Spur of the moment visit to the Magic Kingdom.

[epcotisbest]

One of our best park days ever was mostly spur of the moment.
We went to MK one day when we had planned on not even going. This was a couple of years ago.
While hanging around the pool a little after lunch that day we had some people give us some one-day comp tickets they had gotten at a timeshare tour and were not going to have time to use.
We offered to pay them for the tickets but they explained they were going to expire and if they did not get used, they would be no good, so, we could have them if we wanted to go today, something about these timeshare comp tickets were only good that day, or were going to expire that day. Glad we struck up a conversation with them by the pool. I think it started when I was going to get a couple of soft drinks and asked if I could bring them back something.
So, anyway, we thanked them and said yes, we would use them.
Decided, yes we would go, hurried to the room and got showered and changed and got there just in time to see the parade at 3 then wandered aimlessly the rest of the day and evening with no plans, no dining plans, no fastpasses, just taking it easy, hopping on a ride if the line was short (it was mid-September and some lines were short), saw the flag retreat, ate supper at Sleepy Hollow (nutella waffel...yummm), and had a simply wonderful, freestyle, no worries, no concerns, no schedule evening. It was terrific.
Something about this totally unplanned, unhectic, not to mention free visit made the Magic Kingdom seem, oh I don't know, more magical.
Stayed until well past closing. After enjoying the fireworks we stuck around for the goodnight kiss and wandered the Main Street shops on the way out. By then the line for the ferry was almost non-existant and the parking lot mostly empty, so no traffic on the way back to AKL Kidani.
You ever have a spur-of the moment trip where you had no plans to go until the same day, or in our case, just about the same hour?

 

[Gainesvillain]

Trips exactly like that are why I keep renewing my APs.

 

[eliza61nyc]

we love trips like that. I will say they are easier when you know you are going to return. It's a bit harder if it's a once in a life time trip because there is so much pressure to get your money's worth.

 

[epcotisbest]

we love trips like that. I will say they are easier when you know you are going to return. It's a bit harder if it's a once in a life time trip because there is so much pressure to get your money's worth.

Yeah, we have been going once or twice per year for the last 30+ years, which is why we spend more time now at the resorts than in the parks.

 

[LUVofDIS]

We sorta did this in mid August of this year when we qualified for the AP SWGE visit. We are from Michigan, this is as about last minute for WDW that we get. Anyway, we were there for five days, three days in the park. I reserved a few FP+ but we did very few rides and only did things that had short waits. That is except for MFSR. We waited about forty minutes for that. All-in-all, it was a leisure time in WDW and was really nice not feeling any pressure to get "things" done.

 

[stratman50th]

Not exactly spur of the moment, but we had one day left on a parkhopper from December that would expire the first of June. My wife wanted to see the flower and garden offerings at EPCOT so we called our agent and got four nights at Ft. Wilderness booked in May. We did the flower and garden festival and spent the rest of the time exploring the campground and checking out some hotels we had never stayed at. So this was a spur of the moment trip as well as a day in a park.
I guess I should have said we decided to go in late April.

 

[JIMINYCR]

Yippeee... A Free entrance to the park doesnt come around often. What a stroke of luck for you. Unfortunately we live so far away that wed never have a spur of the moment visit opportunity.

 

[HoustonHorn]

Last Friday. After 12 hours in Glaxy's Edge on Thursday, we woke up Friday with plans for EPCOT. No one was really into it, so we ended up at MK. It opened at 7. We got there at 9 with no Fastpasses. Over the next 3.5 hours, we:

Rode Space Mountain 3 times, Buzz Lightyear, Jungle Cruise, Pirates, BTMRR, Small World and Haunted Mansion
Ate lunch at Gaston's Tavern
Took a bunch of Photopass pictures

It was a glorious morning.

 

[epcotisbest]

Last Friday. After 12 hours in Glaxy's Edge on Thursday, we woke up Friday with plans for EPCOT. No one was really into it, so we ended up at MK. It opened at 7. We got there at 9 with no Fastpasses. Over the next 3.5 hours, we:

Rode Space Mountain 3 times, Buzz Lightyear, Jungle Cruise, Pirates, BTMRR, Small World and Haunted Mansion
Ate lunch at Gaston's Tavern
Took a bunch of Photopass pictures

It was a glorious morning.

Wow, that does sound like a good morning!

 

[macefamily]

We're from PA but we have AP's for both Universal and Disney. We base our trips on our work schedules, kids' schedules, and how cheap we can get airfare. So none of our trips to FL are planned in advance. We usually have the entire trip and schedule planned two months or sooner. I like it that way because when everything is booked there's a short wait until the trip happens. For example, there's cheap airfare this month. There's a good chance we'll be doing a long weekend sometime in September.

 

[NickPytlinski]

we are from the UK so cannot really do a spur of the moment visit.

we do a spur of the moment park when we are in Orlando though.

We have our pre-planned days spread across the first week, the 2nd week we freestyle. i must admit the freestyle days feel so much more relaxed with less expectations to get everything crammed in.
with the freestyle days we dont ride as much

 

[Walt Disney1955]

I live near Toronto, so that is a long, long ways to Orlando. A 20+ hour drive, not including stopping for dinner. I can and have done it in 24 hours, but this is for a trip, like a couple of weeks. I guess on impulse I could fly down there and spend a day at the Magic Kingdom, but we have kids now, I couldn't just do that on a whim anymore. I've gone to sporting events without tickets with the plan of buying them from a scalper. So that's fun, but going to Florida for one day? It would be fun, but a tease too and really painful when you leave.

 

[epcotisbest]

I found doing this problematic in the last few years. I live close enough that I can just say let's go and we use to when I could buy the 10 day non expiring tickets. Without those the price went a lot and I don't like all the preplanned FP stuff. People will say it's possible but in my experience you are out of luck getting FP's for the next day to many attractions. End result is we don't go to Disney any more or I would say very unlikely to go. Might go in the spring to check out SW land and the new gondolas.

We used to always buy those 10 day non-expiring tickets because we spend a lot of our trips with non-park days and it worked out great. We would get two or three trips out of those tickets. Now we go much less often because they are no longer available and AP prices don't work for us.

 

[GlassHalfFull]

As an Ohioan whose parents live less than 10 minutes from the TTC parking lot, there have been 2 trips in the last year that I have decided on wednesday or thursday morning to fly down and visit the rents and do the parks with them first thing on saturday morning.. there is no better feeling. One of the trips I got airfare(that was bumped up to first class) and a rental car for less than 250$ total...