short trip vs long trip

[dawnball]

For those of you who have taken long trips to WDW and short trips - do you tour differently based on trip length? We're planning a long (14 park days) trip this spring, and I'm trying to get a feel for how to structure touring plans (aside from a generous afternoon break most days). We have a pretty diverse group, and that coupled with a need to keep things interesting for 2 weeks is making the canned plans not very useful.

I have this horrible habit of creating touring plans that go "get a FP for space mountain, then trek to BTMRR and ride it once, then ride haunted mansion and head to barnstormer for the 10:00 opening." and by the end of the day we've all walked 12 million miles. On the other hand - if I don't plan at all, we spend the day saying "I don't know - what do you want to do next?" followed by "Oh, that's a long way from here, and it might have a line!"

 

[BlindTyldak]

The big thing I do differently is limit myself to one "big ride" a day. That way you're not grabbing a FP, backtracking to this coaster, going to another one, hoping there's not a long line at this . . . it spreads out the excitement and cuts down a LOT on the criss-crossing, saying "okay, today's Space Mountain day, and we'll hang around Tomorrowland and Toontown today."

 

[firemanx]

Well we havnt taken any trips longer then 4 days in about 3 yrs as me and my brother have both been in the process of becoming firefighter/Paramedics they dont look greatly about taking time off from school for disney, and a genius sister who wont take more then 1 day off for school, and a Dad who is a local FF union presidentand Firefighter doesnt leave much time to get the whole family to Disney for more then a long weekend. We used to take the longer trips it was more of a relaxed feel of taking our time, and being by the pools, and game rooms. Now its more of a time of enjoying good food, and doing what we feel is important in the parks. When we used to go for 10+ days we would always have a few days of just chilling out by the pools and doing some nice Dinners where we would get dressed up. Thats always fun to do when you get the whole family together. Most importantly weather its a long or short trip we just make sure we have fun as a family.

 

[pepe of ohio]

We basically tour the same whether its long term or short. Long trips, we tend to have a few down days, no parks. We hang at the resort pool, shop DTD or do a water park. We do like 2 park days, one down day, 3 park days, one down day etc. This way we get in other things we miss by staying short. We have a golfing day on long stays, take in a movie, see Cirque, and do our intense sit down dining. We have AP"s and even though we don't go to the parks every day, we might just go to one in our visiting area for just a meal or a shop. This way we don't feel bad wasting a ticket. All the resorts have some resturant or lounge we like to take in, mostly in the evenings, and short trips doesn't allow that.

We tend to stay now, 10 -12 nights now, just to relax and see the sights and parks. Our commando days are long gone. We know what we like and want to do and see and we basically travel around a park in a circle, stopping for whats there. No ride schedule, FP's nothing, just a leisurely stroll and when we return for an evening, we go the opposite direction than we did previous.