Is sleeping in on a disney vacation wasting time?

[lamb616]

IMO, you can sleep at home. I'm not paying $5,000+ to go somewhere and sleep, lol.
Seriously though, like others have said, the first 2 hours are the least-crowded part of the day at the parks. I would not miss that for anything as I abhor lines/crowds, so anything I can do to lessen the chance of being in crowd/lines, I will do. We just go to bed early. On our trip last year we were up at 6 every day and the kids were usually asleep by 8pm and and us by 9pm.

 

[Schmeck]

I 3rd the notion to get there early, and go to bed early! Why would the kids be cranky if they went to bed at an early enough time to get the right amount of sleep? I think changing the hours that kids sleep, even on vacation, is what makes them cranky.

 

[Marshel]

http://touringplans.com/ actually has plans for people who like to sleep in. I work nights and am able to do maybe 1 or 2 rope drops at the beginning of a trip, but after that my body clock takes over and I end up staying up late and sleeping in some. I also live in the central time zone so 9am Disney time is really 8am by my body's clock. Staying onsite also affords you the opportunity to do late night emhs at 3 of the parks. Towards the end of a trip, I'll hit a non emh park about 11, take a break around 3 or 4, and then hit the late emh park aound 6 pm. I generally hit EPCOT (almost all of the queues are indoors with A/C) towards the end of the trip, so it means I may have to do Soarin' standby, but it's not the end of the world. AK doesn't have a end of the day show or fireworks display so it tends to empty out early in the afternoon; if you skip the parade you can do a lot at the end of the day in the last 2-3 hours and EE has a single riders line in effect until the last hour the park is open so you don't have to use a FP if you are willing to split your party up, the line for it also goes way down at the end of the day during non-peak season.

 

[lamb616]

I 3rd the notion to get there early, and go to bed early! Why would the kids be cranky if they went to bed at an early enough time to get the right amount of sleep? I think changing the hours that kids sleep, even on vacation, is what makes them cranky.

just wanted to say I'm also in NE MA, almost in NH (well, less than 20 miles).

 

[topmonkeygirl]

I've got to be there at rope drop. I spend too much money to sleep, I can do that either when I'm home or dead. Too much to see and do to sleep.

 

[bfamily5]

our WDW touring strategy? "we'll sleep when we're dead"

 

[Suellen]

When I was a kid, Circa 81', my parents used get me up at sunrise so we could get to the park (yes...I said park...singular...there was only one then) when it opened and I hated it. At the tender age of 6...I just wanted to sleep!!! Especially after a late night of video game playing at the Family Fun Center at the Contemporary. OK..Who remembers the original game room from 20 years ago???

Fast forward 20 year's later (wow, I'm getting old) and I have a DS6 and DD9.


l

Um.... 30 years. Sorry to break this bad news to you... but you seem to have lost a decade!!

So here is the deal. It is your vacation and you should enjoy it as you please. Trust me you will see plenty if you arrive at 11:00 at the parks. We never, ever wake the kids. We enjoy EMH in the evening and usually see all we have on our must do list plus some new stuff.

And the Animals? We've always had good luck seeing them all. The lions can be tricky because apparently they sleep A LOT! But we have seen them almost every time... just lounging around.

I say... do what you need to do. If you decide you WANT to get up early and are all in sync then get up early. If you are going to end up with some grumpy kids all day? let them sleep. Seeing it all and being miserable while you do it is way worse then missing a few things. JMHO!

 

[Balt ravens fan]

It really depends on what you value? It also depends on what rides are important to you?

If you want to ride TSM with a minimal wait (and if you want to ride it twice or three time even) then you need to get there when the park opens.

If you want to ride TSM but don't mind waiting an hour or 2 get there later.

If you don't want to ride TSM, sleep in.

It's your vacation.

Just know that during the first couple hours the parks are open - that is when you can get the most rides for your dollar.

DHS is obviously the one where this is most critical due to TSM, RnRC and ToT.

It has also been said the Safari is better in the morning.

You could alternate early and late - that could work.

Our family is personally an "early" family, afternoon naps, late family.

We take the parks in 4 hour chunks, with the 12-5 time skipped.

But that is how we roll at home too.

Get up early, take a nap when we get home, do stuff at night.

Whatever you choose you can't go wrong! It is Disney

 

[jlevis]

Kind of depends. We are frequent visitors to the parks. If it is just my wife and I we tend to go late and take the park at our leisure. If we are there with our sons and their families we get there early and make a job of it. In any case a trip to Disney is not a trip to Myrtle Beach.

 

[mom2rtk]

I think it would be cruel to wake those kids up early. I think it would be cruel to yourself to get up early and make rope drop after all those traumatic early mornings as a young child. Sooooo...... I think you should all sleep in. In fact. I think everyone reading this thread should sleep in.

I'll wave at you on your way in as I'm leaving the nice empty park I had all morning.......

