When do you prefer to arrive?

[Kev1417]

I have arrived at the world early morning, mid afternoon and late at night when the parks are already closed. I think i prefer arriving late at night the best. When we get to check in no one is in the lobby and I get to walk around Boardwalk alone with the wife. We take a stroll around Yacht/Beach taking in the peacefullness of the resorts. LOVE seeing spaceship earth in the background all lit up. When we finally make it back to the room NOTHING beats waking up to the magic and heading out to the park in the morning for your first full day.

So what does everyone prefer? Getting there super early to hit the parks after traveling? Travel in the morning and hit the parks after lunch? Or getting there late knowing you can check in right away and wake up to the magic?

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

Get there T time, dictated by flight arrival times all direct flights from UK are into MCO are in around the 3 -5 pm slots regardless of airline. Works out OK, get to resort three S's and go for a meal. Gets the body clock into sync with the time shift.

 

[Skibum1970]

We've been arriving at noon but end up spending the rest of the day at the resort hotel. My wife really needs to just hang out for an hour or two to rest up from the trip and to get adjusted. In addition, I don't like flying before 9:00 AM as that means getting up really early (yes, I'm lazy and I know it but it's my vacation). However, when I get there, I want to get going at full speed to a park and thus I have a patience dilemma with waiting around. Thus, I am going to schedule our trip with late flight out (arriving around 8:00 PM) so that we get to the hotel with just the evening to mill about. Then, we get up in the morning ready to go as fresh as a daisy.

That's the plan at least.

 

[Weather_Lady]

We like to get there as soon as possible, too. Given the expense of the trip, we want to squeeze as much park time out of every day as we can, and stay as few nights as possible. This means arriving as early as we can on the first day, and leaving as late as possible on the last day.

I do love the OP's description of a relaxing, late-night arrival, though. If we get to a financial position where an extra night on our reservation is no big deal, I'd love to try that.

 

[ShookieJones]

We always fly into MCO as early as we can, then make our departing flight as late as possible so we can stay at the parks longer on the last day.

Yup!

Gotta achieve my UMVE: Upmost Maximum Vacation Experience.
First Day: Early as possible check and see if our rooms happen to be ready. drop what we have and head off to the parks.
Last Day: as late as possible going home. Hit the parks one last time...a resort hop or two and back home dead tired and in need of a relaxing vacation.

 

[Doombuggy13]

Yup!

Gotta achieve my UMVE: Upmost Maximum Vacation Experience.
First Day: Early as possible check and see if our rooms happen to be ready. drop what we have and head off to the parks.
Last Day: as late as possible going home. Hit the parks one last time...a resort hop or two and back home dead tired and in need of a relaxing vacation.[/quote
Couldn't have said that any better!

 

[steviej]

always take the earliest flight in and latest out as possible, maximize park time as much as we can!

 

[Mrs Potato Head]

wow - I think i'll be in the minority but we always take an early flight (usually by 8 - 8:30am from newark) and we don't go to the parks the first day. we hang around the hotel, swim and do DTD. We usually don't get a return flight until 4-5pm so we can just take our time leaving. i'm usually depressed that whole day

 

[UPbeekeeper]

I like to arrive at MCO early in the afternoon, but I never hit the parks until the next day. I think I would feel too rushed. I need that first arrival day to settle in and unwind from traveling. It is hard to relax that first night though & I have a hard time sleeping, because I am so excited with anticipation for my first day at the parks, which is ALWAYS Magic Kingdom. I'm always the first one up and bothering everybody else in my room until they are awake too.

 

[twinnstar]

Wow, you all like to get there early! I am the exact opposite, i like to arrive in the evening/late at night! then we can take our time, i dont feel rushed to "fit" anything in. We go to the resort, unpack, relax and maybe head to DTD and grab a bite! Then wake up all ready to go!

 

[disneygirl76]

I have arrived at the world early morning, mid afternoon and late at night when the parks are already closed. I think i prefer arriving late at night the best. When we get to check in no one is in the lobby and I get to walk around Boardwalk alone with the wife. We take a stroll around Yacht/Beach taking in the peacefullness of the resorts. LOVE seeing spaceship earth in the background all lit up. When we finally make it back to the room NOTHING beats waking up to the magic and heading out to the park in the morning for your first full day.

So what does everyone prefer? Getting there super early to hit the parks after traveling? Travel in the morning and hit the parks after lunch? Or getting there late knowing you can check in right away and wake up to the magic?

We prefer the night before. Although we are anxious to get the parks, we like getting to the resort, checking it out, unpacking, and then MK the next a.m. However, we have the past two times, arrived late a.m., had lunch at the resort, and then head to Epcot in the evening after we unpack.

