how much of your trip is spent at the resort?

[Bride In The Attic]

Not much!

But, I still like staying at a deluxe. I completely understand the philosophy of not spending much on your resort if you aren't there that much but for me my resort enhances my overall WDW experience. We ususally go in the wintertime and we're from Texas where we have a pool so pool time to us is not that important. I still love returning from all day at the parks to a beautiful, relaxing resort....even if we are back at the parks at the crack of dawn!

 

[mjkaferle5]

We have not been to WDW since 2005 and I hope to plan a trip for next year. On my last trip we were there for 7 nights 8 days and we only spent one morning/afternoon swimming and going to the park at night. All the other days we went to one park in the morning, came back in the afternoon to the resort and went back to the parks at night. We were so exhausted that by the 6th day my son, who was 7 at the time asked if he could just watch TV in the room because he was so tired. My DH stayed with him as he was exhausted too and I took my older son to MGM.

For my next trip I hope to go for 10 days and maybe plan 1 whole day relaxing at the resort, not leaving at all, even for dinner, and maybe a couple of morning/afternoons where we stay at the resort and maybe just go to dinner at night or go to the boardwalk in the evening. I also will not plan to do a park on the day we are leaving, that was a big mistake last time. I plan to maybe just go to Chef Mickeys for a late breakfast before we head home.

What do you think of this plan and how much time do you plan to spend at your resort?

Loralie

Your trip sounds just like our last trip in '06. One day we came back for an afternoon nap, and we were so tired, the whole family slept until the next morning!!

We were also there for seven nights, eight days. Our plan is to go for 10 days next time and to allow for some downtime!! I think the hard part is just committing to it!!

It is so easy to just go-go-go when you are there!!

 

[ExtinctDino]

It depends partly on the resort. At AKL, we spent several hours a day at the resort instead of at the parks. At values or moderates, we spend nearly all of our time at the parks. Everyone is different though. If your family - or part of it - needs more time to relax or rest, no point in trying to cram in more park time.

 

[Guzzi]

We sent to Disney in 05 and 06 for 6 and 7 nights respectively. On our first trip we spent virtually every minute in the parks except for check out day. One day was spent at Typhoon lagoon so my wife got to rest and relax while I swam with the kids. We were all pretty tired at the end of that trip.

In 06 after reading Tour Guide Mike's web site exhaustively I tried to convince the family (my wife, daughter and son (13 and 7 then) to leave the parks early in the afternoon and go back to the resort CBR to rest maybe swim, take a break. I was only able to convince them to agree to do that for 1 day of our trip. I dont know if it really made a diffenence as we were all tired at the end of that trip too!

I think that it would be a really, really good idea to do just that. Take at least an afternoon or two, or morning or two and just relax. Everyone and everything that I read indicates that this makes the whole trip better.

Unfortunately for my family (myself included) since we had only been to disney twice felt like if we didn't get to the parks every available minute we were missing somthing . We are beginning to plan our trip for next summer, hopefully a 7 night stay, and good advice to the contrary, Im sure we will spend virtually every minute at the parks then too! but having said that definitely do as I say not as I do, take some time enjoy the resort and relax.

 

[ekball]

We looooooooove the downtime we spend at the resort!!! We will be there for 10 nights (in 2 weeks ) and will be going to the parks only 4 or 5 days. The rest of the time will be spent relaxing at the resort, doing some fun things like renting watermice, surrey bikes, heading to DTD, etc. DH and I are all about having active vacations, but since having our kiddos we found that we need to slooooow it down and have plenty of time for R & R. Works best for all of us. Besides, we are paying plenty for our resort accomodations - why not use and enjoy them?!

 

[ExtinctDino]

The afternoon nap idea works only if your family actually sleeps then. Our kids don't nap, and didn't nap much even when they were toddlers. Afternoon breaks at the resort can also double the amount of time you spend traveling between resort and parks.