OP, it's hard, but you'll feel like you got far more for your vacation dollar if you can get there early. Pick a day or 2 to let everyone sleep in and the other days.......... make hay while the sun shines! We learned this about half way through our first trip. We were SO frustrated that we just weren't getting anything done. But we regrouped and came up with a plan. They key comonent? Getting there at rope drop.

 

[billlaurie]

We usually reserve one day for resting at the resort but all the other days we reach the parks at RD. For us, it is too stressful to navigate the crowds and try to hit the attractions late morning into early afternoon. You can do so much more early in the morning with relatively light crowds and easy access to the most popular rides. As others have stated, you always have the option to go back to the resort for some rest in the afternoon and then come back to the park later. We are so excited about being in Disney that we are all up at the crack of dawn ready for a new day of adventure. If your kids, however, are cranky about getting up early and carry that over to their park experience, sleep in!

 

[brookmey]

Depends on what you want to accomplish.

I've described a Disney vacation as either 1. a great theme park adventure or 2. a great resort vacation. Your schedule should be determined by which one of those you want to have. If it's theme parks, then you should do rope drop as much as you can.

This is how I see it, too. We don't go to the parks everyday. Our schedule is usually park day, off day, park day, off day, etc. If we're there for only a week, then we usually skip AK and make DHS/Epcot a split day. We like to do resort activities, so for my family, going to Disney is a resort vacation, not just a park vacation.

My kids are naturally early risers, but if they're not out of bed by 7 am, then I let them sleep in because they need to. It's very rare for them to sleep past 7 so when they do I know it's because they're tired. The last thing I want to deal with on vacation are tired, cranky, fighting kids. I will sacrifice park time if it means my kids get enough sleep to be their normal pleasant selves, which allows us to have more fun.

On our park days, we do hit RD. We go to bed earlier the night before so we can get up early. In the 4 trips we've taken since we had kids, getting up for RD has never been a problem. Getting to the parks early in the morning is definitely the way to go. And if there's morning EMH, that's even better!

If you get to bed early, you shouldn't have to drag anyone out of bed.

If you stay out late, you should sleep in.

Other than illness, the surest way to wreck your vacation is to fight through it while tired and crabby. That goes for adults and kids.

Have fun!

Completely agree with this. Doing Disney when you're tired, grouchy, and fighting with family members is the worst way to spend a vacation. To me, it's a waste of money if we're not enjoying ourselves because we're tired or if no one wants to do anything because they'd rather go back to the resort and sleep.

 

[dragonfly08]

I do prod my girls out of bed most days at Disney. BUT...that's at their request. They love being at RD, and we are an early to rise, early to bed bunch (we finish at the parks for the day by 3/4PM). If they were night owls, I'd absolutely let them sleep and we'd start later to match the later ending to our day.

IMO, you're on vacation. Do what works best for you. Might you miss some things by going later? Sure. But if that is what makes for happier kids, you'll have more fun with the things you *do* get to much more. I'd rather have a shorter, happier, more fun day where I missed a few rides/shows than a longer day where I got to do everything but we were too tired and cranky to enjoy it.

 

[tzolkin]

I wake the kids up in the morning because we like to do rope drop (usually AM EMH). We feel that it's worth it because we get so much done in the first few hours of the park being open. That said, we bathe and have everything ready to go the night before. DH and I wake up and get ready and then wake the kids up at the last possible minute-- brush hair, brush teeth, eat something on the way to the bus stop. DH usually wakes up at 5am, so 6:30 or 7 is "sleeping in" for him, but when the kids were pre-schoolers they would not normally wake up at home until about 9, so getting up for rope drop was really early for them.

That said, we have learned the value of sleeping on vacation...
Our first trip our youngest was under two and I knew we were going to need to go back to the room for him to nap. I was dreading being trapped in a room with three kids for a few hours every day trying to get him to sleep and then me being bored until we got back to the parks. I also thought it would be a waste of time to go back to the resort and miss out on park time.

First day, we got back to the room around noon turned off the lights and everyone fell asleep until about 5:30.

This quickly became our daily routine (usually sleeping about 4 hours) and for the whole year between our second trip DH would longingly mention how he couldn't wait to go back to Disney to get some sleep.

 

[Andtototoo]

Our family is like the Three Bears -- my dh is a morning person, I'm a night person and dd falls somewhere in the middle.

When we get up on vacation depends upon the kind of vacation we're taking and what our plans are for the day.

If we're on a cruise and it's a sea day, I will sleep in and so will my dd. Dh will get up, regardless. If it's a day in port, we will all get up early to maximize our time on land.

If we're at Disney, then we all get up early for rope drop because we've discovered that it's far better to have the momentary wince in the morning than enduring the much much longer pain of longer lines at the cafeteria at Pop, the longer bus lines, the longer entrance lines, the longer lines at the rides... And if we get tired, we leave in the hottest part of the day when the lines are long and go back to the hotel or to a water park or take a nice long meal (combo lunch-dinner) in an AC'd restaurant.

