A Week Vs. Weekends

[DVCOwner]

The family has always gone to Walt Disney World for five or six night stays. This year my wife and I are doing something different, we are going done in small groups for weekend stays. We are doing one in January with a friend running in the marathon, a weekend for Flower and Garden, and a weekend for Food and Wine? Just wondering if anyone else is a weekend Walt Disney World traveler and has any pointers?

 

[Mukta]

I used to go to WDW for 9 days in a stretch each year. This year I went for 2 or 3 smaller trips.

For me, I prioritized what I wanted to see and eat and made a little list for myself (but I am a list maker).

It's nice because when a ride is down for refurb, I don't care because I will see it later that year.

 

[brokedad]

I take many weekenders, usually take the kids out of school on friday and usaully stsy 2 or 3 nights at a time, we try different resorts some times snd I think it fits my budget a bit better.You can also plan a bit and if something is getting refurbed, no big deal.You also dont get the wore out feeling, but the down side is as soon as you unpack everything, it just gets thrown right back in the suitcase.Atleast I dont half to wait 6 or 8 months thinking about it, just a few short weeks.

 

[rsoxguy]

I have gone for shorter trips many times (including countless single-day trips). You have asked for advice, and the best that I can give is that you go with the intention of remaining focused on enjoying the time by not allowing goals to get in the way of enjoyment. You can not possibly see and do it all during shorter trips, so determine the "must do" attractions and activities, while allowing the remainder of the trip to fall into place according to fate.

 

[Stitch_Fan_NJ]

Most of the time weekends are when the Floridans come to play so more times than not you see an increase in crowd level but wait times shouldn't really be affected that much

 

[JohnD]

I went over Veteran's Day weekend, well that Sunday and Monday anyway and made my priorities HS and AK. On AK day in particular, if you have a pass, if you're up for it, you can hop to another park in the evening. I was able to get in time in MK on both nights. But your time is your own. You may want to "chill out" in the evenings instead.

 

[Susan Savia]

If we lived one day away instead of two days distance from WDW I am sure we'd be doing weekend trips as well. Since we do not, we make one long trip a year.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

We do one weeklong trip plus a few other short trips in between. We just got back from a somewhat longer weekend a couple weeks ago (we got 5 nights instead of 4 due to the long weekend) I definitely say prioritize what you want to see and make sure you do those first. While I do enjoy the shorter more frequent trips, I don't think I get as excited counting down to them. I think the excitement of the bigger weeklong trips when we didn't go as often left me more excited since it had been longer since my last trip (We went last September and then not again until May so I had a nice 7 and a half month countdown. Then we went again in September (3 month span) and again earlier this month (2 month span) so the trips closer together didn't have as much build up. Don't get me wrong, we were just as excited when we got there, just the weeks leading up I wasn't as anxious.

 

[lunchbox1175]

We usually do a couple trips but try to schedule them Sunday thru Thursday, the rates are just much better, and the crowds are as well.

 

[WDWoptmist]

Being right down the road we almost exclusively do weekend trips...if it is possible for you to do weekend trips than it is much better than extended stays. You are constantly looking forward to trying new things, can budget better for what you will do in WDW, and can be more relaxed and spontaneous because you know you will be back soon

 

[R W B]

I've done 3 weekend trips. 1 was a long 4 day weekend and the other 2 we left real early Friday morning (3-4am) in order to make a Halloween and a Xmas party. On both of the party trips we only did MK during the party. We did other activities on Saturday like DTD, putt putt, resort hoping and things like that. Then we drove 10hrs home lol. People call my fiancé and I crazy for driving so long for such a short amount of time but its cool with us although we are getting a little older and managing money better, plane trips are in our future lol!