Anyone stay up late/sleep in during Christmas?

[Partridge4ever]

We're arriving Dec. 27. I've subscribed to TGM and touringplans.com. Both stress arriving at park opening. But MK opens at 7 am every day and the other parks are often open at 8. We are doing great if we're there by 10 am. At Disneyland this summer, what worked well for us was letting DH sleep in and then getting to the parks by 1 or 2 pm. We had no trouble staying til midnight every night. I was looking forward to utilizing the evening EMHs, but most posts seem to advise steering clear of them. Has anyone had success sleeping in and staying late? (BTW afternoon rests don't help because then I have a hard time getting us back to the park).

Sorry if another version of this post shows up, I thought I'd already submitted it, but I can't find it.

 

[GOOFYFREEK]

Well if you sleep in you will be the majority, and thats why TGM and the other tell you to go early. Cause thats when its the slowest. So you can sleep in if you want to but be prepared to deal with the crowds from then till close and that includes EMH. Cause I would expect this to be some of the buissiest EMH of all in the evening.

 

[disnut8]

We were there last year during Christmas and New Year's. There's no way in the world you can get me, my husband, or my son and his family moving much before 11:00. We didn't even try.

We missed the entire Magic Kingdom. But the six year old granddaughter never even noticed. None of us wanted to put up with crowds. So we just did what we wanted when we wanted. We had park hopping so if something was too crowded, we just left and went somewhere else. We figure it's our vacation so why should we do something that's not normal for us and then come back home being tired and needing a vacation from our vacation.

Just enter Animal Kingdom around 2:00 in the afternoon and have to swim upstream because everyone else is leaving. Really nice way to spend the afternoon.

Guide books are great for advice but use your own experiences with your family for your own personal touring plans. Getting up for park opening lasted all of two days in our over 40 trips.

 

[Partridge4ever]

Thanks Disnut! That's what I needed to hear. I LOVE planning and reading guidebooks, but it's frustrating for me because my DH is totally laid back and my plans fall apart by the second day. I want to try really hard to make this vacation non-commando. We want to focus on the holiday atmosphere. I keep repeating to myself that it doesn't matter if we don't get to do every ride every trip. I just don't know if I have it in me!

 

[Deb & Bill]

If you want to go to the MK and actually ride on the rides without standing in line for 90-120 minutes, go early. If it doesn't matter, you still might be blocked from entering the park due to capacity crowds.

So if you don't mind going to a different park than the one you planned on that day because your original destination is full, sleep late.

When you have large crowds, during summer time for example, the evening EMH were very crowded. We avoided them, but always hit the morning EMH. We accomplished a lot more and still had lots of time to do other things. We hate waiting in line and won't wait for more than 15 minutes.

 

[jbcs]

I heard it is hard to get into parks during christmas, that they close early because of capacity, is this true? If so, when could you get back in? we are going Dec. 23-28th.