So for us, we'd much rather have that "grumblegrumble" for a few minutes in the morning when we know that rising early will give us so much return.

To be honest, I don't think I'd want to go to Disney if every day involved constant long lines and crowds in the heat -- that's why we don't go at peak times. EVER. That's just not fun for me. I can endure it occasionally, but to deliberately plan my entire vacation to stand in line with crowds and in the heat? No thanks. And I'm saying this as someone who is NOT a morning person -- it's worth it to me to get over myself and suck it up when the benefits are so great.

So, OP -- the question I'd be asking is if you let your kid sleep in, is your kid going to be a pain in the patoot when he has to stand in long lines in the heat in a crowd or only gets to ride TSM (or some other favorite ride) once? My advice: If he's fine with the consequences of sleeping in and so are you, then let him sleep in. If he's not fine with the consequences, then you can get him up (and tell him to zip it) or choose a different vacation. Another question -- what is your kid's idea of the best vacation? There are plenty of kids whose idea of the best vacation ever is to sleep in, go to the pool/beach and play video games -- no expensive theme park tickets are required.

 

[mjkacmom]

Especially after a late night of video game playing at the Family Fun Center at the Contemporary. OK..Who remembers the original game room from 20 years ago???
...
Jwill

We went to WDW almost every year after it opened, stayed at the Contemporary, and were given rolls of quarters to entertain ourselves while our parents sunned at the pool. I don't think my little sister was even in elementary school yet, and I must've been in first or second grade the first year we went.

Anyway, yes, we get to parks at rope drop, get in everything we really want to do in about 2 hours, then tour unplanned, then leave around 2 or so. I don't like lines, or crowds.

 

[Tarffri]

You need to pick your poison. You either sacrifice your sleep or wait in really long lines the rest of the day. Sleeping in will not be remembered in years to come, but memories are made by experiences, and you'll have more of them if you avoid waiting in long lines.

You can have the best of both worlds by scheduling some off days to sleep in and hang by the pool. It's a lot easier to take the early rise day when you know you can get up late tomorrow. We did that, and it was great.

My DD hates to get up, and every morning is a chore getting her up for school. I started preparing her for RD months in advance after I had read repeated advice from Disboarders to do so. And I had to contend with a bit of grumbling when we were waiting to get through the turnstiles at MK for rope drop. But from the moment Mickey and all the characters rode up on the train and did their park opening song and dance, DD's face lit up and the magic hit her. The day was a complete success! We rode Buzz Lightyear twice and never waited to get on any ride. I can't believe that we walked right on Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh that morning, when walking through Fantasyland later (around 11 a.m.), the standby line was huge, and that part of the park was so crowded, we could barely make our way through!

When the park got oppressive, and the crush of people made it unpleasant for us, we went back to the hotel and enjoyed some R & R by the pool. We went back to the park later with renewed energy and vigor and had a wonderful, stress-free time.

On the day we went to Epcot, we were both tired getting up early because we had done an Illuminations cruise the night before. But we sucked it up, got up early and got there at park opening. Good thing we did because we nabbed a Soarin' Fastpass and then were able to ride it again much later with another Fastpass. Soarin' was DD's favorite Disney ride, and she was so grateful to be able to ride it twice in one day with no wait. We had a busy day at Epcot, and would have missed so much had we gotten there late. We transferred to Universal the next day, so we slept really late. And it felt like such a luxury!

I have learned a few things from reading these Disboards: 1)Heed advice that is frequently repeated by numerous sources. They know what they are talking about. (Believe me, we had absolutely NO intention of going back to our hotel during early afternoon, until we were confronted with huge crowds, fatigue, and blazing sun). 2)The most recommended attractions are popular for a reason. 3)Touring plans enable you to get the most access to attractions and rides on your vacation with the least amount of wait.

 

[meljean]

This past year we decided to let our little ones sleep in. However, we were still out of our room and at the bus stop by 9. The other difference is that we went in Sept and it was HOT! We ended up staying in the parks until 10 at night. So if you plan on staying out late then you will want to sleep in. If your kids can't make it out that late then I would think you would want to get there earlier. We preferred the evenings to the early mornings.

 

[EnchantedTales]

Why don't you do a combination of both options? I like the middle ground idea. Sleep in some days and others get up early and go to rope drop. This way your kids can tell you which one they like more and you can make a decision for future occasions. I know families that their kids are early birds so they are there at rope drop, and then take a nap. Others can't get up early and so they sleep in. I think it all depends on what works for your family, a combination will give you an idea of what would work best for you. Personally I always did a middle ground before I was a CM. However, as a CM now I have a personal rule: not clocking in, not going in before 10:30 or 11. I enjoy the park more when I feel rested and not rushed.

 

[mjp12831]

Figure a week at WDW with dining and tickets and travel costs a family of 4 like the op has at least $4k - that's over $570 per day, or $24 per hour.

For me, that's expensive sleep. I can sleep at home for free without sacrificing park time.

Plus, as others have mentioned, Rope drop am park time is by far the best park time.