How does your family tour the parks with an extended stay?

[Shelly888]

We have an 11-night trip planned in November. We arrive late on the first night(9p), so it's really 10 nights. DH was thinking we should use the first part of our trip to hit the parks hard, and then use the back end to relax and enjoy the resort. I was thinking I'd prefer to mix it up and hit parks hard a couple days, then have a rest/easy day, then parks, etc.

 

[Parker Clan]

We mix it up & have rest days in between. We drive down, so we planned a rest day before we do Universal for three days, then another rest day before we do Disney for seven. since we go in August we do mid day breaks each day as well.

 

[LSUfan4444]

We don't do more than 3 theme park days in a row. The fourth day will either be a pool day, water park, mini golf, something over at Ft Wilderness downtown disney...errr Disney Springs. That fourth day we will usually explore some resort dining as well that way it allows us to be more efficient on our park days. Places like Boma, Whispering Canyon, Cali Grill, Hoop De Do, Sanaa, etc.

 

[minnie mum]

We break up our stays. Plan a non park day every 3-4 days.

 

[MrsJamesPSullivan]

We have a hard time staying out of the parks so we do several easy half days. We'll spend the morning at the resort sleeping in, swimming, laundry etc then go to Epcot to leisurely explore world showcase and grab an early seat on a planter for illuminations. Another day we'll rope drop a park to just do a few things then head to Disney Springs to eat and wander for a while then spend the rest of the day at the resort. We do days like that about every 3rd day. It works for us.

 

[W.E.D.]

Last trip we were blessed with 11 nights, 10 days as well.
We visited a park on day one, then every other day. On those five "off" days we played miniature golf, toured DTD, went boating, DW had a spa treatment and I took the KTTK tour, etc.
Not to say we never went to a park on our off days, but they were not for hard-core touring. We spent a lot of time at WS in the evenings for dinner.

 

[nilla]

This year, we had 10 straight park days wedged between our travel days. Those park days, however, were often

1. Early rise, back to resort after lunch, back to park after dinner, or
2. Sleep in, hit parks after lunch, stay until close

I don't think we had any open-to-close days in the parks.

 

[Klayfish]

We just got back from a 17 day trip. We were in a park every day, but some days were shorter than others. We had a few days where we only were in a park for 3 or 4 hours, then either went and chilled at a water park, or went back to our townhouse and relaxed. Some days we hopped from one park to another. We had some early days, some later nights. What we typically do is have a rough plan sketched out in advance of the trip, so that we can book our FP+ in advance. So even for a trip as long as ours, we had all 17 days mapped out. However, we know that there's going to be some flexibility and on-the-fly alterations to the plan. I'd say we stick to about 70% of what we plan, then the rest is done based on how tired we are, how the weather is, etc...

This trip we didn't so a single rope drop, except for one water park day, and we still got to do everything we wanted.

 

[amandals2007]

just depends on how you look at it and want to do it. we go hard when we first get there, my parents slow down a bit towards the end of our 10 day stay but i look at it as i want to get in as much disney as i can since i wont be back for a year. either way will work you just have to decide how YOU want to do it and it will work for YOUR family.

 

[butterfly71076]

For longer stays, we do muted park days. We are at a park most days, but shorter times. Like, we will do rope drop or am EMH and leave before noon. Or we will sleep in and won't arrive at the park until 6 or 7pm and stay until close. It worked wonderfully this past trip, we didn't feel like we were rushing around, we felt relaxed and had a great time!

 

[disny_luvr]

Our next trip is going to be 13 nights and our plan is 2 park days followed by a rest day for our entire stay. Even on our park days we'll still go back to the resort in the afternoon to rest/swim because we go in the summer and we need a break. On our rest days, we'll sleep in, tour other resorts, swim, do the laundry, etc. We like rest days built in as it allows us to rejuvenate and rest up for the next few days.

 

[Xclusive2WDW]

Over the years (20+), our stays get longer averaging 9 nights/10 days. . . the plan is always the same though: Arrival/Departure days are non-park (Downtown Disney, resorts, I-4 shopping areas, etc). We pick a day somewhere in the middle as a waterpark/rest day and then alternate WDW and Universal days.

My upcoming trip is this: arrival, wdw, mvmcp/waterpark, uni, wdw, uni, free day, wdw, wdw, departure. We're staying on site at WDW but shuttling 2 days to Uni. I'm using MVMCP as one day to "relax" and then another break day in the middle. I'm a park junkie, but this breaks up the trip nicely with varying experiences.

 

[socababy]

When we have an extended stay, we usually go to a park nearly every day at rope drop and then head back to the hotel after lunch to enjoy the resort and pool.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

We mix it up the entire time. For example, one day we might have a late breakfast, swim at the resort and then do a park late afternoon to evening. If we do RD, we'll leave early afternoon and relax in the evening, usually swimming or trying a new restaurant. We also go to the water parks to mid-afternoon and then relax the rest of the day. When you have an extended stay, I find it is not necessary to go RD to close to get everything in.

 

[Delirium]

12 day trip three years ago and another 12 day trip planned in October this year.
- 10 Park days and 2 'rest' days. Saturday is typically one of our rest days because of the heavier crowds.
- We do a lot of park hopping. Keeps us fresh from burning out on the parks
- We don't do Universal, so the entire trip is Disney. Non-Park days are at the resort, Disney Springs, and the outlets.

 

[tripletmomsrock]

We mix it up but we have 9 year old triplets so they have to have breaks.

 

[Alesia]

We take a half day off in the middle, but every other day we're at the park from opening to whenever we're done (which is usually at or near closing.)

 

[Jfsag123]

We just did 12 nights last month. We rope dropped 8 of 10 park days and took two full days off, one each week. Every day we either took a mid-day break or did a half day. We got a lot done, but never got worn out like we have on shorter trips when we've tried to cram a ton in. It was great.

 

[caracarn]

With the heat from out recent trip, we went to the parks in the morning, headed back to the hotel for 4-5 hours and then went back after the major heat of the day. We were there for 10 days.

 

[mshanson3121]

We have an 11-night trip planned in November. We arrive late on the first night(9p), so it's really 10 nights. DH was thinking we should use the first part of our trip to hit the parks hard, and then use the back end to relax and enjoy the resort. I was thinking I'd prefer to mix it up and hit parks hard a couple days, then have a rest/easy day, then parks, etc.

We did this last year. Horrible mistake. Far better to just space park and rest days out evenly. Otherwise, you can wear yourself out during the first half of your trip, which can ruin the second half. We travel in summer, and based on last year's mistakes we will either do rope drop to late afternoon and be done, or rope drop to noon, afternoon break, then back for the evening. Either way, we'll do two days, then take a day off. That's the beauty of extended vacations, lots of time to see it all, without wearing yourselves out.