DW Tickets, how many days?

[maybeebaby08]

We just booked our first trip to Disney for October. We're going from Fri-Tues, early flight Fri and late Tues flight. DH & I decided to get 2 day tickets. I figured Fri do Downtown Disney, Sat- MK, Sun hang out at hotel and relax, Mon- Hollywood Studios, and Tues relax. Is 2 days enough? It's $200 more for a 5 day ticket, I have feeling we'll regret only buying a 2 day pass. If we get the 5 day and only use 2 or 3 can we sell the other days? We're staying at Bonnet Creek.

[m4nash]

Is this an adults only trip? I would get three day tickets at a minimum. You realize there are 4 parks (Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom) right? I think you'll want 2 days at Magic Kingdom if you are bringing the kids. You can add extra days once you are there if you want. You cannot sell back unused days.

[maybeebaby08]

It's not adults only, we're bringing DDs, ages 1 & 5. I know there's 4 parks, DH doesn't want to overdue it. He wants downtime, but I want to take advantage of what we can.

[BayGirl2]

Personally I'd maximize my time in the parks and not bother with things like Downtown Disney. For me having more time means we can take our time going through the parks, not be as rushed, which is what I consider "overdoing" it. It would drive me crazy to be AT Disney but not go in the park. I'm all for a bit of downtime but you have 3 days of what I'd consider downtime.

Is this a once every few years trip or are you planning to go back soon? I'd probably plan afternoon/dinner in the park on Friday, Sat, Sun, Mon in parks with afternoon breaks if you want to take it easy. Tuesday morning either in a park or doing things like Downtown Disney/hotel. If you plan well you can minimize the stress of a park day and many people break in the afternoon to swim or rest. There's so much to do that even 4 days in the parks is only scratching the surface.

But I'm not the type that can spend a whole day sitting at the pool either, your family may be different.

[westwoodmom04]

Personally I'd maximize my time in the parks and not bother with things like Downtown Disney. For me having more time means we can take our time going through the parks, not be as rushed, which is what I consider "overdoing" it. It would drive me crazy to be AT Disney but not go in the park. I'm all for a bit of downtime but you have 3 days of what I'd consider downtime.

Is this a once every few years trip or are you planning to go back soon? I'd probably plan afternoon/dinner in the park on Friday, Sat, Sun, Mon in parks with afternoon breaks if you want to take it easy. Tuesday morning either in a park or doing things like Downtown Disney/hotel. If you plan well you can minimize the stress of a park day and many people break in the afternoon to swim or rest. There's so much to do that even 4 days in the parks is only scratching the surface.

But I'm not the type that can spend a whole day sitting at the pool either, your family may be different.

This is the approach we took. We spent about 2/3 of each day at a park, getting there when it opened. We'd get back to the hotel between 2 and 3 and go to the pool for an hour or two. Then we would do a sit-down dinner. That gave us a lot of non-park time to chill each day. We never made it to the fireworks, but we had a wonderful view of them from our room at BLT. We didn't go to downtown Disney, but easily could have had dinner there one night (I know a lot of people like the dino restaurant there for kids).

[maybeebaby08]

Thank you for the info, its very overwhelming. This is a big trip for us and I thought we'd want the 5 day, 2 did not seem like enough. It's a great idea to go early and do more half days then 2 long days.


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[BayGirl2]

Just a couple other points:
- The cost to go up from a 3-day ticket is incrementally small. In fact for us going from a 3day to a 6day was minimal, so 3day to 5day won't be that much. Especially compared to the cost of a 2nd trip.
-The cheapest legit tickets seem to be from Undercover Tourist. Subscribe to the MouseSavers newsletter and they send a discount code every month. You cannot (legally) resell unused ticket days. But you can add days to a ticket while you are there, before the days are used up.
-The mornings are the least crowded times in the parks, nights are 2nd best, afternoons are most crowded. So the afternoon break strategy works well for a lot of people to maximize time and also get down-time. That's the logic behind the recommendation.

[klwa]

Keep in mind that you CAN upgrade your tickets once you get there if you decide you want to go to the parks an extra day or 3. Just go by guest services once you're in the park & they'll be able to upgrade you to a 3, 4, or 5 day pass from your 2 day pass. So, I'd say, keep the 2 day pass & decide once you're there. Just know you HAVE to decide by the last day on your tickets. (So, if you use your second day & then the next day decide you want to go back, it's too late. You need to upgrade before you leave on the second day of use.)

[maybeebaby08]

I bought the tickets last night there's a price increase coming in April so I wanted to buy before then. I got the 5 day, I went through Orbitz. If you go through Ebates it's 5.25% cash back so it works out to about $40 cheaper then the Mousesavers link for Undercover Tourist. Thank you for all the suggestions, I just started planning and doing research so these tips are really helpful.

[BayGirl2]

I bought the tickets last night there's a price increase coming in April so I wanted to buy before then. I got the 5 day, I went through Orbitz. If you go through Ebates it's 5.25% cash back so it works out to about $40 cheaper then the Mousesavers link for Undercover Tourist. Thank you for all the suggestions, I just started planning and doing research so these tips are really helpful.

Great! Sounds like a great choice!
Also, in case you don't know, reservations for meals open up 6 months out. If you are looking to do anything popular like Character meals or special events you'll want to book right when that window opens. Right now the most popular is "Be Our Guest", which is new in Fantasyland. If you are considering any of that I'd book early and cancel later if you change your mind, just to keep your options open.

I'm a fan of table service for a more "relaxing" experience and we use character meals as a way to meet the characters instead of waiting in line in the park. We have to eat anyway so I don't mind paying a bit more to sit down and relax. Again, preference of my family, some prefer to save the $$ and time.