Time in resort vs. Park

[Tessaf]

So my cautionary tale.
One day I was at a magic kingdom and saw a family fighting. and I mean screaming at one another as guest gave them a wide berth. Well they were outside the Haunted mansion and one of the little boys was scared to death, it actually looked like both kids really were scared. Dad was yelling at them to get on the GD ride and of course mom was give him heck, basically he was yelling that for the cost of the vacation they were damn well going to do every ride and he didn't care if they were scared or not. Now I recognize this was extreme and most non neanderthal humans would not treat their family like this (well and live to tell about it) but it did make me pause and feel bad. I felt bad that just the joy of watching their kids run around laughing was not enough and that he felt so stressed out because of cost that he did measure success by the attraction.

I've sadly seen this too, but with SM and 7DMT. It's amazing how a parent believes that their scared kid will ruin their vacation because they wouldn't ride one ride.... what really broke my heart was father then added that everyone will call her a scardy cat while she's crying her eyes out telling him she's afraid of 7DMT. So instead of comforting her, this poor, crying kid is being told she is going to ruin their trip and will be called names.


With regards to the question of time in resort vs park, we are all about the time in the park. My DH and kids have no interest in going to the pool. They want to be in the park from morning till night. The only park I can convince them to leave for an hour or 2 to take a hotel break is on our MK days, and that's only because we stay at the GF and it's a quick trip back to the hotel.

 

[Smiley/OCD]

lol Smiley, this is totally off topic but your food analogy has me giggling.
l finally went on a date a few weekends ago and while he's a very nice gentlemen he's a vegan. ME!! the girl who lives in the cheese steak capital of the world and never met a filet I didn't like. We went to a place named "Green soul" which is vegan/vegetarian, unfortunately it's next to a restaurant named "south" that is more of a southern soul food joint. I almost died from smelling the bbq while trying to gather enthusiasm for some thing called a "plant based" hamburger.

that was the perfect analogy. I totally, totally understand ya!

Dump him (unless you don't have to sign a pre-nup) lol

 

[ddbowdoin]

At 34 with no kids (yet) my wife and I view WDW as access points to our favorite parks and minimizing bus transportation. We spend such little time at the resort, it’s really always been a wake up super early, shower, eat something quick or MAYBE a breakfast buffet, then the parks alllll day, come back and shower and off to bed. We stay at Deluxe resorts so we can monorail or walk to parks. From Beach Club I always walk to both Epcot and MGM

However, with my first child on the way, I could see this model changing to a more relaxed pace with ample time spent by a pool / splash pad.

 

[Disorbust]

We usually go in the summer so pool time is necessary. In the past it was easy, parks in the morning, pool in the afternoon parks at night. We use EMH when Epcot had 2/week as wells as MK. Loved doing MK til 3am! Now with the park hours we just aren't in the parks that much.

When my kids were little and we went in offseason Enights were a thing and we could do the same strategy, for an extra $10/person.

 

[Hockey89]

Rope drop....
Lunch with some cocktails...
Nap
Dinner
Parks for the close out....

 

[durangojim]

I’m curious of how many days the folks that rope drop and stay from open to close are at the parks per year vs the folks who spend more time at the resorts. My guess and I could be very wrong is the more days you’re at WDW per year the less you feel to spend all of the days in the parks. That’s true with my family.

 

[Mainahman]

still considering an AP, so if we go that route, we might slow down and enjoy more "down time" knowing we will be back in a couple months.

 

[durangojim]

still considering an AP, so if we go that route, we might slow down and enjoy more "down time" knowing we will be back in a couple months.

When we’d go once a year for 5-7 days we’d spend the majority in the parks. As we and our kids became older and spend about 20 days at WDW the park time has become considerably less and our vacations have become more more relaxing although I don’t think they’re necessarily more enjoyable.

 

[HkPro]

We like to park hop, with a hotel break in between. Our last trip we stayed at the Beach Club with my parents and my kids were 9 & 5. We would hit one of the parks at opening or EMH, and stay until late afternoon. Go back to the resort and swim, or chill, then to another park. For instance, we did EMH at AK, stayed until 3ish, did the pools from 3:30 to 6/7. Then we walked into Epcot and had dinner and stayed until closing. Or another day we would walk into Epcot at opening, stay until noon, lunch and pool at resort, and MK at 4 to close. The trip before that, my youngest was 2 and we stayed at the Poly. We would go back and take a nap break midday, when the crowds are at their worst.

 

[Bpmorley]

In the beginning of our DVC time it was 95% park, now it's almost 99% resort

 

[Weather_Lady]

On Sunday, we take the morning off for church. We take two evenings off for TS dinner at a resort (usually Boma or Ohana).

