What parks...

[msp2mco]

I'd ask your older 2 children if they want to try the other parks, especially if you have park hoppers. We are DVC members, so we know we will be back in a year or two, so we feel comfortable missing certain things on a particular trip. For instance, if we didn't get to ride POTC, we'd be okay.

That said, our children are older, but for the last 5 or 6 years, my DS-17 has been doing all 4 parks a day at least twice during his trip. For him, that is part of the fun.

 

[W.E.D.]

Yeah, ask your kids. Every family is different.
We always visit each park at least once, and usually end up at EPCOT multiple evenings and MK two or three times.

 

[ajwolfe]

We always do PHs and we always hit all 4 parks. I think you might be selling Epcot short - my kids have always enjoyed it.

Talk to your kids and see what they might enjoy in each park. Personally, we couldn't do an entire day at the pool so we would probably split a portion of the day at HS and Epcot with pool time on a couple of days if getting in pool time was a big deal to us.

 

[BlueFairy]

You asked here, so you will mostly get the standard line. 1 day at least per park. Park hop. 2 days for MK and maybe 2 for Epcot, a down day (or 2). But that makes for a LONG trip and tired little feet. Is this your first trip? Will you be going back?

After 2 or 3 long family vacations fighting tooth and nail to find the magic that we loved before we had kids, I think DH and I have finally pegged it. We are there for VACATION. I could go-go-go for 7 days straight, but it doesn't work for DH and the kids. PH never proves to be a value for us. We always wish we'd spent more time enjoying that fabulous hotel we paid good money to sleep in. And we always get too tired to do everything we wanted to do.

So last trip we pared it down to a long weekend. Only visited MK and remembered that we could upgrade tickets and add park hopping up to the last day of my ticket. I know myself well enough to know if I plan extra parks and the hopping, then I will expect everyone to stick to the plan. Instead, we had arrival day at the resort and to tour around the monorail hotels (dining, shopping, our pool), 1 day at MK with a 3 hour break for early dinner, and a day at Fort Wilderness (only cost was food we ate and DD's trail ride). We spent less money and left already planning what the kids want to see at Epcot.

Don't underestimate all the other things you can do to fill time. Disney Springs, mini golf, water parks, just exploring, a resort character meal . . .

This trip we'll do Epcot and AK and resort time. I'm adding in HS for Star Wars against my better judgement.

Will your kids enjoy all 4 parks more than you expect? Yes.
Will you need more time no matter how much you cram in? Yes.
Will you run out of things to do? No.
Will you get mileage out of a park hopper? Maybe
Will your kids hit a wall and your plan go out the window if you try to do too much? Probably, especially if this is your first trip.

Know your kids, ask their opinion, and resist the temptation to do it all. Ask them to tell you 1 or 2 things they've heard about that are really important to them. They might surprise you.

Trying to keep up with the rest of the wonderful DISers just isn't always what's best.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

We are slightly the opposite in some ways...we try to plan 'relaxation' days and afternoon breaks, but somehow we always end up getting sucked into the Disney vortex a bit. We think we're going to relax and swim all afternoon: instead we stay in the park for one more show. We plan a non park day, but then we go for a walk around the BC/YC lagoon and Epcot is oh-so-close.

Recently we did a little better at WDW, but the Universal Studios portion of our trip was as crazy-busy as any WDW visit ever was.

When we do take an afternoon break, it often ends up getting squeezed to the point that we end up nearly jogging- to make a bus, boat, ADR...

 

[PrincessRileysMom]

on our first trip, we only had 4 days in the parks so we skipped AK. DD was 4 at the time so we knew she wouldn't miss it. Second time we had 5 day passes and hit every park. We have 5 day passes again in August but I still feel with two trips we never got enough of Epcot, so we're doing 2 days at MK and 2 days at Epcot. HS is still a full day park for us, but I guess we could do a hopper to AK on that day. I just have to talk DH into park hoppers, he thinks it's a waste. The only things I feel we missed at AK were It's Tough to Be a Bug and Nemo. So I don't really feel the need to go back other than those attractions. We want to do jedi training and get a hug from Chewie, so HS is a must really early. I wouldn't really want to hop to AK in the afternoon. As far as pool, after having stayed at the Poly, I'd LOVE to have an extra pool day- we'll only get one, on our arrival day, and maybe a quick swim in the morning before we leave. BlueFairy gave perfect advice!