How long to make a vacation??

[HeyItsMeeTee]

Hello, I am 22 and am looking to book a vacation with my family and we normally only go for like 4 days and 4 days in 4 parks is a bit crazy so I was wondering what you guys usually do for your vacations? How long do you stay and do you do like pool days I just don't know!

 

[Ecomommy09]

I like 4 days but I don’t try to do all the parks. 1-2 park days, 1 pool day plus the day we arrive is a nice dinner and pool time.
So...my ideal is Arrival day pool, Day 2 MK or AK, Day 3 Pool or another park, Day 4 pool and home.

I like not trying to do everything. There is just way too much to enjoy in one trip.

 

[disneygolfer1985]

We typically go for either 7 or 8 days. That allows us more time to enjoy everything at a leisurely pace. We may not necessarily take a full rest day, but may sleep in a day or two or have an early evening. Our touring pattern is to go to a park in the morning and then come back to the room around 1-2 for a nap or pool time, then head back to the parks around 5 for dinner. We typically stay at Boardwalk, so I think that helps in being able to take breaks and feel rested.

 

[loves to dive]

It all depends on how much time my son can get off if he is going with me and cost. Normally our trips are anywhere from 4 nights/5 days to 6 nights/7 days. We drive down and get there around 2 or 3 so that first day is a half day and we always go to a park. We always have park hoppers and have never taken a full day and not gone to a park. Some days we might go to a park until afternoon, go back to the resort and spend some time in the pool/hot tub/ bar or in the room if it's too cold and then go back to a park for a few hours at night. We never go from park open to park close straight through at one park. We go often, at least once a year for the past 8 years and before that every other year since the early 80s, so we aren't really ride driven. We have actually been some days where we might just ride 2 or 3 rides the entire day. We just like to walk around the parks and enjoy being there.

 

[rascooby]

We normally do 7 nights. We do each park 1 day and Magic Kingdom twice. We also like a day in the middle to rest and see a resort or two. We don't plan anything on arrival or departure day. We've added one extra day for our next trip because I know my husband will want to do the Star Wars stuff at HS, so he may want at least 2 mornings there. We only do Disney every 3-4 years and we fly from Texas, so shorter trips don't make sense to us. If we were closer and went more often, we might just do a few days here and there.

 

[Anna131517]

We usually do one day at Kennedy space center followed by five days at Disney world (two days at magic kingdom). And then we’re exhausted and ready to go home!

 

[The WDW 3]

We are still n00bs, but so far every trip has been 3 nights. We take the first flight out of Philly that we can, so we still get in a good day at the park on our first day. We either do AK or HS on our first day, Epcot day 2, MK day 3, pool & disney springs day 4 and fly home on a late flight. On our last trip we also did Not So Scary on day 2. It’s worked for well for us, but we will probably do 5 nights on our next trip.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

We do 2 weeks and it still flys by. We do 4 MK days, 2 or 3 Epcot, 2 AK and used to be 1 HS but now 2. We also do 2 US days, one focusing on just HP stuff and one for everything else. Then we have 2 “off” days usually, where we resort hop and do DS and whatever else w feel like doing. And our 2nd Epcot day is our WS day so we sleep in that day too. We decided to do one long trip instead of a couple small ones each year because we like being able to take our time and absorb the atmosphere of the parks.

 

[rideswithchrist]

We got 7 day tickets last time, 2 in MK, 2 in Epcot (World showcase one day, the rest of the park the other) then 1 in HS and 1 in AK and then had 1 as a "where do we want to go again park". We ended up in HS because our first day was a bust with rides being down.
We were worn out with no mid-week breaks.
This time, we are going to have 6-7 park days, but will go 3 days in park and then a day at Fort Wilderness in the middle of the week. We drive from Texas, so the whole trip takes almost 2 weeks for us.

We have a goal of staying 2 weeks like @disneydreamer1980 though

 

[starry_solo]

It depends on where you are coming from. A short drive away, a short vacation is fine.

A plane ride, I'd want to be there for 7 days at least.

 

[DisLiss]

For us, the length of a vacation is directly related with how long it takes to get to that location. Because it's a long, expensive trip for us to go to WDW, we'd likely never choose to go for only 4 days, unless we were doing many other things and that was just a part of an ongoing trip in the Orlando area or through it. But if we lived closer, than sure, we'd go for 4 days. I would not try to cram in a whole list of stuff, but I also wouldn't go for a full resort day either. We'd probably get hoppers and just bop along from place to place as we wished for the 4 days.

 

[Afabena]

I was there in Nov and did 6 nights/7days but the 7th day was really just a pack up and fly home day. We arrived at the hotel around noon and had a pool/hang at the resort day (dinner was also on resort property). We did 5 park days with pool breaks 4 out of 5 days. We never had an official “off” day and I think I would plan that next trip. Even with afternoon pool breaks we were still exhausted. It’s a tough balance between wanting to be in the parks and also having time to relax and unwind.

