Do you wake your kids up when in WDW?

[dragonfly08]

More often than not, my kids are awake in time. I may have to prod them out of bed to make RD, but I don't have to actually wake them up.

We usually put in a request for a wake up call (they take turns answering each morning and fight like crazy over who goes first!), so if they are still sleeping the phone takes care of it and I don't have to be the bad guy. They don't mind so much when it's Mickey doing the waking!

 

[Happy Mom2]

We wake them up early, but my kids are used to getting up at 6am for school and usually wake up by 6:30 on the weekends. Still I try to plan two mornings for them to sleep as late as they want... no breakfast ADRs. Those are usually the days we do the World Showcase at Epcot. (We do the rest of Epcot on a different day.)

 

[Chelley00]

I try to do both. Some mornings we do early morning ADRs or try to hit rope drop, and other days we sleep in. It depends what we do the day before. Usually if we stay for fireworks at night, we sleep in the next day. I know on AK days we are "home" early because they close so early, so I'll make an early morning ADR the day after our AK day.

 

[disneymom0104]

Some days we wake them up, some days they are up. Usually if we have an early ADR (early enough that we can still make rope drop) I need to wake them. We do make sure they have had enough sleep, and we are never in the parks late at this point (if we do MNSSHP or something we make sure we sleep in) Anyway- no big deal and it works for us

 

[SCDisneyMom]

I didn't used to have to wake my son up when he was younger. He would be up and ready to go before me sometimes. But now he enjoys sleeping in late whenever he can, so I have to wake him up when we're on vacation. Otherwise he would sleep until noon.

 

[kathy884]

We only do a park every other day, and believe it or not our teens who love to sleep in want us to wake them up. We go high season and they love being the first ones in the park and having that great period when we are ahead of the heavy crowds and can get so much done. After a theme park day we have resort down days or small attraction days and on these days my teen usually sleeps till 11 or 12.

I like splitting it up like this. // So on a week long trip it's usually three early days and three sleep in days, a nice balance.

 

[jacksonsmom]

We have a motto....."There's no sleeping at Disney"

Seriously, we set the alarm every morning and we make every rope drop and we are in the parks usually until close, maybe one day we will call it an "early" night and head back to the resort around 7pm or 8pm.
We go usually during the summer.

Yep, we are go, go, go. It's what works for us

 

[4butlers]

I couldn't believe it, but I had to wake my family every morning!! I swear it was like herding cats! Come on, people! We're at Disney World!!
Needless to say, we had to cancel a few breakfast ADRs. Luckily, this was before the cc guarantee. Lesson learned: no early breakfast ADRs next trip.

 

[vinotinto]

I would absolutely LOVE it if my kids would sleep in (at home or on vacation)! At home, they're up between 6 - 7:30 am. At Disney, they're usually up between 5:30 and 6:30 am and I'm NOT exagerating! They're usually very excited and having them sleep in the same room makes it so that the one that wakes up earliest wakes up everyone else. Honestly, if my kids were to sleep in I would probably not wake them up, unless we had an early ADR with a credit card gurantee.

 

[Dustykins]

I'm nervous about this, honestly. My kids go back and forth on whether or not I have to wake them up for school. Plus, FL is an hour ahead, we'll have 2 bathrooms for 9 people (at least for a couple of days) and we can't have cranky kids for at least two of those days (my sister's wedding). Wedding day is going to be fun with a 10 a.m. wedding and 3 bridesmaids and the mother & father of the bride all in one villa (not to mention the 2 kids, my husband who is the back up photographer and my SIL who is coming with us to help with the kids).

I think we're going to have to make a bathroom plan instead of a touring plan!

 

[katibosch]

We get up between 5:30 and 6:30 nearly every day for work and/or school so I plan on trying to keep to approximately that schedule at WDW. I plan on taking a break in the middle of the day then spending until closing at the parks or as close as we can manage to it. But it IS a vacation, so I think if you want to sleep in later that's fine.

