I am STRUGGLING!! I just don't know what to do

[Nancyg56]

When we took our DGD on our first family trip since my own children were young, she even at 4 was a nightowl. WE planned later dinners since that mimicked how we dined at home, chose to get to the parks a little later than most, and stayed later. WE had a blast.

I think that it is way too easy to get caught up in getting it all done, hitting all of the attractions and making the most of RD, but sometimes there is more to a family vacation than attactions and early park time. For us, vacations are vacations and we tend to look at the parks and attractions as only one component of our Disney trips.

WHen my DH is along we go slower, get to the parks later, and spend more time at the resort. He wants a more relaxed trip, and since he is up at 3:30 every owning, if he want to sleep in a bit, relax b the pool, and have a huge TS breakfast, we do that.

If my entire family wanted a more laid back trip I would have no issues agreeing, and would make our plans to go along with them.

 

[bumbershoot]

OP, with those ages, if everyone is comfy with it and you KNOW that at least one of the older kids would stay with the 12 year old (you're supposed to be 14 to enter the park alone, so by their rules the 12 year old needs someone with him) while getting to the parks, I'd just split up, personally. Including the husband. I'm assuming that everyone has their own mobile communication device.

In my family we worked that out when my 11 year old was 3, and they just wanted to sleep and sleep, and I was all ready and was whispering goodbye, and they just couldn't handle it. DH thought I was being passive aggressive, etc. That morning ended with me being later than I wanted and them getting up earlier than they wanted, and it was a grumpy grumpy day. We finished the trip with many conversations, continuing when we got home, and from then on we KNOW that if one adult says they want to do something and the other adult doesn't, that it's OK to split up.

 

[kandb]

We are never in the parks before 1/2pm. We go in August when it's super hot, so we get up, have breakfast at the resort, swim in the afternoon or hang out in the room, then get ready and make our way over to the parks in usually and empty bus. We do some rides, have a nice sit down dinner, do a few more rides and then go back to the resort. We go for 10 days, so we're never in a rush, it's so much nicer this way.

 

[ZoZo]

We have gone to Disney every year (heck I lived in Orlando for 11 years!) and I loved planning our trips! We always got up early, had a pretty strict plan, I ran them all day and they loved it!

We haven't been in 3 years (gasp!!) Now the kids are 17, 15, 12. I'm thinking they will prefer to sleep in and stay at the parks later until it closes. But it goes against everything I know and I am having such a hard time planning. Plus DH would prefer some downtime, but Downtime before noon seems silly

Other than the fact that I don't like change I don't know why I am having such trouble. They are all easy going so I'm not worried about anyone being unhappy.

We are going in June for 8 days, no park hoppers, just water park

How about a mix of "sleep in" days and rope drops? That's a nice compromise.

 

[pa. dad]

We are going in June for 8 days as well. We were just there last year so I decided to make our plan a little more laid back. We only have 6 day tickets, no hoppers.

Saturday-Arrival Day, no park (we usually go to Epcot)
Sunday-Magic Kingdom RD
Monday-Epcot RD
Tuesday-Animal Kingdom RD
Wednesday-off, HDDR dinner
Thursday-Sleep-in, HS afternoon
Friday-10am 'Ohana breakfast, Epcot after
Saturday-MAgic Kingdom RD

We take afternoon breaks & We are not doing any EMH. We have in the past, but I just didn't want to this trip. We are staying at AKL which is a new resort to us. We want to take advantage of it and the kids want pool time. They are happy about the days off and a couple of sleep in mornings, but they also know that getting to the parks early gets them on more rides.

Try to strike a balance. I was 'rebelling' against the break days & late mornings, but I just decided that it was my family's vacation too. Compromise.

I agree that striking the balance is Key. Sleeping in works better at parks with lesser number of attractions or even possibly where you are doing a 2nd day at a park where you have already hit a good number of things on your first day at that park.

 

[gypsicat]

I have a family of night owls and late risers, myself included. But I have tried to plan a mix of early and late night activities.

First half is early days and done by late afternoon most likely. We have hoppers so if the older kids want to do more later they can.
The second half is more late starts and later nights.

Wed arrive earlyafternoon. Hang out at the resort and swim. Maybe visit DS.
Thursday- MK RD until we are decide we are done. Then back to the hotel to swim and relax.
Friday- EP RD
Sat- HS RD
Sun- AK RD
Mon- rest day, pool and a Birthday dinner
Tue- MK RD (only half the group, the other half will meet us around 10/11)
Wed-EP late arrival and nighttime activities
Thur- MK late arrival and nighttime activities
Friday- Park to be determined (need to add a day to our tickets)- late arrival nighttime activities
Sat- late breakfast and depart

I figure that we will be excited and full of adrenaline the first few days. After that we'll just take it slow.

 

[smiths02]

When we went on our adults only trip, I thought we might want to sleep in, so first FP+ was later in the morning. It worked out well, because if we did arrive around rope drop, then we still had minimal lines, and if we missed rope drop, well, we had our FP+ to look forward to.

 

[GillianP1301]

I would definitely just split up. I don't see any point in forcing you to sleep in later or forcing your husband/kids to wake up earlier. In that scenario, at least one person is not happy. There is no rule that states you have to spend every waking minute with your family. Split up to take accommodate everyone's preference and take advantage of FP+ to schedule around personal preference. It is so easy, in this day and age, to meet up with people, to me it's a no brainer.

 

[richmo]

If you're onsite, I'd give the two older kids (15/17) the opportunity to go out and about on their own. Agree to meet up for meals (lunch/dinner), which they'll willingly do since you're paying for them. If you're DH wants a break during the afternoon, let him...you can always do some touring by yourself or with the 12yo.

