Minimum number of days?

[westie55]

If you arrive at rope drop and stay late, you can do most of a park in just 1 day. My trips are usually short (3 or 4 days), so I usually don't have multiple days to devote to each park. With a good touring plan and effective use of fp+, you can accomplish a lot in a short time. If you have 6 full days, I would devote 2 to MK, 2 to Epcot, and 1 each to HS and AK. You can spend time at the pool on any or all of those days. I personally find that one whole day at the pool is too long but others will disagree. If you want to get a lot done with little wait, rope drop is your friend. With a 4-year-old it may be harder to make it to park closing.

 

[toasterstrudel]

We do 6 or so park days with a mix of downtime sprinkled in. We are open to close people so those resort days really help us stay rested!

We do 2 days at MK, and maybe 2 at epcot. Then 1 day for HS and AK. Our trip in August looks like this :

Animal Kingdom
Hollywood Studios
Typhoon Lagoon (rest)
Magic Kingdom
Resort day - we are actually switching resorts so this is the perfect day for it
Epcot
Magic Kingdom

 

[DisneyFive]

What you have is a good first trip OP.

The easy park to recommend 2 days for is Magic Kingdom. The other will depend on your tastes.

We personally do NOT like MK on our arrival day. There's just too much going on that day, and after just travelling to get to Florida we just wouldn't get as much enjoyment out of it. We plan a full day at MK, and get there at opening for the show. It makes for a GREAT day at MK.

Our go to parks for arrival day are Epcot or Hollywood Studios. Epcot only has a few headliners, so it's easy to FP one of them at least and spend the rest of the time enjoying the park and maybe grabbing another headliner on standby. The same goes for HS.

Animal Kingdom on arrival day is tough, because lots of shows and such that use up a lot of time. AK is a park that works best for us when we arrive and park opening and stay until we've done what we want.

I don't like full days off, so I wouldn't recommend them. You can always plan a park for every day, and just come back to the resort early and chill if you want, or sleep in and go to the park well rested.

Dan

 

[DisneyOma]

6 days minimum, to account for a bad weather day. We always park hop - and rest back at the room for a bit, so we'd have 11-12 slots to fill

4 slots for MK (2 morning, 2 night)
2 slots for AK (1 morning, 1 night)
3 slots for EPCOT (1 morning, 2 nights)
2 slots for HS (but that would go up to 3-4 after Star Wars area opens up)
1 extra slot for weather issues

 

[bdiddy]

We like to do a full week. We don’t feel rushed although I could certainly stay a lot longer! Lol...We have done less though. Five days you could tell a difference for sure and we just did a quick 4 day, one day at each park over spring break when our daughter was there with the band. And holy cow that wasn’t enough time at all. We were so rushed the entire time and way more exhausted than usual!

 

[Dbktmc]

I would consider not having a rest day. Instead, plan the rest day as an easy day and only go to the park for a half day. You could still swim and hang at the hotel but it will give you something to do with the kids later in the day when they get bored with the pool. The price to add a day will be very inexpensive.

 

[cmwade77]

For us, 10 full days (not counting travel days).

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

My husband says only 4 days. He gets burned out on Disney quickly. My kids say the same. I disagree with them which is why I squeak out 5 days on my solo trips.

For first timers or people with young kids I say a day for Hollywood Studios, a day for animal kingdom, 2 days for magic kingdom, a day for Epcot as long as you don't care about seeing the entertainment in World Showcase - if you want to see that you may need more time. The nice thing about planning a full day for DHS and AK is that when you are done, you have pool time or time to go to Disney Springs.

I've never been a fan of Pool/Rest Days - my trips just aren't long enough for that. I did take the kids back to the room in the middle of the day for a nap/pool/or just basic downtime at those ages. It helped alot. But you may not need that in Feb. since it won't be as hot.

 

[mydisneyanytime]

We have been for 10 day trips before. We don't take an off day or go back to the resort. My kids are 12 and 13. We don't, however, run from ride to ride. We might get to the park at rope drop or we might sleep in and not get there until 10. We also might leave at 6 or stay until it closes. We usually do 2 days at MK, 1 day at AK, 1 day at Epcot and then sometime at DHS. This last trip we did the EMM and were out of there by around 4. We just don't find DHS to keep our attention all day. We use DHS days to schedule out of park ADR's like Storybook Dining. That has worked for us. With extra days we do AK or MK. My kids aren't huge fans of Epcot though they go just to make me happy!

 

[tinkerjo]

I am so jealous at those of you that stay for so long. We get 5 day base tickets. While we obviously don’t do everything, we get most everything we want and we are not commandos. We usually go back to the resort about 3 or so. Sometimes we go back to the same park, sometimes not. When the kids were little we would do all 4 parks then have them decide collectively where to go our last day. It is harder to that now with FP+ but MK to me is the best park to pick 2 days at. Our last trip included 1 1/2 resort day ( arrival and day 1 to wait in DD arrival) we loved these laid back days and plan to incorporate more of them into our 2020 trip. By day 3 everyone has blisters and sore feet. I think a rest day would be good on day 4 to finish out days 5-6

 

[North of Mouse]

We go for 10 days and either have hoppers or AP's. We would rather wait longer between trips than go for any less time - just not worth it to us. We go in the parks every day, but also resort hop or goof off at odd times. We don't do open to close, but relax as we go. Always contented and ready to leave after 10 days there.

@tinkerjo, if you wear good, broken in supportive shoes with socks, you shouldn't get blisters in 3 days. We never get blisters and walk at least 10 miles a day - tired feet, yes!