We've never stayed on site at a Disney hotel, however much I'd love to, we always go for 3 weeks and it's a lot cheaper just to stay in a villa and drive everywhere (as we go to all the other parks too). We usually arrive in Orlando (from the UK - hi everyone!) around 3pm. Once we've got the hire car and were on our way, we always go straight to the villa, drop all our suitcases just inside the front door, stare at the grass outside that looks entirely different from the grass over here!!!, get back into the car and head straight to Wal-Mart! We spend a good hour or so in there, buying a load of useless stuff that we don't need but that are too good to miss at like $1 each haha! Then head back to the villa, unpack everything, and sometimes go for a swim if we have enough time and THEN finally....we head into the Magic Kingdom on our first night, no matter what, to get our first buzz of Disney magic - my favourite, Wishes.