 

[loves to dive]

If you've been so many times you know it's impossible to see and do everything any way and most likely you have your favorites. I agree with others, you get up and head on over to wherever you want to go and let any members of the family who want to sleep in, sleep. My son has never been an early riser, I always have been. When we was small I obviously had to go on his schedule but when he hit his early teens, he would just meet me at the park. With cell phones it's easy to coordinate where to meet, a quick text of we are getting on the bus now, and you can head to the front of the park to meet them. Schedule your FPs for later in the in the morning.

 

[Vylette Rose]

We sleep-in most days. We take it slow, and do what we can, but never really plan and just go with the flow. It makes for a very relaxing and wonderful vacation, and I don't feel like I need to recover when I get home.

 

[AshleeH]

I have one morning son and one who could sleep until noon (and a daughter who's little, but goes with the flow). If all of them slept in, I would enjoy quiet mornings, late breakfast reservations, pool/shopping, and then head to the parks in the late afternoon and close them out every night. Maybe have one early morning, just to change it up. We are the rope drop-midday break-back at night type of family, but I could see changing it up as long it was good for everyone in the family. And it would certainly narrow down what Fastpasses we would put a priority on.

 

[Julylady]

We just returned from a 10 day visit. The only two parks where rope drop made a big difference was Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. We used Fast Pass for Test track at EPCOT and didn't arrive until lunch time. Same with Hollywood Studios (FF for Toy Story Mania, Star tours, and Tower of Terror). The first two hours after park opening are still the sweet spot at Magic Kingdom. And we were also able to knock off Dinosaur, Primevil Whirl and Kali River Rapids within the first hour of park opening at Animal Kingdom.

One more thing. I was able to completely change up one of our days during our trip. We had originally planned two days for Animal Kingdom and just one for Hollywood Studios. We stayed the entire day at AK and realized that no one in our group really wanted to return. And, we still had several things left undone at HS including Fantasmic. I was able to book a Fantasmic dining package at Mama Melrose the day before (12:30pm) along with Great Movie Ride, Indiana Jones, and Star tours fast passes. We arrived at the park about 10:30 and went right to the 11am showing of Beauty and the Beast. We also had only a 15 minute wait for Kylo Ren photos and Muppet Ride was a walk on.

As the kids get older, I think we will do more sleeping in along with late nights. It seems to fit them better.

 

[DWillowBay]

Just my opinion, but since you're going in June, I would schedule some down time mid-late afternoon due to both the heat and the possible thunderstorms. We ran into this a few years ago, but because we scheduled pool/ shopping or nap tilt: ) time in the afternoon, we were able to recover and hit the parks again with renewed vigor!! (well...not THAT much!)

 

[mavslab]

Thank you all for your great ideas! it is just hard to wrap my mind around planning like this, but these suggestions have helped!

 

[redsbe]

My teens like to sleep in late on weekends, holidays and on vacations, but understand at WDW that getting an early start with 9am RD (we avoid EMHs) means avoiding standing in lines all day - even with 3 FP+. We can get up around 715-730a (showers the night before), quick bite to eat in room, and be out of the resort by 8am for bus in time to hit RD especially at MK and perhaps Epcot, we give ourselves a little later morning for HS and AK, using mid morning FP+ for majors there.

 

[dkrauss]

As the children grow up planning requires much more communication. If I were you I'd lay out a draft plan and show it to the family and get some input from them. We're going on our first "family" trip in November with my brother, his wife, and their 2 kids. What I did was lay out a general plan regarding parks and some initial thoughts on RD and other timing. Now I don't believe early morning wake up will be difficult here as this is they're first trip to WDW. However, I have been careful to add some down time each day (except the 1st MK day.......that's the first MVMCP date so the park will only be available to 7am........so that day will be a commando day ) With that all most all other days have a break in the middle..........in fact one day we take the morning off.

In the end when touring with others...........you have to communicate.

Best of luck and have a magical vacation!

Doug

 

[HM]

We have gone to Disney every year (heck I lived in Orlando for 11 years!) and I loved planning our trips! We always got up early, had a pretty strict plan, I ran them all day and they loved it!

We haven't been in 3 years (gasp!!) Now the kids are 17, 15, 12. I'm thinking they will prefer to sleep in and stay at the parks later until it closes. But it goes against everything I know and I am having such a hard time planning. Plus DH would prefer some downtime, but Downtime before noon seems silly

Other than the fact that I don't like change I don't know why I am having such trouble. They are all easy going so I'm not worried about anyone being unhappy.

We are going in June for 8 days, no park hoppers, just water park

My kids who are now 20 and 22 have traveled with us to WDW or US/IOA just about every year . We still do rope drop. They know that is the way to get a lot done. We leave around lunch time and spend the afternoons at the pool of the resort we're staying and go back at dinner time. Those few afternoon hours can be nap time if they prefer.

 

[MinnieSweetheart]

What some people don't realize is that there are "golden hours" in the evening too. Rope droppers and people with small children do NOT usually want to stay after the fireworks. Catch the fireworks if you want and maybe the second parade, then enjoy rides with the shortest lines for the rest of the night. We have jumped on Peter Pan and seen Anna and Elsa with less than 5 minute waits during the last hour. The only attraction that doesn't seem to become a walk on is SDMT.

We are toying with a trip in late August and our plan is to do it Vegas style to try to combat the heat. Sleep in and then swim from 11-2ish. Go home and shower up then have a big dinner and do attractions all night until close. Ask your teenagers, but they would probably love that touring style.