When planning MVMCP with young kids Question

[MrsJ Henry]

We are planning on going to MVMCP on Thusday Nov 21st.
Our daughter will be 7 at that time and I'm wondering how others with young kids planned their day before going to the party and the day after since it will be a late night.
We had thought about having a resort day until going to the park at 4:00 and then sleeping in the next morning and heading out more around 10:00.

 

[ConnieB]

Depends on the kid and how much they can handle. I would say since you're paying a premium for the MVMCP tickets that you want to be sure that you get all the hours you can out of those tickets....staying until closing would be my ideal.

My kids can occasionally do a rope drop to midnight shift but the evening time suffers because they are losing enthusiasm, lol. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal....but on a hard ticket evening this isn't the most efficient use of that extra payment!

Since your first suggestion was doing a resort day and entering at 4pm, I would venture to guess that is a good idea for this particular kid! The downfall of this plan is if she wakes up very early as usual and then spends too much time in the pool wearing herself out. A nap or just "quiet time" right after lunch until it's time to get ready to leave might be a good idea. For my kids watching the Disney Channel at the resort was a good time since we don't have cable TV at home.....they rarely fell asleep, but it was good downtime.

As for the next day.....for MY kids....the best thing after a long day, late night is to just let them sleep. They can be very cranky when they've overdone and not replenished their sleep stores......so letting them sleep until they're ready to get up (within some reason, lol) is best. You know your kid best. EPCOT has EMH's until 11pm on Nov 22.....so if you planned to go to that park you could stay a little later so if you didn't get started until lunchtime it wouldn't seem like you'd given up a "whole day". Mk has another party so they close at 7pm and DHS is only open until 8pm. You wouldn't necessarily HAVE to stay until 11pm...but it would give you the most hours possible if she (and you) decided to sleep in extra long.

Again, you know your kid....I know I can let mine do a couple of really long busy days, but if we aren't careful trying to keep up that pace can actually be a very bad idea.....cranky teenagers are never a good thing, lol.

 

[ChitownFamily]

We are planning on going to MVMCP on Thusday Nov 21st.
Our daughter will be 7 at that time and I'm wondering how others with young kids planned their day before going to the party and the day after since it will be a late night.
We had thought about having a resort day until going to the park at 4:00 and then sleeping in the next morning and heading out more around 10:00.

I'll share the extreme side of what we did. It was a huge mistake BUT at the same time- THE BEST day of our vacation.

We started our MVMCP day at Epcot for a 10am princess breakfast. We spent the day at epcot until 430- monorailed back to MK. Entered MK at 450 (just in time to sit down for the 5pm parade) & then stayed until park close. We arrived at our car at 1230am. There were only 3 cars in our section of the park ing lot.

To recap- we entered Epcot around 940 for 10am breakfast- went straight thur to midnight. BEST day of our trip. We had such a great time at MVMCP & enjoyed the low crowds. It was the 2nd day of our trip & the first time our kids were in the MK.

BUT boy did we pay for it the next day. We had a resort day planned, but we ended up having a sleeping in the hotel for more than 3/4 the day. & were too tired & crabby to go mini golfing in the evening.

our kids were 5 & 7, yes we had a stroller, but both kids stayed awake during the entire day.

 

[ktlm]

It really depends on your DD, and your family. Is she a night owl or an early to bed kid? Is she high or low energy? My DD (7) has always been a high energy night owl. We've been to MVMCP every year since she was 2, and we have always gone to a park that day. She is not a huge fan of AK and starts to get sick of it and ask to go back to EPCOT or MK around noon, so we often do AK. We usually go around rope drop and then leave by 3:00 and go back to the resort to change clothes and sit for about 15 or 30 minutes before heading out to MK, which we usually hit by around 5 or 5:30. The past 2 years, we have done MK on MVMCP day. We have stayed in the MK area and always plan to go back to take and short break and change before MVMCP, but that has never happened as no one ever wants to leave. At age 6 last December, DD was at MK from rope drop to 11:30 p.m., and going strong the whole time. We got up the next morning and hit another park about 20 to 30 minutes after rope drop and she was fine. She didn't want to wake up at first, but once she was awake was was charged up and ready to go. Some kids like DD don't slow down and would not be happy if you tried to make them slow down (we found that out the hard way when she was 2) - others would never be able to handle that kind of schedule. We could NEVER do that kind of schedule with my niece in tow--- In fact, we would never do WDW with BIL/SIL and DN unless we were just meeting for meals and maybe riding a couple of things together because they are "sitters". Their slow pace at anything makes us totally bored and nuts, while our fast pace would make them miserable.