayed at the resort after my mid-day break.

In a week long trip I'll only book 2 or 3 ADRs for places I really want to eat. The rest of the time its QS, or my new favorite is to stop in to one of the lounges for a light bite and a beverage.. That way I don't feel tied to an eating schedule. I'll also check day of, if I feel like I want to do a TS meal, as see what is available.