How many hours are YOU in each park?

[SFMommy]

For our first visit, I am trying to determine park days, should we hop, should we do morning EMH, etc. And I have written out how many hours each of my "plans" would be. This is actual hours IN the park...including shows, fireworks, TS meals, etc.

I'm just wondering how many hours (approximately) people spend in each park during a visit?

This is my estimate for my preferred plan, based on 7 park days...having some relaxing afternoons at the pool/napping, some sleep-in mornings after late nights and one pool/resort day (going to Epcot that evening). Epcot is particularly heavy on hours because we will be staying at an Epcot resort and plan on going there 3 days/evenings and having dinner there 3 nights.

MK - 13
EP - 18
HS - 6
AK - 6

How does this compare to your visits?

 

[minnie mum]

Light. Much lighter than what we do, even though we take breaks on our MK and Epcot days. But whatever works for you is fine.

We go RD ( get to the park at least 30 min early) every park day and stay til close at HS and AKL. For MK and Epcot its basically the same except for a 3-4 hour afternoon break. Of course actual hours vary according to closing time and how late EMH goes at MK. We don't hop, so we don't waste hours on transportation.

Our trips are generally longer, but over 7 days we'd probably do:
AK: 8 hours
HS: 10 hours
EP: 18 hours
MK: 25-28 hours

 

[Alesia]

For us that wouldn't be enough, but every family is different. We're definitely action vacationers. We go on vacations to do stuff - we can sit around and relax at home for free. We tried to take a day off in the middle of a trip once, but we were in MK by noon. We tend to do trips with 8 or 9 park days and we're generally in the parks anywhere from 10 to 14 hours per day. But that is definitely not something most families are looking for.

For a 7 day trip, we'd probably do:
Epcot - 20 hrs
MK - 20 hrs
DHS - 15 hrs
AK - 8 hrs
Other - 12 hrs

 

[senadler]

The most days we have done is 6, but I expect if we added a day it would not add much to our park time. We spend a lot less time in the parks than most.

AK: 5 hours
HS: 5 hours
EP: 10 hours
MK: 18 hours

 

[Sargeant Tibbs]

As some of the PPs said, it all depends on personal preference. We're always in a park at RD and we almost always close the place down. We're also not the park hopping type. For us it feels like a waste of valuable time. We schedule DS and TL as down days in the middle of the trip, but we are always on the go.

ETA: our trips are usually 10 - 12 days.

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

When we go for 7 days, we only have 3 or 4 park days. On our park days we often rope drop, return to resort for a mid day nap and go back to a park for dinner and the evening shows. We do DTD, the waterparks, the pool and golf on the down days. My family would KILL me if I made them go to the parks every day from open to close! My kids, now 16 and 18, still look forward to the mid day nap at WDW!

I just returned from a quick 4 day trip for Disney's High School Spring Training with DD's softball team. We had 3 park days and 1 pool/DTD day, with 2 games mixed in. This is how much time I actually spent in each park each day:

Monday - 0
Tuesday - MK 9 hours
Wednesday - EP 4 hours, HS 3.5 hours
Thursday - AK 5 hours, HS 5.5 hours, EP 2 hours

 

[asbyrneva]

We tend to be early morning RD/ extra morning hours people. We get so much done we dont "feel like we didnt get our money's worth " we usually leave around 3 and go do pool and chill get ready for dinner etc (with AP usually at another park or close to the resort) As DS gets older we stay out later but usually he's in bed by 10 (otherwise there's no way we do RD mornings).

I think the best thing is to have a good plan (for example RD use EMH etc) and make the hours whether they are 6 or 14 in a park a day good hours. 6 hours in 60+ minute lines in the middle of the day doesn't sound like fun to me.

Also look at your plans. With an 8 year old things like agent P, AK Explorers, and Sorcerers of the magic kingdom are activities kids love. No its not a Ride or a greet but you may have a kiddo that wants to do those things more than anything else. I had to catch myself one trip when I almost said "you cant play that game we have things we have to go do!" I almost forgot it was his trip and he wanted to play Sorcerers - does it optimize the ride time? No, but he loves that so I build in an hour at MK to play throughout the day.

 

[Cando86]

We tend to spend a little bit more time in the parks but I completely understand that every family is different.

Our trips tend to look like this:
MK: 26 hours total (about 13 hours/day)
Epcot: 26 hours total
HS: 20 hours total (10 hours/day)
AK: 8 hours total but want to spend more time here!

There's never enough time to do it all! You really just have to prioritize what's important.

