Late Arrival, Rope Drop, or Combo

[magicwishes]

We are trying to decide what to do for our trip. We have 4 kids that will be under 8 years during our trip. We'll be there a little over a week.

What are you planning on doing?

If you do rope drop, do you see the fireworks?
If you arrive late, how do you beat the heat?
If you do a combo, does it mess up your kids sleeping routine and cause them to be exhausted?

 

[Aliceacc]

Different strokes for different folks, but here's what works for us:

I get a wakeup call every day at 6:15. I get up, shower, then wake my husband as I head down to fill our refillable mugs with coffee, tea, and whatever the kids want.

When he gets out of the shower, he turns on the lights and TV, and we get the troops up. We've pre-ordered breakfast foods for the room, and we eat as we get ready. We're at rope drop.

By about 1 pm, the parks have reached the point of diminishing returns. They're hot and crowded, and far too many adults all around us are having meltdowns. We head back to the resort for a few hours in the pool and/ or a nap. No one is cranky, everyone returns refreshed.

We have dinner ADRs somewhere between 5 and 6. So we head back to wherever the ADRs are, and spend the night there. My youngest is still very sensitive to loud noises, even with noise reducing headphones. So we've been known to split up for fireworks sometimes-- one of us will either head back (there's a lot to be said for night swimming, particularly at StormAlong Bay, in August!) or into the shops.

That's been our routine all along, even when the kids were younger. It works well for us. But you know your kids... are they morning people? Are you staying on site, or close enough to make that mid afternoon break practical?

 

[msmama]

We do a combo of both, especially if we have multiple days at each park. And no, if we do rope drop, we don't do fireworks. In fact, I haven't seen disney fireworks since I've been a parent (Neither DS nor I really care that we've missed them).

IF we decide we want to see Fantasmic, for example, we'll get a later start. We also tend to move much more slowly on those days. We may not ride lots of rides on those days (because lines are longer) but we'll see shows or just ride various forms of transportation (monorail, boats, etc).

While we may not make it to rope drop, we usually are there within the first hour simply because we are early risers.

Also usually schedule at least one long leisurely meal on those days.

Mid day breaks don't work for us because once we get back to the room, neither of us wants to leave again. Obviously many people swear by them though.

I'm not saying what we do will work for you, but it's what has worked for us. Have fun!!

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

Different strokes for different folks, but here's what works for us:

I get a wakeup call every day at 6:15. I get up, shower, then wake my husband as I head down to fill our refillable mugs with coffee, tea, and whatever the kids want.

When he gets out of the shower, he turns on the lights and TV, and we get the troops up. We've pre-ordered breakfast foods for the room, and we eat as we get ready. We're at rope drop.

By about 1 pm, the parks have reached the point of diminishing returns. They're hot and crowded, and far too many adults all around us are having meltdowns. We head back to the resort for a few hours in the pool and/ or a nap. No one is cranky, everyone returns refreshed.

We have dinner ADRs somewhere between 5 and 6. So we head back to wherever the ADRs are, and spend the night there. My youngest is still very sensitive to loud noises, even with noise reducing headphones. So we've been known to split up for fireworks sometimes-- one of us will either head back (there's a lot to be said for night swimming, particularly at StormAlong Bay, in August!) or into the shops.

That's been our routine all along, even when the kids were younger. It works well for us. But you know your kids... are they morning people? Are you staying on site, or close enough to make that mid afternoon break practical?

We do the exact same thing and I have teenagers. My teens can't wait to get back to the room for their mid-day nap! Truth be told...neither can I.

 

[magicwishes]

But you know your kids... are they morning people? Are you staying on site, or close enough to make that mid afternoon break practical?

We aren't generally morning people except one of our kids. However, we'll just be finishing school so we will be in an earlier morning routine. The hard thing is that we're coming from a time zone 2 hours behind FL, so park opening is REALLY early for us.

We are staying on site. Before we found that if we went back to the resort, we never made it back to the park. But I would love to avoid the hot afternoons that made us miserable a couple of days on our last trip.

I think we want to try for rope drop at least part of the time.

 

[Crl1817]

We are coming from the west coast. This is our second trip. Dh has requested that our first day we not go for rope drop. So that's our Epcot day because Epcot only has two must do attractions for us. We also have a late lunch ADR at Akershus. I hope we will stay in the park that day through dinner.

After that we plan to make not only rope drop, but am extra magic hours two days in a row at MK and the rope drop at AK. You just get so much done in that first couple of hours. We will probably bail on the parks by 3 or so most days between being tired and riding crowds, though I could be pleasantly surprised.

 

[mm1971]

We are trying to decide what to do for our trip. We have 4 kids that will be under 8 years during our trip. We'll be there a little over a week.

What are you planning on doing?

If you do rope drop, do you see the fireworks?
If you arrive late, how do you beat the heat?
If you do a combo, does it mess up your kids sleeping routine and cause them to be exhausted?

We usually do a combination of both. We like to do some of the EMH in the evening as well. On the following mornings, we go in later. If we are back at the room at a decent hour, we will do the following morning EMH.

Beating the heat, we will either go early and take a few hours off in the afternoon swimming or doing other activities/resting. Then we'll return later in the day for the evenings.

The change in schedule never became an issue. We did always make sure to rest or allow for naps if needed. We do not go commando start to finish. We make general plans and then adjust as needed.

 

[Happyjen27]

When I'm planning my trips, I plan to take care of the weakest link. We all know which kid is a mess if they are overtired, and which kids can suck it up.

So, I would base my schedule off of the weakest link. If they like to sleep in, then I would not set alarms, wake up when we wake up and hit the parks around 5 PM using FP+. Then I would eat a nice meal around 8, then do all the late night stuff as people clear out.

If my weakest link were the morning person, I would suck it up, even with the 2 hour time difference, and plan some early mornings.

I find the "turn and burn" to be most exhausting. When you stay up late or fireworks, and then have to be up the next morning for RD. Whenever we stay up late, we don't set an alarm at all in the morning, and just lay around and watch TV and roll into the park whenever. This was much easier this past trip with FP+.

We do afternoon breaks every day, even if we don't return to the parks, we just need to get outta there! Sometimes we napped and returned to the park, sometimes we enjoyed the campfire and move at our resort, sometimes we had a nice dinner somewhere.

Mostly know when to cancel stuff if people are getting run down. We cancelled our BOG reservations because I could just tell that we were getting run down, and instead of travelling and walking for a nice dinner, what we really needed was to bring QS in our room and color, read and play some games. Embrace flexible, when one person is tired, it's time for everyone to take a break, whether they are sure they need one or not.