How did you decide what was the best length trip for your vacation/family?

[Straulin]

We have only done one split stay but didn’t enjoy it. We prefer to stick to one resort as it gives us more freedom to come and go as we like.

We normally do 7 days but now that we have DVC we are less concerned about packing everything in so shorter stays are good as well and easier to get away without worries for our business, etc.

The room size is where the points really come into play for us. The longer the stay and more people, the bigger the room we want. Our kids are 12 and 14 and like to have their own space if they can. We also like to have our own space so studios are generally going to be a five night or less trip. Longer stays have us booking 1br or 2br.

 

[Noodlez]

We're from the UK so we tend to do longer trips less often. This time we'll be there for 15 days, but we're at Universal for 2 of those. We're fortunate to get a reasonable amount of paid leave over here! Retirement is hopefully not too far away and at that point we intend to spend 5 or 6 weeks at a time, but that would be split with other things such as cruising.

At the moment, any trip with a long flight tends to be 2-3 weeks for us. UK based stays tend to be 1 week. I'm not really dictated by points right now as we bought more than we needed, but we may need to increase that for retirement.

 

[paults]

We use to go 3 times a year, then down to twice a year. Now with the cost of tickets we only go once a year or once every 2 years. thanks Disney

 

[CraigInPA]

We bought enough points to do 12 days a year in a studio in our home resort of BLT. This was chosen for three reasons:
1. If we banked/borrowed, we'd be able to do a theme park 2 bedroom every other year, an important consideration as the new generation is now at the perfect age (7-12) where we can pluck them from school (with their parent's approval) and take them on a trip.
2. If we needed to cut back, we'd still have a nice length vacation in a 1 bedroom.
3. My wife's career as an attorney and the often cited quote from the partners: "If you can afford to take two consecutive weeks off, you probably don't have enough work for us to keep you around."

Of these, #3 was the biggest consideration. Now that she's retired, she's looking at adding more points to stay longer!

 

[mustinjourney]

This is what we are working on now. Our week trip last month was great, but we are thinking additional days would be even better.

We have pets at home so I cannot see going for more than 10 days. We will either do an 8- or 9-day trip next August. Originally the idea of a split stay for that trip was a given however my granddaughter will only be 5 so I might delay the split stay idea until she is a little older.

We fly down from NJ.

Did you try various lengths of stays before you purchased additional points, or did you purchase and add on and have that dictate how long you stayed?

We have enough points to do the 8/9-day trip next year but would either have to skip an August 2025 trip or make another purchase. The day 9 trip would use all of our points for 2024 and 2025 and the 8-day trip would leave us with 58 2025 points to bank. Our use year is August.

I am getting antsy to make a second purchase, but I really can wait until the fall of 2024 before it impacts our use. I would like to base that purchase on not only where we want to stay but how long we want to stay.

what's interesting is that I preferred split stays when the kids were younger in order to minimize buses -- so we'd normally stay at BCV for 2 or 3 days and then switch to monorail resort (VGF) for the last 2 or 3 days. We would usually do DAK on switchover day, since buses cannot be avoided going to that park.

Now that kids aren't in strollers, buses aren't nearly as disastrous for us anymore (I hated having to take a sleeping kid out of the stroller in order to board the bus).

As for how long a stay is appropriate? That will likely change for you over time. We have typically done 6-7 night stays -- but my wife gets her fill of disney by day 5 -- whereas myself and daughters like 6 nights (7 days).

I've also done a few quick 4 night stays before that were a lot of fun.

 

[kboo]

what's interesting is that I preferred split stays when the kids were younger in order to minimize buses -- so we'd normally stay at BCV for 2 or 3 days and then switch to monorail resort (VGF) for the last 2 or 3 days. We would usually do DAK on switchover day, since buses cannot be avoided going to that park.

Now that kids aren't in strollers, buses aren't nearly as disastrous for us anymore (I hated having to take a sleeping kid out of the stroller in order to board the bus).

As for how long a stay is appropriate? That will likely change for you over time. We have typically done 6-7 night stays -- but my wife gets her fill of disney by day 5 -- whereas myself and daughters like 6 nights (7 days).

I've also done a few quick 4 night stays before that were a lot of fun.

I think I could have written this, especially this bolded part. Our last trip (8ish days) we really enjoyed the change of pace switching to a savanna view for the last weekend, but we also had no problem taking a bus from MK at 12:30am to Boardwalk and walking back to our room and falling into bed. My kids would stay 2 weeks if we could cobble that much time together. I like long weekends but also really enjoy 7+ days because the first few days feel SO luxurious. Also we get more value out of the refillable drink cups that way!

 

[J-Dog]

The first time we went to WDW as adults, we went for 12 days - and that was too much for us. Too much money spent, too much time away from home and our pets, and too exhausted from doing "stuff" everyday.

Since then and especially since buying into DVC 2 years ago, we have found that about 8-9 days is perfect. Being on the West coast, we only go once per year, so anything less than 7 days is not nearly enough time away, but more than 10 days or so is too much.

We currently have enough points for 8 days per year in a 2Br, and are thinking about adding-on a small contract to make it consistently 9 days a year.

 

[tom1944]

The first time we went to WDW as adults, we went for 12 days - and that was too much for us. Too much money spent, too much time away from home and our pets, and too exhausted from doing "stuff" everyday.

