Starting to panic, bring me down! HELP!

[DisneyMim]

We are night owls, never get up early and we love WDW. Even when my kids were young we only hit the parks early one or two times. We have ALWAYS been able to go on everything we wanted (except Christmas time). Your kids have been before so they have been on the rides already. They know what to expect. I understand some people love the idea of getting there at rope drop, running to the rides and doing them over and over, but my family is not like that. Yes the rides are great, but we love walking around and just enjoying the whole atmosphere. I want to add that we have been going forever and do 2-3 trips a year average. This is not for everyone. I've seen parents yelling at their children, who are obviously tired, telling them they HAVE to go on this and that. I wonder if the trips are really for the kids. I don't think making a child who isn't a morning person get up early is going to make for a great time. We have always done a ton at night. In the end , it's a vacation. My thing has always been what we don't do this time, we'll do next time. Now if this if your only vacation or you go every other year or two, you may want to try and get up early a couple of days. But if you go to WDW on a regular basis, relax and enjoy and stop to smell the roses, a thing that I think a lot of people don't.

Enjoy The Magic!!

 

[AlexandAndysMom]

First of all - deep breath! You are going to Disney and you will have a great time. You will enjoy it more if you give yourself permission to have a fun vacation, even if that means missing TSMM! There are lots of fun things to do in every park even if you miss those attractions. In the other parks you will just have late return times on the FPs and you won't get to gather as many, but it may be worth it just to ride Splash and BTMRR once each and enjoy other things.

The pps have given good advice:

1. you cannot go into the park and pick up FPs for others. Each ticket much go through a turnstyle with the fingerprint to be able to pick up FPs.

2. The UG (unofficial guide) has a late riser plan for many of the parks - that can help you enjoy the parks with your family. Ride max can help you put together the best plan for your expected arrival time. I used it last year for my evenings at parks, but you could use it for later mornings.

Now - you have plenty of time to work on your kids' sleep schedules. (I do have training and do this for a living) How old are they and what time do they get up now?

Most elementary school kids need 10 - 12 hours of sleep at night for optimal functioning. Ideally, you should never have to wake your kids up.

If you could slowly change their clocks to coincide with waking at 7:30 am ET, avoid EMH mornings, you could potentially do RDs.

Changing biological clocks
Rule #1 Get up the smae time every day Sats and Suns included (this is the hardest
Rule #2 Bright light, physical activity, and food in the morning
Rule #3 It shouldn't be too painful if you do 15 mintues change per week.
Rule #4 Go to bed early enough
Rule #5 No TV within 1 hour of bedtime (this is pretty hard for people too)
Rule #6 Start dimming lights about 1 hour before bedtime

There is some evidence that melatonin (avialable at health food stores) can help this process in adults, but it has not been studied in kids.

They are 8 (or as he would say...ALMOST 9! LOL) and 3. The 8 year old gets up between 8:15 and 8:30 pretty much every day of the week. We have been pretty consistant with his bedtime for the last three years. The three year old who has decided he doesn't do naps (he's our outspoken one) goes to bed at right around the same time (give or take 15-20 minutes) every night and can wake up anywhere between 8am and noon. He's a hard sleeper like his daddy and just goes limp when you try to wake him up and he's not ready.

At Disney they are different. They want to stay up and are too jazzed to go to sleep without a struggle which means once they get to sleep they don't want to wake up. Add in the fact that it's just tiring to be that excited for that long and before we know it, 8am is 9am and we've missed ropedrop.

I know we will have a good time. I'm not worried that we won't. I love the just being there aspect of it. I'm not even that worried about the rides and lines anymore, it is what it is. I'm just freaking out over the big picture...first time driving, surprising them, planning in secret (I don't do those very well...), just being overwhelmed, you know?

Thank you for your responses!! I really do appreciate all of them!

 

[GoldieSaysMeep]

I'm not really sure what you are so stressed about. A vacation should not be stressful.

Get up when you get up. That's what I always do. I don't travel with kids, but if I did I would be the same way and it would be instilled in my kids from an early age (as my mom did with me) that sometimes, you have to wait in line and that sometimes, you can't do every single ride/show/character meet and greet at Disneyworld.

IMO, and from my experience with friends kids, most kids are really not going to care. I'm not sure how old your kids are, but chances are, they don't even know about a lot of the stuff they might have to skip.

My last visit to WDW was in Nov. During the F&W fest. It was pretty busy. But even then, the only ride that really had an insane wait without a FP was TSM. There was other waits, but they were like 20 mins or so, whereas TSM would be like 2 hours. If you are absoluetly sure you must ride this ride (and quite frankly, it's not THAT great… it just happens to be like, the only ride for little kids at HS) then yes, you will need to get FP fairly early on or wait in a crazy line. RnRC had somewhat crazy wait times, around 40 minutes, but there seemed to be FP available until pretty late in the day.

