Rest days?

[Tomh]

Usually, we either do 12 days, with 2 rest days, or 11 days with one rest day.

 

[BigAlsGal]

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.

Yes! We also take breaks on park days! Sounds like we have a very similar touring style.

 

[poppinspenguins]

Yikes! 11 days at the parks and I would lose my mind haha.

I am an odd bird on the forums. When we go for the week, we only go to the parks 2 or 3 days. ( but those are morning to night, full hopper days) The rest of the time is resorts or day trips (beach, universal)

11 days at beach club would equal 3 park days and 8 days of soaking up the sun at the best pool ever

For a normal disboarder though...I would say plan at least 3 off days. Go mini golfing, swim...hang out on the boardwalk, Disney springs, if you have a car do a day trip to the beach...space center...Lego land.

 

[hookedonears]

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!

Would never do a complete rest day. With FP+, you should at least book your FP's whether you use them or not. With 11 full days, we would plan to do other activities outside of the 4 Disney parks - Water Parks, golf, mini-golf, Disney Springs, pool days, Sea World, rent boats at the Poly, etc., but we'd always plan to come back and use our 3 FP's in one of the Parks. 3 and flee!

 

[Quellman]

We do 2 days of rest in a 7 day trip. But for you there are a lot of fun ways to make the best of it. If you don't mind eating some cost, get a ticket for every day and then make FP+ reservations for the evenings. Hangout at the resort or Disney springs during the morning and go to the park for nighttime entertainment. If your kid wakes up early, then do the reverse. It is all about setting expectations and what you want to accomplish. It sounds like from your post that you are worried about overstimulation and lots of walking. So half days or 2-3 rest days spaced out through the trip would be a good idea to combat that concern.

 

[sretav]

We will there for 14 days in May with 4 daughters (8, 6, 6, 4) and we've only planned 6 park days (we always go from opening to 10-ish) ...

Arrival Day, Pool Day, MK, HS, Pool Day, EP, AK, Pool Day, Pool Day, MK, MK, Pool Day, Nasa, Pool Day, Leave.

I think everyone would be burned out if we didn't take a breather every couple of days. I've scheduled a Disney breakfast and a couple of Disney dinners on some of the Pool days though to get a chance to see some of the resorts.

 

[MouseMum]

Last year, we had 11 full days at the resort and 10-day park hoppers. We took the middle 6th day as our 1 rest day. Even though we took breaks every afternoon to rest/swim, we felt that it wasn't enough. (Blistered/tired tootsies need some true down time.) So this year, we've purchased the 10-day hoppers again, but will extend out Poly stay as well to 14 full days.

So, our arrival day will be our first rest day, as we'll be driving for 2 full days, followed by 3 park days + 1 rest day + 2 park days + 1 rest day + 3 park days + 1 rest day + 2 park days + departure day.

I'm anticipating more down time will allow us to rejuvenate for park day fun!

In your case, since you have annual passes, I'd be inclined to take some similar time off from the parks too. I'm serious about the feet thing. Last year, although I prepped myself with good walking footwear/socks/body glide, in addition to the mole skin and blister pads, my feet would have really appreciated a few extra days not pounding the pavement.

 

[valerie160]

We have 12 active days and 2 travel days coming up. Of those 12 active days, we have two rest days and 10 park days. During those two rest days I think we'll hit the pool, resort hop and maybe make it to DS one of those nights. I have us at Rope Drop almost every morning and taking a rest in the afternoon from 1ish to 6ish at the hotel almost every afternoon. I do have us going back to the parks in the evenings most night, but I doubt we will stay much past 10 for MK and AK once they extend the hours for ROL, etc (and be back and the hotel earlier in the cases of Epcot and HS since they close around 9ish the week we are there). But, honestly, we will play it by ear. A plan is a good starting point, but with 4 kids I've learned being flexible is the best plan because the last thing I want is over tired, grumpy, sick kids who have reached their limit just days into our vacation.

 

[ChloesDaddy]

When it comes to the question of rest days, my motto is...

 

[aretha30]

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.

Yikes! I appreciate you letting me know your experience. This just reinforces my decision that we need to go early and leave by early afternoon. Hopefully this will help avoid the larger crowds. We are at Pop this year so no Stormalong Bay. We can always go mini golfing if the WP are a total disaster

 

[Shellyb84]

Yikes! I appreciate you letting me know your experience. This just reinforces my decision that we need to go early and leave by early afternoon. Hopefully this will help avoid the larger crowds. We are at Pop this year so no Stormalong Bay. We can always go mini golfing if the WP are a total disaster

I would definitely plan to hit them first thing in the morning! Speaking of mini golfing, we don't get the free passes if we booked room only, correct? We've never used them in the past since we've really not had time, but now I would like to but it's our first time booking room only.

 

[aretha30]

I would definitely plan to hit them first thing in the morning! Speaking of mini golfing, we don't get the free passes if we booked room only, correct? We've never used them in the past since we've really not had time, but now I would like to but it's our first time booking room only.

