Should I add two more park days?
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| Wed, 03-28-2007 - 1:30pm |
We are driving down to WDW (a 2+ day drive each way) for a late August vacation. We are staying 7 nights and I got 6 day park tickets with hopper. Our plan is to arrive at AS Music (in the suites) around lunch time. Our plan was to just relax for the day, swim, explore the resort, maybe see DTD.. Then we have an ADR for 5:45 at Ohana. After dinner, go to bed for our first park day the next day.... On our final day, we are planning on driving about 6 hours, so we could conceivably leave WDW around 1pm or so. Our plan was wake up, pack up, maybe take a swim and leave.
My question.... I was just for fun seeing how much it would cost to add on another day... it would be $8 for all of us to add one more day, or $16 for all of us to have two more days.... would you add on the two extra days? It would allow us to enter MK before and/or after Ohana for a quick taste, but I sort of think if we go for the VERY first time, the kids will be so excited, I'll never get them out of there for dinner. And our final day... with the confusion of packing up and checking out, is it even worth having an hour or two at the parks after we have had SIX full days??
The only benefit I can truly see is it would allow a park meal either that first night, or breakfast the last morning, which isn't really necessary. Or it would allow us to enter MK exclusively to watch the parade and fireworks on our first night.
Help. Any ideas? My gut says to leave it as is. That first day would be more relaxing without parks, but we'll all be dying to get going!!
Thanks
Laura

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The logical and most "sane" thing to do is keep it the way you have it. It is smart of you to want to start your first park day well rested. By the last day, you'll appreciated getting to sleep in and packing up without rushing.
That being said, I would add one more day. We did this for our trip last summer because the cost was minimal. We arrived around 3 and headed to MGM around 5. Oldest DS is big Star Wars fan and we were trying to catch the last day of Star Wars Weekend. Most SW stuff had shut down, but we were able to ride Star Tours and see the Muppets. After we grabbed dinner at ABC, the kids were cranky and we called it a night. I felt bad at the time that we had "wasted" a park day, but DS loved Star Tours and it was a great way to kick off our trip. This time around, I am hoping to tour as much of World Showcase as we can our first evening there since we didn't see any of the it last trip. I know that we will not get to see everything, but it is a start.
I just reread your post. Do you have any other time set aside for DTD? If not, that would be a great place to go your first day too. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that you probably won't "miss" much if you don't add any days, but it would be nice to have the option of going to a park that first or last day. I guess I am not a lot of help!
Good luck deciding!
Charis
Hi! I'm so glad you posted the question because I have a very similar situation! (You can see my detailed intro & itinerary somewhere below...under NICE TO MEET YOU EVERYBODY! :)
After much deliberation I'm thinking we'll go the "calm beginning and ending" route (although that still might change!) It does make me anxious to think we're "wasting time" in the hotel when we could be at a park...but I know my son will enjoy the unhurried time at the resort pool too. (We'll be at AS Music, also! But we leave on the 16th, so before you get there...right?)
Just wanted to chime in and I'll be interested in seeing what other responses you get!
Yes, I would add the two extra days to your tickets.
It will give you the option for very little cost and not much guilt if you don't use them.
It's fun to ride the monorail from MK to Polynesian/Ohana's, if you don't need another reason to go to MK for a few hours your first day. You would also have a chance to walk around MK a little and get an idea where things are. Makes your next visit easier.
Annette
WDW vacations 1/06 & 9/06
Annette
Hi Annette! It's Laura from the Shoestring board! (waving!!)
Funny you answered... the frugal side of my is having such a hard time planning this trip. I want it to be so great, and I want to go all out, but I don't want to spend tons of money. Argh! Catch 22. LOL!
I think I will add at least one extra day to our park tickets. I am in the process of moving around our ADRs because I had a dinner planned in the MK, and that would be our late night there... and they just recently announced that night would be a "Pirate and Princess Party". There is no way when we already have 6 day park tickets I'm going to pay $165 MORE for us to go to a few hours of that. So, needless to say I have to move around our schedule.
The whole thing is very exciting and has been consuming my time in the planning, but I feel very uncomfortable posting anything about it on Shoestring... my worries about when to have dinner at Disney really doesn't fit in there, you know? Anyway, good to see you. Thanks for your input!!
Laura
Laura
check out my blog
Wouldn't it possible to get the 6-day tickets and then add one or two more days after you've used the first few...? I'm in the same dilemma.
Also, I'm a lurker at the Shoestring board as well :) And I was curious: Are you renting a fridge, or keeping a cooler in the room, and if so what sorts of things are you bringing for breakfasts in the room and snacks to bring into the parks? Food is the one area where I hope to save the most! (Since the others are, well, not as much in my control!)
We are staying in the family suites so it comes with a kitchenette - fridge, sink and microwave. Big bonus for us, but we have three kids, so we would have had to get two rooms or gone up to the POR or deluxe places. My kids are up early so I hope we can just eat in our room and go. We're driving... another bonus so we can bring things with us. Cereal and milk (may even bring shelf stable milk so we don't have to leave property or spend more than we like for milk), oatmeal packets, fruit, yogurts, pb& jelly. Dh and I are planning on getting the refillable mugs for coffee too. Those little hotel coffee makers just don't cut it for us.
Yes, I believe you can add on after you have started using your tickets, but if we have an extra day it will most likely be our first day. Although I guess that doesn't matter, we'll just activiate our tickets the day we arrive, then add another on. Good point. I need to hash things out with dh. And with the pirate and princess fiasco I need to redo our schedule and some meals. Maybe the two of us can come to some consensus on the tickets too! LOL!
Laura
Laura
check out my blog
Ooh, I love the idea of shelf-stable milk!
For myself, I'm not sure I'd do anything different than you've planned for your first day, but it would be nice to have that extra day because it's not much money, and who knows...if you start off at a park one day and it winds up being lousy weather, too many crowds, or somebody gets sick or melts down and you leave hte park earlier than you wanted, you'll be *so* happy to have that extra partial day to play with. Those few hours could end up being precious!
Hey laura,
Thanks for the tip on shelf-stable milk...DH had suggested it, I'd prefer dehydrated...think we'll have to experiment over the summer (blind tests!) -lol
I had to also laugh about the very appropriate new name for the p&pF (Fiasco, not Party!) That is exactly how I feel about that!
We flew down with a family of 5. I took a plastic shoe box sized container and filled it with granola bars, pop tarts, single serve crackers etc. Stuff nobody gets when home. We also bought a few things at the hotels shop (milk, juice, fresh fruit). We had approx $100 in gift cards used for meals and spent a little over $500 for meals for 5 for 6 days, including breakfast stuff (my kids are 15, 13 and 11). We ate breakfast at our room and had lunch around 2pm and then just had snacks in the park or in our room later. Ohana's was our only big evening meal. I gave each kid $5 per day to get snacks (enough for a couple ice creams or other small snack) and brought insulated water bottles. No one ever complained about being hungry.
Let me know if you would like some pointers for "cheap" meals at Disney (there actually are a few).
Annette
Annette
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