How long do to Disney "right"?

[BabyHabs]

I'm planning my trip for next March and want to stay on site for the first time. How long to really do the parks right, enjoy ourselves, relaxed vacation and not need to go commando? We've been 2x before, but stayed off site and barely got to hit anything in the parks.
We have 3 kids - 2, 7 and 9.
We want to do all the parks and really experience everything. Would a week do it or need more? 10 days? 2 weeks?

 

[Alesia]

"Everything" would takes weeks and weeks. You may want to narrow it down.

 

[Disneylover99]

I don't think it's even possible to do all the parks and experience everything. Your favourite must do over and over attractions will always get in the way of that.

We've gone commando for a week and got a ton of things done and we've done 18 days in a row and relaxed and got hardly anything done. Both were great trips.

My advice is to decide how long you want to go, book it and just enjoy it for that amount of time without worrying about getting everything done.

 

[MikeandReneePlus5]

you porbably realize you can't ever really do "everything".

That said - 2 days Epcot, 2 days MK, 1 each for AK and DHS would cover a LOT. So that's 8 days in the parks. Add in arrival and departure day and my final answer is:

8 days.

 

[GaryDis]

That said - 2 days Epcot, 2 days MK, 1 each for AK and DHS would cover a LOT. So that's 8 days in the parks.

Adds up to 6 for me, which leaves 1 day for a water park and 1 as either a spare or a trip to Universal. Universal is more of a teen-oriented park (many more thrill rides), so it may or may not be right.

 

[ErinCat]

you porbably realize you can't ever really do "everything".

That said - 2 days Epcot, 2 days MK, 1 each for AK and DHS would cover a LOT. So that's 8 days in the parks. Add in arrival and departure day and my final answer is:

10 days.

This seems reasonable. We have done seven full days and half days on arrival and departure and felt solid. We are always sad to go though. Has anyone ever scheduled so many days that they were not sad to leave?

 

[Marbel]

We did 10 park days in July and felt it was just right. No hopper. We had the water parks option but we could have skipped it and saved the money.
We did 1 x HS (half day), 2 x AK (full days), 2 x EP (1 full, 1 half), and 5 x MK . We rope dropped every day. For MK we left the park around 1 pm and went back in the evening. We did do commando somewhat - I had FPs and a plan.

We were there 14 days. Didn't do anything on arrival day and departure day, and we had two free days to resort hop and just relax at FW.

 

[MikeandReneePlus5]

Adds up to 6 for me, which leaves 1 day for a water park and 1 as either a spare or a trip to Universal. Universal is more of a teen-oriented park (many more thrill rides), so it may or may not be right.

lol, I can't add. and fixed it.

That makes sense, because we usually go 6 or 7 days and leave a tiny bit wanting (not really a bad thing!) and one time we went 8 full park days and really felt satisfied (but still missed things).

10 would really be a luxury...money wise and time wise.

 

[Hopefully]

I agree it is not possible to do "everything" at WDW in one trip. It probably is not even possible to do "everything in the parks" in one trip. You should list all of your families must dos and focus on those in the parks.
If you want to focus on the 4 major theme parks and have a relaxing vacation I would plan 10 days including travel days.
I recommend 2 days MK, 2 days EC, 1 day HS, and 1 day AK. I would intersperse 2 rest/resort/pool days interspersed in between park days. And day 1 and day 10 are travel days.
I would plan one late evening for fireworks etc, followed by a later start or a rest day the next day.
I think you can have a great relaxing vacation if you plan carefully.
Have Fun

 

[megs1313]

We have done 10 days and still didn't get to everything. And we are commando no matter how many days we are there. LOL

I would say you need MINIMUM: 4 days MK, 3 days EPCOT, 1.5 day AK, 1.5 day DHS (so parkhopper required). You're going to have to narrow it down a little, IMO. But, 10 park days would be very doable for getting all your MUSTS in and not killing yourself doing it.

