Anyone ever just sleep in and only go to the parks in the evening?

[Pig Pen]

We take it easy during the Jan/Feb slow season. It's easy to sleep in on the cool mornings, head to the park for some midday sun and stay until closing (sometimes as early as 5:00 pm in the off-season). We would make ADRs for 7:00 pm and enjoy a relaxing evening.

We are no longer do commando tours. Sometimes we will just sit on a bench and sip a drink for an hour or so before sauntering off again (we usually do this in Epcot as it just seems to make for better people-watching).

We are heading to WDW for our first summer/peak season trip and plan to do all the EMH hours with a resort break in the afternoon. It will be someting new for us as we really like to linger over our morning coffee.

Wish us luck!

 

[kapoof]

usually we are up between 5:00-6:00. we slept in last trip till 6:45!

 

[SueM in MN]

1. Rent an ECV for DH from an outside company and have it delivered to your resort.

2. Your kids are old enough to do things on their own (buddy system of course)

If you want more information about renting ECVs, follow the link in my signature to the disABILITIES FAQs thread. Post #2 of that thread has information about renting wheelchairs and ECVs.

If your children have a cell phone, that would give you more peace of mind for letting them venture out. Keep in mind though that there is no cell phone reception in some buildings.

I have two experiences that I think you would benefit from hearing.

First, we went to WDW in 2004 with a large group of 12 extended family members, we were planning on just our family and then everyone else just sort of horned in, I was really dreading waiting and dealing with this because a few were older in their seventies, and I knew or at least thought I knew that this would cause a severe strain or damper on the trip but it actually had it's benefits. My dh's grandma was in a wheelchair which basicly meant front of the line access to all the attractions and shows for our entire group, which makes me feel bad for benefiting out of her situation, but it was a little bit better for all of us.

Even though it may have seemed to you that you got front of the line access, in most lines people using wheelchairs and/or ECVs (motorized mobility scooters) wait in the same lines with everyone else. These are fully wheelchair accessible and are called "Mainstream Lines".
AK and the Studio were both built with all Mainstream Lines.
MK and Epcot are older parks, so when they were built, accessible lines were not common. As they renovated or added new attractions, they added Mainstream Lines as much as possible. There are a few attractions in both of those parks where the lines were not able to be made accessible. For those few, there is a wheelchair entrance. That doesn't mean there is no wait though. People have posted in the past that they got in faster in about 20-25% of attractions (but usually not much faster), almost exactly the same in about 50-60% of attractions and had to wait longer (sometimes much longer) in 20-25% of attractions.

Also, there are a few attractions where people with ECVs and wheelchairs can park in the front row for the show (Festival of the Lion King comes to mind). But, most of the the shows with wheelchair seating in the front have the majority of the accessible seating in the back. And many shows have wheelchair and ECV seating only in the very back row, including all the movies and audianimatronic shows except for Lion King.

 

[Todd&Copper]

Since I wake up for work at 5 am, sleeping in for me generally means waking up between 7:30 and 8:30, so I do not personally sleep in and hit the parks later in the day. It is possible that a certain number of people who hit them early do leave before official closing time so the crowds could dissipate a bit after a fashion. Also, it would depend on the time of year. Last Sept./Oct., when park hours were roughly 9 - 9 for the most part, I did not see much of a drop-off in crowds closer to the end of the day, but they were fairly empty in the mroning. Maybe the crowds drop off more when the park is open later?

 

[Sleeping Becca]

I don't sleep very much (unfortunately) so I am up early, sleeping late for me is sleeping until 7:00. I wake up around 6:00 or so, get up get dressed, and head down to the food court and pick up breakfast for the sleepy heads. I sit outside and drink my coffee (if you can call it that). I gently nudge the sleepy heads, if they don't move then I head out without them they call me when they are ready to meet. Now DD always gets up and comes with me, but my nephew and DH like to sleep in. On the days they play golf I may not see them until dinner.

If I had to wait around for the sleepy heads I'd go nuts! But that is just me! Like I said earlier, some folks are completely capable of taking it slow, kicking back and relaxing, I'm not one of them. I go go go. Even on cruise vacations, I'm up early drinking coffee on the balcony, then I hit the gym, and by the time I get back DH is just getting up, then we go get breakfast together. So my go go go is not just reserved for my Disney vacations.

As far as crowds go, there is a steady build up all day at all of the parks except for AK, there is a noticable drop off in the late afternoons.

 

[choirchic]

Sleeping in has never ruined any of my trips...I didn't even know about the rope drop until I joined the DIS.