I also agree with others that it depends how far you live and how often you go.

 

[KenHutch]

We go every 3rd year and we stay for 10 days, 9 in the parks the girls go to town one day and shop and before we get there we usually go to Daytona Beach for 2 days. Coming from Kansas City the girls love the ocean.

 

[LuvMyEAR]

The travel from NS to WDW is a big investment for us. Couple that with needing a couple days to settle into vacation mode, after the preparation to get away from work, etc, means that we want to stay as long as we can possibly manage.

10 -14 days has become our norm, as we only get there every couple of years. We always want to revisit our favourite experiences as well as try new thing each trip. As you can imagine, we really NEED about 30 days to squeeze everything in and would happily do that if our time and budget allowed.

 

[AJA55]

Prefer nine nights. Takes us all day to get there. First day is unpack and dinner and relax. We have 8 days as the day we leave we don't do anything except pack and have a nice breakfast. So we have 6 or seven park days and one or two days off. For Disney Springs and resort hopping.

 

[YesterDark]

4 Days, do you mean you flight in on day 1 and out on day 4 so you actually have only 2 full days there?

There are a million ways to do it, depends on your budget and how long you actually want to or have time for. You typically see people go for weekends all the way to three weeks!

Quick trips that are a few days people usually go for a day at the Magic Kingdom and see one of the festivals at Epcot or two days at Epcot. Those short trips are usually done by people who go often and aren't really worried about missing things.

A lot of family vacations span from 4-6 Night, 5-7 Day vacations if you're coming from the US which is typically based on cost and time allotted for vacation from work. You're usually doing 2-4 days at the parks.

Anything over a week, it's wide open, and it's usually people who know what they want because they are spending a boat load of money going that long.

So the first part is, how long do you want to go for, and how long can you afford?

My last vacation was 9 nights / 10 days. I did 2x MK 1x Epcot 1x AK 1x DHS - 1x half day MK for dinner - 2-3 hours at MK with just the wife. These half days were mostly pool days though. Once you go over 5ish days, tickets become very inexpensive.

 

[butterscotchcollins]

We also have never gone more than 4 nights because we're young, walk fast, and can pack a LOT in in that time and a trip to WDW is crazy expensive. That being said, that pace can be exhausting and for future trips I am definitely going for longer to enjoy more pool/leisure time/doing some things outside of the parks that I always wanted but never got to because I didn't want to waste the value of my park ticket.

Regardless of length of stay I consider Park Hoppers a must and well worth the extra $. I prefer having the option to do whatever park fits my mood at the moment, and the ability to visit favorite parks/attractions multiple times without being locked in to a specific day.

 

[YesterDark]

We also have never gone more than 4 nights because we're young, walk fast, and can pack a LOT in in that time and a trip to WDW is crazy expensive. That being said, that pace can be exhausting and for future trips I am definitely going for longer to enjoy more pool/leisure time/doing some things outside of the parks that I always wanted but never got to because I didn't want to waste the value of my park ticket.

Regardless of length of stay I consider Park Hoppers a must and well worth the extra $. I prefer having the option to do whatever park fits my mood at the moment, and the ability to visit favorite parks/attractions multiple times without being locked in to a specific day.

Something to consider when you go back, the cost of a disney trip after 5 park days isn't that great. Your travel expenses are typically locked in unless you get a special deal. Flight is usually the same for a 7 day or a 14 day vacation.

Tickets are a huge cost, but like I said, after a while they are cheap. For example my last trip with a party of 3 adults and 2 kids, going from 5 to 6 days of tickets was $70 total for everyone! So the longer you go the bigger bang for your buck.

The true cost of staying longer is your room rate, so staying an extra 2-4 nights can be the bucket of cash, but in the long run if you're staying value that's $300-$600 which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things Disney. And if you're on budget, the food is easy to figure out.

I will disagree about hopper though. Waste of money for first or second time visitors. Hoppers are best suited for people that know the parks and want to skip around or visit certain parks only at night while spending the day elsewhere. Or to do meals in one place and tour other places. Of course there are exceptions, but the cost differential is pretty decent.

 

[Darcy03231]

We go for two weeks and don't do the parks every day. We typically avoid going on the weekends and will do lots of half days.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

A lot depends on mode of transportation...car, plane? When we lived in California, we would go for 10 days at least. Now that we can drive, usually 7 days. We did our first "shorter trip" the first week in March 2019 for 4 days. I felt it was too short mostly because it was soooo crowded that the lines were very, very long for rides and just about impossible to get extra FP. We never took pool/resort days, but we do now. I don't feel the need to go, go, go all day everyday.