Question about Full Days

[creativeamanda]

Are there ever people here who really don't take a full day off even for a 8-10 day vacation? I have three kids who are accustomed to being up at 6:30, playing outside all day, and in bed no earlier than 10. They just don't require as much sleep and are more active I would say than other children. So does anyone consider their "break day" to be one where all they do is go to the park later and leave early (say a 1pm-6pm--leave after dinner--park day)?

Here is the major deal--we have only gone on 4-5 day trips. This summer the kids, a friend, and I are taking an 8 night, 9 day trip. The first and last days we will be driving, so right now my itinerary looks like this:

Day 1--travel
Day 2--Magic Kingdom
Day 3--Hollywood Studios
Day 4--1/2 day Epcot World Showcase
Day 5--Epcot
Day 6--Animal Kingdom
Day 7--Magic Kingdom
Day 8--Water Park (3-4 hours)
Day 9--Breakfast and then 1-2 hours at Animal Kingdom and drive home

Our drive is only 7.5 hours, so I'm not concerned about that--I have driven 12 hours before vacation started and at the end. Does any one ever do a trip like this, where they don't take a full rest day, but 2 half days kind of evenly spaced?

 

[singingpixie]

Are there ever people here who really don't take a full day off even for a 8-10 day vacation? I have three kids who are accustomed to being up at 6:30, playing outside all day, and in bed no earlier than 10. They just don't require as much sleep and are more active I would say than other children. So does anyone consider their "break day" to be one where all they do is go to the park later and leave early (say a 1pm-6pm--leave after dinner--park day)?

Here is the major deal--we have only gone on 4-5 day trips. This summer the kids, a friend, and I are taking an 8 night, 9 day trip. The first and last days we will be driving, so right now my itinerary looks like this:

Day 1--travel
Day 2--Magic Kingdom
Day 3--Hollywood Studios
Day 4--1/2 day Epcot World Showcase
Day 5--Epcot
Day 6--Animal Kingdom
Day 7--Magic Kingdom
Day 8--Water Park (3-4 hours)
Day 9--Breakfast and then 1-2 hours at Animal Kingdom and drive home

Our drive is only 7.5 hours, so I'm not concerned about that--I have driven 12 hours before vacation started and at the end. Does any one ever do a trip like this, where they don't take a full rest day, but 2 half days kind of evenly spaced?

That kind of plan sounds good to me. Personally, taking a whole day off when there were so many fun things to do so nearby would stress me out!

 

[WDW Traveler]

We've been on many various length of stay vacations (from 6 days to 2 weeks and every where in between) and have never taken a full day off to rest and lounge around the pool. We are usually on the go by 8 or so in the morning and back around 10 or so (depending when the parks close) and we go to bed. Sometimes we may come back a bit early, say 7 or 8 and let DD swim, but we enjoy ourselves in the parks. We take breaks there and never try to do commando style touring.

 

[MHSweb79]

I would recommend that on your half day you do NOT arrive at 1pm for a 5 hour stay. The park will be roasting hot and jammed with people. There will be few or no Fastpasses left, and standby times could be 60-120 minutes, especially for Soarin' or Test Track. You could tour the World Showcase in the afternoon, but again, shows will be pretty crowded.
A better plan would be to tour early in the morning and taking the break all afternoon for a nap or a swim. Then, if you're all up to it, you can go back for the evening hours.
We generally arrive at rope drop or on time for morning EMH hours, then take an afternoon break every day back at our hotel before heading out to a different park for the evening. This keeps everyone well rested. Plus, the kids always love the resort pool!

