Has Your Trip Ever Been Too Long?

[keishashadow]

Longest trip to WDW was 12 days, shortest 3 Last fall we did a combo Vegas/USH/DL/U/WDW bucket-list halloween trip that covered 16 days. It was fun but tiring. Thanks to cheap airfare & lots of vacation time, we now visit at least 4 times a year.

I just cannot relax when at WDW. Akin to a kid at Xmas, over-excited, don't sleep well, it's the siren call of the parks. I've tried to take a resort day, have always caved and gone in by evening no matter. Admit to being a park commando in a prior life, now we don't do rope drop unless we have a kid in tow & often only stay in the parks a half day. I am on vacation = no cooking we tend to eat main meal offsite with a few fav Disney ADRs when just he & me.

Five or six days at a disney park works best for us, followed by a split stay up to Universal (where I can relax knowing we have FOTL) or a short cruise is just right for me, allowing a chance to pause and relax before heading back to RL.

 

[Nanajo1]

After 10 years as DVC members we view our stay as our winter vacation. Our longest stay was 21 days. We started to miss the grandkids on day 15 or so. We visited the parks every other day for a couple of hours. We cooked a lot in the room.

 

[Anal Annie]

We have found that we don't like ANY vacation to be less than 10 days - and 10 days is usually a sufficient amount of time. A week is just too fast and if we go past 2 weeks we start missing home. Our longest stay at WDW alone was last summer when we did a 5 n / 5 n split between BCV and AKV. Prior to that we had done a trip with 7 n at BCV followed by 3 n at VB. If and when we go someplace "big" like to a combined Disneyland & Aulani trip or to Europe (Disneyland Paris and a Med cruise) we like to go for at least 2 weeks to make the airfare worthwhile. 15 days has been our longest trip so far tho just because it's hard for DH to be off work for any longer than that. Sadly we're only going for 8 nights this June and I'm already hoping we don't regret going for a couple more nights…we just came home the other day from a quickie 6 n trip and it went by REALLLLLLY fast.

 

[eliza61]

Usually after 8 or 9 days I'm good to go. A few things start to happen to me on long trips.
1) I get tired of eating out and while I do cook in my villa, meals are sort of watered down as I usually don't have all the things I would use at home
2) same with laundry. after 10 days, I want my own washer and dryer


If we do go for long periods we spend lots of time outside disneyworld. since we have been so many times, there simply isn't enough to do anymore. HS is a joke for us, absolutely nothing there after a few hours. we will hit other parks and places but that can quickly get expensive.

 

[DougEMG]

Last year we did a 5 week trip and are doing another 5 week trip in April 2016. Definitely did not seem like we were there too long. It actually felt kind of strange when we got home cause we'd been so used to being at Disney that is what felt normal. The one thing we find with longer trips is that we actually don't do much more than on shorter trips because we go slower and relax more and there is always the next day to go on a ride if the line is too long now.

So I love long (4+ week) trips.

 

[luvformickey]

We've done anywhere between 9 and 12 nights and it seems perfect. I would love to be able to stay longer once the kids are out of school.

 

[dd08]

we have never stayed more than 7 nights at a time.

This year spending 9 nights in PVB (after a 3 day DCL) so will be interesting.

 

[happymommy]

My longest stay was 15 nights, but off site. Either way, it did not feel too long at all! We relaxed, I grilled many dinners, we swam and enjoyed the parks at our leisure. We bought 10 day park hoppers that trip with WF&M option so we did a few times at Disneyquest and a couple hours at each water park (it was late August so we only did that since rain came in of course).

I loved it! It was so much fun! We didn't do much dining at Disney, rather we cooked in the condo and ate snacks at the parks.

We didn't do parks every day. If we had AP's we probably still wouldn't do the parks every day, but either way, we only did maybe 5 hours max in one park.

Putting it into perspective, we own at the Marriot's Ko Olina (next to Aulani) and I was there a month last summer (I just edited this Feb 2018). Two weeks in the studio with my youngest and then 2+ weeks in the one bedroom all 4 of us (the one bedroom has a bonus sitting room that closes off and fits a rollaway bed with room to spare).

