{"id":29229,"date":"2013-04-25T10:22:09","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T14:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/?p=29229"},"modified":"2022-04-12T13:51:48","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T17:51:48","slug":"walt-disney-world-versus-disneyland-length-of-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/walt-disney-world-versus-disneyland-length-of-stay\/","title":{"rendered":"Walt Disney World Versus Disneyland: Length of Stay"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Snow<\/a>
Snow White’s Grotto in Disneyland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Determining the optimal length of stay at either resort is certainly a difficult concept.\u00a0 Besides looking at the vacation time available, I also try to look at what we want to accomplish during that stay.\u00a0 How many night shows do we want to see?\u00a0 How many parks do we plan on going to?\u00a0 Do we plan to do anything offsite.<\/p>\n

While a person can really plan a vacation to Walt Disney World for any length of time, even just one night, we have a tough time going for a trip that short.\u00a0 Of course, we live about 25 hours away, so I couldn’t justify driving that distance for just a weekend trip, unless it was a super special occasion.\u00a0 Because of this, travel time is also an important factor in determining length of stay.\u00a0 When we lived 8 hours away from Disneyland, it wasn’t a big deal to drive over for a short stay.\u00a0 Now that we are further away, that just can’t happen.<\/p>\n

Walt Disney World is such a big destination!\u00a0 At 40 square miles, it is roughly the size of San Francisco or two Manhattan islands.\u00a0 That’s HUGE!\u00a0 Even though all that land is not developed, it does mean that it takes time to travel from park-to-park.\u00a0 In short, there really isn’t a way to see and do everything that Walt Disney World has to offer in one trip, unless you are moving there with the purpose to spend every day at Walt Disney World.\u00a0 While I would love to do that, it just isn’t something I can do.\u00a0 Nope, I haven’t won the lottery, yet…<\/p>\n

When we plan our trip to Walt Disney World, we usually start with a plan of a day per park.\u00a0 We also plan one extra day to do a second day in one park, usually decided onsite.\u00a0 We like to build in a day in for Downtown Disney and\/or some downtime at our resort.\u00a0 We also like to tour other resorts.\u00a0 So, I guess I am up to six days with this plan.\u00a0 But what about some of the other things that the Orlando area has to offer?\u00a0 Have you thought about adding on a day at Universal Studios Orlando?\u00a0 I can hear someone quietly saying, “Aren’t we all about Disney here?”\u00a0 Yes, we LOVE Disney, but there really is more to the possibilities than just Disney.\u00a0 Universal Studios Orlando has really changed in the 20 years; since, I lived in Orlando.\u00a0 I personally haven’t been to Universal Studios Orlando in many years, but I plan on adding on some time there during my next trip.\u00a0 In fact, we may actually do two days at Universal, and that brings my vacation total to eight days.\u00a0 If I wanted to add even more, there is also Sea World.<\/p>\n

I can hear someone saying, “But I can’t do eight days in Orlando.\u00a0 I don’t have that much vacation time, and it’s too expensive to stay that long.”\u00a0 I certainly hear you!\u00a0 We normally don’t make it to Walt Disney World every year, so we are able save up in the interim.\u00a0 Also, we find it cheaper in the long run to go less often but stay for longer because of the high cost of airfare.\u00a0 It truly is a personal opinion.\u00a0 You may prefer to take shorter more frequent trips, and that certainly is a great option.<\/p>\n

Now, on to Disneyland…\u00a0 It is no secret that Disneyland is my preferred resort of the two.\u00a0 Here is where the Disneyland shines.\u00a0 Disneyland has two parks that are so close together that you can walk back-and-forth.\u00a0 It is a smaller space, so it is possible to see everything that the resort has to offer in a much shorter time.\u00a0 If you prefer to go on vacation and go home being able to say that you saw it all, Disneyland is definitely the way to go.\u00a0 That being said, there are a lot of details of the park that can’t be seen in one trip.\u00a0 Each time I go, I see new details.\u00a0 But as a general rule, you should be able to see and do everything in two or three days with a couple of caveats, one of which is the crowd level.\u00a0 As with either resort, crowd levels could make it difficult to see everything in a short amount of time.\u00a0 We are more laid back in our touring schedule, so we actually prefer more days at Disneyland.\u00a0 Our preference is four to five days.\u00a0 There again, it is a personal preference.\u00a0 If you are a Walt Disney World veteran who does all four parks in one trip, you would likely be fine with the two or three days at Disneyland.<\/p>\n

The other good thing about not needing as much time to see Disneyland is that you can add on days at other parks in the area.\u00a0 How about a day at Universal Studios Hollywood?\u00a0 Or a day at Sea World in San Diego?\u00a0 On one trip to Disneyland, we spent some time at Huntington Beach and a night at the Queen Mary Hotel, a floating hotel in an old historical ship.\u00a0 It was vacation filled with a nice variety of options.<\/p>\n

There really is no clear winner in this.\u00a0 Honestly, this subject is not one that lends itself to having a winning category.\u00a0 Vacation length is tied more to available vacation, funds available, and time it takes to get to the vacation destination.\u00a0 I would like to hear what you think, though.\u00a0 What is your preferred vacation length?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Incoming search terms:<\/h4>
  • saleug4<\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Determining the optimal length of stay at either resort is certainly a difficult concept.\u00a0 Besides looking at the vacation time available, I also try to look at what we want to accomplish during that stay.\u00a0 How many night shows do we want to see?\u00a0 How many parks do we plan on going to?\u00a0 Do we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4319,486,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disneyland-travel","category-universal-orlando","category-walt-disney-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84213,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29229\/revisions\/84213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}