To those who take shorter trips...

[anomamatt]

1. Maximize park time -- for example: take earliest flight in the day, don't take DME, use a private car service, take minnie vans and don't wait for busses. Etc.

2. Stay closer to parks (either MK or EPCOT resorts. CR is ideal for MK-centric, BC is ideal for EPCOT centric trips)

3. Get park hoppers.

4. Eat only QS (and mobile order!)

5. Consider skipping parts of the bigger parks (for example: just do Pandora at AK)

6. Become best friends with FP+

 

[Micca]

For 2 1/2 days I'd just plan on RD to close and figure I'm going to be pretty beat when I'm headed home. I wouldn't do my least favorite park, AK, until I had done everything I wanted to do at the other parks. I'd minimize time spent on events such as parades & fireworks in favor of attractions, though you might reverse those priorities. I think you can get a lot done in that period of time, Have fun!

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

How do you make your time worthwhile?

Going from April 26th - 29th, two full park days and one half park day. This is my second shortest trip...my shortest was only 1 full day

edit: i am going solo so hopefully that'll save some time

We most recently did one park day too but our trips are usually extended weekends, not longer than 3 park days usually. We did PH one of the trips but TBH that gets to be exhausting pretty fast. We prefer a 4-5 day stay with 3 park days, not hopping and maybe a day or two with a resort break time. If we are really cramming it in, we skip the resort break but sometimes it's a must do since the crowds can get hectic midday. We need that for our sanity. We definitely go into the trip with our really want to do list of rides (that we hopefully can get FP+ for) and prioritize from there. We are really good about not going into our trips with ridiculous expectations since we know that's a recipe for disappointment and we always have a great trip even if we miss some of our must do's. We also don't schedule a lot of ADRs. ADR's are definitely time suckers if you're looking to maximize park time. We might do only one ADR/day or none depending on our park plans. It can get to be a bit too much to hop, manage FP+ and ADR's, crowds and potential meltdowns. Another time killer is zigzagging through the parks, you have to have a fluid, realistic approach to your park plans to avoid going back and forth. Using your MDE app for wait times is a big help too and keeping an eye on your FP+ plans helps since time to time one of your FP+ may get dropped for another anytime/any ride FP+ if a ride you have booked is closed. That's happened to us a few times and we missed that and wasted time walking to our FP+ that had been cancelled. Rope dropping 100% helps with getting a lot of your must-do's done, if we didn't RD on our short trips, we'd never ride anything especially since we are not big into booking that far out so any FP+ we get for our trips are icing on the cake. If you do a midday break to your resort and take the bus, maybe take an uber or Minnie Van back to the park, that will help shave some time on waiting for the bus. But the biggest, most important thing for me (even for a short visit), is to do the things that make our family happy and have become tradition. Whether it's a castle pic or finding the hidden Pascals, we take a little snippet of time and enjoy our visit.

 

[TinkSassy]

I like short trips but I don't try to do as much and focus on a few things. Like my last 3 day weekend I did a day at Food & Wine Festival, the Halloween Party and some shopping and eating at Springs. I made that my plan going in and had a blast. My next short trip I'm planning a tour (never done one), a relaxed afternoon for all the music at Animal Kingdom and one restaurant that I have never done before.