A question for those that live in the west

[Pacific Northwest]

My fam and I will be going to the world in July either 2015 or 16. We have not been to Orlando in about 8 years, but have been to DL many times since our last visit to the World. For those of you that live in the pacific time zone, do you try to adjust to east coast time before you leave or while you are there or do you stick to west coast time?

If you don't try to adjust to the time change, are you faced with long lines all afternoon/evening since you're not there at rope drop?

Just curious as to your experience with the time change and therefore, fp+ and standby lines.

Thanks!

 

[Saimaeve]

Im interested in responses. I just moved to Arizona so during part of the year (when we will be going to WDW) we are in PT and the rest of the year in MT (Arizona doesnt recognize DST)

I didnt even think about the time difference

 

[dismsn]

We will be going in September and haven't gone in many, many years. When we went about 10 years ago we took a red eye and didn't go into the parks the first day and we went to bed fairly early the first night (probably asleep by 9 p.m.). We just got up early the next day and made it for rope drop (my kids were probably 12 and 10 at the time). That adjusted our internal clocks and we were good to go after that.

This September we plan to take a red eye once again and go into HS the first afternoon and will go to bed about 10 p.m. and hit rope drop at Epcot the next morning.

I think the red eye is the key. We are able to sleep for part of the trip but we don't get a lot of sleep so we're tired when we reach our destination. I'm a night owl so going to sleep on Eastern Time is difficult if I'm not tired the first night. One of our kids goes to college in DC and we take red eyes when going to DC and are able to adjust to Eastern Time very quickly.

Good luck!

 

[1GR8DISNEYFAN]

Ideally when we have taken our family of 5 for a 7 day vacation to WDW we would allow 1 or 2 days at the beginning of the trip to rest up and spend the days at the beach. Then we would start our 7 days of uninterrupted Disney fun. But the past few trips have been shorter and just 2 in our party so no rest days. We still get up early for RD, but we are nap people, so we just return to the resort for a few hours to rest up and then we hop to a different park for the evening.

 

[niffer5150]

we live in los angeles. we switch over. we go sleep on time at local time once we get to wdw. i also schedule ADRs a little later than we usually eat for the first few days. flying back to LA is the hard part. it's like the longest day ever because we take a late flight from MCO.

 

[SeaPic]

I moved from Florida and preferred the red-eye like dismsn to go home to visit. My family doesn't so I try to book an early morning flight from the west coast so folks are tired by the time we get there in the evening. Still it was mostly my son and I up early (excited) waiting for other folks. Made RD only once at DHS.

 

[cattywampus]

We are there for 7 days in November with a 6 year old. Since we are going during the school year (and will need him to be ready to go back to school the following week), I don't want him to change his routine too much, so we plan to basically remain on west coast time.

Our flight leaves west coast at 10 am and we arrive at 6 pm (3:00 pm our time) We will play that night by ear, but will likely go to MK, which is open unil midnight (9:00 pm our time). While somewhat expensive, I booked two MVMCP nights, more for the extended park hours than the special activities. We will stay until midnight on party and EMH nights (midnight in Florida = 9:00 pm pst, which is around his normal bedtime). We will not make rope drop (or even close). Instead, we will get to the parks around noon, and book FPP between 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm, have a late lunch/early table service dinner around 4:00 pm, take a break if needed, and stay late. We will see how well the 4th FPP process works for non-headliners during late afternoon/evening The last couple hours of the park are reported to be uncrowded times for popular attractions.

We might get run off this board for not subscribing to rope drop protocol, but I just feel like it would be too hard to covert to East Coast time, and it wouldn't be fun or relaxing. We would be bucking the tide the entire week. By the time we started to adjust, it would be time to fly home, get back on pacific time, and be ready for school two days later. Not going to happen.

 

[Jasperkitty]

My husband and I are planning opposite approaches. He's planning on moving his alarm backwards slowly over a few weeks to adapt, I'm a night owl and will simply stay up later and later for a week or so to switch my body clock.

I just can't push my body clock the other way with any real success and his work schedule wont give him room to pull my schedule so we're just gonna miss seeing much of each other for a day or so.

But until we get closer to our trip, we're also both thinking of getting into the habit of a walk after dinner and about an hour give or take before bed then a cup of decaf tea right before heading to sleep. This way we'll both have a familiar routine that can not only help us build up our walking endurance, but creates a conditioned response in our bodies to help signal its time for sleep.

Never underestimate the power of a routine for winding down. It can make a huge difference.

 

[lauratd]

I have been moving my morning alarm up 15 minutes each week getting ready for my trip in 17 days. I have learned that I need to turn the light on as soon as I turn off my alarm so my brain registers the fact that it is morning. I take meds when I wake up and then can't eat for an hour, so I wanted to give my body time to adjust because I learned the hard way, my body doesn't like having it's med schedule changed abruptly but I don't want to be walking around for a couple hours without breakfast because my body doesn't like that either.

