How do you spend your time at WDW?

[Disney Daddy]

I'm sitting here watching the 2013 Disney Planning DVD, and I am just floored at the Fantasyland expansion. It literally could rival any Six Flags park all by itself. Right now, we are booked for 7 days. I am thinking about adding an additional day. My plans are to do:

Magic Kingdom for 3 days
Animal Kingdom for 1 day
Hollywood Studios for 1 day
Epcot for 2 days

There will be 4 kids traveling with (8, 6, 3 and 1). So much to think about and to take into consideration. How do you usually divide your time at WDW?

 

[Cesar R M]

My recommendation would be... always add 1 day to rest between certain number of park-days. You will walk A LOT.
and the parks aren't small in any sense.(even more in your case as you will have kids with you)

 

[Lucky]

I think you have it about right for touring with 4 kids of those ages.

On our early trips we spent between 1/3 and 1/2 of our time at MK. As the kids got older we evened it out a little more across the parks.

 

[rob45]

Try to sleep in 1 day then visit a park that afternoon. Maybe the MK for 2 1/2 days.

 

[Graham9]

As we have been to WDW several times, we already have an idea of what to see and where to go. We will as a minimum spend 5 full days at WDW - that is one park per day and an extra catch-up day to see anything we missed (cancelled shows due to weather etc). But we end up spending a lot more as some other stuff we visit will only fill 1/2 day, so we will default back to a park. Maybe in total, we spend a total of 7 or 8 days.

 

[awoogala]

I'm sitting here watching the 2013 Disney Planning DVD, and I am just floored at the Fantasyland expansion. It literally could rival any Six Flags park all by itself. Right now, we are booked for 7 days. I am thinking about adding an additional day. My plans are to do:

Magic Kingdom for 3 days
Animal Kingdom for 1 day
Hollywood Studios for 1 day
Epcot for 2 days

There will be 4 kids traveling with (8, 6, 3 and 1). So much to think about and to take into consideration. How do you usually divide your time at WDW?

We usually do 2 days MK (with emh thrown in if they have any) 2-3 days EPCOT (More emh, if available), HS one day, AK 1 "day" 9-5, then off to whatever emh they have. When the kids were younger, it took 2 days to do AK- they always needed to do the train, and the goats, etc.
We can do a 7 day trip, go every day, opening to close, plus any emh. We usually have a half-day when we get there, so 8 days total. That day we usually grab a character meal, shop at downtown, check in, swim, etc. We go off-season, though- so even with emh, the latest they stay open is about 11 pm. Most nights it is 9 pm. Usually by Weds, the kids are a little tired, so we make it an earlier night for them and they go to Neverland play area and we go to EPCOT.
Depends, of course, what time of year you are going/how crowded/how hot/how many breaks you personally need/how many hours the parks are open.

 

[zurgandfriend]

7 day vaction is usually broken down as
Magic Kingdom 2 days
Epcot 2 days
Animal Kingdom 1 day
DHS 1 day
Water park 1/2 day
DTD 1/2 day

 

[DisneyDelirious]

Travel day (fly, swim, dinner at DTD)
AK 2 days
DHS 2-3 days
Epcot 1-2 days
MK-4 days
1 down day in the middle for swimming/ DTD
Travel day (swim, fly home)

So 10 days in the park, 2 travel days (arrive at resort early afternoon and leave resort early afternoon) and lazy day to recoup in the middle. We usually got to DTD in the eve one of the AK days as the park closes early. The other AK day we chill at the resort/ pool. Sometimes we add an additional lazy day w/out any park time.

 

[luv]

It sounds like a great plan. I think you'll have tons of fun. Just make sure that all the kids get more sleep than they normally do.

 

[Figgy1]

We usually get 10 day tickets and spend 3 MK days 3 Epcot days 2 DHS days, 2 AK days and we schedule in 2 extra days for "rest" better known as shopping at DTD and the outlets. With kids that young I'd try and add a day or 2 of rest and pool only for your sanity.

 

[G8rchamps]

We like to go for 8 days and get a 4-5 day ticket with waterparks and more. We plan 2 "off" days for DTD and Quest, then a sleep in day with a waterpark. Kids are 9 and 6 so we lean MK heavy. As others have pointed out, you can be really tired by the end of day 3 if you don't plan ahead. Have a great trip!

 

[JimJam]

Personally, we're out of Animal Kingdom around noon - one o'clock on a good day. Only do it once

 

[SAV]

The breakdown is:
MK - 2 days
EPCOT - 2 days
AK - 2 days
DHS - 1 day

Normally we take an early flight and go to a park that first day, which is counted into the totals above. So technically one of them will be 1.5 days. Most likely MK.

We normally go to the beach for 3 days after the Disney part of the trip and we're considering adding in one more day of tickets so we can hit a park on the day we head back to Orlando from the Gulf side, which is usually a 8pm flight home.

 

[RMichael21]

Here's what we did our last trip:

MK-2 days
EPCOT-1 day
AK-1 day
DHS-1 day
SeaWorld-1 day (I like animals and AK doesn't fill my hunger. )
Blizzard Beach-1 day
Discovery Cove-1 day

FYI- This was my longest trip yet.