I'm not sure (we've never booked room only). I think you're right though. I think you get all the "extras" with the package. We never used them either, with the exception of the 100 free tokens for the arcade. We were always so busy in the parks, this is the first year we are spending more time outside of the 4 major parks. We discovered last year that our boys would rather take things slow and really enjoy the pool and DS. We added days and the WP and more to make it more enjoyable for them. Hopefully it will be restful, this is the last summer before our oldest enters a very challenging HS program.

 

[PSUGuy]

We're doing 10 nights at Board Walk this Oct and the closest we'll come to a rest day will be on the Sat after we arrive. Then we'll hit a park at rope drop but head to the BW pool around noon only because WS will be a mad house with F&W going on, otherwise we're there every F&W day. After a little R&R we'll hit Raglan Road then Illuminations from the Boards and early to bed.

Bill From PA

 

[SnipsNSnails]

I would do 2 rest days. We had 9 days in the parks. We did 8 days of rope drop and there were several days that we were back to the room by 2 and back out again for dinner. 1 day we slept in, did Disney Springs for a couple hours and had lunch there, the kids swam and then we did dinner then to MK for MSEP and Wishes. We had another rest day planned but then my youngest DS got sick and he and DH missed our whole HS day so we ended up at HS another day, done by around 2 as the kids wanted to do JTA and such. We had planned on mini golf and taking it easy that day. We saw everything we wanted to and then some. Did we do everything? No but we could have if we had stayed to close. Most nights we were done after dinner.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

For our thirteen day trip we have two rest days and six half days. The other five days on four of them we're planning afternoon breaks.

 

[The Sasquatch]

Stormalong bay usually means more downtime than we originally plan for. Such a great place to relax

 

[WIcruizer]

I know you asked for everyone's opinion on what WE would do, but every family is different. You are there long enough to see and do everything you want, so just play it by ear. You never know what you're DD will want to do/see on any given day.

In your case, it does sound like going to parks in the morning would work best. Then just see how it goes each day. My guess is some days will go longer than others, then just go back to the pool when you know she's had enough. You can always go back at night for Spectromagic, Wishes, Fantasmic, etc.

Then you may have a day nobody feels like going to a park. You can take a bike ride on the Boardwalk, go get some ice cream, hang by the pool, or 100 other things. I think you'll all have a great time if you just take it as it comes, and if she wants to see or do something again, go back and do it again. For example, I heard my nephew LOVED looking at the animals at AK. So they went back again 2 days later just for that alone.

As some of said, just try to get a rough idea of which park you may be in each day, so you can get your FP+ ahead of time. You may change them, you may not use all of them, but at least you have them.

 

[Shellyb84]

I know you asked for everyone's opinion on what WE would do, but every family is different. You are there long enough to see and do everything you want, so just play it by ear. You never know what you're DD will want to do/see on any given day.

In your case, it does sound like going to parks in the morning would work best. Then just see how it goes each day. My guess is some days will go longer than others, then just go back to the pool when you know she's had enough. You can always go back at night for Spectromagic, Wishes, Fantasmic, etc.

Then you may have a day nobody feels like going to a park. You can take a bike ride on the Boardwalk, go get some ice cream, hang by the pool, or 100 other things. I think you'll all have a great time if you just take it as it comes, and if she wants to see or do something again, go back and do it again. For example, I heard my nephew LOVED looking at the animals at AK. So they went back again 2 days later just for that alone.

As some of said, just try to get a rough idea of which park you may be in each day, so you can get your FP+ ahead of time. You may change them, you may not use all of them, but at least you have them.

Good advice and things I need to remember. I always feel like we're rushing and DD wants to see/do things that aren't within "the plan" and I tell her we will do it later and then we run out of time. I really want to be better about that and not so worried about doing as much as possible. I'm a really go with the flow person in my every day life. I need to be the same way with my Disney time!

 

[WIcruizer]

Yes, we did the same thing with our kids. Here's a checklist and you need to go on each ride, see this show, etc. Gradually we learned to chill out, and let it happen. You can still certainly suggest rides you think she would like, shows she may enjoy, etc. Maybe she wants to meet a Princess, could be anything. You know her best! One year, my DS was obsessed more with the transportation than anything else. Monorail, boat ride, train, etc. And again, you're there for 11 days, if she doesn't want to do something one day, she may a few days later when you're back at that park. By the way, this is the only reason my DH still wants to go to WDW! We take it easy, yet amazingly we still see/do 90% of what I wanted to experience.

 

[PlutoTheDog89]

We go during Christmas.

We'll stay out of the parks when we arrive on 12/24. 12/25-12/27 we go pretty hardcore, taking breaks in the afternoon. By 12/28 we usually sleep in (till 9 or 10am), enjoy breakfast and head to the parks in the afternoon. 12/31 is strictly a Disney Springs and relaxing day. We sleep in, have lunch at Disney Springs, then relax by the pool or in the room. We head to the parks at nighttime to ring in the new year. It depends on when 1/1 falls. This year it's on a Sunday, so we'll prob hang at the hotel and take a late flight home. This past year we went home on 1/2, so we relaxed at the pool most of the day.

In summary - we spend 7-8 days each year at Disney. We usually spend 1 or 2 days relaxing and take most afternoons off.