Just booked our WDW trip! How would you section out your 7 days in the parks?

[jacobsmommy]

we will be at WDW from July 6th to the 13th. We will arrive late afternoon on the 6th and will just go to Disney springs/hang out at resort instead of going to a park. We will have park hoppers. Our party is myself, my hubby, our 15 year old son, and or 11 year old daughter. The last time we were at WDW was the summer of 2017. How would you section out your almost 7 days of park time? Our flight home on the 13th doesn’t leave until after 7:00pm

 

[Calee]

I would look at crowd predictors. Do you have hoppers? ETA: just reread and see you have hoppers. Lol.

If no hoppers I would plan 2 MK days, 1 at each of the others. You say almost 7 days so is it 6 full days? I would pick which ever park besides MK has the most that appeals to your kids and plan your second day there. At this point I would recommend epcot or animal kingdom. I would plan to take an afternoon break a couple times and hit up the pool. The partial day I would return to whichever one everyone enjoyed the most...needs a little more of.

 

[SaintsManiac]

If you want to use EMH then I would start by choosing that way. I also like to decide on departure day park first. We've done MK in the past, but it felt too chaotic last time, so we switched to Epcot for our next 2 trips.

I would always recommend 2 days in MK. We try and go as many times as we can in a trip. I like to split days up rather than stay in a park all day every day.

Much depends on when you get those tough fast passes. That can throw a wrench into any good plan.

 

[FCDub]

What does your family like to do? Favorite parks? A blank slate is challenging to start from.

 

[a1tinkfans]

Busy time, get those fastpasses n decide from there...

 

[saraheliz]

In terms of how many days at each park, our last two 7 days trips were divided: 2 pretty full days at MK, 1 day each at AK/HS, and 2 days at EP (but shorter days in general so that we aren't going flat out the entire week). I'd probably do your last day at EP and one other day. Our HS day always ended up pretty short, too, but that was before Toy Story Land opened so there may be more to do now. I add the information about the short days because for our family it's good to balance the straight all out exhausting days with some shorter days in there so everyone stays happy.

 

[lovethattink]

What's your family's priorities? What is a must do? Are you going commando or leisurely through the parks?

 

[tinkerjo]

In July I would schedule at least a couple afternoons to be at the resort.(or even a whole day) 7 days will be hard on your feet. We did 5 days strait last trip and we said never again. Everyone had blisters, were worn out, and cranky by day 5. Since you have hoppers I would take advantage of some of the EMH to avoid some of the heat. I’m sure you will come up with a great plan

 

[WaterLinds]

Were doing 7 days with hoppers in March and this is how we’ve divided it, but our kids are younger—3 and 7–so we may have different interests!

Day 1–EMM at HS, evening at AK
Day 2–MK
Day 3–Epcot
Day 4–MK
Day 5–morning at AK, evening at Epcot
Day 6–resort morning, evening at HS
Day 7–MK (FPs booked) or return somewhere people want to visit again

We may hop to Epcot on an MK day, it’s flower and garden while we’re there so it depends on how much we want to see of that.

 

[Kingdome8]

In July I would schedule at least a couple afternoons to be at the resort.(or even a whole day) 7 days will be hard on your feet. We did 5 days strait last trip and we said never again. Everyone had blisters, were worn out, and cranky by day 5. Since you have hoppers I would take advantage of some of the EMH to avoid some of the heat. I’m sure you will come up with a great plan

Yeah last trip we did 5 straight days and by the last day we were beat. End of June.
This summer going 9 nights with 3 resort days. Should break it up nice.

 

[Klayfish]

What's your family's priorities? What is a must do? Are you going commando or leisurely through the parks?

Agree with this. Need to give more details. It'll be easier to give suggestions.

For example, I completely disagree with people who say going 6 days in a row is too much and you should have resort days. We do 16 days in a row. However, we aren't commando style people. We don't rope drop, we don't close the parks all that often. Our typical park day would be 10am to 4pm or 3pm to 9pm. Doing that allows us to hit the parks each day without wearing out. We're there for WDW, not a hotel/resort/condo/whatever. So to us, staying an entire day at a hotel is a bit of a waste. But you have to decide how you want to do it.

July isn't a very busy time, relatively speaking, so that's always nice. It's hot, and there are pop up t-storms. You may get them every day, you may not get any, but just plan for them to be sure.

