Walt Disney World Resort (Florida)
Walt Disney World is a bigger beast to explore—even just based on the fact it’s larger than the city of San Francisco. With this in mind, we’ll be looking at each park individually—before that, there are a few things to consider about the resort as a whole.
There is a lot to experience at Walt Disney World—the resort is made up of 4 theme parks, 2 water parks, an enormous shopping district, over two dozen resort hotels, 3 golf courses, 3 mini-golf courses, a campground and ranch, an international sporting complex… You get the point. You’re going to need more time than the commonly assumed 3-4 day quick visit to see even a fraction of it all.
Most experts recommend a 7 day vacation to visit Walt Disney World. Considering ongoing ramifications of the pandemic, we could adjust that to a 6 day minimum, though 7-8 days remains better. While a long Disney vacation may seem like an impossibility due to budget constraints, it is worth noting that Disney tickets get cheaper the more days you add onto your trip.
The reason for suggesting a full week is two-fold: for one thing, you are likely to have at least 1-2 parks you will want to visit twice, either because you didn’t experience everything or you really enjoyed one more than the others. Second, extra days will give you freedom to explore Walt Disney World’s offerings beyond the parks, including Disney Springs, recreation, the resorts, and Disney’s water parks.
Magic Kingdom
Magic Kingdom remains Walt Disney World’s most popular park. Many guests plan their entire vacation around visiting it, to the point that there is often a temptation to skip the other three.
I will emphasize that skipping Walt Disney World’s other three parks is a mistake—many regulars prefer Epcot, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios as their favorite parks, and each one will bring unique experiences to your vacation that you won’t necessarily find in Magic Kingdom.
How much time you are going to need for Magic Kingdom really depends on your party, particularly since it is Walt Disney World’s most ride-saturated park, more than any other park at Walt Disney World. It’s important to realize, however, that many of Magic Kingdom’s attractions are kid-focused, particularly in areas like Fantasyland. The park also relies heavily on the element of nostalgia, something that may not matter as much to those who didn’t grow up visiting Disney parks.
If you will be traveling with kids between ages 4-11 or with anyone who has strong nostalgia for the park, you’ll want a minimum of one full day at Magic Kingdom. Many experts recommend two days ideally if either of these scenarios apply to you. This will give you enough time to experience everything Magic Kingdom has to offer without spending your entire day in line.
For adults, families with teens, and those who don’t have the nostalgia bug, one day is actually sufficient for visiting Magic Kingdom—indeed, it can even be a half-day park for some veteran visitors who arrive at rope drop and have specific tastes. If this scenario applies to you, utilizing park hopping can give flexibility to visit Magic Kingdom without feeling like you need to burn a full day there.
Epcot
Epcot defies simple description even to this day—it’s often written off as Disney’s “adult” park, but this isn’t necessarily true. While Epcot is uniquely adult-friendly thanks to its brainy-attractions and myriad food and shopping options, it has a good number of kid-friendly attractions (such as Frozen Ever After and The Seas with Nemo and Friends) and also goes over surprisingly well with teenagers. It also is home to some of Disney’s best restaurants, as well as seasonal festivals.
Epcot is another park that falls into the 1-2 days category—how much time you need will depend on the make-up of your party. If you really enjoy Disney dining, this is going to be a 2-day minimum park, or it may end up being one you frequent by taking advantage of a park hopper ticket. For others, one day may be sufficient since Epcot isn’t quite as attraction-saturated as Magic Kingdom.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
This park has proven Walt Disney World’s dark horse the past few years, skyrocketing from a half-day experience to one of Disney’s most popular parks, largely due to the arrival of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
In its current state, you are going to want at least one full day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios—two days if you have any Star Wars or thrill ride fans in your group. If you don’t like thrill rides, this may remain a half-day park as you’ll be skipping half of the park’s ride line-up. It is worth noting that Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot are two of the resort’s choices best for park hopping since they are less than a mile apart from each other.
