Why can't we slow ourselves down????

[tenaseewalker]

We used to be just like you...and I was the driving factor. I always felt if I was IN Disney, I shoud be IN a Park and riding something or seeing something. Every year we would come home exhausted. Then 2 years ago DH AND the kids asked if we could slow it down. So I committed to myself and family that we would make time to *relax* .
It was a "Vacation Changing Moment".
We spent a TON of time laying by the pool and letting the kids swim and relax. DH and I actually spent quite a bit of time in lounge chairs that trip.... And we still managed to see just about everything we wanted in all the Parks. So we didn't ride Splash Mountain or Spaceship Earth 6 times..we rode them once and enjoyed them. And bonus....! We all came home relaxed.

At the end of that trip we all came home feeling like we had been vacation. We saw everything, had a blast, and relaxed.

This is what our family does too, but our pool of choice is Typhoon Lagoon's wave pool. That way if we get tired of relaxing by the pool we can hit the slides, the water roller coaster,the lazy river or we can swim with the sharks, then go back to the pool for more relaxation. We then go to the room and all take showers and head out for dinner and then it's time for a park. If we're to tired for a park we go to DTD for a walk/shopping or just go back to the room for the night. It's a very relaxing vacation, one that everyone remembers.

 

[jsebsirois]

Great thread

After a few trips to both Disney World and Disneyland, my gf and I found out we've been enough time to the Parks to take it more easy. I think the best way to slow down is to agree, way before you leave, that you are going on a VACATION and not simply to DISNEY...

For our last couple of trips (Disney World in March and Disneyland in October), we only planned a few things and agreed on no setting alarms to wake up. By far, it's been best trips because we were able to fully enjoy our experience. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy my other trips for every visit is magical, but for the first time, we really felt like we were on vacation.

I once said on another thread that I think Disney Planning is going too far : months before you leave, you choose where and what you will eat on each day and with the new DisneyBand, you will have to choose months in advance what attraction you'll ride... I can imagine that if you go for the first time or once every 5-10 years, you want to take full advantage of your visit. But since many of us on here go almost every year (we are very lucky), I'm sure we can put more time on planning how to relax!

 

[disnut8]

Our trips are far from relaxing, even though we know we'll be back.

Anybody else with this problem???? Have you been able to find a way to relax????

I think this is the key to the thread. Sounds like the OP does want to relax but the family can't find a way to do that.

I would suggest doing something a bit different in the parks. One thing I like to do is look up. Yes - just look up at some of the detail that is in the parks. I've seen some really unique things that way. And it slows down the pace a lot. Instead of running to the Haunted Mansion, take a step back and look at the top of the thing. Look up before you enter Muppets at the Studios. Before you board Expedition Everest, take ten minutes to watch the trains from the viewing area. At Epcot, make it a point to visit one of the museums there.

Have a family challenge to take photos of all the attraction signs. Notice the detail done in just those.

That will keep you in the parks like your family wants but will also slow to pace but you will feel like you are doing something all day long.

 

[kandb]

I always tell the family we are not going to go "commando" and then when I get there I get crazy and start rushing everyone

 

[CNYDisneyFan]

We go every few years. We do stuff at the parks. However, if there's a ride that'll make me sick or I don't feel like doing something, I'll relax somewhere. Also, we make sure to take a break and go back to our hotel to swim, take a nap or just relax.

 

[glvsav37]

I am forcing us to relax this trip. Even though our last WDW 'family' vacation was 2 years ago, my wife and I are Diz Commandos before the kids.

we just bought DVC and plan on being 'Home' every summer for the next few years.

