Ideal WDW Length of Stay

[MouseOfCards]

Next year, we're hoping to go to WDW with our young kids (4 and under) for the first time, and hopefully will be DVC members by then. The plan is to try 2-3 different DVC resorts and visit all the parks, but make sure we have time to relax and enjoy the resorts.

What would be ideal length of stay? And how many days recommended in each park (just read that Hollywood Studios is least popular)?

Thanks for your insights!

 

[DVC Mike]

We think 8-nights is our perfect amount of time. Less than that and we're really sad when its time to leave. More than that and we start longing to go home.

 

[MouseOfCards]

We think 8-nights is our perfect amount of time. Less than that and we're really sad when its time to leave. More than that and we start longing to go home.

Are you including time for enjoying the resort?

 

[SpaceMountain77]

We plan trips 10 - 12 days in duration, which includes days for resort hopping and Disney Springs.

 

[MouseOfCards]

We plan trips 10 - 12 days in duration, which includes days for resort hopping and Disney Springs.

Are you including time for enjoying the resort?

Also, can you share how you split the days between the parks and how often you go?

 

[MouseOfCards]

We plan trips 10 - 12 days in duration, which includes days for resort hopping and Disney Springs.

Wow, that's a long trip! How many days do you spend at each park? And how often do you go?

 

[lovin'fl]

For a split I like to be at each resort for 4 nights at least. So if you do 3 resorts for 4 nights each, then 12 night stay. However we did a 12 night stay in Aug and it was too long for us. We prefer 5-7 night stays ourselves though. You could do 2 resorts with 4 nights at each for an 8 night trip...that wouldn't be bad. We once did 2 resorts over 9 nights...BWV for 5 and VWL for 4. That was a really nice trip. Covered Epcot and HS during the BWV part and did MK and AK while at VWL. We also did Downtown Dis and the water parks that trip.

 

[MouseOfCards]

For a split I like to be at each resort for 4 nights at least. So if you do 3 resorts for 4 nights each, then 12 night stay. However we did a 12 night stay in Aug and it was too long for us. We prefer 5-7 night stays ourselves though. You could do 2 resorts with 4 nights at each for an 8 night trip...that wouldn't be bad. We once did 2 resorts over 9 nights...BWV for 5 and VWL for 4. That was a really nice trip. Covered Epcot and HS during the BWV part and did MK and AK while at VWL. We also did Downtown Dis and the water parks that trip.

How did you split the time at the theme parks? Did you do 2 days at each park?

 

[DMKEDM]

I've been for as few as 3 nights and for as many as 12...my favorite, by far, was the 8-night trip w/4 nights at one resort (BLT) and then 4 nights at another (BCV)...4 nights at BLT was "enough"--love the resort and the area, but it had at the time (and may still; haven't heard recently) substantial internet access problems and that really is a problem for me...the 4 nights at BCV could have been 5 or even 6 and I would have been happy...

On another split stay trip I had 3 nights at Kidani (AKV) and that was good...it was great for 3 nights but 4 would have been "too long"--largely because I can't swim (for exercise) prior to pool opening there, and the pool doesn't open til 9, which is "late" for starting the day w/my family...after 3 early mornings of "making do" for exercise I was ready to move to a place where I could do my more usual workout (swimming for an hour in a quiet pool around 6 in the morning)...

We don't build our WDW time around the parks...we go to the parks each time we go to WDW (and love to do so), but we have APs, and so have park-hopping privileges and we just go to whatever spot (ride or restaurant or show) we're in the mood for at the time...one of our favorite things to do is head to the bus stop and just get on the first bus that comes along...we don't "do a park" and so the number of days per park is kind of irrelevant for us.

All this changes quite a lot w/kids under 4 in tow, tho--you might want your trip a bit more structured/planned than ours our. Good luck and have fun!

 

[gdrj]

7 to 10 days for us. We do split stays a fair amount but would not recommend more than 2 resorts in one trip. With kids IMO it is nice to be settled in. Everyone will have their own thoughts on resorts but if doing a split stay I would recommend a Monorail resort for ease to get to MK, which is most likely where you will spend most of your time. The other recommendation would be BWV or BCV. This would allow you to avoid using a car or busses for 3 parks. I love AK but prefer being closer to parks. The great thing is if you are buying DVC is that you can plan on staying at other resorts in the future. You can also visit the other resorts to get a feel for them during your trip, from doing a QS lunch or dinner, to pool hopping (where and when allowed). We always do hopper's or AP's so we can spend visit multiple parks each day.

