Rest day?

[jesseybell]

Our previous trips have only been 2-3 park day trips, with zero down time (my kids have yet to swim in a Disney pool!). This trip, which is our "big" trip, I knew i wanted 6 park days (2 MK, 2 EP, 1 AK, 1HS) and a rest day. I originally booked 8 park days thinking maybe we'd want to pop into Epcot our first evening or pop in somewhere on our rest day, but I changed it to a 6 day with Park Hopper (changing our 2nd EP day to a 1/2 EP, 1/2 HS).

I am really trying to make sure we have downtime on the trip - We don't do mid-day breaks, and 2 out of the first 3 park days we don't have dinner plans and I keep telling DH that we will have to force ourselves to leave the park when we plan on it so we don't burn out.

My first trip to the World wasn't until I was 30 and I did 4 parks in 4 days, but it was mid-June so I did return to the hotel every afternoon (and never got to see a parade!) which was the only thing that kept me from burning out.

 

[fairyjess]

We first went to WDW before we had kids, so just two young, healthy and able adults. We went for 4 days and then took days 5 and 6 off to see the rest of Orlando. We expected to be in the parks all day each of the four days. In reality, we 'finished' each park by 3pm, went back to our rooms, collapsed and napped, then went exploring a non-park Disney area - the Boardwalk, Downtown, a deluxe hotel. We were so wiped we never saw fireworks.

It was rough. Day 5 we just stayed in our rooms and meandered to the pool, and ordered in. And as much fun as the park days were, when I think of our trip, THAT is what I think of. Because we finally relaxed and let down, and that let the rest of the fun sink in, somehow. It made our tour into a vacation.

Take the rest day. You will not regret it. On our next trip (kids will be 3 1/2 and 6) I might schedule two down days between the parks!

 

[ajwolfe]

We don't plan rest days and typically stay for 5 or 6 nights on property. We always drive, so I feel I should mention that we stay a night or two on the way down and a night on the way back; so we get some relaxing in there. But there is no way that the 4 of us would be able to "chill" at the resort knowing we were that close to the parks. We even have a hard time carving out pool time due to wanting to be at the parks.