 

[Baklava]

I just got back yesterday from 11 nights. While I could happily have done a couple more, it was a couple days too long for my kids. We thought it was a once in a lifetime and did... maybe too much? We might have had better results if we'd slowed down. As it was by day 9 my teenager was sullen and my five year old was high strung.

 

[Mazz519]

7 to 10 nights is perfect we did 6 nuts this past Christmas and it just flew...no down days.... anything longer than 10 can be too much

 

[jade1]

Ours were getting a bit long before FP+.

That has changed everything for us.

We enjoy WDW evenings the most. When we do mornings we prefer fishing and golf. So we never got any "park attractions" accomplished. It was constantly trying to get everyone up and at it to get a FP before they were gone for the night.

Now we schedule those for evenings and have wonderful nights guaranteed with FP+ and night shows. Everything used to be an hour plus when we arrived.

Every morning is a clean slate to do whatever we want. So much more relaxing and less complicated.

We do have DVC AP so that helps of course. But we can sleep later, have brunch or lunch at the pool, just enjoy the resort with nothing looming overhead about "getting something done"-thats already in the back pocket.

 

[Mickeysduck]

Over the past 20 years, we have been stretching our our stay by a day or two. We are up to 3 weeks in a studio, and hopefully will stay a month next year. SSR and OKW are like staying in a condo, so it's more like a homey feeling.

We get a 5 to 7 day pass to Disney parks. We rent a car, so the rest is relaxing by a pool (we do pool hopping to different resorts), or visiting different areas in central Florida. So much to see and do, it's never enough. We also have several friends and family that live or winter within a few hours of Disney, so we also spend some time with them.

One advantage to long stays in a studio, is if you go somewhere and want to spend the night, you're only giving up a small amount of points, especially during the week.

 

[pineapplepalms]

Never had a trip that felt too long. We typically go for around 9-10 nights but would happily stay longer if we could. Our everyday lives are really busy so it takes a couple days after we start our vacation just to catch up on sleep and get into vacation mode. Also, we're flying from across the country so we don't like to do short trips. With DVC I imagine we'll have an even easier time with longer stays since we bought to stay mostly in 1BR and 2BR villas, so we could do laundry or cook some meals if we got tired of eating out. With a toddler (and even before when it was just the two of us) we don't do the parks all day, so by the end of the vacation we're not worn out. We like to take it pretty easy and have time to relax since it's hard to do that at home. Hoping to take longer trips after retirement, but that's a long way from now!

 

[jbh275]

We try and do 2 weeks. There is so much to see and do that a week is just not enough. Plus we usually go over the summer, so with the heat and crowds it's great have a few down days.

 

[tonga]

We find a week to be much too short, and typically stay for 2 weeks. We like to take a relaxed approach to the parks - go out in the morning, head back to the resort after lunch, out for dinner later and possibly another park. We like to do pool days, water park days, a bit of off site shopping, a night out at Jellyrolls, occasional visits to Universal or Lego Land. We've also enjoyed fishing at Fort Wilderness, bowling or movies at Disney Springs, and we always spent some time at Disney Quest (we miss that!) We are heading down for 15 nights next month because airfare was cheaper if we went a day early. We plan to catch a spring training game at Wide World of Sports this time. Always something new to do!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

I've never had a trip that felt too long, but I've been close. My honeymoon was 2 full weeks of WDW and I was ready to get back home to my own bed by the end of the trip. Looking back on it, part of that reason would be because it was just so busy with wedding activities (we got married at WDW and then continued to stay for our honeymoon). A more relaxing longer trip probably would have been better.

 

[cw62803]

We did 5 weeks last summer (28 park days.) It wasn't too long. Knowing we would be there for a long time let us take our time and not cram too much into any one day.

 

[DougEMG]

I've now been on two trips in a row that have been too long. In both cases it wasn't because of the number of days, but who was with us. My new rule is no more bringing friends of my daughter.

I'm looking forward to our Aug trip, 4 weeks, and only direct family members.

 

[thelionqueen]

Although I hate to admit it, yes there was a trip that was too long; 13 nights. We found that we had done enough and were ready to go home. When the kids were younger, it was 8-9 nights; 10 was great! Now that we're all older, I think 7 nights will be perfect!

 

[FRANKTSJR]

Just came back from our longest trip ever(12 nights). Thought it was perfect.