Welcome to day 2 of Disney World Training. You can catch up on the previous training posts here.
Yesterday we talked about the best time to go to Disney. Today I want to cover how long you should plan on staying and the different ticket options.
There are 4 parks at Disney World. Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. There are also 2 water parks: Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon and there is Downtown Disney (which is mainly shopping and eating, but it is home to Disney Quest, a huge indoor arcade.)
So first you need to decide which parks are most important to you to visit. Do you want to go to all 4 parks? Do you want to spend time at Downtown Disney? Disney Quest? The Water Parks? What you want is going to determine how many days you need to plan for your vacation.
The other big factor is how many days you can take off of work. But that is boring so I am going to leave that up to you.
Now also you need to consider ticket prices. You can see a list of the current prices here.
1 day admission to Disney for an adult is $79. 2 Day is $156. 3 day is $219. 4 days is $225. Then it only goes up by $3 increments! A 10 day ticket is $243. Disney wants you to stay and play longer, so they make it more affordable. (Remember that all tickets have to to be used within 14 days. Disney groups your tickets onto one card. So you have to of used your last ticket 14 days from when you first used your tickets. So if you got a 5 day ticket, you could go on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 and in order to not loose Day 5, you would have to go within 14 days of Day 1.)
However, should you decide to stay 11 days or more, you either have to buy the 10 day ticket for $243 plus 1 day admission for $79 or you have to buy the annual pass. Annual Pass for an adult is $489 if you aren’t interested in the water parks and Disney Quest, $619 if you are.
If you are a Florida resident, everything is cheaper for you than what I have listed. You can see all the rates on this page too.
Now with that covered, let’s talk about everything you want to see. To really see a good amount of what each park has, you need a minimum of one day per park. So that’s at least 4 days.
If you are really interested in a certain park, you will probably want at least 2 days for that park. Plus I recommend an additional day for you to go back and ride all your favorite rides and see your favorite sites again before you depart.
But then you’ve also got to factor in if you want to do 1 or more of the Water Parks. You want at least a half day, if not a whole day for them.
So we are up to what, 8 days if you want to do both water parks? See how frustrating this can be? I vote that we spend at least a month at Disney. Then, maybe, just maybe, we can see everything we want to see.
If I had to sit and pick the prime amount of days to spend, I would go with 6. That gives you at least 2 days to cover either Magic Kingdom or Epcot depending on your interest and an additional day to revisit your favorite attractions/park or visit a water park.
Now the next thing you need to decide is on if you need Park Hopper or not. Park Hopper is an additional $52 per ticket. It allows you to jump from park to park. So if you wanted to go to Magic Kingdom and Epcot on one day, you could. Keep in mind that you can leave and re-enter the same park multiple times a day. Also let me go ahead and say that you can not buy a 10 day ticket, for example, and use one of the days to go to a second park. Like if you were at Magic Kingdom and you decided to go to Epcot and you did NOT have Park Hopper, you can’t use an additional day on your ticket to get into Epcot.
I added Park Hopper on our last trip. But we didn’t even use it until the 6th day of our trip and that was only because I made us use it to get our money’s worth. After that trip I discovered something neat. You do not have to add Park Hopper on the day you purchase your tickets! You can add it at any time, even on the day you want to use it. So if you aren’t positive you are going to use it or if you are on the fence, just wait. Set aside that $52 per person that you would spend and have it in reserve in case you decide while you are at Disney to add Park Hopper.
Now, if you want to do the Water Parks and Disney Quest (it gets you into more places too. See list here)… that is going to run you an additional $50 per ticket. So if you want both Park Hopper and the Water Parks and more option, you are looking at $347 for a 10 day ticket. However, if you add Water Parks and more to your ticket, you essentially have twice as many days. Say you have a 5 day ticket and you add the Water Parks and more option. You now have 5 days to the theme parks and 5 days to the water parks and more. You do not have to use them on the same day. You could essentially stay at Disney for 10 days and go to the theme parks for 5 days and the water parks or Disney Quest etc for 5 days.
Because of that cost, we have decided to wait until our kids are a bit older before we visit the water parks.
Phew. I know that is a lot of information to consider. And I haven’t even really scratched the surface.
If you have any more questions about tickets, be sure to read this post on the Disboards. It is very, very involved.
Feel free to leave a comment here too. I’ve only been to Disney once, but I have a lot of readers that have been multiple times and will be happy to offer their 2 cents.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
A couple of other things to note: If you’re going for, say, 5 days, but you know you’ll want to go again in a year or two, you can buy the 10-day ticket with the “no expiration” feature. It costs considerably more to add “no exp.”, but it definitely saves money in the long run, as Disney tickets go up in price every year. Also worth noting, if you purchase a non-expiring child’s ticket, and your child reaches the age of needing an adult ticket before your next trip (that’s 9 to Disney), Disney will upgrade the ticket to an adult ticket for free! http://www.affordingthemouse.com
WAY TOO CONFUSING.
So if you DON’T have Park Hopper and you want to go to one park, back to your hotel for a break (naps for kids!!), then back to the same park… can you do that? Or do you need Park Hopper for that? (Example: Go to Magic Kingdom til noon, back to hotel from noon til 2 then back to Magic Kingdom in the evening.)
We are planning to go Summer 2011 (when we plan to be debt-free except for our mortgage!) but I am already having fun thinking of how/what we’ll do!
