In just under a week CP and I are heading to the World for a whirlwind 72 hour trip.  If you’ve seen our past trip reports, you’ll notice that most of our trips tend to be much longer; in fact, our December trip was one of our shortest, and it clocked in at five full days.  In general, we’re both fans of the long Disney trip, where you can get your fill of the parks while also having plenty of time for naps, lounging, and people watching. Long trips allow a complete disengagement from the real world; work becomes a distant memory, and you can actually immerse yourself in a feeling of total relaxation that’s pretty unparalleled. Short trips…aren’t like this.  But if you’re ever faced with a choice between going to WDW for a short trip or not going at all, the obvious answer is to take your WDW time where you can get it.

Preparing for short trips requires a different mindset: you couldn’t do everything on a short trip even if you wanted to, so it’s best to go in with measured expectations. We like to think of our WDW short trips as opportunities to get our “best-ofs” in while we count down to longer trips.  With busy day jobs and extracurriculars, though, even on short trips it’s important for us to factor in some down time.  It’s a challenge to balance relaxation with doing enough to justify the cost of a short trip. Fewer hours means harder choices about whether to eat leisurely table-service meals, or to grab a snack and eat it while doing the mad dash to Soarin’. If you’re considering a short trip to Walt Disney World, here are my suggestions to get your time and money’s worth:

Ignore this picture – don’t fly during the day! You’ll waste valuable park time!

1. Plan your travel thoughtfully. I realize I sound like Tim Gunn here, but yes, you do need to “make it work.” For us, this means travelling on later-evening departing flights, so that we can get up the next morning with a full day in front of us. On the end of the trip, we depart early in the morning, allowing us to get in either a full or half day of work once we’ve returned home. Sure, it’s a bit jarring to go right from WDW to the workplace, but it’s a sacrifice we’ll both make to squeeze in restorative mini trips like this.

View from a room at the Contemporary Resort – look at that short commute to the Magic Kingdom.

2. Location, location, location. On a longer trip, I have no problem staying a bit off the beaten track – Animal Kingdom Lodge, for example, is a wonderful resort, but is relatively far from the parks and from Downtown Disney. On a short trip, I don’t want to sacrifice as much time to travel and logistics, so CP and I think carefully about where to stay. In this case, we have elected to stay at Bay Lake Tower. It’s more expensive, yes, but it also allows us to walk to the Magic Kingdom and to drive more quickly to the other parks.  For us, this is a cost/benefit analysis that works.

I can’t find a picture of our last rental car, so instead you get this picture of Duffy.

2a. If the most convenient resorts are too expensive, consider renting a car. I have a hate/hate relationship with WDW buses on a good day, and I certainly wouldn’t want to waste precious time on a short trip waiting in long bus lines.  If you can afford it, you might want to rent yourself a car and drive to/from the parks.

This is how I like my Main Street – clean and empty.

3. If you care about seeing a lot in the parks, rope drop is your friend. For our upcoming short trip, we plan to hit rope drop each of the three mornings.  Indeed, on two mornings we are also having sit-down breakfasts, scheduled at the unholy hour of 7:30 am. Yes, it’s early, but with a full breakfast and uncrowded morning hours in the parks, you can get more done by noon than you can in two days if you were to get up at a more civilized hour. On longer trips we definitely have mornings to sleep in, but on a short trip, we’re out the door with (or sometimes before) the sunrise.  This leaves us with afternoons free to visit other parks, take naps, go to Downtown Disney, or even (gasp!) go off property.

Why not drink around the World during Epcot EMH?

4. Extra Magic Hours might be your friend, too. In general, neither CP nor I are big fans of EMH, especially not ones in the evening. On a short trip, however, it’s worth thinking about how you might use these extra hours to your advantage. For example, on this trip we’ll hit the Magic Kingdom for EMH at night, but likely not to ride rides – more likely we’ll utilize the time to shop, take photographs, eat snacks, and enjoy the ambiance.  Morning EMH will allow you extra time for rides, and generally without the crowd chaos you’ll find during evening EMH.  Typically I think you’re better off avoiding the parks that have EMH, but if you use them carefully, you can really expand your park time on a short trip.

Short trips are a good time to take full advantage of the FastPass system, you know, before Disney goes and gets ride of it.

5. Do what you must, and don’t sweat what you miss. Even on a longer 10 or 12-day trip there are countless things CP and I manage not to experience. So, on a much shorter trip, we go in with our expectations set accordingly. This isn’t a bad thing, though – short trips are great in that they allow you to focus. What’s your priority – signature dining? Rides and attractions? Resort time?  For us, must-dos include breakfast at Kona, lunch at the Plaza, and dinner at Via Napoli.  One morning needs to be spent at the Studios so we can ride Toy Story Mania a few times at rope drop. Oddly, on this trip we both really want to see Flights of Wonder at the Animal Kingdom. Knowing what you have to get done allows you retain some flexibility in your schedule while also letting you off the hook from worrying that you’re missing things or not spending your time well. The goal isn’t – and can’t be – to do everything.

Of course, what makes short trips especially palatable for me is knowing that they will at some point be followed with another long, lazy Disney trip.  In fact, right now we’re looking to spend a week in Disneyland this summer, followed by our first Disney cruise/WDW combination trip in the winter.  While I count down the hundreds of days until these longer trips, knowing I can get a long weekend’s Disney fix goes a long way.