Not another one of those threads...

[Knaedudley]

Yep it is...one of those threads where I ask your opinion about my touring plan.
Normally we are an all day, nap in the stroller park family. This trip I am contemplating rope drop till about 3ish. Back to the resort, swim or whatever, grab dinner at the food court before heading back to the park by 7ish with most parks closing at 11. Of course if the park closes at 9 then not sure if this even works. I have fast passes as late as 3 on most days so can't leave earlier than this. What issues do you see with this idea??

 

[pitpat]

obviously it would be better if you weren't stuck there until 3. Depending on what resort you're at, you may not have much of a relaxing break.

 

[NJ Goofy]

You don't mention the age of your children so I'm not sure how much stamina they would have but I agree with pitpat, if you're there at RD you should be on your way back to the resort @ 2:00 pm. That will give you a real break. We hit the parks @ 9:00 am and stay to about 2:00 (depending on the park & our FP's). We then sit at the pool until about 6:00, shower and have a 7ish ADR, then back to another park.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We hit RD and head out of the park around 12, back to the resort by 1, do the pool for our midday "break," start to get dressed by 4 pm (so 3 good hours of downtime) and then hit a PM park around 5ish with FP+.

We go at the end of August Parks usually close between 9-11 pm when we go. It's also so hot that leaving by 12 is good for us.

 

[Disney Khaleesi]

I'm not a midday break person and my family has never done that. We just don't like to take the time out of our day for transportation and resting. So I don't technically see any problems with it, just it being more of a hassle than anything else.

 

[LuvMyEAR]

In my early Days of WDW trips ( started at 40) I was a RD-closing kind of gal. Somehow, 20+ years later, a big wall appears in front of me around 1 pm and I hit it so hard I almost bounce off. At that point, nothing sounds as appealing as taking a break.

Finally catching on that it also takes a lot of energy to get OUT of a park, so I am hoping to to be smarter on our upcoming trip. In other words, try to head for an exit before DH and I are miserable with fatigue. We feel like nearly new people and are ready to set out again before 5, which means we can be back in a park before 5:30. We often have a good, late lunch as we relax, and just snack later in the evening.

Of course, our grandsons' energy and stamina seems to be increasing exponentially to our decline, but when it's hot, they really welcome a break as long as it includes a water park or swimming. Mind you, it can be exhausting just watching them, but if I roll over and snore loudly, I find it doesn't bother me so much. In case you think they are unsupervised...not the case! Their parents are always on duty. We could always leave them in the park, but the breaks have become appreciated by all three generations.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

The potential issue that I see if that many times it can be more of a hassle and more time consuming than relaxing depending on what park you are in and what resort you are staying at.
If I'm tired already I don't feel like walking to the exit, walking to a bus, possibly having to wait a while for the bus, walking to my room, getting changed to swim, swim, dry off and change again, lay down for a few minutes, get up and walk to eat and then walk back to the bus, wait for the bus, walk back into the park, and walk to an attraction.
Instead my family generally finds a place to just sit and chill in the park we are in for maybe 30 minutes and then we are ready to do more attractions.
When we go for long enough trips we try to have a couple of total relax days. We sleep in, swim, nap, go to Disney Springs... just be very leisurely days that we don't go to the parks.

 

[Ambehnke]

We always leave midday. Usually between 1-3 and come back after 1-2 hr rest. My fam needs it and it works. My kids can't nap in a stroller and quite frankly neither can I

 

[Tomh]

I tried to be a mid day break kind of person, really, I did. I read SO many post from people who swear it is the best strategy ever, and I'm glad it works for them. For the most part, I absolutely hate mid day breaks.

What I find happens is this:

1) We never get out of the park as early as we'd like to
2) It takes 20 minutes to get to the bus stop, 20 to ride to the resort, a few more to get to the room, we've burned near an hour getting there
3) No one gets any rest, NEVER
4) Swimming, pretty much guarantee there will be a thunder and lightning storm at the exact minute we get to the pool
5) Took us 20 minutes to get changed to get to the pool. An hour of swimming, another half an hour or better getting changed back into park clothes.
6) Back to the bus stop. It has now been about 3 hours since we left the park, we've gotten no rest, and burned energy swimming
7) Back to the park, after 10 minute wait at bus stop, 20 minute ride, another 20 minutes to get through security (again) and get back to where we were in the park
8) It has now been 4 hours since we left, we are twice as tired as we would have been if we had just stayed in the park, and we're hungry

SOME of that is in humor, a little, but yet it is true. We've tried mid day breaks quite a few times. Out of all of them, it worked out alright for us maybe 2 times. Things I have learned, the bigger your group, the more useless a mid day break is. Smaller group, you might be able to wrangle everyone into some kind of actual rest. More often than not though, I come away from mid day breaks wishing I had just stayed in the park.

 

[momto2js]

For our family, we have to make a choice when the parks close at 11. We can RD or stay until closing (with or with out a mid day break) but we can not RD the day after we have closed the park down at 11. Maybe we can ONCE. There is no mid day break that makes 6 hours of sleep enough to get up and do it again the next day!!