Folks staying more than a week - what's your itinerary?

[pwoodham]

We have never stayed more than 7 nights at WDW, and I'm fascinated by the posts I see from those of you staying longer. When you go for that long, do you still plan each minute? What do you do that you feel you'd miss with a shorter stay? I want to talk my husband into a longer stay and would love to hear some wonderful reasons from veterans!

 

[BounceyOne]

We usually stay longer then 7 days. What this does is give you more time to relax. Every minute is not planned, so there is less rushing and more seeing the little things.

This is just us of course, I'm sure others still plan most every minute.

 

[CDisney]

When we go for 10-14 days, we take time to relax. We rent a house with a pool and kick back.

Usually, we'll go to a park every other day. On the off days, my husband hits the golf course and the kids head for the pool. We also like to go to some of Orlando's other attraction's on the off days, like the dinner theaters, miniature golf, etc.

For longer trips, it's great to have an annual pass. Then, if you want to go into a park for just a couple of hours, you don't feel like you've wasted a day on your parkhopper pass.

After a longer vacation, we definitely return refreshed instead of exhausted.

One word of caution, though . . . Long trips are addictive and kids can get used to the laid-back approach. We went on a short trip in April and the kids thought they were going to be able to spend a couple of hours in the park and lounge around the pool the rest of the day, when I wanted to cram in as much as possible, since we only had four days.

 

[disneefamily]

Disnee Dad Says..................................Our last two trips have been for ten days. The first trip we did parks for six days and tossed in three days of Disney Resorts, Downtown Disney, Outlets, Pool time etc...On our last trip we got AP's, and spent everyday at the parks!! We always went early except for one day, but sometimes we would leave at lunch time and say were done for today!! Or maybe go back for parades at night. Made it very flexible, ate more meals offsite. Did little planning, because there are certain touring plans that are ingrained in our head.
So we would on the night before say" How about Mk then Epcot" OK! What that really meant was get to MK early, pound out all the rides in Fantasyland in 45 minutes, then move over to Tommorrowland, get out by 10:30 and take the monorail to EPCOT to hit the rope drop to World Showcase, picking up fastpass to test track along the way! Unfortunately the machines wern't up so we had to skip FP for Test Track. Hit Mexico, Norway and China. Then slow way down, maybe do outlets and swimming. On a long trip you can get the best of both worlds, fast, and slowww!!

 

[GeorgeG]

Seven days is the shortest we've ever stayed and usually go for ten to fourteen days.

We like the longer visits because we can take our time and not rush for anything. We spend more time relaxing at either Typhoon Lagoon or the CBR main pool, or even just "hanging out" at our favorite places in the parks.

The first few times we went I planned everything in detail and that helped us see more, but now it's not so much about seeing more, but enjoying it more, even if we don't get to do everything.

I should add that it's usually just the two of us and when we have others along, especially if they are first-timers, we do try to show them as much as possible, but still not at a breakneck pace.

Personally, I could be happy just strolling around World Showcase and hanging out in my favorite countries. I just like the atmosphere.

 

[scanne]

Most of my trips have been 7 nights/8 days. But our honeymoon was 12 nights/13 days and my last trip was 10 days and they were great! I enjoy the 8 day trips, but they tend to feel a little rushed. With the longer stays I was able to enjoy more, especially when we went to Universal and Islands of Adventure - which my husband HAS to do. If I feel cheated out of a day at Disney I get very moody, so the longer the trip, the better I feel.

Now with that said, when we take our baby on his first trip to WDW, hopefully when he's 2, we probably won't make it longer than 8 days. I guess I have to see what the baby is like, but I can't imagine a two year old staying interested for 2 weeks. But we'll see.

If you can, book a longer trip, get annual passes (it WILL save you $$$) and take the time to relax and enjoy your resort and other aspects of Disney you may not have thought about.

 

[dwfanatic]

When we go for 10 days, we take advantage of park hopping more- we go to breakfast in one park, do a few rides, then go somewhere else. The last time we went for an extended stay, we went to MK on the 3th day, got there early to do fantasyland, then did more park touring. The 5th day we went back to MK and ate breakfast at CP- that way we felt we could have a leisurly breakfast and not worry about having to get to FL before it got crowded. I do admit that I still have an itinerary, but is is a calm one We also take more rests in the middle of the day, because we feel we don't have only 1 day to "get it all in." I hope my jibberish is clear!