 

[AlternateEgo]

Our plan looks something like this:

M- travel/resort
T- Morning DHS / Evening Resort
W-MK all day
Th- Resort/DTD
F- Morning AK / Evening Resort
S- Epcot all day
Su- resort / travel

We wanted lots of down time, this is our honeymoon afterall

 

[creativeamanda]

We've been on many various length of stay vacations (from 6 days to 2 weeks and every where in between) and have never taken a full day off to rest and lounge around the pool. We are usually on the go by 8 or so in the morning and back around 10 or so (depending when the parks close) and we go to bed. Sometimes we may come back a bit early, say 7 or 8 and let DD swim, but we enjoy ourselves in the parks. We take breaks there and never try to do commando style touring.

Last trip, I spent so much time with my itinerary in hand saying, "Let's go-go-go!" That I forgot to slow down. I was so worried about getting in that 1 hour nap at 2pm that I didn't even think about the fact that my kids haven't napped since they were 2 years old .

I have Ride Max and I noticed that when I plug in my attractions, they force a break for free time, and I thought we can do a rest on the 1st MK day by riding the monorail around to the different monorail resorts (never seen Poly, for example) and then just stop off at the Contemporary or the Poly to look at the resorts. (I'm still holding out over DVC points for BLT--don't you think it would be nice to have DVC for a Hilton Head visit when dh is tired of the magic? )

I just don't want to spend so much time stressing this time over whether I'm getting enough of a break or whether or not we are at the next ADR (we were on the Deluxe Plan last time). I just want to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. So what if we spend time in line with the kids? That's what Gameboys, head phones, and the preshow attractions are for! I spent so much time not trying to wait in line, that I never got a chance to look at the cool things before we even got on the rides!

 

[creativeamanda]

I would recommend that on your half day you do NOT arrive at 1pm for a 5 hour stay. The park will be roasting hot and jammed with people. There will be few or no Fastpasses left, and standby times could be 60-120 minutes, especially for Soarin' or Test Track. You could tour the World Showcase in the afternoon, but again, shows will be pretty crowded.
A better plan would be to tour early in the morning and taking the break all afternoon for a nap or a swim. Then, if you're all up to it, you can go back for the evening hours.
We generally arrive at rope drop or on time for morning EMH hours, then take an afternoon break every day back at our hotel before heading out to a different park for the evening. This keeps everyone well rested. Plus, the kids always love the resort pool!

Our plan is not to ride rides that day--that day is specifically for the Kidcot section of Epcot. We would not be able to go until 11am anyway, and I'd loathe to be at the park at 11 and have a 5pm adr and be stuck there. For a 1 pm entry, our dinner would be around 5pm, so doing Kidcot--getting the stamp and little thingy only, not coloring--and then dinner, then returning to the resort.

ETA: I am not buying Park Hoppers. For me, I honestly don't see the use in that particular expense. I'd much rather spend that on more souvies. Others like the hoppers. I just don't think it's a good expense for us.

 

[1hero2princesses]

Went in Sept with kids 5, 3 and 1. We were there 8 full days. Did not take any days off. Never got to any park later than 10:30. Never left before 5 pm. We were fine. We considered our day at Blizzard Beach our day off (we were there from about 10 to 5 or 6 whenever it closed in Sept). I am not taking a full day off at Disney World!

 

[creativeamanda]

Went in Sept with kids 5, 3 and 1. We were there 8 full days. Did not take any days off. Never got to any park later than 10:30. Never left before 5 pm. We were fine. We considered our day at Blizzard Beach our day off (we were there from about 10 to 5 or 6 whenever it closed in Sept). I am not taking a full day off at Disney World!

Thanks. I will be honest, when we left in October for our rest (4-5 hours every day, mind you), on the second day, the kids had an all-out revolt. We ended up going to Downtoan Disney that day and then leaving form DTD straight back to the park. Evry other day, our breaks became shorter and shorter. The only day the kids wanted to go back to the resort was MNSSHP day--when they wanted to go back and change clothes.

The only day they took a nap was after we got into the car to go home.

