Rest days?

[Shellyb84]

We will have 11 full days and another half day on departure day. It's me, DH and DD6. We will be staying at the Beach Club. I'm having trouble planning out our days. How many rest days would you take for that long of a trip? So far we have one full day planned at the resort for DD to do the kid's pirate cruise and we'll spend most of the day at the pool. DD likes her pool time so a few hours at the pool late afternoon is how we keep her happy most days. I was thinking about having some easy mornings at the resort and heading out to the parks after lunch, but DH isn't crazy about the idea of missing the less-crowded early morning hours. Should we do another full rest day, or maybe just a few half days? Our past trips have been fairly short and have been pretty busy, and I'm really trying not to plan too much park time for this many days but so far that's where I'm headed! How many days at each park would you consider ideal? We usually arrive at RD but aren't RD to close people. Any tips would be appreciated!

 

[Irish_Mike]

For an 11 day trip, I'd (personally) give myself 2 full days of no parks to relax at the hotel, go to Disney Springs, or explore some other places on property (Resort hop, golf courses, etc).

However, going in the summer (as you are, according to the ticker), you may want to simply plan a couple of half days instead. It really depends on whether you want a full day away from the parks, or just a couple of hours here and there.

 

[Aliceacc]

We don't ever do a rest day.

We do rope drop almost every day, and lots of late nights.

But we spend every single afternoon, from about 1- 5, in the pool or napping.

It doesn't work for everyone. But it works well for us.

 

[Indio]

We don't do a full rest day either. For longer trips, we do go back to the resort every day after lunch for rest/nap/pool, etc, then back at the parks at night. I'd do the 1 full day in the middle of the week and maybe a half day or 2 the rest of the time. We love the parks so we spend a lot of time there.

 

[Wood Nymph]

It works out best for us to go someplace in the morning. DH gets antsy if there aren't any morning plans. So we will often go to a park for a short time, ride the rides until it gets crowded, and head out. Sometimes we'll go to another resort for lunch before going back to the BC. Then we will go out again for dinner.

You didn't say how many days of tickets you have, which would make a difference.

 

[Julylady]

We don't normally do an entire day of no parks, but are tentatively planning one for our upcoming 11 day trip to go to Disney Springs. But we never stay at the parks the entire day, usually spending either the morning, afternoon, or evening at the resort. With the new pricing structure (less than $10 for multiple days after 6 days) coupled with the ability to get 3 fast passes a day, we will spend a part of every day in the parks even if just to use our 3 fast passes. For example, one day last July we spent the entire day at Fort Wilderness (we were staying in a cabin there). After dinner we took the boat over to Magic Kingdom where we had fast passes for Space Mountain, Wishes fireworks, and the Main Street Electrical Parade.

 

[Shellyb84]

It works out best for us to go someplace in the morning. DH gets antsy if there aren't any morning plans. So we will often go to a park for a short time, ride the rides until it gets crowded, and head out. Sometimes we'll go to another resort for lunch before going back to the BC. Then we will go out again for dinner.

You didn't say how many days of tickets you have, which would make a difference.

We bought APs this year so number of park days/hopping isn't an issue.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We bought APs this year so number of park days/hopping isn't an issue.

That's good.

Some ideas:
- character breakfast at Cape May - the food is great and the characters are fun

- take the boat to Fort Wilderness after a morning at MK let your daughter play at the playground they have right by the boat dock, next to Trails End. It is a very nice shaded playground with a good collection of playground equipment. You can relax in the shade at a picnic table and watch her play. Then you can walk around the area. There is a corral of really cute ponies there and a horse barn that you can tour. They used to offer pony rides for $5, but I would check on that first. You can also rent bikes and ride around Fort Wilderness or rent a boat and explore Bay Lake. If you go in the evening you can go to the free Chip and Dale campfire.

- go to Disney Springs and let her play with the Legos at the Lego store, hunt for dinosaur bones at the boneyard at T-Rex and build stuff at World of Toys (I think that is the name of it) You can also ride a resort boat to OKW, POFQ or POR just for fun.

- resort hopping is easy from the Beach Club - use DHS as the park to go to to catch a resort bus. We've done this so that we can explore other resorts. Just take the boat or walk to/from the BC to DHS. It is easy.

- monorail - you can walk through Epcot and catch the monorail to MK. When you get to the TTC you can either explore the monorail resorts or take the ferry to MK or do both.

 

[Miss Frankie J]

I always try to do 4 - 5 Park days with at least 1 rest day. This year I'll be going for the longest I've ever been which is 9 days. I am doing 5 park hopping days, 1 MNSSHP, 1 Disney Springs and 1 rest day. I agree that missing out on the mornings at the parks in summer might not be a great idea, especially when it gets hot and crowded midday. Last year when we went in June we hit the parks early and left around 1 or 2 and had quiet pool time and it was amazing. One thing we regret is not spending more time at the resort.

If I was in your shoes I'd take at least 2 days to explore and relax at the resort and if we were doing half days I would go in the AM and spend the rest of the day by the pool.

 

[loves to dive]

I don't plan rest days, they just sort of happen when they happen for us. We are more seat of the pants type people, which we are lucky we can be since we go at least every other year and have for the past 33 years. I go twice a year (sometimes solo) so going slow and taking in the sights are how we go. We do our 3 FPs about mid morning, around 10. If I'm up, I'll go ahead and go to whatever park I'm in the mood for (AP holder) and if my son is with me when he gets up, he'll meet me wherever we have the FP for. We might hang around and have lunch or we might go back to the resort or we might hop to another park. We just let our bodies dictate how we go. We've been doing it this way since we started going when my son was 3, and there was no such thing as a FP. We got tired, we went back to the resort, we got energy back we'd go back to a park.

