Frequent Shorter DVC Trips or Less Longer DVC Trips?

[Lost boy]

We do longer trips, we're leaving in two weeks for a three week stay in Curacao and later this year we have two weeks at OKW. It seems more economical with air fares to get more time into a stay on top of the fact that you really get to relax.

 

[gisele2]

We are a "longer trip" family.

For places where travel is difficult and/or expensive---Europe, Hawaii, etc.---the minimum is closer to two weeks. Getting to Hawaii from here is a LONG travel day. To get back, we tend to break it up and spend a night on the west coast, so that takes two days.

What a good idea! Think I will try to do a split stay with Aulani and VGC.

 

[kes601]

What a good idea! Think I will try to do a split stay with Aulani and VGC.

We are tentatively planning for this in summer of 2023. 3 or 4 nights at Disneyland (VGC if we get lucky cash otherwise) and then continue to Aulani for a week after that. Being in VA the trip is quite long.

 

[bakerworld]

I love 6D stays and flying mid-week. Optimal time frame Wednesday to Monday. My goal for 2022 is to visit Florida every other month. DH would stay longer.

By day 4 I'm done eating, done spending $ and starting to miss my bed.

 

[Simba's Mom]

For the same reason as mentioned before, it's less often, longer trips. If we drove, it would be about 25 hours, so we fly. However, we can't get to Orlando (or anywhere really), without changing planes, and I need wheelchair assistance or I couldn't make it, so we usually do 2 week trips to make the hassle worth it.

 

[ScottOKW2K]

I prefer longer trips. I've always found that when on vacation it takes 2 or 3 days to get in "vacation mode" where you are really relaxed and rested. For a short trip you are often halfway through the trip at that point. On the longer trips it was wonderful to realize that you had at least another week and a half of that feeling.

However recently most of my trips have been shorted - 5 to 8 days. My job and living situation changed so the availability and desire of longer time off has been restricted. That's ok because as a result of the changes my day to day stress is also significantly less and the need/desire of extended escape and relaxation is quite a bit less.

In the next few years I'll likely move to the Orlando area at which point the question will be completely moot!

 

[WilsonFlyer]

I'm not sure my answer's the same to the original question as what it would have been a year ago. I'm not sure my answers to anything disney are the same as they would have been a year ago. I'm not sure I know the answers at all anymore.

 

[DVCSunDevil]

Hi All, wanted to get others opinions on if they prefer more shorter trips or less Longer trips. Currently I plan an Aulani Trip (4-5 nights) and a WDW trip (5-6 Nights) each year. I also plan 4 2 night trips to Disneyland each year. To do this I use a Disneyland AP and DVCs at the various resorts (VGC, VGF, Aul). I am trying to decide if it would make sense to bring the 4 VGC trips down to 3 and make one of them a 4 night trip. This will allow me to cancel my DL AP and save some money on Airfare ($750) for one trip as well.

What are others thoughts. More shorter, or less longer trips?

We do “longer” trips because we have to fly to get to WDW. Multiple trips per year would really add up.

 

[Meriweather]

Longer trips. We fly to WDW. We do drive to DLR, but I hate that drive.
We do 10 night WDW and 5 night DLR

 

[Brian Noble]

What a good idea!

The next time we go, I think we are going to try to do the same thing on the way there. Time zones work out so that you land on the "same" day. But, our most recent trip had us landing in Maui at around 7:45P, and we weren't pulling up to the resort until after 9PM, which was 3AM body clock time. That one was rough, though the stars on the drive from OGG to Lahaina are spectacular.

 

[Ronaldo17]

Longer trips for us as we have to fly from UK and flights are expensive, do we try to maximise each trip with as many nights as we can fit in .

 

[taaren]

We bought when DS was a toddler, we did week-long trips in 2 bedrooms in the fall. Once the kids in our party got to school-age, we switched to doing 6 weekends in studios/1 bedrooms annually (we hate summer). This had the added benefit of not having to take many days off work. Once they graduate and school isn't an issue? Not sure yet, but leaning towards 2-3 trips of 4 nights or so on those Sun-Thurs nights that are more reasonable. As much as we enjoy 2.5 days in the parks, 2 nights really at our home resort isn't enough, but a week seems long (and expensive!). My favorite DCL cruises were the 5 nighters, the 7 nights were too long and 3 nights too short, always wanted one more night on the 4 nighters.

 

[hhoman]

We bought when DS was a toddler, we did week-long trips in 2 bedrooms in the fall. Once the kids in our party got to school-age, we switched to doing 6 weekends in studios/1 bedrooms annually (we hate summer). This had the added benefit of not having to take many days off work. Once they graduate and school isn't an issue? Not sure yet, but leaning towards 2-3 trips of 4 nights or so on those Sun-Thurs nights that are more reasonable. As much as we enjoy 2.5 days in the parks, 2 nights really at our home resort isn't enough, but a week seems long (and expensive!). My favorite DCL cruises were the 5 nighters, the 7 nights were too long and 3 nights too short, always wanted one more night on the 4 nighters.

Yeah I am also at the point we’re 5 nights seems like the ideal trips for me. Now that I know the resorts so well DL/WDW/Aul

 

[Memorymakerfor4]

Our longest stay has been 9 nights, and it was a touch too long for us. An inconvenient flight schedule with at least one guaranteed layover didn't help. But now we live closer and have a reasonable direct flight available, so I've been campaigning for 2 shorter trips now of maybe 3 or 4 nights. Being able to go to the parks on arrival and departure days will make a world of difference. I think it would be nice to have more trips to look forward to as well.

 

[howardlee2]

we have done both short (3-4 days) and longer. (7-8 days). I am inclined to do the longer trips but no more than 1 park day in a row!

 

[Evita_W]

We live near DLR (literally a half marathon from our doorstep to theirs) and own at VGC, aside from a random trip where we needed to use points before they expired and couldn't be further banked, I couldn't imagine a 2 night trip. And only 4 nights at Aulani or WDW would be unheard of for us. If we have to fly to get there, generally we consider a week as the absolute minimum, ut prefer around 10 days to make the flight worthwhile.

 

[brazzledazzler]

We are within driving distance (~2 hours) of WDW, so we prefer multiple short trips. Our sweet spot is 3 nights, and we have enough points to do 4 of those a year.

However, if we lived farther away, we’d just take 1-2 big trips. The cost of traveling to WDW is $$, so I can see why longer trips make sense for those travelers.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

I would characterize our trips as "medium" length... 5-8 nights, with 6 nights being the "sweet spot."

 

[Zach197]

Being from the northeast and the drive being about 15 hours we do longer trips, usually 10 days. If we lived closer we think lots of short trips would be better. 355 days with no disney fix