Down Day Midweek

[curious_st]

My hubby and I are going on our first trip in December. I keep hearing that you should schedule a down day every 3 days or so. Is that really necessary? If so, would a pool day with a nice lunch and MVMCP work for a down day? Or, would that be just as draining as a full park day?

 

[oktxregulators]

We always schedule a day off or two in our trip to visit a water park, putt putt golf and Disney Springs or just stay at the resort and be lazy. The parks could be overwhelming for 1st time visitors.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

We scheduled an off day once and all we wanted to do was go to the parks. We go to the parks every day and don't get burned out

 

[davale4]

We go every year and stay for two weeks or three weeks. We definitely have many days of down time. However this will be our first year going for just a week, and we are still scheduling two days of down time. We are actually doing the same as you but for MNSSHP. We are doing a pool day, lunch and then heading over for the event in the evening.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

We are big fans of a down day but we have young kids and I think its essential to avoiding major meltdowns. As an adult, I think it's nice to have more of a 'vacation' day in the middle of the trip. The parks are so go/go that it's nice to have downtime. That said, I know friends of the family and others who hate down days and consider them a waste of time at Disney. I think a good way to tell if you would like one or not is whether or not you like beach vacations. If you enjoy spending a day of not doing much at all, then I think it's a good chance you will want a down day. If you're the type of person who loves to be constantly on the move and doing something, a down day might not be for you.

 

[Accident]

Not everyone would define a down day as skipping a park. For us, it's basically a day or two that is unplanned and we go where the day takes us.. First sleeping in, then whatever we are up too. It doens't mean we won't add on another day of tickets and hit a park but it doesn't mean we will. Generally this is a day I schedule something at a resort for a late lunch and sleep in. Usually somewhere I woudln't normally venture out to like ft wilderness or another resort that there really isn't much except seeing the resort and eating there.. We just take it slow and lazy and not planned to move move move. go where the day takes you at a pace to get some sore muscle relief. We actually ended up at universal for the first time for one of these down days..

Maybe it's a water park day.. that's a lazier day and I would call a rest day.. rest to me doesn't mean staying in bed and just swimming, it just means I slowed down a little and not very planned out.. we still do and go where we want.

 

[srwarden1928]

I am planning my first solo trip this November. I will be at Disney for ten nights. I do NOT plan for ANY "down" days. I can have "down" days at home. Now while I will do rope drop to close some days, this will not happen every day. I do plan some time at DTD. I will likely just have a nice Epcot dinner on arrival day and will spend the morning of departure day on Splash Mountain, since that is when it reopens. I have different plans for different days. But I plan to spend every day in the parks. After all, to me, that is the point of going to Disney. There may be many people who choose "down" days, but there is nothing that says you have to.

 

[Klayfish]

This question certainly is quite subjective, it's really all about your style, desire to walk a lot, energy level, and normal habits (are you late night people, early birds, etc...). If this is your first ever trip to WDW, I'll tell you...and I think most others would agree...that you cannot fully grasp the size of WDW until you see it. It's massive, and deceptively so. You don't realize how much you're walking until your legs start to get tired. I also think that no matter their style, a majority of people here would agree that it's not the best idea to do 7+ days of 10 hours per day in the parks. I'm sure there are some who can do that, but most don't recommend it. I don't either.

However, having said that, the only way we plan a full day outside the parks is if we're going to make the drive to Daytona Beach. Other than that, we're in the parks every day, even on a 17 day trip. We didn't come down to see a condo complexs' swimming pool or the bedroom. We're there for WDW. So we're in the parks every day. However, our "down" days will be shorter hours in the parks. For example, we may do:

Mon: 9-4
Tue: 9-3
Wed: 4-11
Thur: 9-4
Fri: 11-2

That's just a random example, but it's the concept of what we do. So in that example, Friday is only 3 hours in the parks. We don't start until 11am, so that allows us to sleep as late as we want. We have FP+ at 11am, noon and 1pm. After that, then we'll head back to our condo (we stay off site) and take a nap, or relax by the pool. Then maybe take the kids out for dinner or dessert, come home and watch a movie or maybe lightly hit Disney Springs...i.e. park closest to the stores we're going to and leisurely walk around a little.

So in my opinion, no, you don't need a full day away from the parks. But I don't recommend trying to do an entire week of heavy park days.

 

[Cinderella94]

We are doing one non-park day this July. Notice I don't call it a "down day," though - we're getting up for our 7:30 AM character breakfast, heading to a water park, then will be in Epcot that night for our dinner reservation and some Fastpasses. The only reason we're doing this is because it's the 4th of July and didn't want to deal with the heavy during-the-day crowds.

