Frequent visitors, what is your typical park day schedule?

[eeyoresmom]

We are frequent visitors and always rope drop, go back to the resort for an afternoon break, then return to the parks for dinner and a few more attractions. We do not always see the night time shows since we've them all many times. We have a 6 night stay next month that is split between 3 resorts. Since waiting for your room to be ready is the hardest part of split stays I was thinking it would be easier if we did rope drop, stayed through 3 pm or so, then just checked into the new resort and stayed put enjoying the resort. We would return for HEA, but our MK day luckily falls on a day we arent moving. We would also return to HS on a day we are moving so that cant be helped. We have never toured any other way in 18 years of going several times a year, so a new plan is daunting! BTW, our family is 6 adults so everyone CAN do whatever they want. So, what do you guys do?

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

We RD and stay until we are done with the park. That may be around 2pm if we are PHing and then we go to another park til close. Or it may be we just stay at that one park all day.
We don't find it worth it to leave the park for several hours to rest.
Instead we just find a quiet spot in the parks to grab a drink and snack and people watch. There's much less walking/waiting that way vs going back to the resort.

 

[DisneyWorldbuff]

We go once a year, every year. We rope drop after eating breakfast at the resort. We ride/ tour until lunch. Have a lunch at the parks then head back to the resort to swim and rest. Usually hit another park in the evening and get dinner there. Sometimes if we are not park hopping we will stay later in the first park and then chill at the resort for the rest of the night. I think doing what works best for your family is always the best bet. My family doesn’t do great in the humidity (we are from Colorado) so we tend to spend a lot of time in the pool. Hope you have a great trip!

 

[mn51]

We may or may not rope drop. Just depends if we need a bit more sleep. We stay for a few hours and typically take a lunch break and will then hop to another park. We do not stay late each night as we do enjoy hanging around the resort a bit too. Have a great trip!

 

[heazer]

Sometimes we just go for a long weekend and a hard ticketed party. So we chill most of the weekend. Since we bought into DVC, we try to lump our points and buy the Gold AP and make a ton of trips to get the most out of the AP. I think in the last 18 months we've visited 8 times. With the frequency we tend to sleep in and head over to the parks by 10am. If it's hot out, we swim and don't head over until 4pm! A lot of times we leave by firework times and go back to the resort to hit the hot tub. Other times we book a sit down restaurant and time it so we finish dinner at the start of the show so we can go ride some rides with quieter lines. DVC and AP has completely changed the way we Disney. We spend a lot more time at sit down restaurants since we don't feel like we have to get every minute out of our tickets. We are lazy bums compared to how we used to travel. lol We used to be park open to close people.

 

[wendlle]

We visit every year or two. And we don't have a schedule at all. We have and always will do whatever we feel like. I do now have to choose parks in advance for FP and ADR's but beyond that we just go with the flow. Some days we may want to get up early and RD and some we sleep in and don't go to the park until Lunchtime.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

We do 2 weeks every year, always arriving the Saturday after thanksgiving. We always rope drop (With the exception of two of our Epcot days, which are sleep-in days) and stay till after the evening shows. We never leave for a break (and I have 5 kids!) but we’ll do a sit down meal or find a nice spot to people watch if we need a break. We’ll hop from MK on party days, usually to DHS. As many times as we’ve been, I still use and love touring plans, which I’ll follow until after lunch, allowing us to get lots of attractions done while the days early and we have energy. After lunch we just enjoy the park, getting whatever extra FPs we can and hopping in short lines when we see them. So we run around in the morning and leisurely tour the rest of the day. We’ll usually do an in-park sit down meal and then watch the evening show of whichever park we’re in, or if we’ve seen the show already that trip we’ll ride rides during it. We take 1 full break day and 2 sleep-in/Epcot days, which I try to distribute evenly throughout our trip so we get some downtime.

 

[AngiTN]

We do a lot of split stays and are frequent visitors
Our typical moving day is
Sleep in, head out about 10:00 or so, send bags to new resort
Stay at park till at least 5:00, head to new resort hang out for the rest of the day. By then, our bags have arrived
We'll try to accomplish any early morning or late night things on non moving days

 

[pens4821]

We do 6 park days. 4 of those days we go to the AM EMH at whatever park. We stay a couple hours, then move on to another park where we have our FP. We then stay most the night at that park, sometimes leaving a little early (maybe 7 ish), but usually stay till around 8-9 (depending on closing time). We usually take one day not to head to the parks until around 11, and the other day we play by ear. Those days we usually schedule FP in for our morning park. Not much sleeping in for us on vacation.

I'm thinking of changing that a bit next time though. We will still do the AM EMH, but then plan our FP for that park that day. Then just spend a couple hours in another park in the evening. Either trying to get more FP, look for low wait times, or just taking it all in. I think I want to try ending on the park we will only spend a couple hours in than starting our day that way.

 

[anomamatt]

Over the past three years, we have averaged right around 18 nights a year. But we often will do the parks in the morning and then head back to the resort at 1-2pm. And then sometimes go back to a park for fireworks, dessert party, etc.

 

[Belleandtinker]

We always do rope drop (park or water park), always take a break mid-day and always hop.

We have never spent a whole day in one park (except DL/CA) since...the 1990s.

At night we either hop to a different park, visit and eat at a different resort and go to Disney Springs.

