When to go to the parks after arrival?

tootallsheart73

Earning My Ears
Joined
May 27, 2014
Messages
13
We are going on our first WDW trip Sept. 17-24. Having a 10 hour drive, my husband and I are trying to decide between 2 scenarios. Option 1-One of us will take about a 4 hour nap the evening of the 16th, then we will leave at midnight and drive straight through while the kids sleep. The one who has the 4 hour nap will drive the first half while adult #2 sleeps, then adult #2 will drive the second half. We would plan on being in Magic Kingdom by 3. Option 2 - We would add a day onto our WDW Resort stay and drive down the morning of the 16th, hang out at the hotel that evening (possibly go to Downtown Disney), get everything unpacked and straightened up in the hotel room. We would start the parks the following morning.

Which do you suggest and why? We are really excited and want to make the most of our time! Thank you!!!
 
driving at night is the best IMO depending on kids age but the problem is that you will get there exausted and from not really sleeping while the kid will be bouncing all over the place. Ask me how I know ;) We drive 27 hours straight to get to Disney with 4 kids.

With that said, I would be the type to leave at night and go to MK in the afternoon but I would leave in the evening of the 15 after work it would get you there on the 16 in the afternoon LOL then you can decide to take it easy or go to the park.

Either way, I would plan for not park when you arrive and if everyone is well and happy, then go to park :) worse comes, you can always add an extra park ticket later during your stay
 
as long as you add the extra day before your tickets expire, you will pay only the difference for those extra days. which I'm guessing will be about $10-15 more per person per day depending on what you initially got. I always buy 5 day tickets for a 7 days trip figuring I will have 1 park free day lounging at the resort and not going either on arrival or departure day. If I choose during my trip to go when I shouldn't have, I add days on the last ticket day that I have before I leave the park that last day.
 

We always leave early morning when driving, but it's what works for your family and safety.

On site: I have to say that being that close to the parks and not going in on arrival can be torture! And that's for the adults ;). You are going to be exhausted and not be able to do everything, but if you can afford to add a another day and have the time...add it on.

Off site: We were able to unpack and do some relaxing. But we were able to see Disney fireworks from our off site lodging. We were in the parks the first thing.
 
We aren't driving but we are arriving to Disney at a similar time. Our family is going to go to Downtown Disney, eat dinner and do some shopping and then back to resort and just relax, maybe hit the pool. IMO I would rather get there and relax for half a day than be exhausted on the first day. Maybe leave a little earlier in the morning but not the middle of the night and you would get more time at DD and a night in the pool.
 
Not to throw another option in there but our drive is 9-10 hours and we often drive 2/3 of the way and stay at an affordable hotel 3ish hours away and then get up decently early arriving at WDW in time to do a late breakfast/early lunch. This way we still have most of the arrival day to take advantage and spend a lot less money on a hotel room 2-3 hours away than we would adding an extra night onsite.
 
We are also about 10 hours away in NC and we have made a lot of trips down. We have tried a few different things but always go back to our standard plan. We leave supper early in the morning of our arrival day, like 5am. We drive straight down arriving about 3is. We have a 7 year old that is a supper traveler so we only stop one, or maybe two times so bathroom or gas and arrive about 3pm. We check in, make an ADR for dinner at Epcot for whatever we have never tried before and we can get into to (this has became a favorite tradition) and head to Epcot for an early dinner (5ish) and maybe a little time there and are back into our room by 9 for early bed and to hit MK the next AM.

We tried leaving after work/school and driving 3/4 ways and finish the drive on Saturday morning and while it did get us there earlier in the day, we spent an extra 100 on the road and we did not like stopping when we could have pushed on and been there already!

We also have( on a few end of holiday week trips when the rates were much higher for our first day of travel), we down the day before, leaving home about 7 or 8 am, and arrived at bedtime and spent the night offsite and checked into our WDW resort about 7am the next day. Did not like this either as we still spent extra money, and had to get us supper early to be checked in our resort and to rope drop by 9am.

We always add on an extra day as long as we can have a few hours in the park. After a 5-6 day ticket.....it cost almost nothing to do.
 
We found it is cheaper to drive all the way to Orlando on day 1. We have stayed at Champions World Resort just for the night (we payed like $50 and it included breakfast) then checked into Disney World refreshed first thing in the am ready to go to the parks by 10am. They will even take your luggage for you and text you when your room is available, but you are free to do the parks all day. I have found it is more expensive and almost a wasted day to use a night at DIsney for only a few hours.
 
There's no way we could do an overnight drive. I wouldn't get any sleep, worrying that DH would fall asleep at the wheel. With your first option, would the adult really be able to nap for four hours in the evening? I suppose if you are used to that type of schedule it would work. Personally I never sleep well the night before a trip, so I know there is no way I would be able to nap. We used to split ten hour trips (not to WDW) into two days but then discovered that one day works best for our kids. We leave at 8am, stop for lunch and dinner, and arrive by 8pm. Then we get a good night's sleep (well good enough) and are ready to go the next morning.
 