Though the attraction list at Disney’s Hollywood Studios may not look as massive as Magic Kingdom, it is worth noting that Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge alone is likely to take up half of your day—the reason why is that much of this land is made up of exploration-based activities like quests connected to the Star Wars Datapad game in the Play Disney Parks app as well as shopping, dining, and character experiences. Both of the land’s attractions will also likely require some extra time spent in line—something particularly worthwhile for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Disney’s Animal Kingdom might be Disney’s most beautiful park—it is also the resort’s largest thanks to its sprawling African savannah and wildlife habitats. It is also home to two of Disney’s most popular attractions: Avatar Flight of Passage and Expedition Everest.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a tricky one to pin when it comes to visiting length—it is not necessarily an attraction-heavy park. It is, however, a park that encourages exploration, particularly in the park’s beautiful walking paths (like the Maharajah Jungle Trek and Gorilla Falls Trail) as well as areas like The World of Pandora. Animals operate on their own schedules, so you’re going to want some flexibility to take it all in.
In most cases, 1 day is sufficient for visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It is an excellent park for park hopping if evening hours are available, particularly since this will allow you to see Pandora come alive at night. Animal lovers may want to plan an extra half-to-full day here.
How many days do you prefer in each Disney park and resort? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook! Thanks for reading!
Comments
For WDW, assuming you’re going to all of the four theme parks they have, then in my opinion, the good formula is as follows: Magic Kingdom 2 days, Epcot 2 days, Hollywood Studios 1 day and Animal Kingdom 1 day.
How I rationalize Magic Kingdom is this; our family likes all of the rides. So seeing that Magic Kingdom has over 30 different rides and attractions, plus stores and restaurants, you simply can’t ride everything in one day. If you managed to do it, it would be a lot of rushing. We are more into having the fun and relaxing day, so we split the rides between two days. Then on the second park day at MK, if time allows, we maybe ride our favorites a second time.
With Epcot, most people would disagree with me that Epcot is a two day park. For us, we like to see and do everything. So there’s absolutely no way that you can ride every ride and fully explore the World Showcase in one day. Epcot is maybe even the best example of going on two days, the park is so big and requires a lot of walking, plus there are so many different and great cuisines to try. It’s all about it being fun and relaxing,
We are not a park hopping family. A lot are and that’s fine if that’s your thing, but we feel that time spent on a bus or a monorail during park hours is wasted time.
We usually will take around 9 days for a vacation at WDW. We kinda follow the same formula there:
Day One - Check in to Hotel, Head to Disney Springs. Shop and have an early dinner. Maybe a dip in the pool at the hotel in the evening, get a good nights rest
Day Two - Park
Day Three - Park
Day Four - Rest Day, sleep in. Maybe Pool. Then a Dinner at one of the hotels on property.
Day 5 - Park
Day 6 - Park
Day 7 - Rest, sleep in. Pool, Dinner at hotel on property
Day 8 - Park
Day 9 - Park
Then home. This formula works for us. The parks can wear you totally out, so we think it’s important to have rest days in between during the stay. We always get to do everything we want and eat in every restaurant we want to eat in.
Btw, our favorite restaurants are:
Liberty Tree Tavern at Magic Kingdom
Hollywood Brown Derby at Hollywood Studios
Yak and Yeti Restaurant at Animal Kingdom
Le Cellier at Epcot - Canada Pavilion - World Showcase
Steakhouse ‘71 at The Contemporary Resort
Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ at Disney Springs
I have found that 3 days with a hopper pass is more than enough time at Disney world assuming that you are not going to the water park.
I don't think that any park will take up a whole day, I've found that this is the perfect amount of time for 4 parks.
Now where you can get you one of the parts with early entry assuming that you are staying at a Disney hotel and then spending afternoons at another park and catch the evening firework shows.
Perfect amount of time for me.
We book seven day stay but only five day pass. Our first travel day after check in is spent at Downtown. Our second travel day is spent enjoying the resort. The five other days are spent with one at each park and the extra day at MK. This setup is nostalgia driven. We know exactly what we want to see and make an itinerary accordingly. MK is our first park and with a dining plan, we will also chose to eat at one of the three resorts if sitdown isn't available in the park. Sit down dining availability determines the order in which we see the other three parks. May not work for all but it served us well.