No, you do not need the hopper for the same park. We left MK to go to lunch at one of the hotels and got back in no problem.
Lisette – I know. I felt the exact same way when I was first learning about Disney.
Valerie – That is a really, really, really good point. :)
So can you use your park hopper to get into Disney Quest at no additional cost??
No, unfortunately you are either going to have to get Waterpark and More option or pay the daily admission rate to get into Disney Quest.
Random comment:
Always go to the left. Left paths, left lines, you get the picture. It should save you a little time. When I worked at Disney, this was one of those little things you learn.
We buy 10 day non-expiring every time we purchase tickets(non-hopper). They make more sense to us because we live close (South Carolina) and we pop down quite a bit. I think sometimes it’s better to have that option. We like pool days and Downtown Disney days, if we go for a week we will only hit 3-4 parks per trip. Last year they offered the buy 4 days and get three for free and we really racked up! We upgraded our tickets to 10 day non-expiring, added 10 days worth of water park options that were also non-expiring and got our hotel for 7 nights for right under two thousand. We are a family of four. We still have 7 days worth of tickets and 9 waterpark days left. Adding waterpark averaged about 5 dollars a visit per person!
I agree, it isn’t easy to figure out Disney but if you can figure out how to work Walgreens and CVS then I think you can do it!
My head is spinning!
Hi Kristin,
I’m with you on the water parks. We went to Disney in 2008, when my girls were 7 & 4 – definitely too young to be worth going to the water parks. We did not do the park hopper for the same reason – we couldn’t get through one park in a day, let alone two. It’s just too tiring, and what’s the point of being at Disney if you’re going to have tired, cranky kids the entire time!
We are committed park hoppers (that sounds funny, lol). We start in one park, take a break, then usually head to another park. Since we normally travel at off-peak times, the last day of our trip involves hitting all FOUR (sometimes three, as we don’t really like Animal Kingdom) parks to ride all of our favorites.
We have not done water parks yet at Disney. My sons are 10 and 3…while the 10 yo would enjoy it, we don’t really travel during water park weather (January/February/December). Maybe one day!
Listen to Melissa’s random comment as she is very correct! Most of the world is right handed and automatically follows to the right. Going to the left will give you less crowds every time!
I’m definitely an advocate for park-hopping too. The only exception would be if you have plenty of days. We go often, but usually only for 3-4 days in the parks (we use other days to explore resorts, Downtown Disney, etc.). With that limited time, being able to park-hop helps maximize your time in the parks–especially when you factor in Extra Magic Hours. http://www.affordingthemouse.com
We do park hopper too-but we also do the dining plan and this way we can dine in other parks.
I agree iwth you Kristen. 6 days are plenty. I think the day passes are the way to go with small children. 1 park per day is plenty! You can visit all 4 parks and then choose your two favorites for the last two days!!
When we go to Disney we like to plan it at least 1 down day in the middle of our trip just to sleep in late and chill out for the day. The times we have done this were some of our favorite trips to Disney. The kids as well as the adults are refreshed after a whole day of rest and are ready to go to the parks again.
Being a lifelong Disney lover and having gone to Disneyland over 500 times, I have to say that going to Disney World for the first time was a bit overwhelming. However, a lot of the stress will depend on when you go. If you’re going during peak time then there is much more planning that might need to take place. Park Hoppers give you a lot of flexibility, but with a little bit of planning you can save that money and use it toward something else that might bring about more memories.
Ultimately, it’s about the memories. You don’t want to be to rigid that you don’t enjoy the experience for what it is. You also don’t want to just show up and wing it because there are just so many variables. Although, I do have to say, I know people who have gone the ‘wing it’ route and they have amazing memories and great stories that will last them a lifetime.
With smaller children, I like doing one park per day. There’s so much to see at each one and we usually leave at some point to eat and have some down time. For us, I think the Park Hopper option will beneficial when they’re older and know exactly what they want to see and do in each park. Right now, they still want to see EVERYTHING.
I read the “go to the left” tip before last trip and use it all the time in everyday life.
Another great tip I learned was that the Monorail at MK that says “Disney Resorts” ends up at the same place that the other monorail line does, but most people think that it’s only for those staying on site. Therefore, the line is less crowded, particularly if you’ve stayed till the park closes and everyone is leaving at the same time.
I would say the least amount, if you want to see all 4 parks is 7 days 6 nights, unless you live there.. we did 4 days 3 nights (1 park a day) and was exhausted trying to get as much as we could in.. my next trip will b no less than 7 days 6 nights so we have time to rest in between at the resort.. lol.. good luck!
Even though I’ve been to Disney World almost every year my kids have been born (they’re almost 5 and 3), I’ve been reading your site and agree with most of the information. One key factor in deciding whether or not to purchase the park hopper option should be location. The last several years we’ve stay at the Beach Club and I’m glad we had the park hopper option due to the hotel’s close proximity to Epcot (there is a walkway to Epcot that allows you to enter by Great Britian.) Most nights we ended up at Epcot because it was a 10 minute walk and we could watch the awesome fireworks show and easily get back to our room at a reasonable hour. I would probably say the same thing if we stayed at a monorail resort since they are so close to the Magic Kingdom.
I have also found that by buying the park hopper tickets at the Disney store is cheaper than at the gate.
Is it really? How much cheaper?
Thanks for the tip!