How do I take in parades when doing afternoon breaks?

[lola4795]

We're planning on hitting the parks when they open every morning. We will take an afternoon break, then hit the parks again in the evening.

When you take an afternoon break, how do you fit in the mid afternoon parades?

We're going at the end of January, so the parks aren't open as late as other times....

 

[BlindTyldak]

We're planning on hitting the parks when they open every morning. We will take an afternoon break, then hit the parks again in the evening.

When you take an afternoon break, how do you fit in the mid afternoon parades?

We're going at the end of January, so the parks aren't open as late as other times....

If the park has a morning EMH, scoot out around 11 or 11:30. Grab lunch at your resort (we often hit the food court and carried it back to our room) and head back to the park about an hour before the parade.

if it's evening EMH, stay for the parade, then take your afternoon break, then come back for your dinner ADR or after you eat at the hotel.

If neither one is the case, play it by ear and follow the groove of the family what is going to work best for you that day.

 

[lola4795]

If neither one is the case, play it by ear and follow the groove of the family what is going to work best for you that day.

I suppose you're right! We'll be at the parks 6 days. With only 3 parades, that leave pretty good odds of seeing them!

 

[rkandmjsmommy]

We have been 2 times in January, 2004 & 2006, the crowds are VERY low, weather is great and hours are shortened, we rarely got to the parks at opening, but usually stayed until closing. If we didnt want to go back to our hotel after MK closed at 7pm we would hop over to Epcot. January is a GREAT time to go

 

[Karnak]

The afternoon parade at the Magic Kingdom is at 3:00, at the Studios it's at 3:30, and at the Animal Kingdom at 3:45.

I'm not normally a parade person, so I use these times (starting about a half-hour until about an hour (total of 1 1/2 hours around the parade), for attending attractions that normally have long lines. Works pretty well for me.

Since I don't subscribe to the "take a break in the afternoon" idea, this makes no problem for me at all. However, if seeing the above three parades were important to me, there's no way I'd try to also schedule a break during the afternoon.

Enjoy.

 

[Skroops]

We have little ones and must take the afternoon nap. Unfortunately, this means missing the afternoon parades. The timing does not work out to have lunch and the nap and make it back in time even when we schedule an early lunch (which we always do). It is a bummer, but the rest is more important to us in this stage of life. We usually are frantically trying to leave the resort after nap time to get to our dinner reservations in time! If we took longer vacations I'd love to stay at the parks through the afternoon parade and then leave for the day and have a relaxing dinner and early bed time on some days. For us though, we use shorter vacation time so I want to open and close the parks!
Good luck to you on your planning!

 

[TikiGoddess]

Personally, in the off season like January, I'd say skip the naps and build in breaks throughout the day. We went last year in Oct. w/a 2 &4 yr old and did without the naps. We didn't have any meltdowns, but we tried to alternate rides with shows and little breaks if we could. We also did one sit down meal per day which provided a nice break. The latest they ever got to bed was around nine and they could sleep till right before we left in the mornings since they had their baths the night before. The days end so much earlier during the value season that it seems like a huge chunk out of your day to nap, but that's just me. I loved the parades and so did the kids. I would've hated for them to miss them. We'll be back in January and plan to follow the same schedule.