Is 12 nights too long?

I guess I'll be the lone voice of dissent, but we found that 12 days was too long for us. 10 days is the sweet spot where we get to do everything we want, don't feel rushed, but also don't start feeling like we're doing the same thing over and over and over again. We LOVE Disney, but even with down days we found there's a big push to get your money's worth etc. We've tried a 14 day stay and found that was WAY too long. That was before we had kids though, so maybe it'd be different (and more expensive oh god) now!
 
We did 10 days WDW and 4 at US in a November and we spent most of the last four days depressed because we wanted to be back at Disney! We didn’t get to do nearly enough of what we wanted to do, and this was despite best intentions of breaking at our resort every day for down time (didn’t really happen!). We averaged 11 miles per day walking too. We are booking again for 2021 and will be doing 3 weeks with maybe 1 day at Universal in there (and are considering whether we want to do a three day Cruise making the WDW bit 17 days). I suspect we will still want more!
 
So we're planning a 12 night trip for June 2022 (yeah, I like to plan ahead! But part of it is we need to save up for a trip this big). And while I've dreamed of a long WDW trip in the past, now that it's looking possible, I'm starting to wonder if on day 9 or 10 everyone will be like "well this is fun and all, but I kinda want to go home now".

The general idea is to have two park days then a non-park day. Over the course of the trip, it will be 3 days MK, 2 days each Epcot and AK, and 1 or 1.5 days at DS.

So I'm looking for advice from anyone that's done more than 10 days. It's me, DH and DD who will be 10 on the trip. This is the rough schedule I have so far.

  • Sunday - Day 1 - Arrive at Poly about 2ish. Swim until room is ready, unpack, change, dinner at Kona, early bedtime.
  • Monday - Day 2 - Rope drop MK until lunch, afternoon break, MK in the evening
  • Tuesday - Day 3- Rope drop MK until lunch, afternoon break, MK in the evening
  • Wednesday - Day 4- Pool day at resort, rent patio cabana at Poly. Evening open for resort activity or maybe Disney Springs
  • Thursday - Day 5 - Rope drop Epcot until lunch, afternoon break, Epcot in evening (will only tour FW this day)
  • Friday - Day 6 - Sleep in, get to Epcot about 11 to tour WS, stay until close to watch evening show (whatever is replacing Illuminations).
  • Saturday - Day 7 - Resort hop to either BWV or BCV (haven't decided yet, renting DVC points so likely it will come down to what's available). I was originally thinking of dropping our bags to be transferred then heading to a water park for the day, then returning to the new hotel to check in and change, then dinner. But turns out that DD has a fear of water slides, so depending on her feelings 3 years from now, we may skip the water park. So I'm open to suggestions on what non-theme parks things we can do on a resort hop day (we want this day to be a non park day).
  • Sunday - Day 8 - Rope drop AK until lunch, afternoon break, AK in evening
  • Monday - Day 9 - Rope drop AK until lunch, afternoon break, AK in evening
  • Tuesday - Day 10 - Pool day at resort, evening will either be free for a resort activity OR I'm kicking around the idea of doing an evening at DS, as we'll otherwise only have one full day at DS and I'm not sure if that will be enough time there. We'll have seen SWGE at DLR in 2020 so I'm not sure how much of a time suck that will be for us.
  • Wednesday - Day 11 - Rope drop DS until lunch, afternoon break, DS in evening
  • Thursday - Day 12 - Rope drop MK until lunch, afternoon break, MK in evening with desert party for fireworks.
  • Friday - Day 13 - Check out and go home.
Is this too much of a good thing? I've built in plenty of down time, other than rope dropping most mornings the idea is to not go commando mode. Part of the idea of such a long trip is that we'll have time to stop and smell the roses. So I don't think the trip is too intense, I've just never been on such a long trip before to a single destination.

IMO, yes, it's too long, but everyone has their own ideas on what is the 'right' length of time to be there. We stayed 12 nights once, was too long, 9-10 nights are our perfect length of stay. We're ready to leave at that time, but haven't gotten antsy. We have a 9 night planned in April.

Have a great trip! :-)
 


I would plan the water parks anyways, they are a lot of fun even if you dont like slides. Relaxing, playing in the sprayers and soending time in the wave pools. My DS said i dont like slides but by the end of the trip loved them.
We put the water parks on our third day.. so Mk, Ak then Blizzard beach so on
 
Our longest stay has been 8 days 7 nights. We typically stay 6 or 7 days and always feel as though we could stay longer. Cant wait fir our first 2 week stay. Might be a few years buts coming.
 
For myself, the longer the trip, the less I plan. The beauty of a long stay is having the freedom to go back and revisit whatever you like whenever you like. :)

And I also agree with previous comment(s) about not scheduling the exact same itinerary back to back. :)

For my family, a 12 day trip would likely involve 10 day park hopper plus tickets, a visit to each water park, and lots of hopping around the other 4 parks. But whatever you ultimately decide, I hope you have a great 2022 trip! :)
 
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For a family trip that would be too long us. Small hotel rooms (we stay onsite and 2 bedroom villas are too much $$), not enough space to separate, too much togetherness, etc. 7 nights is our max as a family.