If you go over to Epcot, Soarin & possibly Test Track will have crazy waits, but FP will be there at least til midday. Same thing with EE and the safari at AK.

Really, the only thing that I have seen lately run out of FP by 11 am is TSM. If your kids are little and love Toy Story, let them ride Buzz a bunch of times in MK…IMO, it's a better ride than TSM anyway. My last few trips, there was not a big line for that, esp. later in the evening.

 

[The_Alice]

I hear ya on the no early risers! Also I am planning a surprise trip. My husband knows no facts or details aside from the dates he has to request off from work. (He thinks he jinxes the many trips I have had planned and then cancelled by me telling him, ok.)

First off, relax. I think when I worked there the current estimation in 2001 was 3 weeks nonstop to fully experience everything. So no one can do everything on one trip. Which I too have to come to grips with b/c it's like "I want my kids to experience it all!" Then reality sets in and you have to prioritize. I create lists & touring plans of attractions and dining experiences and rate them according to my kids (and our) tastes and several other factors.

The last time we went I thought we did basically nothing but walk around. Looking back through the photos we saw a great deal, but we relaxed and went with the flow. We still had an enjoyable trip, and most importantly I don't think we were exhausted from our vacation. I am more commando, rope drop fiend, and my DH sees no issue with arriving past 10:30. So, we met in the middle and just aimed for a reasonable time, listed what we wanted to see and experience and set out. The touring plans out the window, lol.

 

[kaligal]

Put them to bed early and they'll get up early. You can hit the major attractions.

If you're staying up late a couple nights for fireworks, sleep in the next day and don't hit major attractions that day.

 

[Cap'nJack'sMum]

At Disney they are different. They want to stay up and are too jazzed to go to sleep without a struggle which means once they get to sleep they don't want to wake up.

This sounds so much like our kids! Our kids (9 and 10) go to bed at 8pm because they have to be up at 6am to get ready for school. At WDW, they are so jacked up that they don't fall asleep until midnight some nights! In the past we've brought them back to the room and tried to get them to sleep in a timely manner, so we can make rope drop the next day. This time we're going to just let them do what they want, stay up late, sleep in late, and enjoy the parks with the time that we have.

The one thing that I've found that works to 'induce sleep' is, let them swim for an hour, bring them back to the room and let them take a nice, relaxing shower, then put them in bed. Something about swimming makes you feel floaty for hours afterwards, and it really helps my kids go to sleep fairly quickly.

I think the main thing is, YOU'RE AT DISNEY! Everything else is a small detail. You'll have a fabulous time whether you make RD or not.

 

[jpkkld]

I think you're letting all your planning get to you! EasyWDW is listing the whole week as Crowd 7. That's busy, but very manageable, even for late risers! Use Touring Plans or EasyWDW to pick low-crowd parks (obviously, since you can't get up anyway, AVOID the am EMH park). Use Touring Plans or RideMax to plan your must-do's. Get your top-priority FP as soon as you get to the park. Dh and I had mostly 6's & 7's on our last trip. We followed TP's recommendations except for 1 day at MK. So we KNOW what a Crowd 7 looks like now (most of our previous trips were more like 3's and 4's), and we know that we were only seeing about Level 5 at the recommended parks. We're sticking to the recommended parks from now on!

Definitely have a family meeting! Explain your park philosophy, and let everyone else explain theirs. Maybe ds8 doesn't want to do ALL the rides - maybe he just wants to ride 3 things 6 times in a row. Ds3 should be easy - a ride, a playground, a fountain - it's all the same amount of fun at that age. Maybe if all of you understand each other, it will lessen your anxiety, even if they all refuse to do rope drop. One thing, though: I absolutely would NOT listen to ANY COMPLAINING about lines if they're not willing to get up early. That IS one of the trade-offs.

Most people (including me) say to take a break in the afternoon if you have little ones. For your scenario, you're sort of taking a break in the am, so just schedule a short in-park break for the 3yo while 1 parent takes the 8yo on a ride or 2 that the 3yo can't do yet. In-park breaks can be feeding the ducks at MK, riding the TTA, etc. You probably know more about this than I do!

If your 3yo can sleep in his stroller, I say definitely take advantage of later nights, including pm EMH nights. For dh and I, pm EMH at AK and Epcot is a great way to soak in extra Disney on OUR schedule. We plan a relaxing sit-down dinner about 1 hour before normal park closing. When we leave the restaurant, the park is emptying out, leaving "only" the Disney guests. Yes, it can still be quite busy. But you didn't have to rush to rope drop to enjoy the extra time. Bring pjs for your little one and a small blanket, and he'll probably catch some zzz's while big bro and parents ride some extra rides.

And, as everyone else has pointed out: RELAX! YOU'RE ON VACATION! Have a great time!