Skipping an afternoon nap doesn't mean you have to be at the parks from opening to closing. Just have a leisurely morning at the resort, and go to the parks from mid-day to closing. (We do this most days.) Or, if you want to be there at opening to avoid long lines at popular attractions during busy times of year, leave the park in late afternoon and spend the evening at the resort. (We don't do this, because we avoid busy times of year, and like the fireworks and laser shows at park closing.)

Different things work for different families. No matter how often you hear a particular piece of advice, it may just not make sense for your family.

 

[kribit]

There is so much to see and do that we spend little or no time at the resorts. We do not do the parks commando style but we try to enjoy ourselves. We usually have one off day where we head to DTD for the day to just shop.

I know...the funny thing is we were there for 8 full days last year and came back saying to ourselves "what did we do?" We missed so much. We've been to AK 3 times and have only seen 1/4 of the park. We don't commando either. DH doesn't like to commando plan, but I'm going to organize our days a bit better than last trip..it was the first trip with our kids.

 

[Guzzi]

On our 05 trip there was no planning, just went to the early open park each day, besides the water park day. For the 06 trip, we planned with Tour Guide Mike info like mad men, had attack plans set for each of the parks on each of the days we went! The plans worked great, but I felt a little regimented. let me explain

For the Epcot day for example, TGM tells you when to get there, (early), where to go for the rope drop, what side of the line to stand in prior to the rope drop and how to get to the front of all the folks rushing to Soaring 1st thing. It worked we rode it right away and a second time later in the day with fast passes. But that seems a little like micro mangaging to me!

 

[disneymomof2boyz]

Because we have 2 small children...we ALWAYS stop in the middle of the day to go back to the resort to rest. We spend around 4 hours at the resort, 2 for naps, and 2 for pool time, and then we head back to the parks! I am a semi-park commando, I do like to feel like my time at the World was fruitful, but I also have to take in consideration that it is a vacation. Last year we spent one whole day btwn DTD and the resort, and I found it to be VERY boring, very quickly. It was Dec. so we didn't go swimming, and maybe that's why.
Good Luck w/ your vacation!

 

[lustergirl]

I gotta admit that we haven't spent much time at our resort and that is probably why we always stayed "value". We get up early go to the parks, come back around 2pm for a nap and head back out for dinner and more parks time. We come back to our resort at nite to relax around the pool and have a few drinks- strawbery daiquiris for me!! This coming november I have upgraded to CSR and it will be only hubby and I going. I am sure we will spend more time at this resort because it is new to us and we have to check it out- it looks so beautiful from everyone's posts about it.

 

[NMW]

I don't think we could spend an entire day at the resort-we'd go crazy with boredom! We like Deluxe resorts for the TS dining options, larger beds (this is biggie with me ), room service (are DH and I the only ones who have ever ordered chicken caesar salads and clam chowder at 11:30 at night, while staying at the BC??).

When our youngest (now age 5) was a baby-2002, 2003 we did half days touring the parks, TS lunches and then came back to the room. DH and I took turns having one of us take our older boys to the pool, while the other napped with our DD. By 2004, we were SO READY to give that up. Our DD could really hang by then and we spent all day in the parks. We do go off season, so we don't have to deal with summer heat and we had a stroller with us. 2005 was pretty much the same as 2004, except we only had an umbrella stroller and a potty trained child! By 2006, we were stroller free and again spending all our days and nights in the parks. I think we did maybe 3 hours of swimming one day last trip. That was plenty for us. When we do our summer beach vacation, then we relax. We come to Disney to see the parks.

 

[ntsammy5]

most of my vacations (especially my solo vacations) are spent in front of Off Kilter!

I tend to agree, but it all depends on the purpose. That's why we've stayed at several different resorts over the years. The next trip will be at FW and I'm not sure what we'll do then

 

[yngsj]

We do commando days and relaxing nights except for the night we do WS at Epcot. We do our big meal at lunch and are not into the night time shows so this works best for us. We get there at opening and then leave between 3:30 --5:00 then we go back to the resort and swim and eat a light dinner. On the day we do WS we arrive at about 10:30 and stay till 8:30 so we are out of there before Illuminations. We like to go to bed by 9:30.