 

[wdwlver]

We hit RD and stay at park till noon or 1...then back to resort to swim them back out around 5 to usually Epcot since we walk from YC/BC. That pace works for us and everyone in family enjoys their trip.

 

[lroger01]

I suggest you take some time soon and spend a day at a local fair, zoo, amusement park, etc. This will give you a better idea (and may be eye opening) of how long you can physically go - and still have fun. Make another visit later with plans to stay the entire day. Use this practice day to find out what works for breaks and how to pace yourself.

You'll be amazed at how tiring touring can be - especially if you have a sedentary job.

 

[amylevan]

We do rope drop until about 1. Then it's back to the parks for dinner, evening entertainment and maybe a few favorite rides. No one in my family wants to be in the parks from opening to close. And if we are there at least a week, there is usually at least 1 day of non-park vacationing.

So, I would say, similar hours.

 

[holden]

My estimates are per day for a week's visit:

MK - 12 hours on 2 days, 5 hours on one day
EP - 12 hours on 2 days, 5 hours on one day
DHS - 8-10 hours on one day
AK - 5 hours on one day

 

[misse320]

We don't typically take breaks or allocate much time for the pool (a point of contention for me), and we usually take 7 day vacations. I'd estimate our breakdown to be:

MK: 30 hrs
EPCOT: 25 hrs
HS: 6 hours (1/2 day is it for us)
AK: 0-6 (this next trip will be our first time back to this park in years)

 

[GillianP1301]

Our upcoming tip is 8 park days and my breakdown is looking something like this...

MK - 23hrs
EP - 16hrs
HS - 17hrs
AK - 8hrs

 

[tsme]

We usually do rope drop to about 3pm at each park. So I guess around 6-7 hours, except for HS, we stay less time there. Then we go back to the hotel and rest. Later we'll park hop to eat or go to a resort restaurant for dinner.

 

[Oswin]

AK - 0
HS - 3
EP - 12
MK - 30-40

We usually spend 4 hours in the morning and 4+ hours at night at the MK over most of our trip, a short morning at HS to get in the few rides we like, and then a couple of half days at Epcot. We always take about 4-5 hours in the afternoon to spend swimming and taking a nap.

 

[poeticdiabetic]

AK-9
HS-11-20
EPCOT-8
MK-30-35

 

[SFMommy]

We hit RD and stay at park till noon or 1...then back to resort to swim them back out around 5 to usually Epcot since we walk from YC/BC. That pace works for us and everyone in family enjoys their trip.

This is what some of our days are looking like for us too.

We usually do rope drop to about 3pm at each park. So I guess around 6-7 hours, except for HS, we stay less time there. Then we go back to the hotel and rest. Later we'll park hop to eat or go to a resort restaurant for dinner.

And some days our plan is looking like this!

I suggest you take some time soon and spend a day at a local fair, zoo, amusement park, etc. This will give you a better idea (and may be eye opening) of how long you can physically go - and still have fun. Make another visit later with plans to stay the entire day. Use this practice day to find out what works for breaks and how to pace yourself.

You'll be amazed at how tiring touring can be - especially if you have a sedentary job.

Yes, we have done a few trips to Disneyland. We usually go from 7:00 a.m. (EMH during Thanksgiving) until about 1:00 or 2:00. Then back to hotel for rest/swim. Sometimes we just go to a resort or DTD for dinner. Sometimes we go back to the park for a few hours. NEVER have we done RD to park close. I KNOW that we would not be able to handle that...especially for 7 days! When we go to Disneyland, we are only doing 3 or 4 park days...so I want to pace ourselves for WDW. Don't want to burn out!

Thanks to everyone for all of your replies...gives me something to think about!

 

[Delirium]

One thing that can dramatically alter the time you spend ion the parks is whether you do character meet and greets. With so many characters, if you try to do them all, it can take you twice a long to tour a park than if you don't do any. Often times when people say "We did it all in one day" at HS or AK, they did not see any characters. That's fine, but can be misleading when you are trying to budget park time.

 

[SFMommy]

One thing that can dramatically alter the time you spend ion the parks is whether you do character meet and greets. With so many characters, if you try to do them all, it can take you twice a long to tour a park than if you don't do any. Often times when people say "We did it all in one day" at HS or AK, they did not see any characters. That's fine, but can be misleading when you are trying to budget park time.

I agree! We are not planning on many M&Gs. Maybe one or two in the WS in Epcot and one or two in AK...just because those seem more interesting and different than M&Gs we've done in DLR. But if lines are long, we will definitely skip them! Thanks!