Best trip length for first trip?

[winnieofpooh]

My in-laws just invited us to tag along on their trip this December, and bring our son along for his first trip. He'll be 15 months at the time, and I'm trying to determine what the "perfect" trip length will be. I'm not worried about not getting around to everything - we go to WDW fairly frequently, so we'll definitely be back within a couple years again. I know these trips will also look different than we're used to - we normally are rope drop to close people.

All that being said, I do want this first trip to be magical and am trying to figure out the best length of time to get things done at a slower pace, but also not burn him out by staying too long. Right now we're looking at a 7 or 8 day trip (including an arrival/departure day). With a 7 day trip, we can do one day at each park plus a rest day. With an 8 day trip, we can do one day at each park with two days at MK, plus a rest day. Does that seem like a good length? I'm not sure if we'll want a longer trip so we can have more dedicated rest days, or if we'd be fairly okay just taking breaks throughout the day with only one full rest day.

 

[sponica]

There's no perfect length. Seriously.
My first trip was 3 park days? When we took our oldest at 20 months, we did 4 park days, not quite open to close but close enough.
When we took our second on her first trip we had 7 park days so that we could have down time at the pool.

With only one kid, 4 days was a breeze but she also stroller napped and was super flexible.

With two kids, we needed a longer trip....that stroller set slows you down so much and eats up time with diaper changes.

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

I don't know. I used to think that the "perfect" length for a Disney trip was anywhere between 8-11 nights. In a lot of ways I still think that's true for us, but obviously this is entirely subjective. I generally feel like I want 7 full (non-travel) days for ANY vacation because it's long enough to feel like a real break from work and regular life. And for us, WDW qualifies as a true vacation (not just a weekend trip) because it requires the time and money to fly. In Disney, 9-11 nights has been a great amount of time for us because it's plenty of time to do and see all we want in the parks, but also to have lots of down time to enjoy the resorts and pools, so that it does feel like an actual vacation and not just a mad dash through the parks. Especially with younger kids, staying longer meant that we could go slower, take lots of breaks, and small humans didn't get burnt out.

That said, the unpredictable nature of small kids can change everything, and I've learned that longer isn't always better. If you're unsure of how your kiddo will do in a hotel, for instance, you may want to consider a shorter stay to test it out. Our last trip was 11 nights and it was the first WDW trip for our youngest, who was short of 2 at the time. We based the length of stay on how our older child did on their first trip, which was 11 nights, and she did wonderfully, so we thought we'd repeat it. Except younger kiddo refused to sleep at night and was in a complete no-stroller phase, but also refused to be carried or walk anywhere we wanted him to. We were BEGGING to go home by day 6 but our flight wasn't for another 5ish days. We came home feeling exhausted and disappointed.

Our upcoming trip we are going a little shorter as a result (8 nights) and little one will be a year older by then so we're hoping for a better experience this time around. 8 night still falls over a week and gives us a solid stay, but if things take a bad turn we won't feel stuck forever.

On a separate note, where I felt fastpass+ worked a lot better for us with littles ones, because we could plan our short stints in the parks and then leave if we had meltdowns or naps etc, Genie+ was harder to make work for our family. What I did learn was to stack up those LL's during an afternoon break, and then head back to the parks after dinner. That way we were able to hit a bunch of attractions in a short period of time without burning out the kids.

 

[Anna131517]

We like 7 day trips - including arrival / departure and 5 park days (2 at MK). We’ve done longer and shorter and 5 works best for us. However, everyone is different. When our kids were really little we would rope drop and leave the parks around 2 pm. Honestly I’m exhausted after a week on vacation with kids.

 

[sponica]

Honestly I’m exhausted after a week on vacation with kids.

Yeah it's a business trip, not a vacation

 

[NJlauren]

I agree there is no perfect length.

For my daughters first trip I went short 3 full days with 2 travel days. I wanted it shorter since I had zero idea what to expect, she was 9 months.

Looking back we could have done longer. I would maybe have done 5 park days with 2 travel days. 1 day per park and a rest day, but in general I have found rest days never turn out how I want them too. So who knows…

 

[Chrisizzle]

I’d say 7 or 8 days if you plan to visit all four parks. The remainder of days is a resort day, exploring other resorts, and a shopping day at Disney Springs.

I may be planning first time visits for a number of people. My opening plan for people is two park days in case their budgets are low. Even then, I’d still recommend 6 days because there is lots of free/cheap things to pass the time.

 

[grapefruitjellybean]

So many variables here! Are your in laws going to help with your little one? If so, I would do this.
Day One: arrival. Dinner and shopping in Disney Springs
Day Two: Rope drop park (probably MK) go back to resort for nap/pool time/rest. Go back for fireworks while grandparents babysit.
Day Three: Park Day
Day Four: Rest/Pool day/Nice Dinner
Day Five: Park Day
Day 6: Park Day
Day 7: Full Park day for you, grandparents take baby to the resort while you go wild
Day 8: Departure

That gives you 2 days at MK, one day for AK, HS, EP, and plenty of time to rest.

 

[Specter]

We generally like 7-8 nights with at least 6 parks days, 7 if we can make the times work. We have taken DD when she was 10 months, 34 months, and 42 months and each trip was a late Thursday night/straight to bed arrival, and a Saturday or Sunday departure the following weekend.

We do not do rest days as we just find that we want to be in the park, however, even though she would nap in the stroller at 10 months (not 34 or 42), we still took midday breaks and called it a night at her pace. The midday breaks, we felt, made it possible for us to be out a little bit later so that we could enjoy fireworks, cooler temperatures, and the slightly lower evening crowds.

Everyone seems to have their own take on rest days and midday breaks. I get the logic of the rest day being a nice break so you can go go go before and after and I get that with time to take transportation from the park to the resort and back in the middle of the day it's a lot of time lost in transit. However, for our family this works very well and DW and I just feel like if we have paid as much as we have to fly to Orlando and be at Disney we want to be in the parks. This could also be because both DW's parents and mine have pools and we live in TX so we can swim most of the year, but as much as I know some kids just love the pools and slides, we didn't pay all that money to go do something we could do at grandma and grandpa's house, FWIW, and truly no judgment on those who enjoy that.

I do remember when I was a kid going with my grandparents when my sister and I didn't have access to a pool and back then they had a hard time pulling us out of the water, but they did and we had a great time on the rides and in the parks, too.

 

[SLThomas318]

Our boys were 23 months and just shy of 4 for their first trip... we only did 4 nights and focused on Magic Kingdom because we had no clue what to expect or how they would react. They ended up loving it and doing really well. We've done anywhere from 3 to 7 night trips since then, but have realized 5 nights seems to be the sweet spot. They are 6 and 8 now. I always think longer is better, but by day 5 everyone seems to be overstimulated (even with lots of breaks/down time). We just did 7 nights over Thanksgiving and once we got home we decided to cut our Summer trip down to 4 nights. I think it also depends on how tiring or extensive your travel is? We are about an 1 hr 20 min drive from the airport and a 2.5 hour flight to MCO so a shorter trip still makes sense. Just go into the trip with zero expectations and you'll have a magical time

 

[Brett Wyman]

5 nights/4 days, IMO, is perfect for a first trip. 1 day for each park. Enjoy your resort in the afternoon and evening. After that you'll quickly know if you need more or not

 

[holden]

Our DD15 was 18mos for her first trip. We stayed a week.

My favorite trip was 10 days. We did 7 park days and 3 days of other things (archery, horseback riding, pool time, etc.).