 

[Disvillain63]

When the kids were young and still at home, we spend 7 days at WDW...

MK - 2 to 3 days
Epcot - 1 to 2 days
DHS - 1 day
AK - 1 day
Sometimes we'd do a partial day at one of the first two parks and then swim, water park, or miniature golf. Other trips would be the 2 day and 1 day and a day at Sea World and/or Busch Gardens.

Now, it is usually just 4 days...5 if we're lucky.
MK - 1.5 days
Epcot - 1.5 - 2 days
DHS - 1 - 1.5 days
AK - every now and then...

 

[StarWarsGirl]

It really all depends. We have annual passes, so for us, it doesn't matter how many days we spend in each park. In August, we chill by the pool for most of the day and do a park in the evening, then set one or two full days for AK. We have premium annuals, so we do both water parks, Blizzard Beach usually twice and Typhoon Lagoon for a half day unless we've got friends with us. If we do a quick June trip, we usually spend the day by the pool in the morning, we do MK and Epcot in the evenings, and we set aside one day for Animal Kingdom. Except for the year Star Tours reopened; it would have been awful to not do that while we were there. In January, I'm going with a friend, so our schedule is:
Day 1: Arrive, check in (approx. 12 pm) head to DHS. Once we get sick of it, go to Epcot (walking distance, boat, or bus, depending on what end of the park we want to get to).
Day 2: All day MK UNLESS it is too crowded. If so, we'll head to Epcot for the evening. But Splash Mountain is only open for the first weekend, so we're trying to get on it
Day 3: AK until closing, dinner at Boma's, MK EMH
Day 4: DHS, see Fantasmic at 7, late dinner and EMH at Epcot
Day 5: All day MK (We got a BOG reservation!!!!)
Day 6: Haven't decided yet what to do during the day (we're thinking Epcot or Disneyquest), but we have dinner at Teppan Edo
Day 7: DHS backup Fantasmic! day (I always recommend this in case something weird happens, like the weather turns or the dragon doesn't come out...) we're thinking of doing Splitsville after closing
Day 8: Haven't decided, but reservations for Chefs de France that evening
Day 9: Last day, pick up time is 5:45 PM for airport, so we might do Disneyquest or Animal Kingdom
And that is how you do the college girls' trip. Obviously, your group is not two nutsy college girls, but you get some of my general ideas, meaning:
-Always get a park hopper ticket
-Food is better over at Epcot, so a lot of times we'll hop over there. Epcot is also good in the evening if you've spent the day at Animal Kingdom.
-Are you staying at a Disney resort? If so, definitely take advantage of EMH. You might prefer mornings (I'm not a morning person). If you are not
-Leave days open so if there is a park you want to hit again, you can.
-Make reservations ASAP. You can always cancel or rearrange (unless you are fortunate and get a BOG reservation, in which case DO NOT CANCEL IT!)
-I don't know how your kids will be about going and going and going...you may want a day where you chill.

Have fun and tag me or reply to this if you'd like more info

 

[jw24]

Greatly depends on how many days I have. With 6 days, 5 nights which what I've done on my last two trips, it's basically:
Day 1: Arrive, rest, eat at the resort as the first meal.
Day 2: Epcot all day
Day 3: MK all day
Day 4: Hollywood Studios/Downtown Disney and Disneyquest
Day 5: Animal Kingdom/Last minute Downtown Disney shopping or just spending the rest of the night in the hotel.
Day 6: Leave

With more days, I'd easily give Epcot and MK a second day, include more rest days between park visits so that I'm not extremely tired!

 

[DJMoore2011]

When we went in 2011 this is how we ended up doing our time
Day 1: Sat leave our town and start the drive down, taking time for some detours to get out of truck and stretch legs getting a hotel outside of Atlanta
Day2: Sun arrive at WDW, unpack checked out DTD, swam and checked out where we were staying
Day3: Mon First time in Magic Kingdom got up for rope drop, spent morning then went back to room to swim
Day4: Animal Kingdom spent all day but was disappointed in it, shows were cancled and not much to do when there
Day5: MK again, still felt like I was missing part of it.
Day6: Epcot~would love a second day here just could not get enough
Day7: Start Drive home.

Most of the time we would leave after lunch if we got there early morning due to my Special Needs Daughter it was too much to for her to be there all day so we would head back to our hotel room and let her relax. Leaving only to go back out for reservations.

We are hoping to be able to go more days the next time we are there to either do more time at MK or Epcot.

 

[Disney Shib]

7 day vaction is usually broken down as
Magic Kingdom 2 days
Epcot 2 days
Animal Kingdom 1 day
DHS 1 day
Water park 1/2 day
DTD 1/2 day

Looks identical to our vacation lol.

 

[polynesiangirl]

Our next trip, with two very small kids, will likely look like this:

Day 1: no park, probably DTD
Day 2: MK
Day 3: AK
Day 4: EP
Day 5: HS
Day 6: MK
Day 7: depart, probably no park

I'd really like to do Epcot more than one day, but we won't have park hopper tickets this time and if we do Epcot more than once we'd have to skip AK or HS, or only go to MK once. There's stuff at all four parks that we really want to see this time around, so this is the best way to go for us. We miiiight do a park on the first or last day, but it's doubtful.