As for breaking up the parks. First, if I were arriving late afternoon I'd definitely hit a park that day, so you'd have 8 park days. If I had 7 days, I would do 2 MK, 2 HS, 1 Epcot, 1 AK, 1 water park (if you want to add that option or have it, if not I'd add another AK day)

 

[slpeters]

Our 7 day trip was actually 6.5 since we went to the parks on our arrival day. We had park hoppers and did two parks a day most days so we scheduled it in half days--4 at MK and 3 in each of the other parks. We found we didn't finish DHS and the third half day in Epcot was a bit much for us. So I guess next time we will do 4 MK and DHS, 3 AK and 2 E. But it really depends on the makeup and interests of your group.

 

[momof2n2]

We are commando people when we visit in May or October. We are often first at the tapstile and leave after evening programming. We can do back to back days easily and have never left a park mid-day. But I have never gone in July...

I would subscribe to Touring Plans and visit UCT sites. If you are character people, I would also subscribe to Kenny the Pirate. I would read through each of their assessments of that week and see what starts to come out of that.

For us Disney vacations are not resting vacations. Honestly, we can rest at home and hardly any vacation is much in the way of resting... We reason that any minute we have paid for park admission and we are not in the park we are throwing money away. That being said, we are very happy to have a table service meal for dinner and allow it to take over an hour just to regroup. I feel like each park also offers some quieter places to sort of refresh and in doing this we have gotten through the crazy just fine.

 

[jacobsmommy]

Thanks for all the replies! This will be our first time with park hoppers, so I wasn’t sure how to plan... we are staying at Port Orleans and my kids love to swim, so we will definitely take afternoon breaks. The evening entertainment we want to see is : Happily Ever After, Fantasmic, animal kingdom at night, and the new show at DHS.

 

[bigeyedfish]

If we had 7 days on our upcoming trip (we only have 5) I would do:

2 days MK
1 full day HS
1 full day Epcot
1 full day AK
1/2 day resort day and then head back to AK (our AK day is the most full of any park!)

And then I would leave the last day free to do something else - maybe Universal for the day? Discovery Cove? Or just relax and swim at the resort.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

WE do a few sit down ADR's, so we come up with 2 or 3 places we'd like to try or return to. I have to see the MK parade and fireworks so the monthly calendar becomes important. I try to plan a down day ( sleeping in, pool time, shopping, poolbar!! early to bed)
and if I do, the next day is perfect for Rope drop day. I'm a spreadsheet planner and it takes awhile to nail it down.
You're going in July, HOT! and taking those breaks will be great for the pool, so hoppers will help getting you into any park for the must dos.
Have fun whatever you choose!!

 

[Dug720]

Personally I would do something like Epcot, MK, DAK, chill/Springs day, Epcot, MK, DAK. (The three could be in any order either side of the chill day).

But I'm not wasting time on going to Studios for 2 rides (Tower and RnRC). The rest of that park is dead to me.

 

[tink2]

Just depends on what your family prefers. For my family~ I'm positive we would spend at least 2 days at MK, probably a day and half at HS and AK each, and one day at Epcot. I might would consider leaving a day up in the air~ towards the end of the trip~ to fill in any holes that were missed that we wanted to do in a park~ not sure my planning self could handle that but it is a consideration.

But each family is different~ for mine~ I would be dragging my kids to Epcot~ they have been many times and are just not fans of Epcot at all. We are skipping it for our upcoming trip. They do however love MK and Ak~ love HS but until more is open, I'm not sure we can justify two whole days~

But each family is different.

 

[cygnusx1jg]

Just going generic here--you and your family can choose the specific parks and such.

One full day, either full day three or four, doing nothing but relaxing, scheduling your most upscale (expensive) dinner on that day.

No more than two full days doing parks with no break. The other three full days go to a park early, hotel in the afternoon, and park in the evening.

On your departure day, rope drop MK.

All of this is under the impression you won't have/rent a car. If you are, then this advice would change somewhat.

Most importantly: have fun, but you don't want to feel like you need a vacation from your vacation when you get back home.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

We always start and end our trip at MK, (usually with 2 other MK days thrown in since we’re usually have 10 park days) we devote one whole day to future world in Epcot, and one whole day to Epcot WS, which is a sleep-in day. Then we do 2 AK days and one HS day. That amount of time in each park allows for plenty of FPs and time to soak things in without rushing around. IMO HS could even be a partial day park, even with the new TSL.