Since it's only 10 hours, I definitely wouldn't do it overnight at the risk of not getting enough sleep. It's easy to do it in one day. The problem with night is that there's a good chance that one - or both - of the adults won't get enough sleep. If your kids are anything like mine, none of the kids will get enough sleep. I don't want to start a vacation already tired. We have the two-day curse when kids/adults are short on sleep - it takes two full days to get back on track. That's not making the most of our vacation time so we leave in the morning, get to our hotel, and relax and start the next morning in the parks.

If you really, really wanted to drive down the day before, I agree with leaving ASAP and stopping at a hotel on the way down to sleep. You could drive from 5-10pm. Then drive from 9am-2 and still manage that 3pm arrive time. The difference is that everyone is less tired.
 
I wish we only had a 10 hour drive! We've driven from NY 3 times (never ever again) and it takes 2 days. I personally think a 10 hour drive is manageable if you leave at 6-7am....get to resort approximately 12 hours later (I'm counting stops and whatnot). Then start going to the parks the next day. We don't do parks the day of travel because after all that driving/flying, we just explore the resort and play in the pool....relax! Park days are busy...we take advantage of the arrival day and do nothing, lol. Have fun!
 
We would not be able to nap on command in the evening and none of us would have rested well in the car, plus Disney is an exhausting vacation that I do not like to begin tired so all night driving is out.

We would try for an early bedtime the night before travel- DH is good at that. I am not but he does most (usually all) of the driving so it works. Then up and on the road by 4 or 5 am so that we could get there and check in with time to settle in. With young kids, I would probably take them to the pool while DH had a nap. Then we would probably have a character dinner and then come back for an early bedtime so that we could start the next day well rested.

If the trip done went well and DH was able to get a nap when we got in, we might add a day to our tickets and go into a park for dinner and to use our three FP+ for that day.

I must say that we have never done this with WDW. It's too far for us to drive so we fly but we have made plenty of other 10 hour drives (that's our road trip limit!)
 
We have a 9.5 or so hour drive to WDW. We leave around 9 PM CST and get to the area around 7-8 AM EST. The kids would sleep most of the trip, usually staying up the first few hours. Driving all night is better for us, less traffic on the road. My DW gives me a break about half way for a few hours. We drop off the bags and head to the park. I will come back and nap or go to bed early the first night to catch up.

By driving all night it gives you an extra day in the park. However, if you arrive later, there are plenty of things to do without going to a park. DTD, BW, play Fantasia, DQ (if you tickets have that option), go to the pool, and many more. I think saving a day on tickets is more important than what time you leave. We normally have AP so it is not much difference on ticket price.

We left as late as 6 pm EST coming home. Normally, we leave around 3 PM EST and get home about 1 am. You need a day off at the end to rest.
 
There's no way we could do an overnight drive. I wouldn't get any sleep, worrying that DH would fall asleep at the wheel. With your first option, would the adult really be able to nap for four hours in the evening? I suppose if you are used to that type of schedule it would work. Personally I never sleep well the night before a trip, so I know there is no way I would be able to nap. We used to split ten hour trips (not to WDW) into two days but then discovered that one day works best for our kids. We leave at 8am, stop for lunch and dinner, and arrive by 8pm. Then we get a good night's sleep (well good enough) and are ready to go the next morning.

:thumbsup2

Our drive is 12 hours and we've driven straight through before. No, I didn't have anything planned as far as a park on arrival day; however we were still exhausted. We left in the evening and we drove throughout the night and I couldn't sleep knowing that DH was driving while he was tired. I'm afraid that he'll fall asleep at the wheel so I stay awake along with him. For this trip we've decided to pick dd up at school and get a head start from there. We'll drive until around 11/midnight and then find an affordable hotel to crash in for the night. The plan is to be up and back on the road around 7/8 am and finish the drive from there. Stopping to sleep along the way isn't really appealing to me because once I'm on the road I just want to get there :cool1:, but it beats being dead tired right before a Disney trip. We don't do park days on arrival or departure day, but being worn out from a 12 hour drive carries over into the week of non stop walking, so we've learnt our lesson. We have five day park tickets with a resort/off day in the middle of the week for down time and rest. I'd go with option two and add another park ticket if it were me.
 





Receive up to $1,000 in Onboard Credit and a Gift Basket!
That’s right — when you book your Disney Cruise with Dreams Unlimited Travel, you’ll receive incredible shipboard credits to spend during your vacation!
CLICK HERE








DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest DIS Tiktok DIS Twitter DIS Bluesky

Back
Top Bottom