 

[Shellyb84]

That's good.

Some ideas:
- character breakfast at Cape May - the food is great and the characters are fun

- take the boat to Fort Wilderness after a morning at MK let your daughter play at the playground they have right by the boat dock, next to Trails End. It is a very nice shaded playground with a good collection of playground equipment. You can relax in the shade at a picnic table and watch her play. Then you can walk around the area. There is a corral of really cute ponies there and a horse barn that you can tour. They used to offer pony rides for $5, but I would check on that first. You can also rent bikes and ride around Fort Wilderness or rent a boat and explore Bay Lake. If you go in the evening you can go to the free Chip and Dale campfire.

- go to Disney Springs and let her play with the Legos at the Lego store, hunt for dinosaur bones at the boneyard at T-Rex and build stuff at World of Toys (I think that is the name of it) You can also ride a resort boat to OKW, POFQ or POR just for fun.

- resort hopping is easy from the Beach Club - use DHS as the park to go to to catch a resort bus. We've done this so that we can explore other resorts. Just take the boat or walk to/from the BC to DHS. It is easy.

- monorail - you can walk through Epcot and catch the monorail to MK. When you get to the TTC you can either explore the monorail resorts or take the ferry to MK or do both.

I forgot about the Lego store! I wasn't planning on visiting DS (unless there are new restaurants open by then), but it may be worth the trip for her since she's a huge Lego fan.

 

[BigAlsGal]

We usually do 2 days park 1 day rest. Three park days in a row and my body falls apart and the kids get moody.

 

[Irish_Mike]

I forgot about the Lego store! I wasn't planning on visiting DS (unless there are new restaurants open by then), but it may be worth the trip for her since she's a huge Lego fan.

You're going in July? DS should be preparing to, if not already opening, portions of the Town Center by then - including some of the restaurants.

 

[aretha30]

This year we are doing 11 days. We have 1 full rest day (no parks or water parks). We have chosen this year to add the water park and more to our normal park hopper passes. This way most of our rest days will be partial water park days. We figure 4-5 hours at the WP will be more then enough for our family but it is less chaotic than a full park day. For our typical rest days we spend time at Disney Springs, at the Resort pool, sleeping in, just relaxing. These are our days to relax and just soak in Disney. You know the feeling you get just being there.

 

[Shellyb84]

This year we are doing 11 days. We have 1 full rest day (no parks or water parks). We have chosen this year to add the water park and more to our normal park hopper passes. This way most of our rest days will be partial water park days. We figure 4-5 hours at the WP will be more then enough for our family but it is less chaotic than a full park day. For our typical rest days we spend time at Disney Springs, at the Resort pool, sleeping in, just relaxing. These are our days to relax and just soak in Disney. You know the feeling you get just being there.

We added water park and more last year, and only ended up using it one half day - we felt that the WP was a lot more chaotic than the other parks! I despise waiting in lines for the slides and the wave pool/kiddie section/lazy river were soooo crowded. We don't see the need to do it again, especially at BC we have Stormalong Bay.

 

[msmama]

We don't do rest days, but we don't do full days either. A "full day" for us is RD to dinner time. The few occasions we want to do a late night, we'll head to the parks around 3 or 4.

If it were me, and I had an AP (which I do), I'd plan on visiting the parks every days, like an above poster said, at least to use 3 FP's. We're up early (the reason we don't do late nights) so rope drop isn't hard for us. We also don't like to swim during the day. I find it too crowded and, honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the sun, so most of our swimming is done in the evening.

I would do Disney Springs, but that's just because I like it. Our last trip we were at MK until about 2 and then headed there for dinner and a bit of shopping (but were back at the resort by 6ish).

 

[ruthies12]

Our last trip was 11 days long- 2 days of driving, 6 Disney park days, 2 universal park days, and 1 day at the Fort Wilderness campground (we were staying at the campground in our RV). On our one campground day we did chef mickey's breakfast, went to the pool, the pony rides, and the campfire sing-a-long.

For our next trip I bought 7 day park tickets to Disney and none to universal. DH requested more rest time and I think it will be better for the kids too. We were all quite exhausted by the end of the last trip. I'm actually planning a 12 day trip total to split the drive up into two days going down so we will have 2 1/2 days to spend at the campground and 7 days of parks.

I'm planning that as half day driving first day, next day half day driving then half day rest at campground, then three park days, rest day, three park days, rest day, one last park day, next day drive home.

Even on our rest days there is so much to do with Disney springs, and at fort wilderness, I will have a hard time sitting still and letting my family actually rest!

 

[Minniemoo15]

I love rest days. we usually do 2 days.

 

[RedAngie]

We usually do 2 days park 1 day rest. Three park days in a row and my body falls apart and the kids get moody.

Same here. Even though we'd take breaks from the parks during most afternoons, we needed a full day off every third day. Just relaxing at the pool, or playing mini golf, or driving off-site for some low-key activity.

 

[GWhitten98]

With going during the busy and heat of the summer, I would prefer being at the resort almost every afternoon to skipping a park day. I like your husband prefer the slow mornings. But if there are days you are planning to do night actives like fireworks then I could see starting late to make sure DD isn't burnt out.