We never go for less than a week. We go to each park at least once, but spend less than a half day in MGM and spend most of our time in MK and EPCOT. We love AK, too.
When I was younger, we would have these whirlwind 7-day trips and hitting a park each day, all day. That got quite exhausting, and ever since we bought into a timeshare in the area, we are there for at least 10-14 days per vacation, so we have days where we just relax. On the days we hit the parks, we always HAVE to go to MK, AK, and Epcot. Most of the time we go to MK 2 days because there is so much to do there, and we have since stopped going to MGM because we don't really like it. Our MGM time is now replaced by Animal Kingdom, which is my FAVORITE park along with MK (they are both tied for first place ) So I guess my answer is no, we only do 3 out of 4!
Our last trip lasted a week. We did half a day at MGM, a "full" day at AK, 1 1/2 days at Epcot and the rest at MK. I will say, though, that our then-four-year old and two-year-old liked MK the best, so we kept going back there. I think, as they get older, that we will spend more time at other parks.
in my opinion, it depends on your family. for instance, my family isn't thrilled by ak..but we do all parks. sometimes, we end up going mk multiple times (not for entire days, but for mornings, afternoons, nights, etc). i would say that you definitely have to go to all four parks..i feel like i'd be missing out on disney if i didn't!
We do each park at least 2 times when we visit. For example here is our plan this year.
July 12-Drive to Disney
July 13 - ?? depends on when we arrive
July 14- MK
July 15- MGM
July 16- Epcot
July 17 - Sea World
July 18 - MK
July 19 - Beach
July 20 - AK
July 21 - MK
July 22 - MGM
July 23-EPCOT
July 24 -EPCOT /La Nouba
July 25-MK
July 26-AK
July 27- EPCOT
July 28-MGM
July 29 - Drive home
We don't park hope - we spend the full day in the park except for the La Nouba day.
I always go to all 4 and stay a minimum of 5 days and always have the hopper...water parks we usually pass on...this will be our first time with a little one (our daughter will be almost 4 when we go) so we expect to take afternoon pool breaks and hop from park to park in case we get rained out of a parade on our planned day, etc.
I always spend the most time at MK and have never spent more than a 1/2 day at AK. Usually a day at MGM and a day at Epcot is enough. MK usually gets at least 2 days and I will go to Downtown Disney at every opportunity!
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