 

[ElizabethG]

I wake them 1 or 2 times. My DH and I joke about DD7. "It's your turn to poke the bear."

 

[DopeyDonald]

Nope. We homeschool and are night owls. We are NOT morning people. The earliest I wil make a breakfast ADR is 10am. This works for us, as my kids can EASILY be up until midnight or later and not be crabby at all. I am the same way, we just run on different clocks...

I *may try and get going a little earlier this trip, we are seeming to head back to the resort every day around 2pm for swimming and would like to get to the park a bit earlier - My major goal this trip is to make rope drop at MK 1 time! (this will be our 3rd trip and we've never seen it )

 

[CarpeDisney]

We are up early and at rope drop every morning.

We enjoy knowing that we can hit most of the rides/attractions we want to while lines are still shorter, use FastPasses, have an early lunch, maybe catch an early parade, and be on our way out of a park for our mid-day break by the time the heavier crowds are just coming into the entrances. We always joke that we feel like salmon swimming up-stream when we're leaving the parks around noon, as we are pushing against the inward flow of people.

Our afternoons are dedicated to swimming/napping (we have a 5YO and a 2YO) early dinner reservations (5 or 5:30) a few more hours in a park, and back at the hotel for an early(ish) bed time around 9.

 

[MissLiz]

Our kids are up between 5:30 and 6am every day at home, so at WDW, they are still up that early. We do set an alarm, but most of time it's not needed. My girls are 9 and 2.

We are rope drop people, and by rope drop, I mean 30 minutes before rope drop.

We spend the mornings at the parks, have lunch, and then either head to another park or back to the resort. We just don't like afternoons in the parks.

I think we may have slept in once at WDW...to a whopping 7am! We still made it to the park by rope drop.

 

[Bullseye]

Yeah it's actually a tradition. I use Disney channel 19, its the one with the daily parks/events schedules for the day. They play light Disney music (no singing). I put it on a semi low volume to kind of ease them into getting up and ready!

Of course, there are a couple days where we schedule a late start, but otherwise thats how I get them moving.

 

[janieenrose]

Yeah it's actually a tradition. I use Disney channel 19, its the one with the daily parks/events schedules for the day. They play light Disney music (no singing). I put it on a semi low volume to kind of ease them into getting up and ready!

Of course, there are a couple days where we schedule a late start, but otherwise thats how I get them moving.

I like that. I am going to have to try that. Thanks!

 

[Suellen]

No ~ I never wake a sleeping child. Home or at Disney.

 

[mom2maggie]

Well, if they actually slept past 6am at home I might worry about it Seriously though - I would wake them if they were later sleepers. We always return to the hotel mid-day for a nap (I've never been with a non-napping age kid!) so its okay for us to wake a littler earlier, since we have that built in rest. This time I'm hoping that the 6 year old actually naps - otherwise she might be one tired little panda!

 

[Idaholion]

Ever since DW and I decided DS (turning 8 next week) was the right age to take to Disneyland, I have been ramping up plans. In the middle of plans I found out the last day of our visit was Leap Day. So, now my plans are first day get up at 7:00, drive from our friends house in CA to Disneyland (90 minutes). Get parked, make it in time to get the tickets at DCA for WOC, go over for rope drop at DL. Stay till late afternoon (with time for a mid day nap at hotel if needed). The next morning we have tickets which include the Magic Mornings, so this means up early again to be in line at 8:30 for a full day at DL. The third day I actually made a plan which included getting up at 5:20, going over to get in line for 6:00 entry, spending 3 hours at DL, going to DCA for the rest of the time till we leave that afternoon. Our flight home puts at home at 10:30 PM. I look at that schedule and realize I am not being logical or fair to my DW or my DS. So I now have 3 different schedules. One for early arrival at the park, one for later arrival at the park, one for really late morning arrival. I am going to make myself stop and listen to DW and DS, and if they are pooped, don't make it a Disney Death March.