 

[think-like-tink]

We live in WY. there is a 2 hour time difference for us. We go for 8 days and spend the first 2 getting used to the time before we start our park days. We stay on Orlando time while we are there.

 

[harbin]

We come from Washington State. Try to head to WDW every six months or so. We have two children 3 & 8. The time difference is ROUGH. I found with FP+ we get to sleep in a bit later, and stay up. I try not to make any early ADR's Learned the hard way that it makes for very grumpy kids. Midway through the trip we seem to catch up to Orlando time and can make earlier mornings. The last trip we made was over Spring Break, so parks were busy! We still managed to ride everything we wanted multiple times without issue. The late night wait times, are often the same or even better than RD wait times, especially in MK. Can't wait to go back!!

 

[Meriweather]

We used to take a red eye, stumble around the parks until dinner time and then go to bed and then we were on the right schedule.
Can't do red eyes anymore because I can't seem to function on no sleep ......too old, I guess.
So we take a morning flight, arrive around 4-5, check in and go downtown or to a park, dinner and then back to the room. Still seem to be tired from travel, so go to sleep at normal time and are alright with the time change for the rest of the trip.

 

[OurDogCisco]

Like many others we do the red eye flight, then, hang out at the parks all day and go to bed at a descent time like 9 pm. We've done all other kinds of flights before like leave here at 6 am and arrive around 4 or 5 pm in Orlando. We liked this option but unfortunately this,is the most expensive flight from out area. It can be as high as $200 more per person if flying the holiday weeks. The other flight we have taken is leave in the afternoon and arrive in Orlando at midnight. This one Is the worst for us. It takes us forever to get on East coast time. By time you get checked in and unpacked it could be 3 or 4 am and then, you sleep in the next day until noon. We found this flight takes longer for us to get on Florida time.

 

[Karebear]

We live in CA. My kids are 9 & 10. The last few times, I let them adjust slowly. This time, we are starting at Universal and we have to be up for early entry for the Harry Potter stuff. We booked at 6 am flight and we land in Orlando at 3:30 Fl time. I plan to do dinner and have them in bed by 9 (which shouldn't be too hard as we will have to leave the house by 4 am to get to the airport).

Our friends never adjust to Fl time and stay on west coast time for the whole trip to WDW. They do the PM extra magic hours. However, the PM extra magic hours are more crowded than the AM ones, so getting on FL time quickly is beneficial--in my opinion--have a great trip

 

[gumbys7227]

I guess we are lucky. We are in California, and have never given the time change any thought. We've gone when our kids were anywhere between 2 and 9 years old, and never felt the time change. We are rope droppers who like to also close the parks. I think we have always just worn the kids out so much that it's never been an issue. We use our phones as our clocks so, we start on Florida time the moment we land. Same thing goes for our return home. I never realized how lucky we were.

 

[Pacific Northwest]

Thanks for the opinions. Keep 'em coming!

 

[dismsn]

We are there for 7 days in November with a 6 year old. Since we are going during the school year (and will need him to be ready to go back to school the following week), I don't want him to change his routine too much, so we plan to basically remain on west coast time.

Our flight leaves west coast at 10 am and we arrive at 6 pm (3:00 pm our time) We will play that night by ear, but will likely go to MK, which is open unil midnight (9:00 pm our time). While somewhat expensive, I booked two MVMCP nights, more for the extended park hours than the special activities. We will stay until midnight on party and EMH nights (midnight in Florida = 9:00 pm pst, which is around his normal bedtime). We will not make rope drop (or even close). Instead, we will get to the parks around noon, and book FPP between 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm, have a late lunch/early table service dinner around 4:00 pm, take a break if needed, and stay late. We will see how well the 4th FPP process works for non-headliners during late afternoon/evening The last couple hours of the park are reported to be uncrowded times for popular attractions.

We might get run off this board for not subscribing to rope drop protocol, but I just feel like it would be too hard to covert to East Coast time, and it wouldn't be fun or relaxing. We would be bucking the tide the entire week. By the time we started to adjust, it would be time to fly home, get back on pacific time, and be ready for school two days later. Not going to happen.

Just want to let you know that it's MUCH easier to adjust back to Pacific Time. You will all wake up early and want to go to bed earlier the first few days but unless you have something that you need to do at night you most likely won't have any problem adjusting back to your normal routine.

 

[cattywampus]

Just want to let you know that it's MUCH easier to adjust back to Pacific Time. You will all wake up early and want to go to bed earlier the first few days but unless you have something that you need to do at night you most likely won't have any problem adjusting back to your normal routine.

Thank you!

 

[usagibuffy]

This will be my 4th trip but my first with a passel of kids. We have always in the past done what others have stated, a red eye flight, go to the parks, then an early night, and that sets us up pretty well. It'll be interesting to see how it goes with my littles. We are renting a double stroller that fully reclines so the older two can nap in the stroller if they want/need to. I haven't given a lot of thought to acclimating them to the time change, but I really don't think it'll be much of an issue, and I know DH and I will be fine following what we've done in the past. I adapt more easily to sleep deprivation than DH.