Magic Kingdom and hotel breaks

[Disneyland1084]

I'm doing research for a future trip to Disneyworld. I've never been, but have been to DisneyLAND many times. With DL, you're only minutes away from your hotel. That makes hotel breaks during the day easy. But I'm wondering about the Magic Kingdom. I know there's many different parks, but for now I'm just concerned about the Magic Kingdom. If I were to stay at say, Pop Century Resort, and during the day at Magic Kingdom I decide to go back to my hotel for a pool break, about how long will it take from the park back to the hotel? Are breaks really time consuming?

 

[EPCOTgrl1]

Know that you should expect to spend about an hour in travel to get to where you want to go. 9 times out of 10 it won't take that long. Since you are staying at POP they might have more buses running since that is normally a full resort, but you also have to think that it is not very close to MK, it is closer to DTD and HS.

If you are going back for pool time I would look into the days that you are going to see what parks have EMH. That way if it opens early or closes late you won't feel like you lost as much time.

 

[baldy6060]

We've stayed in different places all over the World. Wilderness Lodge, Coronado Springs, Port Orleans French Quarter, off property and Pop Century. We really like Pop a lot. However, if you're going to want to leave the Magic Kingdom for breaks I can only recommend Wilderness Lodge, Fort Wilderness, Contemporary, Grand Floridian or Polynesian. It takes sooo long to get anywhere else. You lose about an hour and a half to get there and back. That doesn't include resting or pool or lunch time. If you aren't staying at one of these resorts you have to walk to the front of the park, walk to the monorail or ferry, ride to the TTC, wait for a bus back to your resort or take a tram or walk to your car and drive back. Not as simple as just leaving the park & driving or riding back. Next trip we are planning on doing a split stay with most of our Magic Kingdom days occurring on days we are at Wilderness Lodge so we can take the boat back. It's so nice & relaxing to do it that way!

 

[siskaren]

Know that you should expect to spend about an hour in travel to get to where you want to go.

FYI, that hour would include waiting for the bus, although you shouldn't have to wait longer than 20 minutes. And actually, I don't think any resort is more than a 20 minute drive from any of the parks.

 

[Disneyland1084]

Thank you everyone for your responses. I really appreciate it. Whenever I DO go to Disneyworld, ideally I hope I can stay at a resort hotel, but I'll have to see how my finances are then.

 

[nicci10681]

We usually stay at POP and it generally takes us a good 30-40 min from the time we exit park to when we get to the resort for a midday break. POP has its own buses, so there's no stops at any other resorts, so that helps cut time, plus there's only 1 pick up/drop off spot so the buses aren't making multiple stops.

 

[baseballnut]

For us, POP was great time-wise. We really like taking a break at the resort midday when crowds are highest and it's hottest. Plus we can stay out til 12-1 -- and there have been many times rides were walk on and we were actually allowed to stay on the ride (like Dumbo, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, etc. because there was no one waiting. So while the break may be for several hours, it makes our park time much more worthwhile.

 

[Nazran]

Just my 2 cents since like you it was our first time and we entertained the idea of taking breaks. We never made a single break. We stayed from 9am till midnight most nights. Every time a scheduled break came up we felt like we had just got there. So we opted to stay in the parks. We were family of 5 with then 11, 7, and 3 year old.

 

[SolaFide]

Like everyone has said, the breaks are slightly time-consuming (one hour for travel round trip plus the time you stay at the hotel), but they're very worth it IMO, to keep from getting burnt out and to avoid the peak park hours. We got up early every day to get in line before the parks opened, did all the most popular rides before the parks got too crowded, did an early lunch, early afternoon hotel break, and were back midafternoon for early dinner and more rides. We went in mid-May, and we felt like we beat all the worst crowds and wait times this way--hardly even used Fastpasses or reservations and got to do everything we wanted.