Since then and especially since buying into DVC 2 years ago, we have found that about 8-9 days is perfect. Being on the West coast, we only go once per year, so anything less than 7 days is not nearly enough time away, but more than 10 days or so is too much.

We currently have enough points for 8 days per year in a 2Br, and are thinking about adding-on a small contract to make it consistently 9 days a year.

We decided this trip will be 9 days. We will book it at the 7-month mark.

 

[CarolynFH]

We decided this trip will be 9 days. We will book it at the 7-month mark.

If it’s late August again, you should be fine. Mid-September through early January, I generally advise taking advantage of home resort 11-month booking, to be sure of having something, then modifying at 7 months. If planning a split stay, book home resort as a split but make primary or secondary guest different so DVC won’t merge them.

 

[tom1944]

If it’s late August again, you should be fine. Mid-September through early January, I generally advise taking advantage of home resort 11-month booking, to be sure of having something, then modifying at 7 months. If planning a split stay, book home resort as a split but make primary or secondary guest different so DVC won’t merge them.

It will be mid/late August. I will have to borrow 2025 points when I do book.

I am following recent sales since I want to buy a second contract but do not want to make the purchase until I put some more cash into my vacation account so I will need to borrow.

 

[Disney Spaz]

We are a little different from the posts so far. We do two trips a year. A quick 3-4 night Xmas trip early December, usually in a studio. Then our big trip is in the summer. We currently do 10 nights in a 1bdrm, which really makes a difference in staying longer. DH and I have talked about getting enough points to get to two full weeks in the summer but I think that’s our limit.

We have stayed up to 16 nights in moderates and even a value once but the lack of space, W/D and kitchen made it too long. We did 12 nights once when we combined points with our DS and split the stay between his resort AKVJH 2bdrm & our resort VGF 1bdrm. It was awesome and why we are pushing toward two weeks. We also spend less time in the parks and more pool time, mini golf and resort hopping time when we stay longer.

For your family I would suggest you should try the longer trip first and see how being together that long works for your family. Then add in once you find your families current sweet spot. I say current because in the 10th are we have owned a lot has changed over the years including what works and who goes with us on these trips along with room size.

 

[smrice95]

We decided our points based on what we could afford. We bought in for 160 points and knew we wanted to do Disney with family; hence needing more points. We saved and with the help of COVID contracts going down we had saved enough for a second contract. We stay on the points we have. We would love to do more, but we only have so many points. We would like another 50-100 points. So our length of stay is based on how many points I have and our points are based on what we could afford! Enjoy figuring it out. When you think you have enough, you don't!

 

[NorCalFanatic]

We started with 7 days trips to Aulani, but it wasn't long enough to do stuff around the island, visit family, and relax at the resort, so we've bumped them up to 9 or 10 day trips (once a year).

DLR we do 3-4X a year. Usually two longer trips of 7-8 days and 1 or 2 shorter trips of 2-4 days.

 

[voxparse]

Our math is pretty straight forward, how many days can the kid miss school without the state coming for us and how many days can I take off work and still have a job? lol

 

[NorCalFanatic]

Our math is pretty straight forward, how many days can the kid miss school without the state coming for us and how many days can I take off work and still have a job? lol

I hear ya! When they were younger it was easier to miss a week of school and go off season, now it’s getting harder and harder to take them out for an extended trip.

 

[zavandor]

1 - parks are busy on the weekends and much better during the week.

Actually, right now weekends are less busy than week days.
It's a combination of blockout on special tickets, many Pixie passes sold and increased prices for tickets and hotel during the week end. People are voting with their wallet and avoiding week ends. Sundays at MK (party day) are glorious right now.

 

[TheLyinKing]

We usually do a trip every year to every other year, and usually stay for about 8-9 days. Disney just makes it way more worth it with their ticket prices to do one bigger stay as opposed to two smaller ones, since after 5 days, each subsequent day is so much cheaper.

 

[tom1944]

We usually do a trip every year to every other year, and usually stay for about 8-9 days. Disney just makes it way more worth it with their ticket prices to do one bigger stay as opposed to two smaller ones, since after 5 days, each subsequent day is so much cheaper.

We landed on 8/9 day stays and will be trying 9 days in August 2024.

We like to have arrival and departure day free and do parks 2 days followed by a free day. This gives us 6 days at the parks.

On our 7 day stay we did 3-day straight park followed by a free day and we found 3 park days in a row was tiring.

 

[TheLyinKing]

We landed on 8/9 day stays and will be trying 9 days in August 2024.

We like to have arrival and departure day free and do parks 2 days followed by a free day. This gives us 6 days at the parks.

On our 7 day stay we did 3-day straight park followed by a free day and we found 3 park days in a row was tiring.

We usually skip travel days now that we have a youngin, and get tickets for every other day. Although we do take a lot of midday breaks that help us go every day. Especially since the price to add on days after day 5 is so low.

 

[tom1944]

W

We usually skip travel days now that we have a youngin, and get tickets for every other day. Although we do take a lot of midday breaks that help us go every day. Especially since the price to add on days after day 5 is so low.

I planned to buy 6 day tickets I should price out additional days

We did park hopper last trip and really did not use it so I may not add it this time