 

[POOH&PIGLET]

We will be going on our longest trip by far this fall, 13 nights. Yes I am planning just as much but our itinerary is alot more flexible. We will have APs so we can come and go as we please. We expect to do many mornings at MK with our two DDs and many evenings at EPCOT (for the Food & Wine Festival).
One thing that we haven't done before due to time limitations that we plan to now is resort hopping. We plan on eating/visiting at 2 or 3 resorts that we have never been to before.

 

[skondo10]

When my brother and I were younger and able to take time off of school, we went to Disney for 22 nights. We are from Canada so we would drive down for a long visit to the "world" We DIDN'T plan at all (we still don't). We woke up when we wanted and decided then what we wanted to do that day, depending on how tired we were and the weather. It gave us time to enjoy all of Disney not just the theme parks. We love touring all of the other Disney hotels. Riding the monorail, going over the DTD, playing mini-golf, ordering pizza by the pool, fishing, renting bikes, shopping, going to AMC, just relaxing and taking it all in.

Longer trips gave us the opportunity to move at a slow pace (we usually only did about six theme parks in this time period) and to see stuff we normally wouldn't get to see. I even needed a hair cut on the trip and got to get it cut at the Contemporary. I will always remember that! At the end of a long trip you will feel much more rested.

Now that we are older, we vacation more but for a shorter period of time. I like it because there isn't as long of time period inbetween visits, but I do miss our long trips.
Good luck with your planning

 

[susy]

We only go for weekends because of DH's job. If we could go for seven days(my dream), I would:


day1-
drive up (3 hrs) and check in.
Go to the WS when it opens , eat a sit-down meal, see TOD, Illum.

day2-
Epcot- all of future world, all day!!!! Well, maybe with a break....

day3-
MK (Cindy's) , break, MK for Spectro and FW

day4- rest day- tea at GF

day5- MK again . Stay for Share a Dream come true parade

day6- AK all day

day 7- MGM, break, back for parade and fantasmic

day8- drive home happy!!!

Maybe someday......

 

[pooh2001]

We are a family with a DS & DD.
So our 12 day plans may differ from those without kids. Tour the parks in the morning. Pool time in the afternoon. Doing Fantasmic, Chef Mickeys for dinner, Cindy's for breakfast, playing mini-golf,
the kids are going on the Pirate Cruise, H&V for lunch, and the Cape May Buffet for dinnner.

Relaxing, boating, enjoying.

It's a vacation.

We have AP park passes - that may be helping us plan our park visits too.

 

[MELSMICE]

We also like to go for about 2 weeks, although we have done 7 & 8 day trips.

Everyone is right, when you go longer you can be more flexible & just relax more. So many people say they come home & need a vacation after their vacation. We have NEVER felt that way because we always take time to relax.

We also do the every other day in the parks thing. On the "off" days we hang at the pool or do a water park. We have also rented bikes at FW & water mice at CR. Then in the evening we have a leisurely dinner off-site or do DD. FW has an evening campfire program. Mini golf in the evening is fun also.

Remember, if you are there 8 or more days it is more cost effective to get an AP. I highly recommend the AP's. It makes the vacation so much more flexible & about 100X more enjoyable. We love them. If you have a DC card you get a slight discount on them.

Believe me, Disney is not just about the parks. There is always something to do. No matter how long we stay - 7, 8 or 15 days I am always depressed when I have to leave. If I could stay for 28 days I would & probably still be depressed when returning home!!!

 

[Disney owl]

You should post thi s question over on the UK boards as most of us go for at least 2 weeks , due to the distance involved.


I,m sure you'll get lots of replies.

 

[MeMeMouse]

Staying longer than a week is wonderful!!! I stayed 14 days for my honeymoon and enjoyed every min! I found that the longer stays are great to visit the pools more often, do some water activities (mouse boats), Disney Quest and relax!!! We also did 1/2 days in the parks- this way we were not so tired by the end. We made a PS everyday for dinner but kept the rest of the vacation open. Have a great time!