When I’ve gone on one on one trips with my kids, 9 nights has been our max but 10 nights would be good too. That’s because you can only get 10 day hoppers. I want to go into a park every day so our 9 night trip was great since we had a very early flight into MCO and a very late flight out of MCO. If I did 10 nights I would make day 11 a midday flight home and no park. We aren’t all day resort people (we like spending mornings, pool time and evenings at our resort but not full resort days), I don’t find the joy of resort hopping (I only go to a resort if I have an ADR there and look around while I wait but that’s enough for me), Disney Springs is just a big outdoor shopping mall to me and I really despise shopping so I have no interest in going there, and I can only do the water parks so many times. So going to a park each day is how I like to do my Disney trips. Since Disney’s max days of tickets is 10 days, 10 nights is my max.

We mix up our park days to do RD, midday break by the pool/resort and a PM park, with some days where we sleep in and hit a park around noon and sleep in days where we go to the pool and hit the park in the late PM/early evening. With FP+ it makes it all work great.
 
In 2018 we stayed for 11 nights and this year we're staying 12 nights in May/June. Unlike the 5-7 night trips we were usually making, the longer stays allow us to do things we wouldn't otherwise take time to do. Things like resort hop, bar hop at the monorail resorts using the monorail (Drink Around the Monorail), pool days, water park days, and Disney Springs days. Plus when you have an extended stay, if the park gets too crowded one day you can leave and spend your evening at a lounge or at a restaurant at a location you wouldn't normally visit. There are so many perks. As far as laundry, for our 11 night stay we used the resort's laundry service. Surprisingly it wasn't crazily outrageous as I recall. We'll do the same this trip.

Also, to put things into perspective, our 2018 trip was our honeymoon and we went in without any budget. We agreed before we left that we weren't going to look at the price of anything we wanted - we'd just get it because of the occasion. We ate at every restaurant we wanted to - even ordering some of the most expensive items on the menu (we ate almost exclusively at table service restaurants (signature and non-signature) and we bought whatever souvenirs we wanted without any care for price and our entire spend for the 12 days was $3,000.00. We thought that was really good considering everything we wanted we got and we had ordered alcoholic beverages like they were going out of style.
 
I'd live there permanently if I could, so 12 days would not be too much for me. We usually do 9 days/8 nights and it goes by too fast.
 
It was never too long until our daughter was 11 and wanted to be home with/missed her friends. 🤣
 
So we're planning a 12 night trip for June 2022 (yeah, I like to plan ahead! But part of it is we need to save up for a trip this big). And while I've dreamed of a long WDW trip in the past, now that it's looking possible, I'm starting to wonder if on day 9 or 10 everyone will be like "well this is fun and all, but I kinda want to go home now".

The general idea is to have two park days then a non-park day. Over the course of the trip, it will be 3 days MK, 2 days each Epcot and AK, and 1 or 1.5 days at DS.

So I'm looking for advice from anyone that's done more than 10 days. It's me, DH and DD who will be 10 on the trip. This is the rough schedule I have so far.

  • Sunday - Day 1 - Arrive at Poly about 2ish. Swim until room is ready, unpack, change, dinner at Kona, early bedtime.
  • Monday - Day 2 - Rope drop MK until lunch, afternoon break, MK in the evening
  • Tuesday - Day 3- Rope drop MK until lunch, afternoon break, MK in the evening
  • Wednesday - Day 4- Pool day at resort, rent patio cabana at Poly. Evening open for resort activity or maybe Disney Springs
  • Thursday - Day 5 - Rope drop Epcot until lunch, afternoon break, Epcot in evening (will only tour FW this day)
  • Friday - Day 6 - Sleep in, get to Epcot about 11 to tour WS, stay until close to watch evening show (whatever is replacing Illuminations).
  • Saturday - Day 7 - Resort hop to either BWV or BCV (haven't decided yet, renting DVC points so likely it will come down to what's available). I was originally thinking of dropping our bags to be transferred then heading to a water park for the day, then returning to the new hotel to check in and change, then dinner. But turns out that DD has a fear of water slides, so depending on her feelings 3 years from now, we may skip the water park. So I'm open to suggestions on what non-theme parks things we can do on a resort hop day (we want this day to be a non park day).
  • Sunday - Day 8 - Rope drop AK until lunch, afternoon break, AK in evening
  • Monday - Day 9 - Rope drop AK until lunch, afternoon break, AK in evening
  • Tuesday - Day 10 - Pool day at resort, evening will either be free for a resort activity OR I'm kicking around the idea of doing an evening at DS, as we'll otherwise only have one full day at DS and I'm not sure if that will be enough time there. We'll have seen SWGE at DLR in 2020 so I'm not sure how much of a time suck that will be for us.
  • Wednesday - Day 11 - Rope drop DS until lunch, afternoon break, DS in evening
  • Thursday - Day 12 - Rope drop MK until lunch, afternoon break, MK in evening with desert party for fireworks.
  • Friday - Day 13 - Check out and go home.
Is this too much of a good thing? I've built in plenty of down time, other than rope dropping most mornings the idea is to not go commando mode. Part of the idea of such a long trip is that we'll have time to stop and smell the roses. So I don't think the trip is too intense, I've just never been on such a long trip before to a single destination.
I happen to stumble across this thread and I haven't read all the way through so forgive me if I touch on something that has already been stated. 1st off...In a simple...* Heck no :teeth: 12 nights would be perfect... TBH

I've done an 11 nighter and also a 10 nighter, along with mostly 7's and 8's
Even going as often as we go, there's always something new to see and do, no matter what...Whether thats an attraction or a resort, or restaurant, or just maybe even some landscaping.