But, this year, I have a lot of special 'non-park' experiences planed.
• A full pool day where we rented a cabana for the day and will lounge and swim in luxury.
• A few fireworks experiences, like Wishes and the Pirates cruise
• After an early park day, we will rent mouse boats for a few hours and tour the lagoon

things like that that will still be a whole lot of fun but not jammed in the hot crowded parks.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Another idea is not to go to every park every trip. Rotate through them instead. Most people will want go to MK every vacation, but the other three can be rotated IMO, (and of course, people might have a different must-do than MK, but you get the idea!) That way you can see each park in depth and then when you go back, the other park(s) you didn't see will seem all fresh and new

I think it's hard to grasp how much stuff there is at WDW...it can't all be seen in a week or ten days without running yourself ragged (which is fine if you and your family like to tour that way). It's such a massive place.

 

[ilovemk76]

We are just the opposite. We know we will be back and we want to take a relaxing vacation, so we skip stuff all the time.

 

[mommykds]

I can relax at home.

Agreed!!!! We go in the summer, we open & close the parks. We ride everything, see everything & eat everything! We can do "nothing" at home. No chance of us slowing down in the future.



As said before you have to do what works for your family to make it a happy vacation.

 

[Haley]

Take a child under age 3 with you - that will force you to slow down

DH used to be like this - go go go

But on our last trip we took our 19 month old dd - we sat and watched the ducks at Epcot for an hour and it was great!

 

[EagleScout]

Also maybe try to incorporate more of the shows - that way you can feel like you are getting your money's worth and "doing something", but not always rushing. At mk, there is the dream along with mickey show throughout day, the main st singers in many mornings, bear jamboree, the afternoon street jamboree near frontierland, the "taps" retreat at liberty square around 5 pm, the "move it shake it" parties near castle in afternoon, and various other periodic musical street performances. At epcot, there are several bands at the various countries and also different performers (like the chinese acrobats), and the voices of america choir is amazing. Good luck!

 

[AllieBoo]

I can relax at home.

This is what I always tell my family!

We go every other year though. If we went ever year or multiple times a year, I would probably be able to slow it down more. We do always go in the summer, so we manage to get in a good bit of pool and/or water park time.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Take a child under age 3 with you - that will force you to slow down

DH used to be like this - go go go

But on our last trip we took our 19 month old dd - we sat and watched the ducks at Epcot for an hour and it was great!

Us too! My son coloured for over an hour at Rafiki's Planet Watch. Having a toddler, especially one who naps 3 hours a day and still goes to bed at 7pm has really skewed us down and forced us to be more relaxed.

To the OP, can you plan at least one resort day and just enjoy the resort pool and activities. Maybe if it is in your plans you won't feel like you are wasting time at the pool? Do you buy APs? If not, purposely but one less park day to force a day of relaxing. If you don't like the relax day, you will be back next year, just don't ever do it again. I have a feeling though that you may like it.

Sent from my phone using DISBoards Ap, please excuse any typos and autocorrect mistakes.

 

[lauradis]

I will not do craziness and try to wake up at 6 and rush every one out of resort to make rope drop everyday. I will not plan to eat at ts except one a day. I will not run to get fast passes.

This is what I have promised Hubby. I will be the crazy one up at 7 am (natural wake up time no matter if I don't got to sleep till 5am) waiting in dark for everyone else to get their lazy butts out of bed.

It's Disney I MUST DO EVERYTHING, but this trip I will be happily relaxed and skip whatever they don't want to do. My friend are already teasing me saying you cant and omg the booze bill is going to be really high. Lol

 

[StuckInKS]

We have half your problem. We do wake up towards the end of breakfast, take our time getting to the parks (granted these were times when some of the parks didn't close till 12am-3am during EMH, so we still always had 10-12 hrs of park time) and we walk around the park at a leisurely pace (don't want to lose any of these kids). If we need to sit in the shade and enjoy an ice cream or slushie, we will. BUT, I won't let the kids hang by the pool and swim (I figure they can do that at home), we don't take any days "off," we are always some of the last guests out of the park and we can't leave without having 10 park days (since that is all we're allowed without an AP). We ride everything multiple times (even Carousel of Progress), but we are not that big on shows so we are OK seeing them once (except for the parades and fireworks shows). I would like to stay longer than 10 nights so that we can take a few off days, but saving money always wins out, especially since we go to the beach for 3-5 days too, and we can relax there. I am looking at Sept-Oct hrs and they are not very generous (many nights all parks are closed by 9pm ), so we may have to start getting up earlier and going more commando-style.