 

[cosmicdaisy]

We've not been mid-day breakers before. I'm a little curious how this trip will play out. Our DD is now 7 so the whole nap stroller break thing will be a whole new ballgame this time around. We will definitely be playing it by ear. For that matter, if she still is comfortable in the Maclaren I'm totally bringing it. Now, I've actually been trying to talk my DH into us "planning" for breaks but he is so against it. Right now, so we keep the peace, they are tentatively penciled in to our days. We're not foolish enough though to not pay attention to our bodies or our DD, kwim?

We do have 1 sleep in day *planned* and 2 early nights. And if we oversleep we oversleep. In my head, if we do happen to oversleep or get cranky, I'm going to call it an early night regardless. Just sort of planning to play it by ear, lol.

 

[Denamac]

Our "down" day will be sleeping in (about 9:00) and then taking the boat to DTD and hanging out there for awhile. Then back to the resort, the pool, and heading over to MK for EMH that evening.

I can't imagine not going to any park on any day I'm there.

 

[jeast]

Some families are high energy and spend a lot of time doing lots of activities after school. These families will be fine not taking a break.

Then there are families like mine that need a little more rest and calm to be happy. We have to take a break from the parks. We plan well, go HARD from rope drop to 1-2:00. Go back to the hotel for a swim/rest/t.v and can enjoy the night activities at the park later. We also enjoy the resorts, so we spend one day relaxing by the pool, exploring non-park activities like fort wilderness or DTD. To each his own. Neither is wrong.

You know what your family wants and can handle. Rock on!

 

[KSDisneyDad]

For us, the heat and humidity at WDW in the summer slow us down so we enjoy a few days at the water parks or the resort pool. I guess we don't consider these days off, but part of the overall WDW experience as we stay onsite. Our summers in Colorado are generally low humidity and although it can be hot in the sun, it's very mild in the shade.

For our upcoming trip we have 8 days, not including travel days. For these 8 days, we have 4 or 5 full days in the parks, but will be back for partial days as well as visiting the water parks. Here's our upcoming plan for this June:

Day 1 -- arrive/grocery store for water/Breakfast supplies/DTD
Day 2 -- Epcot for F&GF
Day 3 -- MK late arrival, but stay until midnight for EMH
Day 4 -- Sleep in/very late character breakfast -- no specific plans but may swim at resort pool
Day 5 -- Water park/rest/Epcot for evening meal
Day 6 -- Animal Kingdom -- evening either visit DTD or DHS for Fantasmic
Day 7 -- Water park/rest/major park for a couple of hours
Day 8 -- Rope drop at DHS for Star Wars Weekends
Day 9 -- Back to whatever we missed or most enjoyed
Day 10 -- Last minute trip to DTD and off to airport

 

[selina4disney]

Are there ever people here who really don't take a full day off even for a 8-10 day vacation?

There's people here that don't take even half a day off in a 10 day vacation. We never do. We are at one park at park opening and a park (maybe the one we opened, maybe we hopped) when it closes every day. We are just that way. I can sit on my tush at home. When I am at Disney I will be at a park. The closest we take to time off is to go to DTD for a few hours to shop or eat.

 

[flipflopmom]

This is our first trip with the kids, ages 2 1/2 and 9, and we built in two days with later am ADR's (DxDP) and no lunch ressies. The theory is two park days, one day not specified to do whatever we want that we missed in those two, and then repeat with the two remaining parks. Arrival day no parks, just resort, pool, Ohana dinner, and the last day in MK for CRT late breakfast and staying there until we're too pooped to party anymore, getting in the car, and driving until we can't keep our eyes open, stopping, and finishing the 10 hr. drive on Sun am/

 

[TinkerbellinLouisian]

I never never recommend Park Hopper....there's so much to do in each park...I've never park-hopped....

The only reason I always schedule a "nothing" day is because we always stay at The Beach Club....and I feel it makes the extra expense for staying there worth it....for the fabulous pool. So we used to take a Pool Day then would head out to Pleasure Island...

(Yes with teens...they loved Adventurers Club) which will be VERY MUCH missed now they've shut it down.

