Number of days at each park?

[eac578]

We have booked an 8 night stay at POP in late Aug. Right now we have 5 day park hoppers with waterpark option. We were planning 5 park days, a waterpark day and a resort day/Disney Springs with hopefully an after hours event at MK. We could add more ticket days if needed because the extra cost is small going from 5-6 or 6-7 days.

I am trying to figure out how many park days we'll need at each.

Kids are 11&14, both boys. Zero interest in any characters, will probably do one character buffet breakfast but will not wait in a line to see them unless I make them for nostalgia sake! Not really interested in shows, though the kids loved & remember Indiana Jones and I love the Lion King but otherwise will not likely do shows.

I think HS is definitely a 2 day park for us. We have not been since Toy Story land opened, and of course the new Star Wars rides will be top of the list. The kids will want to do Tower of terror and rockin rollercoaster too.

I am not seeing much we'd want to do at Epcot. How long would it take to do Soarin, Test Track and Mission Space? Maybe maybe Spaceship earth and Nemo? Half day should be plenty if we skip WS and Frozen?

Would you suggest 2 MK days plus the AH party, or can we see most of MK in the AH party plus one day?

Thanks so much, would love suggestions.

Last trip I planned the kids were much younger and it was pre-Pandora/Toy Story and Galaxy's Edge so a lot has changed!!

 

[Gehrig1B]

For that short a stay I would add three more days (not very expensive) to my ticket to have the flexibility to go to a park every day if I wanted. Our last 10-day visit we made it to MK 8 xs and Epcot 6xs. We visit differently than some though. We never go commando all day at a park trying to hit all the rides. We like to take it slow, enjoy our visit and relax. Most often we visit early, avoid afternoon crowds, then hit a 2nd park for dinner and fireworks. Generally, we get there in the first hour to hit rides with short lines then do our 3 fastpasses, all before 1:00, then leave. We will hit another park in the evening depending on where our dinner reservations are.

To your question... 2 MK days, 2 DHS days and one day each at Epcot and AK.

Remember, fast passes for SDD, FOP, 7DMT are usually only available at day 60+4 and beyond.

 

[rwdavis2]

Yes, add the park days. The cost is minimal compared to what you are already paying. You can then decide to possible go to a park for half day, sleep in then go, etc. With 8 days you should be able to experience almost every attraction you want to. We did it that way in 2016 and there were days we slept in, went to park where we had FPs, left for lunch then went to another park for the evening. We never took a full day rest on that trip. Sleeping in did the trick. We then stayed late at the parks.

It's far more relaxing that way. To your original question: 1-2 days at MK, at least 1 day at HS, 1 day Epcot and AK. You can then have the chance to go back on other days with FP+ and do the rides you missed before.

 

[eac578]

Thanks for the advice.
I like the idea of park hoppers with a midday break but I feel like it's much harder to plan out for FP/ADR.

I need to look into the situation with those hard to get FP. So I should schedule those parks (basically all but epcot?) at the end of my trip to 9AM in order to get those FP?

One of my kids has autism and will need much more downtime and breaks. I am hoping to get the DAS pass for him, and that the DAS, combined with the magic kingdom AH party will let us get on some of those rides whose lines he couldn't manage.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

I think it depends on how long are you going to spend in each park. We can do HS in one day because we dont do shows and we are rope droppers that stay till the end.
At MK there is so much to do we could stay days even with the after hours party. We also do some restaurants like BOG and it takes up time.
The two water parks we use as our inbetween park days to rest.

 

[DisLiss]

We have a similar trip booked---late Summer, Pop, 8 days total time, older kids, & park hopper plus tickets. We did decide to get more park days.

We'll not have tickets for our arrival day. We'll have one ease-in day, so to speak. We're going to resort hop and check out Disney Springs that day. But for the next 7 days we have park tickets for each day. Our kids want to go to both water parks and they definitely want to be able to take their time in the other 4 as well. Our plan is to plan a few of our days ahead of time but leave a free totally open so they can decide what they want to do on those days.

We're doing a party on Tuesday, so we're spending that entire day at MK figuring it might be quieter since it closes early and one park per day ticket holders won't want to go to MK on such an early closure day. But otherwise we're planning to have some days when we sleep in a bit and plenty of days with breaks worked in--to give us a break from the heat and the crowds.

In terms of planning FPs, I prefer to plan the first 3 as early as possible anyway, to open up the ability to use more earlier in the day. So by doing that I don't have to work a break around FPs.

Best of luck with whatever plans your family opts to make!

 

[tguz]

We don't do resort days. We figure that we are only here a week a year and we can relax at a pool on a weekend getaway anytime. We do go to Disney Springs but after a park closing for late pizza at Blaze and some shopping.

 

[eac578]

Would it make more sense for me to choose a starting park and book all of our FP selections for morning, and just park hop to wherever we want in the afternoon/evening to balance out if needed?

