Doing Disney different, switching up the focus

[kmadison1225]

Hi all,

Our family of 4 (2 adult parents, 1 adult child, 1 small child), try to get in a trip annually when possible. We consider our home resort POR. But may be breaking from that due to price hikes. We married at Disney in 2013. Since then many things have changed, prices at the resorts and parks, as well as Covid. We normally stay 7-10 days. Due to price changes we are trying to brainstorm ideas on how to save money. I’d rather the trip be longer than luxurious but value resorts are off the table for sure. I think we’ve settled on renting DVC and staying at those locations or maybe Swan/Dolphin.
I’m actually posting, looking for ideas on how to do Disney differently. Typically we do each park for two days and try to have an off day at the resort in the middle of the trip. We take midday breaks but we find transport sucks up time and we are too amp’d up to nap or rest. But the days are long even with a mid-day break. And though we don’t try to do it all, we do feel like we want to get our money’s worth rather than sitting at the resort too long. On the flip side I’ve developed fibromyalgia which is making walking the parks and just getting through a busy day more difficult each year. POR is nice because you can hop on the boat to Disney Springs for a change of pace.
For those of you that have been often, how do you plan for a balance of experience vs relaxation? Tired of feel wrung dry when we get home. Are half days at the parks a solution? I feel like there ought to be different types of planning with individual focuses. Like; dining focus, sight seeing focus, rides, experiences,etc. Any tips? Thank you in advance.
Kristin

 

[NickC]

We go once a year. The first few times, we were commandos. RD to fireworks, hit every ride multiple times, refresh MDE for more FP+, meet every possible character, etc. It was a lot of fun, but over the last few years, we've realized that what we love about WDW isn't the rides. 100% of the time, the best memories were made when we were just walking around and spending time as a family. Sometimes, 'getting our money's worth' was achieved by slowing down a bit. It's hard to make memories when my wife is waiting with the kids in line for light saber battles, while I'm running across the park trying to get paper Fastpasses. We still RD. We are awake, so we might as well take advantage of it. We also do ADRs. It's nice to sit at a table service meal for an hour or so.
If you stay at Swan/Dolphin, you are close to 2 parks. We loved walking over to Epcot (from the Beach Club. I'm not sure how far the Swan is), through the IG for dinners. We might leave AK or DHS before dinner time, take a short break at the hotel, then walk over for dinner. I agree that transportation takes up a lot of time, BUT, I have several wonderful memories of being on Disney transportation. Some of the things we bring up the most happened while sitting on the monorail or the bus. Vacation, to us, is about family time. WDW is just the setting.