 

[Nansafan]

We used to take the first flight out of Chicago which would get us to the parks by lunchtime. We would then be exhausted by 7:00 PM. We now take a 10:30 or so flight and arrive early afternoon. After check-in, we are to the park to make an early dinner. This is what we'll be doing tomorrow, woohoo! In December we had an evening flight 7:30 PM (everyone worked Thursday). By the time we checked in at the Dolphin it was after 1:00 AM. We slept and hit the parks at 10:00 AM. It was pretty nice doing it that way though my cousin who had never been to WDW before did not get to see anything as we drove to the hotel because it was too dark. She is looking forward to the drive tomorrow as we'll be landing at 2:00 PM.

 

[Alison1975]

we like to get there first thing in the morning. This trip we will arrive ( we drive) at BWI between 8-10am. I will do online check in and alert them to our early arrival. If our room is ready..awesome..if not we will be hanging out at the pool

 

[Minthorne]

This next trip we are trying something different. Our flight arrives at 11:00pm and we are staying that first night at a inexpensive room near MCO so the next morning we will be able to get to the resort and then the parks early. Having a rental car makes this a little easier.

 

[Parrain]

We live 11 hours drive away, and have done this 3 times: We pack the car a day early, and I take a long nap before we leave around 8 or 9 pm. I drive all night while my wife and daughter sleep. We arrive early, eat breakfast at Captain Cooks and hit a waterpark. I have an old floppy Animal Kingdom safari hat that I pull down over my eyes and I sleep on a double tube in the lazy river while my little girl tows me around. If I get an hour or two in the tube I'm good for the day. We hit the bed early after dinner at Ohana or Cape Mays. Good start for a vacation!

 

[sgtmgd]

This next trip we are trying something different. Our flight arrives at 11:00pm and we are staying that first night at a inexpensive room near MCO so the next morning we will be able to get to the resort and then the parks early. Having a rental car makes this a little easier.

For our week long trips we go down a day early..stay at Shades of Green that night and are at the Boardwalk NLT 8 the next morning..last 2 trips my room was ready so we dump our luggage and walk over to EPcot to start out adventures fully rested

 

[littleroo]

I prefer to arrive early and head for Epcot! This year we have reservations at Garden Grill so my DSs can meet the characters right away! It is actually a week from today!
We leave in early afternoon. Not too early and not too late so we can wind down!!

Although I will say anytime you are arriving in DW is a great time!!!

 

[gwhb75]

We've done early morning and early afternoons, but our arrival times are normally decided by flight times. We don't want to have to change planes, so we try to get direct flights whenever possible. This year we're flying out of Buffalo at 6:05am as that was the only direct flight on Southwest that day that didn't involve changing planes somewhere along the route. Early mornings are kind of tough as the kids are normally wiped out that first day, so we try to schedule a nap that day. Afternoon arrival are OK, but I feel like a large part of the day is wasted. Mornings are definately our preferance.

 

[Alison1975]

wow - I think i'll be in the minority but we always take an early flight (usually by 8 - 8:30am from newark) and we don't go to the parks the first day. we hang around the hotel, swim and do DTD. We usually don't get a return flight until 4-5pm so we can just take our time leaving. i'm usually depressed that whole day

We aren't going to the parks for the first TWO days. We do 10 park days.. staying for 13 days ( 12 nights)..usually our last day we leave fairly early but this year we are doing a water park day that day.

 

[Tomi-Rocket]

Since we have tickets that start the day we arrive we like to get there as early as we can. We come from mid-Georgia and we make the drive over two days. We used to drive half way getting to Disney around 2-3 pm. Last year we drove to just outside WDW and got there around 11 am, which we all liked the best, we weren't tired from the drive and were raring to get going. So that's what we plan to do for all future trips.

 

[minnielaw]

We have a 12 hour drive that we split into two days. We leave Friday after work and drive 6 hours to Macon, GA. Stay the night and leave around 9 on Saturday. We arrive in WDW around 3 and check-in. This year we are staying at BWV's and plan to unpack, explore the Boardwalk and then dinner is at Cape May. After dinner we will hit Epcot until closing, or until we crash!

We like arriving mid-day as it allows to unpack, settle in and still get some park/DTD time in, but not get too exhausted. Our previous trips we have stayed at PORS and spent the first evening at DTD, taking the boat from PORS.

Usually we do the drive back in one LONG day, but this year we plan to break it up into two days as well. This will mean we can stay until late afternoon Sunday. Not sure what we will do the last day, since we are used to waking early and hitting the road. We may do DTD for last minute shopping and Earl of Sandwich fix or hit Epcot for a last ride on SSE. Ideas??