Well in 2009 it was K&T's first trip and we just weren't sure what they'd think, how they'd react, how much we could do, all of that. I planned around ADR's and evening EMH but that was about it. I also tried to schedule flexible time and down time.
The end result was we had a REALLY hard time getting the teens up in the morning, meaning making it late to parks at peak crowd times during President's week. I really hadn't made back up plans in the event that happened. I also found that flexible time just resulted in a bunch of "I don't know, what do you want to do" over and over and over again. The crowds were brutal and it had a rather huge impact at times. And I got VERY crabby with the teens more than once. I didn't want to repeat that (for all our sakes).
This was also a really different trip just based on the time of year. In 09 it was Feb. We didn't need mid day pool breaks from the heat. We got to the parks late...and then closed them down. For this trip, we did, or at least I needed to try to plan for those breaks. Which made for a lot of potential hopping and just more logistics to consider and map out.
The plans for this trip tried to incorporate those learning, and mid day break needs in a few different ways.
1. Identify what mornings were key and make it clear to all that if you were up cool, if not, I'd leave you there. No penalty or judgment mind you, just here are the consequences of certain decisions.
2. Have a really good feel for the options at all parks on any day if we needed to move things around.
3. Have a really food feel for what was flexible, and what was not. In this case, we had 2 very good dinner options to address how tired or not we were. I would not have done that in the past. Frowned upon or not, it gave me peace of mind and 11th hour flexibility. This day had a ton of flexibility in it. MK or not depending on how people felt, AK or not depending on how people felt, etc.
4. Have a plan for the scheduled down time. It could be thrown out the window but it became clear that the clan needed direction and a plan to start with. As you can see on this day, sometimes they really embraced it!
I also felt I had to have a more structured plan as once my in-laws arrived, they'd be seeing things for the first time but only had 4 days to there would be some re-do of things....except moving a lot slower and I actually wanted to make sure I could just relax and not care if it was slow once they got there instead of stressing that we hadn't seen things.
I did make note of key times (fireworks, parades, shows, etc) although I can honestly say for the most part we didn't look at them or have them impact any choices.
Picking battles is key! it was employed often during the trip.
But I'll try and remember your words of wisdom when he's older and I'm losing my mind.
