Long stay w/ young kids?

[kmatts]

Curious, what's the longest stay you've done with kids? Any tips?

 

[wdwlver]

16 days. We just took our time spent a lot of time at pool and resort. Loved every second. Youngest was 7 months at time.

 

[bigbabyblues]

13 nights/14 days. Oldest was 3 and youngest was 15 months, and we stayed at ASMo. We were up and in the parks early, took a break after lunch so they could play in the pool then take a nap. Back to the parks in the evening until after fireworks (it was late Sept/early Oct). Spent one day stuck in the room due to Hurricane Jeanne. They are 17 and almost 15 now, and that was still my favorite trip with them.

 

[AngiTN]

10 nights, 5 year old.
We did a day with no parks and didn't do all late nights

 

[amylevan]

12 nights with a 4 yr old and a 14 month old. But we were in our camper at FW, so they were in beds that they were used to.

We only did 8 park days + 1 day at KEnnedy space center. The rest of the time we hung out around FW.

 

[kmatts]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. We're planning an eleven-day stay at AKL, and I've been feeling a little nervous about it being too much for the kids.

 

[monorailsilver]

Our longest was 10 days, but this August we are going for 11 days.

I have our tripped planned so we are in a park every other day. One of our off days will be blizzard beach but the night before we will be at the MK with a 10pm closing so it won’t be bad waking for the water park.

Other things we do is nap. It is vital. We skip the pool during our break...most likely won’t nap in August since we have that every other day thing going on.

We do breakfast in the room to save some time in the morning. I make minimal ADRs because I don’t do the dining plan and I don’t want to be tied down to being somewhere at a certain time.

This is going to be our first trip with FP which I hate because it is too much planning. I like to go with the flow.

 

[Dbktmc]

11 days with a 2 year old.... and then 10 days when he was 3, 4, and 5. We will be staying for 10 days when we go in 2 weeks and he will be 6 years old.

I think longer vacations are better when the kids are little. You don't feel like you have to rush to "get your money's worth". We take our time, enjoy the pool, take rest breaks and generally just relax.

 

[PollyannaMom]

8 days, when DS was 5. We did mostly "early start - early end" days, with a rest day in the middle.

But I'd go longer if budget wasn't an issue and I didn't miss my pets so much!

 

[disny_luvr]

11 days with two, two-year-olds.

 

[Ashley Marie]

It was either 13 or 14 nights, with an almost 4-year-old and an almost 1-year-old, from New Year's Eve through the first two weeks of January. We watched the NYE fireworks from our balcony. We had booked Wilderness Lodge and due to construction (I think?) got a free upgrade to the Grand Floridian.

We went to all the parks, but most often MK. We had one weekend just at the resort. The length of stay was fine. Unfortunately, my youngest and my husband both got sick on that trip. We had a doctor visit the room and they were holed up for a day or two. We had someone banging on our walls in the middle of the night because my son was crying... believe me, if we could have stopped our baby from crying, we would have.

Of course, my daughter LOVES the memory of going to MK with just me while they were sick!

I agree with others who say longer vacations are preferred with little ones. We don't rush or feel the need to spend all hours at the parks. It's a production to get everyone packed and flights are NOT fun with toddlers (for mom and dad, at least). I've always preferred to take a longer trip and only deal with that stuff once a year or so than to do shorter, but more frequent, trips.

 

[beckysko]

Our last trip was 10 days with a 3yo and 5yo and it was great - we stayed offsite though, and we went back for a break midday so it wasn't too much. We did a few offsite things also. This year we are going for 2 weeks - 1 week onsite, and 1 week offsite. I like the length of time because it doesn't feel so rushed, I feel like we really get to do everything we want, etc. And then you aren't pushing it if someone is having a bad day, or sick, you don't mind if you have a 'home' day.

 

[Mousemommy1]

All of our stays are 11 days, with children from ages 3 months to 14 years.

 

[disneyvoice]

Our longest trip was 12 days. I can't remember my son's exact age but he would have been somewhere between 2 and 6. I don't recall doing anything any different due to it being longer than our normal 7-8 day trips. Our philosophy at WDW when our son was young was to keep him hungry (he always ate well at meals if he we didn't ruin his appetite with snacks) and tired (we didn't use a stroller so he had to walk and we didn't go back for naps) so he was tired by the end of the day and slept well. We typically left the parks by 7:00 or 8:00 so he wasn't up much past his normal bedtime. We typically also scheduled "down" days in between park days when he headed to a water park and then had an early dinner and went back to the resort.