 

[trishy]

We go for 3+ weeks because this is our one *real* vacation each year. We plan it down to the ps for every dinner/activity each day. Our plan looks like this:
Day 1- airport, rental car, shop for groceries, go to villas, go to a park, ps for dinner (yep, pretty busy!)
Day 2 - water park, pool hop, epcot, ps @ epcot restaurant
Day 3 - pirate cruise (for little ones), water mice (for big ones ), lunch at GF, park, ps @ park
Day 4 - 15 - same idea, planning itinerary for each day (especially for July 4 since ps are important to have on holidays - like the fireworks cruise)
Day 16-23 - Cruise on DCL - have ressies for each excursion desired for each port.

I think DVC'rs have a little bit of the obsessive/compulsive disorder about planning , but I find it makes the trip a lot smoother when I know ahead of time what's happening. Also, with 3 kids it makes it easier at dinner time to have those ressies (tables for 5 don't come easy/quickly). I don't feel we would miss anything on a shorter stay; it's just the distance travelled and available vacation days from school that make it nice to do the trip in one large dose rather than a few small ones. I highly recommend it.

 

[Juliepoohgirl]

I agree with all the posts that say the extended stay gives you more time to relax. We were intially only going for 1 week. Once I planned the week I saw it was going to be jammed packed. 4 days at parks and a couple at the beach. But it also meant going to parks days in a row. WE got a good deal on a villa and decided to stay 2 weeks. There is now time to hang out at the pool and just relax. We will not be going to any parks 2 days in a row which is great as we have several children and a grandma with us. On our off days, we can browse downtown disney or go to the Boardwalk in the eve. One day is my son's 5 th birthday and we will go to Chef Mickey's and hit one of the kiddie golf courses.So, we still do Disney things on non park days. We also got Sea world Tickets that were buy one day get a day free if used 7 days from the intial day. So, we will now have time to hit it twice if we want to. Anyway, only 25 day left until we leave!! Julie

 

[BevS97]

we just got back from 17 days in Orlando. We had 10 day world passes (a UK only ticket), so we did 10 days in Disney, 2 days at Seaworld, and 3 days shopping (and 2 days travelling).

on our disney days, we generally slept late, arrived late and stayed late - this worked really well for us. One of the days that we went to Seaworld we didn't even arrive until nearly 7pm, but we still had time to take in 3 shows before the park closed.

My plan was pretty detailed - I had which park we would visit on which day, and any PS's that we wanted booked before hand.


Fri 31 May fly to miami arrive 14:40
Sat 01 Jun Drive to Orlando, get settled in.
Sun 02 Jun Magic Kingdom Fireworks Cruise Yacht & Beach Club - 8pm, boat leaves at 8:30pm
Mon 03 Jun Epcot - World Showcase Japanese Tappanyaki 6:30pm
Tue 04 Jun Seaworld late for Shamu Rocks
Wed 05 Jun Water Park
Thu 06 Jun MGM Hollywood and Vine - PS 10am
Fantasmic/Sandcastle Club in evening
Fri 07 Jun Shopping/Free Day
Sat 08 Jun MK in Evening Liberty Tree Tavern, Spectromagic
Sun 09 Jun Animal Kingdom
Mon 10 Jun Seaworld
Wed 17 Jul Epcot- Future World in afternoon Ohana's, 6pm
Wed 12 Jun Shopping/Free Day
Thu 13 Jun MGM or AK Bomas for dinner
Fri 14 Jun Redo favorites
Sat 15 Jun Magic Kingdom
Sun 16 Jun Drive to Miami - fly home
Mon 17 Jun arrive home 09:50


Although the plan was detailed, we were quite happy to change it - we realised that MK was quite busy during the week, so we didn't go there on the Saturday, we went shopping instead, and went to MK on Monday which was still busy, so I guess Saturday would have been unbearable.

Another day, we wanted to eat earlier than our PS, so we enquired if tables were available, and they were, so we ate early.

I think the key is to have a plan, but then be prepared to change it.

Bev

 

[MELSMICE]

Just a note on MK being busy on Mondays. I think one of MK's most crowded days is Monday. It seems that guests arriving over the weekend tend to do this park first thing Monday morning.

Just something to keep in mind.