Help Me Have a More Relaxed Trip

[bopper]

We go to the park for two days, then have a "rest day".
Also we pick restaurants at the park we will be at so we don't have to rush to get to dinner.
Pick some rides for FP and then don't worry so much.

 

[slpeters]

Take anything I say with a grain of salt because I've only been there once, but we had a glorious time so...

I planned every day within an inch of it's life. We'd never been there before and we wanted to do everything. We had a week and we pretty much did everything--except Splash Mountain. It was down for refurb for part of the trip and then when it was supposed to come back up it really didn't and then the only time we could have ridden it was at about eleven o'clock at night in November and we decided we just didn't want to get wet. We rope dropped (or close to it) each day and planned an evening spectacle each night--we ended up adjusting on the fly to weed out the two that we scheduled twice (so we still got to see all the ones available while we were there. We planned a fair amount of redundancy. If something was really important (FOP, HEA, the mountains at MK, TSMM and a bunch of others) we scheduled it twice and then we weeded as we went. We planned an afternoon break each day and generally took them.

It was surprising to me how easy this made things to plan on the fly. We changed the plan a lot and it made it possible to do because we knew the ramifications of it. What would happen if we just sat here for an extra hour and drank margaritas? Well, let's see. We probably wouldn't see VotLM, oh and we'd miss doing TSMM for the what is it? fifth time. "Oh miss, I think we need some more drinks!" What happens if we sleep in an extra hour? Well, we miss our FOP FP which means either we skip it today, but we've already done it once, or we could wait in line it should be about two hours and would entail skipping these three rides. Wow, that was kind of an awesome ride. Let's get up on time. A lot of time we would actually get ahead of schedule or decide we just didn't need to do something a second time (after losing his sunglasses on EE dh was done with that one) and it seemed like such a weird little bonus to find there was an hour or two to just mosey.

For us it worked to have a thoroughly mapped out plan that we weren't married to. It allowed us to feel like we were making real decisions with our time rather than just wandering willy-nilly.

 

[Smittolis]

Relax? Disney? lol.......

In all seriousness it will all depend on a number of key variables...

- budget
- time
- goals

We haven't always been AP holders but decided over the past 2 years to utilize our Residency and go more often. One of the ways that this impacted us, which was kind of expected to a degree, was the notion that we were not 'burning' a day / access into a park if we just fancied popping in for an hour or so and then go somewhere else. We found ourselves going in and out of the parks when we wanted and then going on some impromptu trips to different parks depending on how we felt etc... The luxury of being there at the Poly and WL onsite for 2 weeks as well as having AP's made this last trip the best we have ever had. More time to do things, more time to do things over and over and the freedom to just chill out and do what we wanted. We rented a cabana at the Poly Pool and had family come and visit for the afternoon, it was great. Using the hotels facilities was fun, we then popped into the park for an hour or two if we wanted to just go on one or 2 rides.

We found that front loading the trip with plans, FP's and dining experiences allowed us to take a subconscious breath and relax a little once we had achieved a lot of our intended goals (again, going back to the goal variable). We then made decisions around a framework we had planned using the crowd calendar and cross referenced with weather forecasts etc..

Obviously, if you are going for a lot shorter than 2 weeks it may be more difficult, but there are ways to break up the 'go go go' feeling of the parks. I think the biggest thing is a mindset change, changing from a 'what am I missing out on' to a 'what i am doing now is great' mindset also really helps with my family. Having them focus on the 'now' as opposed to 'what could be' created a huge mental sigh of relief. We had lots of fun as a family this last time, more so than ever. Towards the end we were at the point for the first time ever that we were a little 'Disney'd out'! And I never thought I would ever hear my kids say that!

My wife is a Disney Commando to the max, and while I may gripe and moan about being always on a schedule, i think at the beginning this worked great for us. We knocked out all the big attractions multiple times that took a little psychological pressure off for the remainder of the trip and we were able relax a little more. So perhaps doing that would work for you? We also enjoyed our dining experiences like the Sci-fi diner that helped create some element of calm, afternoon naps / breaks were very welcome too. However, only you know your family and what will or will not work.

Hope you have a great time!

 

[JenLovesMM]

I think the biggest thing is a mindset change, changing from a 'what am I missing out on' to a 'what i am doing now is great' mindset also really helps with my family. Having them focus on the 'now' as opposed to 'what could be' created a huge mental sigh of relief.

This. Totally. It`s what we tell our kids on every vacation, Disney or not. Quality vs quantity. Enjoy what you do, look around, take the time to absorb, notice the details.