Do you ever regret not slowing down a bit more...

[kathy884]

If I'm there a week I just do a park every other day. It's hard for us not to go commando (but we love it on park days). But then sleeping in the next day and doing small or resort based activities gives us downtime time.

 

[arcticdisneylovers]

We are rope drop people but we are usually finished with the parks with dinner. We can sleep in for free at home, we would never waste of Disney vacation sleeping That being said we can't make it till closing or anything crazy like that

 

[orna14]

Taking a Disney trip and relaxing are kind of hard to combine fully - usually you have to find a happy medium. And most of that happy medium depends on the length of your trip. If it's short, like 5 days or less, then I'd split park days in half - whether it be morning or afternoon, just split the day, once at the park and the rest anywhere you'd like to be. Hotel, Downtown Disney, off-site - even just taking it slow in the park. This is hard because of how much walking is required to get from place to place, but just relaxing in the shade with a nice drink, or taking a slow walk around can be relaxing even on your feet. For a trip that's more 7 days or more, I would try and do every other day as a full park day, and the days inbetween can be much more relaxing. If your trip is only 7 days and you can't do an every other day plan, definitely start more intense at the beginning of the trip. Trust me, your feet will thank you for it. Have a great trip!

 

[maloned]

We're learning this lesson little-by-little. We purchased DVC in 2006, but still find ourselves running around. Lately we've been trying to find new things to experience, things we haven't done before. We're trying to take things easy. Being ok with missing out of a lot of things to be able to enjoy the little things. We're purchasing Annual Passes this year. We will be traveling to Orlando more, so I hope knowing that will help us leave things off for the future and enjoy the now.

 

[TiffanyA]

I ALWAYS regret not slowing down, but it's the frantic pace that begins for me BEFORE the vacation - the planning. Then I get there and my family forces me to chill out and put it all in perspective. We miss Fastpasses because we decided to sleep in or have a late breakfast, decide not to do this show or that and I regret that I ran around for months agonizing over planning when all my family really wants to do is hang out with me and ride Big Thunder Mountain at east once or twice, lol. That said they are really happy that I booked us fastpasses and thought out ADRs with a menu everyone can find something on...

 

[cdnjason]

We also love our early mornings at the parks. We generally have an early ADR for whatever park we're going to and get there early enough to make use of the photographers for our MM.
By being in the parks early we get a lot of stuff done by 10:30- 11 am. We check out all the little darling princesses (and ask them all what land they are visiting from! - lol), get in line for characters we want to meet, and by noon are either grabbing a snack or shared CS lunch.
We then head back to our resort, hit the jacuzzi, and nap for an hour or 2.
We then go to whichever park we have chosen for evening. (Sometimes the same one - sometimes not). We generally have an evening ADR (later) and glide through that park pretty seamlessly. If we are able to get FP+ for an evening ride we take it, otherwise if it's something we want to ride we're willing to wait up to 40 minutes. Remarkably, whenever Disney has 40 minutes wait time posted, we have never, ever waited more than 25.
Nothing makes us crazy. If we miss it this time, we'll see it next time!
We really enjoy our days and evenings with the split time!

When I read this, I imagined Hakuna Matata playing in the background.

 

[jenniy122]

I am becoming more hardcore commando the older I get. First trip was the most leisurely, whether because it was before the advent of home internet like this and the unofficial book didn't tell us to do things like rope drop, or it was just less crowded, who knows. That trip we did things like Hall of Presidents, Tom Sawyer, and the Treehouse. I do regret not taking more time for the little things on my college program, as I had so much time. I did some things I never thought I would, like Ellen, and just stopping at a park for whichever snack (during Flower and Garden, the pineapple champagne) and then going back home and doing nothing all day. But as far as trips where I've only got 7 days to fit in everything I want? I'm going to run around and wear myself out to get it done.

For us, it's not about the speed, but about the pleasure. We thrive on going "commando". We love that we are all excited and exhilarated to just keep moving from one attraction to the next. BUT, we aren't doing it just to get things done. We are moving quick because of our energy and enthusiasm. We are go, go, go the rest of our lives, why not just keep going at WDW? Most importantly, though, I have learned that to truly enjoy going at that pace, you need time to reflect, not just slow down. ... When we exit a simple, short attraction like Peter Pan, I try to ask everyone what was their favorite part, or did you see that? We have learned we need to slow down our brains, but keep our feet moving.

I feel like this is a great philosophy that I subconsciously try to follow. I'm giddy, high on life, at Disney. I start crying with excitement when I see Earport at MCO, and start again at least once an hour for the rest of the trip. I take pictures of my favorites, of new things and experiences, and then every night back at the room to unwind I review my day.

 

[sunshine1]

Always.

I spent my whole vacation rushing around Disney.

 

[eastendlights]

We've never been rope drop people. In all the trips we have made, I think we rope dropped twice for the sole purpose of signing DS up for JTA (and it worked.) All of our trips have been at least 10 days long-some longer-so we always have plenty of time to do enough to satisfy us without having to run around so much that we don't enjoy ourselves. We eat probably 90% TS with the rest being breakfast in the club level lounge with a very seldom CS meal so that builds in lots of relaxing time too since most of the meals take at least an hour. We take a tour every trip and also spend an afternoon or two at SAB (we mostly stay BC.) We have a later breakfast every day-no earlier than 9:15 for an ADR and always take a cab if the meal is at another resort so we don't have to get up earlier than we are comfortable with. We do tend to stay until park close most nights then sleep in even until 9 on some mornings when we are just going to grab something from the lounge for breakfast. It suits us as we are not early risers in real life so anything else would make a Disney trip seem like work-LOL.