For west coasters... How do your kiddos handle the time change going to WDW?

[ianbikes]

We live in California. My daughters are 5, 8 and 11 currently, and each trip back to WDW always includes at least 1 day between travel and parks. Likely they could use 2 days. How do your handle it? Do mine just need to toughen up? Or are there other things I can do to help.

 

[OldDisneyFan]

We’re from Oregon and we’ve always stayed on west coast time. No rope drop, but we’d close the parks.

 

[Upatnoon]

Take advantage of park close like others take advantage of rope drop. If you are staying DVC or deluxe, a couple of days a week they have later hours.

Take a longer trip to slowly adjust to the new time zone.

Plan some early water park days and pool time to wear everyone out and go to bed earlier.

Adjust in your time zone by going to bed super-early for a few days.

Probably the best answer is to take a longer trip. Traveling and time zone changes take a lot out of everyone. Maybe take a Florida "pre-vacation" before your start your Disney vacation.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

When we lived in California, we'd travel to East Coast once or twice a year (family in NE). For us, we'd take a puddle jumper from the Peninsula to a major hub like SFO or LAX (usually SFO) and that was a great big hassle. We started plane travel when our daughter turned 3. I must say she wasn't a difficult child to travel with. Didn't need to adjust really. She'd nap on the plane and when at WDW, she'd nap in the stroller if she was tired. There wasn't really a getting used to the time change for us.

 

[DLgal]

Sleep in and stay up late.

 

[jaqsdad]

We’re from Oregon and we’ve always stayed on west coast time. No rope drop, but we’d close the parks.

This is what we do too. The parks have so much more ambiance at night and the crowds are better the later in the evening it gets as well

 

[Pookie9922]

We leave a day between flying and first day in the park. We stay close to the airport the first night and then spend our check-in day at the pool, going to different resorts, and an early Dinner at Disney Springs and early to bed.

 

[RedVines2001]

The two times we went my kids were 3 and 5 then 4 and 6. We never really adjusted. Woke up whenever, got into the parks in the afternoon most of the time. Didn't feel like I missed out. On one of the trips I bought an after hours event ticket for DHS in lieu of an extra day and found that to work out great. Got to ride Slinky dog dash like 5 times. It was nice to be in the park at night when it's cooler also.