Your vacation has begun! Poll: What day do you typically enter the park for the first time?

[JETSDAD]

We start whatever day we happen to get there and that can be any day of the week.

 

[CynBeth]

We usually take the first or second flight of a day on a Fri and fly back home the following Sun. It is about 2 hours nonstop. We usually go to a park but it depends on where we stay and other factors. We try to go every few years during the holiday season. Our last trip we stayed at YC and loved the CP narrator for that night so had booked the dining package. By the time we landed, got our bags, and picked up the rental car and got to our room we had a quick bite at BC Marketplace and then spent some time at Epcot seeing some of the storytellers before our dinner. Next year we are going the Fri before Thanksgiving and staying at POR. We plan to be at MK for the day and get tickets for the MVMCP.

 

[AngiTN]

Other.
We have no "typical" day we arrive.
It's all dependent on our work plans

 

[sweetpeama]

As we have a flight that arrives late afternoon/early evening after 11 hours of travel from the time we leave our home till the time we arrive at our resort we hit the parks the next morning. It is not worth using a park day for a few hours and we would be too exhausted to stay late for Extra Magic Hours. If our finances get to the point that we could stay long enough and do more than a trip in a 12 month period we would look at annual passes. With an annual pass it would be worth it to go to the parks for a couple of hours especially now that our children are older and could handle a few hours after a long day of traveling.

 

[vinotinto]

We don't arrive on the same day either. It depends how long we're staying (usually 4 or 5 nights) and which days the kids have off from school, etc. We've arrived or are planning to arrive (for future trips) on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We usually hit the parks on arrival day.

 

[Mickey's Best Girl]

I had to go with “other”.

Too many variables come into play when we’re choosing our dates.

Essentially it all comes down to money. What days get us the best prices and still maximize our length of stay. I think the only day we have yet to arrive on is a Wednesday.

 

[PSUGuy]

Wed or Thurs depending on whether we're doing 9 or 10 park days. The plan is to check in at Board Walk in time to be in the pic below by 11:30 when Carl opens the taps.

Bill From PA

 

[kydisneyfans]

Use to be always Sunday mornings as we drove in on Saturday and rested Saturday evening.

Lately it has been Thursdays due to AP's and flying. The last few trips have seen Thursday arrivals with a Mon-Tues departure. That also helps reduce the PTO needed for the vacation.

 

[AngiTN]

The results of your poll, just a small sampling but still a good range of guests, shows that there is no one day that most guests arrive. They arrive at all different days. More now than ever before. Just one more reason crowd calenders are even harder to predict. Many of the old rules are out the window

 

[10CJ]

I agree that is varies by trip. Our upcoming trip we arrive Friday and will head into parks Sat morning.

 

[Katie Dawn]

The results of your poll, just a small sampling but still a good range of guests, shows that there is no one day that most guests arrive. They arrive at all different days. More now than ever before. Just one more reason crowd calenders are even harder to predict. Many of the old rules are out the window

OP here: I agree! It's been really interesting seeing the poll results.

 

[DanielNYC]

We’ve only done two trips as a family, but both times our kids summer day camp ended on the Friday of the third/fourth week of August. We then used Saturday to do last minute packing, etc and then took an early morning flight on Sunday. Last year we spent Sunday with my niece in Winter Park. This year we spent the better part of Sunday at the pool at the Polynesian with dinner at Disney Springs. Both times we started visiting parks at rope drop on Monday.

 

[KenHutch]

We always arrive on Sunday afternoon, hit Downtown Disney in the evening and hit Animal Kingdom at rope drop on Monday.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I voted other because we don’t begin our trip on the same day each time. Some years we may do mid week to mid week, others fri thru following Sunday, other times short weekend trip...never know.

 

[DekrRini]

I work Saturday, Sunday, Monday so I always arrive on Tuesday around noon and head straight to the park after being dropped off at my resort by the ME.

 

[otten]

We don’t have a typical arrival day. We don’t do a park on travel day though because flying from Vancouver, B.C takes an entire day.

 

[Flamingeaux]

Yippee!! I see the lowest time is Sunday afternoon. That will be our first visit to AK for our upcoming trip.

 

[turtlechick6]

I hope the thread title and poll question are self-explanatory. I'm wondering when people tend to arrive in Orlando but more specifically I'm wondering when park touring starts. Saturday? Sunday? Not until Monday? Looking forward to seeing responses!

It so much depends on us and our schedule. This year we are arriving on a Sunday and going to our first park Epcot on Monday. Then a park a day and then home on friday. This is 100% because of my son's Nutcracker ballet rehearsal schedule versus any other reason lol. He has to be back friday evening for rehearsals.

For Universal last year we did I believe leave on Tuesday, go to parks Wed, Thurs and Fri and home on Saturday and that was ALSO due to my son's Nutcracker rehearsal schedule as he rehearsed on Sundays that year. lol

 

[2Pirates2Princesses]

I also voted other because our last Disney vacation began on a Wednesday and our Disney trip prior to that began on a Tuesday . Also, if our flight is in the morning we definitely try to get to a park that same day; if not then we head to a park the next day and make it a full day in the park .

 

[maltdizzy]

Sunday Morning. We usually drive down on Saturday and stay at a hotel in Orlando (8, 9, 10 PM) and use their pool to recover, then on Sunday we drop our luggage off at whatever Deluxe we are staying at and and head to a park. Usually come back to the hotel to settle in, and maybe hit the pool mid-afternoon.

We do 5 nights/6 days, so we could start on Sunday or Monday, but we lean to Sunday giving us more time to get home (we go the week before school starts)