With 13 days, it gives you the freedom to wander & roam a bit, and not rush around like a chicken w/out a head..

1 of the things I noticed though, is that you be visiting the same park on consecutive days.. IMHO even with a week long trip or so I like spreading the parks out so it feels like we havent seen stuff fo a while (if that makes any sense) And I get the idea of RD the parks and taking breaks (*Which is an excellent tip) you don't necessarily need to do that each n every morning. Morning rushing sometimes adds a lot of unwarranted stress.

By resort hopping I'm assuming you mean you would be split staying? If so That's an excellent idea ,and a good way to experience multiple resorts...
The one thing I don't see is HS? unless you mean DS.. as that....If that is the case, I would add DS/Disney Springs to the list...All in all seems like a solid plan, i would just switch around some of the parks to different days to spread them out between thats all....Either way, have fun planning & enjoy your trip.:thumbsup2
 
I love WDW (passholder now) but after about 5 nights, I want to be in my own bed in my own home eating my own prepared meals.

But I feel that way about most trips, except renting an apartment in Tuscany for a month last May, or 2 weeks exploring Bavaria in July.

I LOVE WDW, but don’t love hotel living a bit. So I’d say a week at most would be my choice.
 
I've never gone for twelve, but I've gone for ten, and that's about our sweet spot. We did eleven once when we spent eight at Disney and three at Universal, and that helped a little. For me, it doesn't help that the nature of my employment makes it so that I can really only go in July and August, and the crowds and the heat definitely get to me by the ten day mark.

The missus and I usually structure our trips so that we hit one of the parks for a few hours in the morning, and head back to the resort for some downtime before three to four more hours in the parks for the evening. I would echo other advice here that Disney Springs is definitely worth spending some time at, and we spend more time there than at any of the paid parks (individually).

I'd also echo other advice about not packing together all your visits to one park. We even go so far as to go to another park in the evening than we go to in the morning. The missus and I are definitely into the table-service experience, and some of the parks are simply better for this than others (although which ones you'll pick will vary based on your preferences). In addition, you can also maximize your FASTPASS+ options this way: Epcot quite frankly doesn't need all that many, and I found that for some of the "smaller" rides, it was almost better not to book them and to go when we wanted. (Yeah, I know we still could've gone when we wanted, but the psychology of "the app says to go between 5:15 and 6:15!" is a hard thing for me to turn off sometimes.) Plus, some of the parks will limit you to one of the FASTPASS+ options in a category per day. If you're dead-set on riding Soarin', Test Track, and Frozen Ever After, hitting Epcot two mornings and the same two afternoons means you're waiting in the standby line for one of those. Hitting two mornings and two different afternoons means you can reserve all three... if there's another park you don't want to reserve a ride for.
 
If you love Disney as much as we do, it’s definitely not too much! We love long trips! This year we will be there 16 days, split stay between 2 resorts. We can’t stay long enough, honestly. My DD, who is now 12, still gets upset when we leave, and asks why we can’t stay longer. We go to the parks every day (we are AP holders), and enjoy the pools and resort activities when we are just relaxing at the resort. I hope you enjoy every minute of it!
 
I will be going to Disney for 2 weeks in April. I have been several times for less than a week at a time. Rushed and tired. Have never seen the fireworks. But this time - 2 weeks at Ft. Wilderness with an annual pass. My husband will be with me, but he's going to be working most of the time. Except what I have to plan (FP and some dining), I am just going to go and do as I please. (Note - recently turned 60 and today was my first day of retirement - so the whole trip is a gift to me from me for me).
 
We went for the entire month of July back in 2009 and we still felt like we could have stayed longer. Of course, we had a couple of beach days, some days at Universal and some off-site shopping days. We also did a good amount of resort-hopping to see what the other resorts looked like. It was such an amazing trip!
 
I didn't read all the responses. We took a 10 day trip in July (never had a trip that long before), and we didn't want to come home.
After this last trip, we have decided that we would rather take a longer WDW trip every four years or so than a shorter one every two-ish years.

Our July trip was nothing short of fantastic. We went to each park at least once; we've never done that before as a family. We also had a few "down days" that allowed us to hang out at the resort (campground), replenish our snacks and drinks from walmart, swim, and just rest and recharge ourselves in the bubble.
We did not feel exhausted, and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
 

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