How do you tour over a long weekend?

[Lovemy3babes]

Hi all! My past trips have always been for about a week so we were able to fit in every park and most attractions without issue. Since we definitely cannot afford another week until next year, I'm thinking about possibly taking the kids for a long weekend in October. Maybe Thursday arrival and depart on Sunday or Monday. They have a few days off of school so it would work great. But I'm not sure how to cram in it in such a short amount of time. Any tips?

 

[Sabbie]

If you did Thursday - Monday, that's pretty much a week.

If you're going in October, I would not worry at all. You're not going to be facing heavy crowds or super-long lines. Mind you, Food and Wine festival will be going on - but that's not much a of a big deal if you avoid Epcot on the weekend when all of us locals go. There shouldn't be too much cramming, but rather, time to do things multiple times due to lack of cramming. Plus you'll be coming when there should be some good fall deals posted shortly.

Simply plan what days to do which park, and make ADR's. I'm never much of a big pro-planner person; I sort of advise people against doing it too much. I hope you have fun regardless! Four or five days at Disney is better than none.

 

[3floridarays]

Below is a post I did in February after a weekend trip (Friday-Sunday). If you go more days and use FP and EMH, you could fit in more than we did. Have fun!



Just back - All 4 parks in less than 48 hours! Any questions?

Still having a hard time believing we hit all 4 parks between 5:30pm Friday and 2pm today, but we did it! The original plan was to only do 2 parks - Epcot and DHS, but our weekend morphed into a trip around the World instead. Here's how we did it:

Friday
Arrived at Epcot 5:45pm
Coral Reef 6:30 ADR
Illuminations at 9pm
EMH 9pm-12am (did Soarin', Mission:Space, TT, Nemo & Turtle Talk)

Saturday
Arrived at DHS for EMH 8-9am.
Before lunch - TSM twice, ToT, RRC, watched street performers
Lunch at 50's PT at 11am (walk-in)
After lunch - Star Tours, Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground, Shopping
Depart DHS at 2:30pm

Arrived MK at 3pm
Did PotC, Buzz, SF Treehouse, HM
Dinner at Columbia Harbor House
Dole Whip Break (yummm)
Philharmagic
Wishes at 8pm
Spectro Parade at 9pm
Shopping till close

Sunday
Arrived at AK 9:30am
Did Dino, KS, EE, It's Tough to be a Bug
Bird-watching, shopping, etc
Departed AK at 1:45pm

We stayed off-site at DTD Hilton and drove our own car to the parks. The wait times were low enough that we could have done more rides at the parks, but we felt like taking our time browsing shops.

 

[SaraJayne]

Hi all! My past trips have always been for about a week so we were able to fit in every park and most attractions without issue. Since we definitely cannot afford another week until next year, I'm thinking about possibly taking the kids for a long weekend in October. Maybe Thursday arrival and depart on Sunday or Monday. They have a few days off of school so it would work great. But I'm not sure how to cram in it in such a short amount of time. Any tips?

Just keep in mind that lots of kids have off a few days in October. We do every year, but I'm sure the days vary by state.

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

Most of our trips have been long weekend trips. We usually leave around midnight the night before and arrive early in the morning, check in and hit whichever park we want to.

We don't usually have a plan, unless there is something special going on, like over Memorial Day weekend there is Star Wars Weekends and we will go to DHS on Sunday Morning and stay until the parade is over, then hop where ever we want (we have AP's). We eat when and where we want and just go with the flow. So much better than stressing over plans. If we miss something, I still know there will be another trip.

Suzanne

 

[maitlynn]

Going from Friday to Monday in 2 weeks, i'll post a trip report.

 

[PSUGuy]

We've done a few 'short' WDW trips the last few years and we agree that 4 days can be very fulfilling. What we do, always, is hit a non-Epcot, non early EMH park at ropedrop every day, tour until that park gets crowdwd, then hop to Epcot and spend the rest of the day there. We'll do FW early one time to be sure to get Soarin' in a few times.

Bill From PA

 

[Lovemy3babes]

Thanks all!!! I'm really considering it!

 

[Tink888]

We've done 2 short trips that allowed for three park days. We allowed for one full day each in MK and Epcot and did 1/2 days at AK & DS. The best advice I can offer is getting park hoppers. We also took advantage of EMH, particularly at night.