If we hit, say, MK from 9-12 and then went back to the resort, can I book additional FP selections after the 3rd fastpass for another park? For instance, if we had FP from 9-10, 10-11, 11-12 at MK and at noon can I go on the app and book a FP for ToT at HS? Is there usually reasonable availability for a group of 4 people for same day FP? We won't necessarily want to do all headliners. My son with ASD for instance is likely to want to ride Buzz Lightyear over and over... if we could combine DAS and some same-day FP for him that would be great.

I am looking now, it is $96 plus tax (total for all four of us) to go from 5 day tickets to 8 day tickets. That definitely makes the most sense! Would rather be able to have the flexibility and use extra fastpasses.

 

[sleepymouse]

I am currently planning a trip where we will do 3 nights Disney, 4 nights Universal and then back to Disney for 6 more nights. I have boys that are 9 and 14. I am going with 10-day parkhoppers for 2 reasons. First, I need the 14-day use window to extend far enough to cover all Disney days, and second, the cost to add days is minimal when considering how expensive the entire vacation will be. Also, we are staying at Yacht Club for the last part of the trip, and I love being able to go into Epcot on a whim at any point in the trip.

All of that is to say, add more days

 

[Darcy03231]

We typically do 2 days at MK, 2 days at Epcot, 1 day at HS and 1 day at AK. We keep a floating day to go back and do anything we might have missed or to have a resort/Disney Springs day.

 

[Klayfish]

Personally, I don't get the concept of resort days. You're there for WDW, right? To me, sitting in a hotel (no matter how nice) all day is kind of a waste, but that's just our opinion. I'd add at least 2 more days and give yourself time to explore all the parks. No, I don't think you should do open to close each day, but even if you only spend 4 hours in a park on your extra day, that's plenty of time to see and do plenty.

 

[rwdavis2]

Would it make more sense for me to choose a starting park and book all of our FP selections for morning, and just park hop to wherever we want in the afternoon/evening to balance out if needed?

Or rope drop a park and save the FPs for the second park that day. Either one depending on what you want to do that day.We would rope drop, hang at the pool after lunch and then go to a second park. Just sleeping in instead of rope dropping a couple of days makes a difference.

For that many days we listed out the things we wanted to do at each park, referenced crowd calendars for which park each day (we sometimes ignored them) and made the FPs we could. Bu this was before Avatar and Galaxy's Edge.

 

[eac578]

Personally, I don't get the concept of resort days. You're there for WDW, right? To me, sitting in a hotel (no matter how nice) all day is kind of a waste, but that's just our opinion. I'd add at least 2 more days and give yourself time to explore all the parks. No, I don't think you should do open to close each day, but even if you only spend 4 hours in a park on your extra day, that's plenty of time to see and do plenty.

I suppose not necessarily resort days, but quieter pool or waterpark days.

I have one son with autism who will most definitely get sensory overload in the parks, and in order to function for a week+ will definitely need to spend a few hours reading in the room or relaxing in the hotel pool per day. He might need whole days, I really don't know. But I suppose it's easier to make tentative plans and cancel them than to be trying to scramble for fastpasses at the last minute.

 

[TTA Rider Matt]

I would also recommend adding more park days. I was there for 10 days 2 years ago and did not feel THAT was even enough time to get to everything, granted I was with a 7 and 4 year old and probably spent 20% of our time in character lines or parking strollers. I have also generally viewed the water parks as half day endeavors. I would get 8 day hoppers, giving you 16 park time slots, with 5 time slots at MK, 4 at DHS, 3 at AK, 3 at EP, and 1 at BB/TL. Additionally, I am a firm believer in the concept of the mid-afternoon break when it is a heat index of 105 out and parks are at their peak attendance. Say park open until about 1 at your first park of the day, 1:30-3:30 at the hotel/pool, 4:00 on at your second park.

 

[Gehrig1B]

Would it make more sense for me to choose a starting park and book all of our FP selections for morning, and just park hop to wherever we want in the afternoon/evening to balance out if needed?

We fastpass the morning and ADR the evenings picking up whatever fast passes we can in the evening.

 

[eac578]

Ok, added 3 days to our tickets. Mapped out our days as 16 "half" days - our 7 full days plus afternoon of arrival day and morning of departure day.

Tentatively:
4 half days MK
4 half days HS
3 half days waterpark
2 half days epcot
2 half days AK
1 half day disney springs

Thinking most days we'll go about 9-12/1, then back for a break in the heat and afternoon thunderstorms and head back out about 5pm to close.

 

[Gehrig1B]

Your schedule is how we tour the parks. We don't do the waterparks though. Basically we schedule the morning park with fast passes and leave the evening park open. We might book 2 or even 3 different ADRs and decide the day of... example 5:30 dinner at Brown Derby, 7:00 at Spice Road Table, 8:30 somewhere else maybe. Night before we will decide and cancel the others.

Evening fireworks and EMH are considered as well.

Have a great time.