 

[teach22180]

I also won't spend an entire day without going to a park this trip. Last trip we had days without park passes because we were using old passes, so I could relax on the arrival and departure day and the day of the P&P Party.

I think you need to think about your family and what you want to do. For me, rope drops are essential at the Studios and Epcot because of the rides I like, so I have a couple of each. I like MK at night and have no need for a rope drop there, so that's my sleep in morning. I have one rope drop at AK for the Safari and one sleep in day for the late EMH because the park looks so cool at night. I suspect that some of the days when I have tentatively planned to rest may just be a hop between parks, but I like being able to decide based on how I feel. At some point I'll need to do some laundry, and I will want to visit DTD since I'm so close at POFQ.

Arrival day-few hours in AK and then dinner and explore at AKL
Day 2-Early EMH at Epcot, rest? and late night at MK
Day 3-sleep in and then AK until late EMH
Day 4-rope drop at HS and boat to Epcot with a stop at Beaches and Cream
Day 5-sleep in and MK from mid morning, explore WL, rest, and late shows at Studios or Epcot
Day 6-rope drop at AK, rest and late show at either Studios or Epcot
Day 7-rope drop EMH at Studios, DTD and rest, MK late night EMH
Departure day 8-whichever I want to return for a few hours

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

Shorter trips we're pretty much at the park every day.
We have taken one longer trip and we had what WE called "off" days but they weren't really off. I mean we still kept busy- it just meant we weren't going into the parks and using park tickets! We went to the water parks (using what was then called "plusses" on the tickets, now called waterpark & fun tickets), went to DisneyQuest and DTD, went to various resorts for ADR's we had there too, swam in the pool at our resort, played in arcade, etc. It was only SLIGHTLY less active as walking around in the parks all day- enough to make DH happy that we weren't going commando in the parks every single day but still plenty busy enough for our active kiddos to never get bored. That trip was 11 days long and I believe we took 2, maybe 3 but I think 2, days "away from the parks". It worked well for us.

I think that's kinda the same as having a "half day" at the parks- except I'm too frugal to use a day on all our tickets to do that. LOL I'd rather do other things and avoid the park entirely than spend it on a half day at the parks! There is lots to do besides MK/Epcot/AK/DHS- yanno?

Actually I guess we liked that type of thing or just becoming cheap or something because this upcoming trip even though it's not a LONG one at WDW- we're still taking "not in the parks" days. We're only going to be there 6 days and 2 of those days we're doing waterparks and other things like DisneyQuest, hanging around doing things at our resort (Fort Wilderness), etc.

 

[dawnedwards]

We are getting up early our travel day to fly in. Will probably be up at 4am. We are planning to do Chef Mickeys the first day as well as some time at MK.

The next morning we are starting with a 9:30 Princess Storybook Breakfast so we can sleep in a bit.

We never take a full day off, but we do take daily mid day breaks so that we are able to make the most of our evenings and nights. We have small kids 4 and 18 months so this works for us.

 

[jm106]

We are also not planning full days off. My kids are great stroller nappers and "if" we go back to hotel(off site) that would most likely nap there, so once back at resort they would be up again.I plan so late night then early day, so they get rest. (My kids are 3 and under 1)
My Schedule-
Sat- arrive, grocery shop, pool and resort and dinner either at resort or local place I like(DN and BF to universal)
Sunday- AK, open til 5, dinner at resort, pool, normal bedtime for kids
Mon- MK RD- 10pm, stay for spectromagic at 10pm. Optional Mid day break at resort, but will stay if they are fine and nap.
Tues- DHS- RD to 7pm close, kids early to bed( DN babysit and we are going OUT!!)
Wed- MK, maybe later start. stay until close 9, (see wishes if we dont on Monday or see it again )
Thurs- Sea World open- 7pm, pool and resort dinner, kids in bed fairly early
Friday- Chef Mickeys 9:30am, then Epcot til close stay for Illuminations
Sat- home