Our touring plan is always to spend the afternoons by the pool. We don't deal with the heat and lines of the afternoon in parks - we go to rope drop and then leave after lunch. This eliminates the need for one whole "down day".

 

[Alesia]

We tried it once because everyone says you should. We scheduled a down day right in the middle of our first 9 day trip.

We were miserably bored by 10:00 am and in MK by 11:00.

 

[A Belle Among Beasts]

We don't do Resort days. We usually have some early evenings, lots of midday breaks and one day where we escape the chaos of Disney and go off site somewhere for most of the day. But we hit a park every day. We don't commando anything. We have FP and adrs and the rest is whatever. Sometimes the FP are even blown off lol. We rarely sleep in past 8am but real life has us up at 5 everyday so our bodies are wired to be up early.

 

[kmv]

If we are staying 6 nights or more we do at least one day down. We usually schedule it for a Saturday or Sunday bc the parks are generally more crowded those days anyway. We enjoy a day of sleeping in, hanging by the pool and usually going to Disney Springs or even eating and walking around the Boardwalk area at night. To us, that is also vacation.

 

[Klayfish]

We don't do Resort days. We usually have some early evenings, lots of midday breaks and one day where we escape the chaos of Disney and go off site somewhere for most of the day. But we hit a park every day. We don't commando anything. We have FP and adrs and the rest is whatever. Sometimes the FP are even blown off lol. We rarely sleep in past 8am but real life has us up at 5 everyday so our bodies are wired to be up early.

I feel your pain. Our normal life has us up at 4am, so we're used to being up early. However, it's not our favorite thing to do. This is why we never do rope drop at the parks where you show up 45-60 minutes early. For a 9am park open, that means showing up at 8am. So that would be waking up around 6:30-7:00am. No thanks, not on vacation. We don't sleep until 10am or 11am, but even 8am is nice.

 

[Praying Colonel]

My hubby and I are going on our first trip in December. I keep hearing that you should schedule a down day every 3 days or so. Is that really necessary? If so, would a pool day with a nice lunch and MVMCP work for a down day? Or, would that be just as draining as a full park day?

Even though that's what we do, I wouldn't call it "really necessary." We find we're ready for a down day after 2-3 park days because we go pretty hard during our park days. Even with a rest break, we find the rest day helps us enjoy the rest of our trip. But as you can tell from this thread, many people don't and you'll just need to find what works best for you.

 

[loves to dive]

We don't plan any of our days, much less down days. Days have happened when the majority of the day gets spent at the pool or resort hopping but it's never planned. We are go with the flow type vacationers, while we do research for anywhere we are visiting, we tend to not make many concrete plans, that way we aren't upset if something spoils those plans. I can't think of a time we have been at WDW when we didn't go to a park for at least a hour, maybe just for a meal since we tend to not like to eat at the resorts. We have been in the middle of a day and decide we are tired so let's go back to the resort for a hour at the pool and end of spending the rest of the day at the resort. There is no hard and fast rule about it, just go with what your body is telling you.

 

[davale4]

We tried it once because everyone says you should. We scheduled a down day right in the middle of our first 9 day trip.

We were miserably bored by 10:00 am and in MK by 11:00.

"Down time" is different for everyone. When I do down time, I do take off from going to a park. But we do plan other things like going to DS and catching a movie and going to splitsville or going to the boardwalk. We will also sleep in, do some pool time and then have diner at a signature restaurant.

 

[davale4]

If we are staying 6 nights or more we do at least one day down. We usually schedule it for a Saturday or Sunday bc the parks are generally more crowded those days anyway. We enjoy a day of sleeping in, hanging by the pool and usually going to Disney Springs or even eating and walking around the Boardwalk area at night. To us, that is also vacation.

This is exactly what we do!

 

[SaintsManiac]

We have a "rest day" in the middle, but we are doing Universal first and we know we will be tired. DD7 is going to need the break just as much as I do. However, our day will be a late character breakfast, Stormalong Bay and dinner in Epcot, so it's not a total day away from the parks. Just a rest day for the feet

 

[ppjluvsdvc]

Well we don't "schedule" a day off but if we feel like we need it we just take it. I always have fast passes planned. If we decide not to go I just cancel them. If there is any for a hard to get ride then I feel like I have given someone else a chance.

 

[SaintsManiac]

Also, it has to do with where you're staying. When we stayed at POR we didn't have a down day. I would have been bored senseless hanging out at that resort. Staying at BC makes me want to hang around the pool and room.