10-12 day trip plan

[Danicaca]

Hello all! We are planning a trip for May/June 2013 - I know, it is like 10 months away, but I am an uber planner- and right now, we are planning on 10 nights. We recently decided to arrive on Tuesday instead of Thursday, and now my DH is thinking of staying through Sunday, for a total of 12 nights, 13 days. DH wants to do a park each day since we will have the tickets, but I am not so sure. I would like a couple of days to just hang at the resort (POR) or head to DTD, but DH thinks this is "wasting" our tickets. Mind you, he does not intend on spending full days at each park each day. I guess I am seeking advice over how many days to spend in each park, what to do the first day - I want to stay at the resort, DH wants to head directly to a park, most likely AK- (our flight gets in at 1:30), and if it would be worth it to stay the extra 2 days. Are we going to wipe ourselves out? I have lots of time to stew over this, and don't even want to think about what days to do each park once the calendars/schedules come out....

[Bernie2003]

I wouldn't do a park every day. I would probably not go on arrival day, and would take every 4th day or so off to do something fun. Maybe miniature golf, DTD, just pool time, a fireworks cruise, etc.

[mdsd8700]

I wouldn't do a park every day. I would probably not go on arrival day, and would take every 4th day or so off to do something fun. Maybe miniature golf, DTD, just pool time, a fireworks cruise, etc.

I would agree doing a park everyday is too much. Even if you are not spending full days. We usually take every 3rd day to do something different. Even if we stay only a week we do 2-3 non park days. You mention having the tickets, not sure what kind they are or if you acutally have them already. If not possibly you can just get less days? There are several ticket options, maybe you could find one that works better for taking a few days and not going to the parks.

[Claire]

I'm a bad influencebut just did 16 days and went every day. We normally were there til lunch and in afternoon did something else. The. At night 50/50 if we went back.

[Micah008]

Will you have an annual pass? Otherwise you basically top out at 10 days of tickets (which might be a good limiting factor in your case anyway)

[Rowan]

Will you have an annual pass? Otherwise you basically top out at 10 days of tickets (which might be a good limiting factor in your case anyway)

Im pretty sure that unless you have an Ultimate Ticket (which I understand to only be for Europe/UK residents) then your options are an annual pass or up to 10 day ticket. We are staying 11 nights in Sept with an early arrival and late departure for a total of 12 days and we had to pick 2 days of no parks or at least a waterpark add on. So you may want to check into that before you start your planning.

That being said, I am all for a go to the parks every day type of vacation. We ended up with a plan that has us at the parks every day except departure day. (We are adding either a MNSSHP or a waterpark on arrival day- still undecided which) The last day we will head to DTD for some shopping before we leave. We like the parks everyday, I feel like if I want a relax at the resort type of vacation I can do that anywhere but when I am at Disney I want to go to the parks. We dont however go from rope drop to fireworks every day. We have a couple sleep in days, a couple early to bed days and a couple mid day break days so we are probably at the park about the same amount of time as a family who goes "all day" for 6-7 days.

[vassar36]

Our family trips usually span about 10-12 days as well. If you look at the prices (for base tickets) it ends up being about $10 a day more to add a day from 9-10 days in the parks, so if you wanted to add on a day(at Disney) after you tried going to the parks for 9 days it would be $10 more per person. So i would buy less days than a 10 day ticket, and then see how you all feel when you are there at the parks. If you want more days then you can always add on a day or 2 when you are there (Disney usually doesn't penalize people with extra fees if you are giving them more money, so there is no advantage to buy a 10 day ticket ahead of time if you are unsure if you are going to hit the park all those days) .

That being said, when we go for that amount of time we usually end up taking 2 days "off" from the regular parks (MK/HS/EP/AK) (sometimes we hit a water park on our "off" day (you can purchase a separate water park ticket at the water parks the day you go to one) or we head to downtown Disney, or we spend it at the resort). Arrival day and or departure day, depending on what time your flight comes in or leaves sometimes doesn't make sense for a "park" day. Plus You are staying at a great resort where you can take the boat to DTD and stroll over and enjoy POFQ so why not enjoy it for a day?

[Danicaca]

Thanks for all of the help! Our flight should be getting in around 1:30 unless something changes between now and when we book them, that is why we were considering going to a park on arrival day. We will be getting the 10 day park pass, so that will eliminate a day or two depending on how long we decide to stay. Anyway, thanks again for all of your help!
Danica

[ChristineOH]

We are tentatively planning to go around the same time, and I think about it way too much too. :-) Happy planning!