Best of Luck!

 

[jdkdorn]

Our ideal amount of time has always been 10 days. With that you have a day for waterpark, pool and shopping. With school and work we are relegated to no more than 8 days now. Still great but those extra 2 days always made for a relaxing trip

 

[disneynutz]

Your are a DVC owner, stop the madness!

No longer do you do each park every trip, you can sleep in. During your ownership you will stay at all of the resorts and spend days in all of the parks and they don't really change that much.

I would limit to 8 nights, 2 split stays, with the resorts close to the 2 parks that you will visit. One MK resort and one Epcot or AKV. Next vacation, one MK resort and another resort/park.

Take your time and set a new pace, enjoy the kids, pool time, activity center time, visit the horse stables, rent a surrey bike at the resort.

Bill

 

[com_op_2000]

DVC is designed for relaxing vacations.
You will learn over time to enjoy other things outside the parks.
As for doing the parks, my one recommendation that has gotten the most likes here on the DIS is:
Go to the parks for 2 days, take a day off, go the parks for 2 days, take a day off, and continue like this; to allow yourself time to enjoy those things outside of the normal commando style vacation. Also, from needing a vacation from your vacation when you get home.

 

[Geomom]

We haven't done more than 7 nights. For parks--1 day Animal Kingdom, 1 day Hollywood studios, 2 days Epcot, 2 days Magic Kingdom. If we are at BWV, BCV, or BLT; we can go to a park on a travel day depending on what time our flights are. I don't like being dependent on bus transportation the day we're leaving--I like being able to walk back to the resort in time to catch Magical Express. So if we're staying at BWV, we'll end up with another 1-2 half days at Epcot. This coming trip, we'll have another 1-2 half days at Magic Kingdom.

We have only done 1 split stay, 3 nights at VWL and 3 nights at AKV (Jambo). I'd say 3 is the minimum number of nights you'd want to split stay; I'd have preferred 3/4 or 4/4 instead, but there were only 3 nights in a row available at each resort that trip.

Our shortest trip was 3 nights for Food and Wine festival. Need to have really cheap airfare to do that!

 

[lovin'fl]

How did you split the time at the theme parks? Did you do 2 days at each park?

Let me see if I can remember. We arrived at AKV for 1 night and went to HS that night to see Fantasmic. We had PAPs so we could pop in and out. Next day we checked out and then into BWV and went into Epcot for lunch and then later again for dinner (and to do FP+) and then went to MK for late EMH. We were at BWV for 7 nights but had 1 night at universal's Royal Pacific in the middle (we kept the BWV room). So we went over to Royal Pacific later at night, after doing Keys to the Kingdom tour that morning then eating dinner off site at Giordano's. Got up early the next day and did a full day at the 2 Universal Parks. We did Epcot another day and then headed off site to visit with friends at another time share (Vistana) and we all went to DS that night to eat at TRex. We took our DDs with inlaws and niece to tour a FL college on day and came back that night to do HS I think. After 7 nights we checked out and switched to SSR.

We went over to DS to wait for rooms (we were with inlaws the whole trip except they skipped US) to be ready. Ate lunch and then saw a movie while we waited. That night we went to a park somewhere. We were at SSR for 4 nights and did another FL college tour and hit AK and MK again. Sorry, not much help. I wish I kept notes of the trip. I did a TR on another site but it wasn't very detailed. We wanted to do the water parks and even had the DVC beach bash party booked for one night but never went. After the week at BWV (doing parks and then Universal and the college tour and visiting friends plus hanging with inlaws) we were wiped out by the time we got to SSR. DH even packed up and drove home 2 days early (we had 2 cars there).

Early on in our WDW vacationing (began in 2003)...we would book a week at 1 resort and it would look something like this.
Arrive Sat- check in (maybe pool time) and have dinner at a resort
Sun- MK all day
Mon- AK morning and Epcot evening
Tue- pool/downtown dis day (no parks)
Wed- HS morning and MK evening
Thur- Epcot all day
Fri- ????? whatever we felt we needed to do
Depart Sat- leave early-ish

If you did 8 nights, 4 at each resort doing 2 resorts, then switch day can be a no park/DS/pool day. ANd have a 2nd down day in there too.

 

[SpaceMountain77]

Wow, that's a long trip! How many days do you spend at each park? And how often do you go?

We are currently visiting three times a year. Our 10-12 day trips are in May and December. We also plan a 5-day weekend trip in September for the International Food & Wine Festival at Epcot.