Depending on flight times, our ideal itinerary is 8 nights, for 18 total "half days." The 18 half days break down as follows:

• 4 Magic Kingdom
• 3 Epcot
• 2 Hollywood Studios
• 3 Animal Kingdom
• 1 water park (will likely shift to HS once Galaxy's Edge is open)
• 2 off
• 1 church
• 2 travel

Just curious -- where do you like to attend church when you're visiting WDW? We've Googled around and didn't have much luck finding something close by (we were looking for a run-of-the-mill, Bible-based Protestant church), so we've typically settled for in-room devotions on vacation Sunday mornings. We'd prefer going to a "real" church, though, if there was one not too far away that wouldn't look askance at out-of-towners.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Just curious -- where do you like to attend church when you're visiting WDW? We've Googled around and didn't have much luck finding something close by (we were looking for a run-of-the-mill, Bible-based Protestant church), so we've typically settled for in-room devotions on vacation Sunday mornings. We'd prefer going to a "real" church, though, if there was one not too far away that wouldn't look askance at out-of-towners.

We're Roman Catholic, so not really helpful for your purposes. We like Corpus Christi in Celebration. Never Mary, Queen of the Universe, which takes an hour each way to get in and out of.

 

[Tom 55]

Hey! I love the cost per hour idea. I can tell my husband this trip is only costing $67 an hour.

I also have for restaurants a amount of food on plate / to cost of meal calculation. If the numbers are bad I never go back there.

 

[Stellajack]

We do not do a park on the day of arrival, even though we take early morning flights. We may or may not take a mid-day break from the parks and we add a "resort day" in the middle of our trip.

 

[correcaminos]

We are there from opening (not EMH though) until about 1 or 2pm. Resort after that. Evening depends on mood and weather.

 

[nickys]

I’m curious how other people divide their time between their resort and parks.

On my current trip this has been a real challenge as we want to experience the parks but also maximise “pool time” (especially as the weather is so unpredictable). We ended up creating “pool days” were we only consider going into one of the parks (with pre-booked fast passes) if the pool gets closed due to weather.

I’m finding that Disney is very good at keeping you in the parks once you’re there so aiming to spend the morning in the parks and the afternoons in the pool (or similar) invariably ends up not working so well.

Maybe we just need to be more disciplined...

One of the reasons we bought DVC points was to be able to stay onsite, which meant that everyone was free to return to the villa when they wanted to. No one has to act as chauffeur, and our boys were 14 and 10 when we bought so fairly quickly they were also able to get to and from parks on their own.

So our plans for each day are made with the focus either arriving at the parks around 10ish or around 3pm. When we go to the parks earlier, I often end up staying in the parks longer, often with the eldest. DH always goes back earlier but stays in the villa. Youngest also prefers to chill in the villa, whereas eldest and I will often head to the pool when we go back, whether that’s at 4pm or later in the evening, depending on when we’e eating. Occasionally we’ll swim first and head to the parks later. We don’t plan totally non-park days for staying at the resort.

We have offsite days for non-Disney things, or may plan something else like Hoop de Doo or other activities around a park or non-Disney day. But in general pool and resort time happens as we feel like it, except at our Christmas trip when we plan some resort hopping on certain days.

 

[Boojiboo]

My Parents get Park Hoppers and I am 13 years old and my Brother is 9 and my Sister is 7. On our last vacation we stayed 7 days. We had lots of time in the parks but we also had time to go back to the resort to relax pool time, lunch, nap, and then come back to the park in the evening for the fireworks. We had a great time and yeah we were still tired and mostly my little sister would be out on the bus ride back before we got back to the resort. It didn't take long for me and my little brother either to be sleeping either.

 

[sdemore]

We always do park hoppers so normally we go to our morning park, leave to go back to the resort when it gets too crowded. Then we will head out TS dinner and back to our evening park. Works well for us, we get to rope drop the EMH park if desired and then do a late EMH if offered. Depending on the park we do FP in the am or pm

 

[jim1051]

like weather_lady, we hit parks pretty early, have a nice QS lunch usually in park, and then head back to resort for pool, activity, nap HAHA.., then return to a park later for dinner and attractions. We have found since we are DVC members and go to wdw at least every couple of years, we don't go crazy trying to do everything, every trip. If we don't get to do some attraction this trip, we'll get to it next time. It makes for more of a vacation than a one week marathon.

 

[Incomudro]

We try to hit the parks as close to opening as possible, and take care of rides with low lines as well as our fast passes.
Come afternoon when we've collectively had enough - we'll go back to the hotel for the pool.
Perhaps nap after that, shower and hit the parks for the evening.