 

[jiminykrikkit]

With my husband's work schedule, we usually only have time to stay 5 or 6 nights. We feel like we can get a lot done (that we want to do), TS is important to us and we do 1 or 2 meals a day with ADRs, and we don't go commando. We really enjoy those vacations and don't feel like we "needed" more time (wanted more time is another story!).

However, we have never gone to a water park or taken a "resort day". We've never explored FW. We usually only do a half day at DTD on the day that we do AK since they close "early".

I think if we had 10 days, it'd be just right. It helps that we've been 5x (3x as a family), so we know what we like and what we feel like we can skip.

 

[Fizban]

If you break it down by experiences I would say:
MK 2 to 3 days
AK 1 full day
Epcot 2 days
HS I hesitate to say it but 1 full day.
DTD 1 full day.

 

[svecchitto]

My favorite trip was a mid sept (very slow) 10 day trip but we had universal in there too. I loved the length, but this was also before I had my daughter so now my priorities would totally be different. Our upcoming trip is sept again with 7 nights I'm cringing because I don't think it's enough time. My husband assures me it is but I still like 10.

 

[Accident]

It takes a lifetime to do disney right and you still won't see it all...

What do you consider right? Not knowing what interests you and you can only go general with answers. Most consider 2 days per park a minimum and then depending on how much resort time to see what is not in the parks.. Every resort has interesting things going on so how much time can you spare? Some will pay $400 an hour for a vip tour guide, or thousands per night for the fanciest of rooms. Some consider winning a night in the castle doing it right..

We like a minimum of 7 days, including travel for us. We arrive early and leave late so we don't have any waste on days. We'll come down early sat and leave early sun the next week for many trips. We do try to lean into a long weekend and squeeze and extra day off so we generally do more like 9 or 11 days..

Generally we'll see each park maybe twice but not usually full days. Certain parks with more day or night things, we'll stop in more. The rest of the time is whatever we feel like, sometimes it's going elsewhere outside of disney.

 

[GaryDis]

If you can afford two weeks and have a car or can rent one, you can add Kennedy Space Center and Busch Gardens to the list. Though the age of the kids will factor into both.

 

[Lisaloo]

I think you can get a ton done in a week. My family has had it after 7 park days and we all leave happy. According to the majority on the dis 14-31 days is optimal. Lol. We were just there in July and had a blast with a seven day stay.

 

[Davey Jones II]

I would say that it depends on whether or not you also want to do the water parks. We were at WDW for eight days in October, and we tried to do all four parks plus both water parks, and it wasn't quite enough time. We ended up spending barely a half-day at Epcot.

So eight days is a minimum, but I would recommend ten days.

 

[GWhitten98]

Our last trip was a great mix from my prospective...We did 8 nights and 9 park days.
Arrival evening at Epcot and Departure Morning at HS. In between we did 3 days at MK, 1full day and one 1/2 days at Epcot, 1 day at AK, 1 day at HS.

I can't say we saw and did everything, but we did a lot and never felt rushed.

 

[Alesia]

FWIW, we find that 2.5 days at MK, 2.5 days at Epcot, 1.5 days at DHS, 1 day at AK, and 1 day at each of the waterparks is optimal, so 10 days works pretty well for us.

 

[MataHari22]

I'm planning my trip for next March and want to stay on site for the first time. How long to really do the parks right, enjoy ourselves, relaxed vacation and not need to go commando? We've been 2x before, but stayed off site and barely got to hit anything in the parks.
We have 3 kids - 2, 7 and 9.
We want to do all the parks and really experience everything. Would a week do it or need more? 10 days? 2 weeks?

Ten days is a good amount of time. I don't do the water parks though or DTD. I cannot go commando anymore, and feel like I get a lot done with 3 days at MK (one of them is either a MNSSHP or this year, it'll be MVMCP) 2 days for Epcot, 1 day for AK, and 1 for HS. I also do not go to the parks on arrival day or departure day. If you can afford two weeks, that would be awesome. You could do the water parks and have a rest day or two in there.