 

[Magical2017]

A typical week will usually include 5 park days, with the possibility of adding a 6th half day on if we feel up to it. We always plan to RD each day, but here is what usually happens:

Day 1: Gung ho, up at the crack of dawn to RD. Cranky people lead us to a much needed midday break, then back to the park for the evening. Night owl mode kicks in. Stay til close.
Day 2: Planned RD. OMG, we are so tired. Let's go at 11AM. End up arriving at noon and staying until closing.
Day 3: REST
Day 4: Planned RD, but actually rebooked FP (if possible) and arriving whenever and leaving whenever, usually at park closing.
Day 5: Planned RD. Whatever. Constant shuffling of FP, swimming and going to the park around 3 or 4PM and staying until closing.
Day 6: REST or another park day or Disney Springs. No pretense of making RD.
Day 7: Home

We have always ended up going on all the rides we want and using refresh because we stay late, but it sounds like the parks are more crowded and the lines are longer. We have several other trips booked for this summer but we are thinking of booking a short Disney trip. We may end up skipping for a few years.

 

[cakebaker]

We rope drop one park, usually leave by noon, then take a few hours break at our resort and close a different park. We usually go during the summer and like to get out of the parks during the hottest part of the day. There are rare times we’ll do open to close in one park, but not often. We never skip an entire day.

 

[Disneylover99]

No real schedule.
We’re all over the place.
We might arrive late morning (at the earliest) mid afternoon or not til the evening. We might hop around, or not.
I’m constantly changing fp’s I made 60 days out. Lol.

 

[disneygirlsng]

Rope drop to close every day. Don't usually have hoppers, so I pick a park and spend all day there. Wouldn't do it any other way on a normal trip, each park has plenty to offer for a full day. Running trips or short trips (2-3 days) are a little different. I'll get hoppers for short trips, but still do rope drop to close just with a hop in the middle, no rest breaks. Running trips have shorter days because of the ungodly wake up times.

 

[Klayfish]

We're all over the place too, but there are a few constants:

We never rope drop the theme parks, only the water parks
We never do a planned "mid-day break"
We never do open to close commando

Generally speaking we'll either do what we call AM in the parks or PM in the parks. If it's AM in the parks that will mean something like 10am to 4pm, maybe 5pm. If it's PM in the parks, that's something like 3pm to 9pm. However, there could be variations and last minute changes depending on which way the wind blows.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Not really frequent visitors (yet ) but we did mid day breaks when the kids were younger and needed naps. I'm so happy that's over. We don't do an afternoon break but also don't typically stay to closing (usually trying to leave around 8). We also don't do the nighttime shows every night - 2 or 3 in 6 or 7 park days. I think afternoons have gotten easier to do (at least in the non summer months) with refreshing and you can always hit shows or people watch.

Since you're going at a time that won't be overly hot and humid during the afternoon why not stay in the park all day on the two days you're moving (and plan to leave whenever you get tired). If you don't like it, then you know. If you do, you have another way of switching things up for future trips.

 

[eeyoresmom]

We do 2 weeks every year, always arriving the Saturday after thanksgiving. We always rope drop (With the exception of two of our Epcot days, which are sleep-in days) and stay till after the evening shows. We never leave for a break (and I have 5 kids!) but we’ll do a sit down meal or find a nice spot to people watch if we need a break. We’ll hop from MK on party days, usually to DHS. As many times as we’ve been, I still use and love touring plans, which I’ll follow until after lunch, allowing us to get lots of attractions done while the days early and we have energy. After lunch we just enjoy the park, getting whatever extra FPs we can and hopping in short lines when we see them. So we run around in the morning and leisurely tour the rest of the day. We’ll usually do an in-park sit down meal and then watch the evening show of whichever park we’re in, or if we’ve seen the show already that trip we’ll ride rides during it. We take 1 full break day and 2 sleep-in/Epcot days, which I try to distribute evenly throughout our trip so we get some downtime.

We used to do this when our kids were little. Do you stay onsite or off? Now that we stay at DVC resorts I feel guilty if we dont take advantage of the resort activities.

 

[eeyoresmom]

Sometimes we just go for a long weekend and a hard ticketed party. So we chill most of the weekend. Since we bought into DVC, we try to lump our points and buy the Gold AP and make a ton of trips to get the most out of the AP. I think in the last 18 months we've visited 8 times. With the frequency we tend to sleep in and head over to the parks by 10am. If it's hot out, we swim and don't head over until 4pm! A lot of times we leave by firework times and go back to the resort to hit the hot tub. Other times we book a sit down restaurant and time it so we finish dinner at the start of the show so we can go ride some rides with quieter lines. DVC and AP has completely changed the way we Disney. We spend a lot more time at sit down restaurants since we don't feel like we have to get every minute out of our tickets. We are lazy bums compared to how we used to travel. lol We used to be park open to close people.

Your family sounds like mine , DVC and AP's. When our 4 kids were little we used to do a full week of open to close, no breaks! Now that we own DVC and go so often, I'm trying to change it up even more. When it's just DH and I we are more relaxed. Still rope drop since we are morning people. DD is another story though. she still wants to do everything every trip. Since I'm the planner and 3 family members don't go as often, maybe I will try to come up with 2 options for each day, one being more relaxed.

 

[eeyoresmom]

We do a lot of split stays and are frequent visitors
Our typical moving day is
Sleep in, head out about 10:00 or so, send bags to new resort
Stay at park till at least 5:00, head to new resort hang out for the rest of the day. By then, our bags have arrived
We'll try to accomplish any early morning or late night things on non moving days

Thank you, this is valuable advice and sounds so reasonable. If you have any other tips please share