How To Fit In Afternoon Breaks And Parades?

[becka]

How do you manage to schedule in the afternoon parades and a nap back at your resort? Going with a 3 1/2 year old and a 10 month old it is essential that we go back to the resort for a nap in the afternoons. It looks like it would be best for us to tour early, eat lunch and then be back at the resort by 2 for a nap. However if we do this we will miss the afternoon parades and they are must-sees for us. We will be going in early December so park hours will be shorter.

I figured we could probably stay in the park until after the parades but then the kids (especially my 3 year old) will be worthless the rest of the day. We couldn't eat at a sit-down place because he will be too cranky and we would also miss all of the evening activities like Wishes and Fantasmic which are also on our must-do list.

 

[WDWAurora]

Could they nap in the stroller while you wait? Somewhere shady of course, and maybe one parent can hold the seats (this would have to be the brave parent!). When I was your son's age, my parents would sit on an out of the way bench and let me sleep with my head in their lap....really quite kind, considering how hot that must have been in their lap in the summertime. You could also take them to the cool dark shows like hall of presidents or CoP to get a break...I guess I'm just trying to say that you might consider not leaving for their break, but still giving them their nap, etc. That way you won't lose so much time or miss the parades.

 

[beattyfamily]

I never really made a special effort to head back for naps unless it worked out perfectly into our day. Our DDs always just napped in the stroller. When they were younger (1 and 2 years old) they might miss the parade because they had fallen asleep. So we stayed and watched the parade while they napped.

It's kind of hard to leave for naps AND see the parades unless you are staying at the Contemporary and are talking about heading back to MK. You'd have to leave MK by 12:00p probably to do a nap and then have time to come back.

We did naps in the strollers.

 

[becka]

Could they nap in the stroller while you wait? Somewhere shady of course, and maybe one parent can hold the seats (this would have to be the brave parent!). When I was your son's age, my parents would sit on an out of the way bench and let me sleep with my head in their lap....really quite kind, considering how hot that must have been in their lap in the summertime. You could also take them to the cool dark shows like hall of presidents or CoP to get a break...I guess I'm just trying to say that you might consider not leaving for their break, but still giving them their nap, etc. That way you won't lose so much time or miss the parades.

DD will only be 10 months so I expect her to sleep in her stroller throughout the day. DS will be so wound up that he won't sleep in the stroller. On our last trip when he was almost 2 we had to go back to the room of he forced himself to stay awake and then he got really grumpy in the evenings.

 

[Cameo]

Our children would never sleep in their strollers. Heck, it was hard enough to get them to sleep once we got back to the hotel. They have never seen a parade and we are planning our first parade this trip (DD7 and DS5). We tried to do the MGM parade last year, but it opened up buckets of rain and we ran for our car! This year, now that they are older, we are planning to skip rest time on a couple days so we can see the parades. It's always bothered me that the parades are at rest time for small children.

 

[MrsJ Henry]

I think a break for everyone is very important. My husband and I don't have kids and we always take the break. It keeps everyone less stressed and more relaxed... It is vacation.
Now.... It does become a problem if you are not going to be there many days and you have to get more in in a short period of time.
I would plan around this. If you want to see the afternoon parade I would leave right after it to get some rest. Maybe have a relaxing evening after that.
When we stay all day and into the evening we tend to get tired and are not having as much fun. If we go back and relax a little and get freshened up we feel better.

 

[ms.ojo]

We took breaks when it was just us and ds age 2.5. But when dd came along and we went when the kids were 1 and 4, we quickly discovered afternoon breaks didn't work. I think time of year was also a factor. When ds was 2.5 we went in April....much later hours. The 2nd trip we went in Oct. Shorter hours (though not as short as Dec). DD just napped in her stroller and ds rose to the occassion and was just fine w/out a nap. We also took a day off after every 2 days of touring and didn't try to see it all.

As for daytime parades, the MGM and AK parades were big hits w/ my son at 4...but we never did make it to the MK parade. It was just too hard to work into the schedule. We wanted to be in a quiet area to induce dd nap and let ds rest a bit when that was going on.

 

[gigi1313]

our kids did not know there *were* parades 'til our last trip because of naptime...

if it's important to do both (nap and parade) my best advice would be to get up early, hit EMH park first and foremost, go back to rest (and maybe take lunch to go while travelling back to resort, depending on where you're staying or even have lunch provisions back at your room) and then be up (set the alarm if necessary) and back out to the park by parade time... because the parks will have shorter hours when you are there, dec right?, you would not want to nap after paradetime and then sit around looking for things to do...

good luck!

 

[jl3614]

With our kids basically we decided we could not do it all. Usually we skip the afternoon parades in favor of the nap and evening activities. But a couple of times we have stayed until just after the parade and just left not to return, calling it a short day.

 

[dawgsgirl]

Try a combination of staying in the park through the parades and then resting in the evening AND taking the break and doing the nighttime shows. Don't know how long you will be there, but we have found this works for us.

 

[cheerchick]

Editors note: This is bobcat. DD forgot to log off again.

The AK parade is a later parade, I believe 4pm. This would give you a chance to leave your morning park earlier, maybe on an early entry day so you have more morning park time, have lunch and then take a nap break. That way you can head over to AK around 3pm and see that parade. I would skip the MK parade if you have to and go back in the evening for Spectromagic. There is nothing worse than grumpy kids, and grumpy parents! Even though my kids are older now, 9 and 12, we still take afternoon breaks most days. No naps now, well except for me , but even just taking time to kick off your shoes and get out of the heat is great.

 

[KimR]

If your kids are flexible as to when they nap why not take your break after the parade? You could probably make it back to the resort by 4:00 or 4:30 which would would still give you a good 2 hours or so to make a 7:00 or 7:30 PS, then watch wishes or Illuminations afterwards.

 

[LSUDis]

I would do like another poster said and go to MK on an EMH morning...so you'd be there at 8:00? Then, I've found that it gets crowded around 11:00, so how about being there at early opening (8:00), tour 3 hours until 11:00, pick up some lunch before your last ride and eat in line or sit and eat it at Belle's Story Time, be back at the resort by 11:30 or so, sleep until 1:30, and head back to the park for the 3:00 parade--a bit hectic, but you'd only do it one day, right?