 

[purpledisneyprncess]

Our family is "go go go" too! I think we are just very excited and as soon as I wake up I want to hit the floor running. Lol. There is so much that we want to do and we look forward to doing it all. . End of August into the 1st week of Sept will be our 4th trip to Disney and there are rides and things we still have yet to do. My kids, ages 7 & 4 love the hotel pools and we will make sure to swim. Our arrival day is non park day so we do DTD and swimming. But while in the parks it is hard to not walk quickly and try and get our fast passes. We would rather put some pep in our step than go slowly. If it were a diff kind of vacation like at the beach, that would be leisurely.

 

[luvallprincesses]

Planning a resort day might help. And feel free to plan some kind of non-park activity for that day, like mini golf, or renting a sea raycer. We did mini golf on our 5th of 9 days this last trip and had a nice resort ADR. But I also "forced" myself to not be able to park by buying one less day ticket than we were there for! Regardless if it only costing, what, $5 per person, it convinced me I knew what I was doing when I planned it that way. (If you have AP's that's not going to work.). I was worried we wouldn't be able to do it, or we would regret it, but it was wonderful! We will do it again!

 

[Eliza'sMom]

We had to slow down because we have small children, but, honestly, we enjoy our vacations at least as much, if not more, this way. We do take a mid-day break, and we are also DVC members. One of our favorite places to stay is AKL, and since it is so far away from most of the parks, we often find that we don't feel like going back to a park in the evening and we just hang out, swim and relax. We also really prefer to have a rental car, because it feels easier to go back to the hotel for a rest or to a resort for dinner instead of the parks. Honestly, I find Disney transportation kind of exhausting in and of itself, but that may have something to do with the small children as well.

 

[AuroraMeansDawn]

I am an early riser and I have a family that appreciates the excitement and ability to get much done at RD so hitting RD for us isn't a matter of not slowing down It's just how we like to tour. However we've also decided we like to eat lunch and then leave the parks and go back for the evening. An afternoon at the resort pool or even napping is a pretty nice thing.

Something else that works well for us to slow us down so we don't run everyone ragged is to split Epcot into two days and on WS day we sleep late and get there 10ish and then meander back to the WS and spend the day there. The other day we get there at RD and do FW, then take a break and go back for a WS dinner and Illuminations. Works for us but I kinda think so long as you're happy and having fun enjoy it.

My youngest is leaving for college in the fall and my oldest is about to be a bride so I suspect it will be a while before I'm back and when I get there I'll be so thrilled to be there I'll go go go again.

 

[TexasErin]

We do always go in the summer (due to kids' school).

And I do believe that relaxing is for home. We have always chuckled about how DH's parents come to WDW and go back to the hotel for a nap and to read after a couple of hours at the park. That is SO not us.

However, when the kids' feet are killing them (and yours are, too, but you just try to be in denial, lol) and you haven't gotten 8 hours sleep in several days, so you're falling asleep in your favorite shows (MuppetVision 3D, American Adventure, COP), you start wondering if you're surrendering quality to quantity. We just need to find a better balance of quality and quantity.

On our trip earlier this month, we never made time to just chill in the AKV lobby and soak up the atmosphere. We stayed concierge and rarely made it back to the hotel before the lounge closed for the night. The one night, we were going to eat a quick bite at Mara, swim maybe an hour, soak up the hotel atmosphere, and get 8 hours of sleep didn't work out due to the disorganization at Mara and how long it took to get dinner.

I think I will suggest we split up more- that would alleviate some of the kids' disappointment with not doing their favorites over and over AND hopefully allow us some time to relax.