When we visit for 10 days, we plan 3 visits to Magic Kingdom and Epcot, 1 visit to Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Disney Springs, and 1 day for visiting the monorail resorts. When visiting the monorail resorts, we wander through the stores and grounds.

We do not experience every attraction every day. Although we will have our attraction days, we enjoy the parades, entertainment offerings, and galleries.

 

[nalajms]

My oldest is 6 and second child is 3. Going with toddlers is very different from going with little kids. It all depends on gender and what the child enjoys.

HS & AK were our favorite when DS was younger. Both my kids loved the Disney Jr show, playground, and Toy Story Mania at HS. We watched some of the shows, DS doesn't care for the Beauty & the Beast but my DD has always loved them, even as an infant. (My fav Baby Center is HS!) At AK we watched all the different shows, petting zoo, animal trails. Once DS was tall enough for some of the rides at MK, we have been mostly MK. DD tags along because she's fine just meeting the princesses.

For split stays, it helps if your nappers can nap in the stroller. And that you are ok with a full day at the park on move day. We have done ok with 1n at the beginning of a trip to test out a resort. If we have a 7+ night trip, I would be fine splitting it 3 and 4n. If you're pushing a double stroller, I would consider a split between BLT and an EPCOT resort. 1 or 2 days at MK, 1 full day at DH, then skip AK and Epcot for pool time.

What we've realized with our kids is that the longer the trip, the more grouchy they get Even when we cut back park hours (say a few hours before lunch then back to the resort). By the day 5, they are just tired. Instead of popping up at 6am, we can't even get them up at 8 for a breakfast reservation. And the lack of healthy food choices (that my picky eaters will eat) doesn't help. We've gone from week long trips twice a year to multiple 4-5n trips a year.

Good luck. Enjoy and don't stress to much.

 

[Anal Annie]

Next year, we're hoping to go to WDW with our young kids (4 and under) for the first time, and hopefully will be DVC members by then. The plan is to try 2-3 different DVC resorts and visit all the parks, but make sure we have time to relax and enjoy the resorts.

What would be ideal length of stay? And how many days recommended in each park (just read that Hollywood Studios is least popular)?

Thanks for your insights!

Our preferred length for any vacation is about 10 days - but they can't ALL be that long. For anything under 10 days I wouldn't do a split stay unless there was no availability where we wanted to stay. I despise wasting time to pack. We would do 2 resorts max for 10 days. To move a 3rd time I'd want 2 full weeks. Especially if you want some down time to enjoy the resorts too. For trips of at least a week or longer in the summer we visit 1 water park 1 day.

We park hop and do at least 2 parks per day and visit each park multiple times during the course of our trip. The only time we've really stayed in 1 park open to close and didn't hop was when we went with someone else who didn't have a hopper ticket. "Least popular" depends on what you like as an individual / family. There are some who feel the same way about Animal Kingdom or Epcot. The newest problem with HS is that they're closing off a lot of the park to start developing 2 new lands which won't be open for several years. Just puts more limits on what there is to do.

 

[Micca]

Your are a DVC owner, stop the madness!

No longer do you do each park every trip, you can sleep in. During your ownership you will stay at all of the resorts and spend days in all of the parks and they don't really change that much.

I would limit to 8 nights, 2 split stays, with the resorts close to the 2 parks that you will visit. One MK resort and one Epcot or AKV. Next vacation, one MK resort and another resort/park.

Take your time and set a new pace, enjoy the kids, pool time, activity center time, visit the horse stables, rent a surrey bike at the resort.

Bill

If I coulda liked this more than once I would have. Welcome to the Dis Mouse Of Cards! Please take Bill's advice in this post to heart. It's a member benefit knowing that you'll be returning to WDW again, more likely sooner than later. Personally I wouldn't even bother with a split stay as you'll get to try the ones you want over the years. Of course that's just me, many folks enjoy doing a split.

With respect to the ideal length of stay, that's certainly a YMMV equation. I will say that if you can get at least 4-5 nights that's sort of a minimum for us. That minimum might be contingent on how long it takes you to travel to WDW. If it's a short flight/drive, I could def. see a number of shorter trips.

 

[WDWLODGE]

Our minimum is 10 nights. That allows us to go at a comfortable pace. We get plenty of pool/resort time that way. We don't do split stays anymore and we don't park hop as much as we used to. We are still doing rope drops almost every morning, but we will sleep in once or twice a trip after a Halloween or Christmas Party. As our youngest gets a little older and is becoming a stronger swimmer I can see us spending some time at a water park in future trips.