Here is how our spring break trip is shaping up.
Background: We are 2 adults, 2 teens, 2 kids. As a family, we usually head to WDW every other year (7th trip with the kids). This will be my 3rd trip this year and DH’s 2nd, so we are btw FOMO and we know we will be back mentalities. We like RD and the teens agreed to RD each park 1x and will sleep in on our 2nd MK day and join us in evening. I struggle with whether to plan a full resort day with more packed park days or whether easier/shorter park days every day without a full resort day will work better. Our party is divided on preference. Please weigh in.
Friday: mid-day arrival, DS, early TS dinner*, early evening to resort (early dinner=500-600 ADR)
Sat: RD EP, early TS dinner, back to resort
Sun: RD MK, early TS dinner, back to resort
Mon: RD HS, to close, TS dinner and then F!
Tues: late start AK afternoon, TS dinner, back to resort
Wed: RD AK, mid afternoon head back to resort to swim, relax, dinner at hotel
Thurs: late start EP afternoon, TS dinner in WS, maybe Illuminations for some of us?
Fri: RD MK EMH, mid-afternoon break to pack/nap/swim and then dinner/HEA and close down park
Sat: check out, late breakfast at 1900PF, MK or AK for 3 FPP and last-minute shopping, leave for airport t dinner time, flight probably at 900 pm
Good call–I was trying to get our RD days “out of the way” before the teens revolted, but I definitely see your point.
Friday is set–can’t be changed b/c we want to end with a bang on our last full day at MK. Anything else can be revised and we cannot RD the day after HS.
I could change Mon to late start AK, Tues to RD AK, and Wed to RD HS with Thurs being late start E. Then we’d have: RD, RD, late start, RD, RD, late start, RD, late start. That might be better–will try to change ADRs.
RDing three days in a row doesn’t seem too problematic if you are getting back to the resort early and going to bed reasonably early. If you are staying to park close and then RDing the next morning, I might be more concerned.
LOL–I just try my best to ward off revolt—allowing lots of sleep in the mornings, plenty of food (like on the hour every hour–the oldest is 6’6" and can EAT!), and minimal interaction when necessary. Good luck to us all!
True–the reasonable people in the party (those over 17 and under 13) will certainly do that! In your opinion, do you think it’s easier to RD multiple days at the beginning of the trip before everyone is dead tired or is it better to stagger?
At the beginning. I think as the week wears on, you will end up less motivated to be there early and more likely to compromise your day. Later in the week, after you’ve experienced everything you want to experience, you also are more willing to just take it easy and no longer have the pressure of getting to the things you want.
Of course, in our family (with 5 kids) we always tell our kids it is more a dictatorship than a democracy. Mom and Dad decide what we’re doing. We may ask for their INPUT, but ultimately it is our decision. We are, after all, footing the bill!
I think this plan looks pretty solid. The one day that concerns me is the HS with RD to close. That seems like a REALLY long day to me. Also, I haven’t been since TSL has opened, but before that, HS didn’t seem like the right park for my family to spend that much time. We kind of ran out of things we wanted to do in the early afternoon. I’m sure the addition of TSL (and the wait-times that come with it) will make it a longer day though. If they do have EMM I would expect that the lines at RD will start longer than on a non-EMM day.
We went about a year ago with 4 adults, 2 teens and 2 kids (9 and 7), and we did RD every single day (8 days). We also were done at the parks around 5 every evening, so we definitely had some down-time each night. We found that we were better off hitting it hard and ending early, rather than trying to go back to the resort for the mid-day break and returning to the park for a late night, and then trying to be up early again the next day. I know that’s not a popular strategy among liners, but it’s what works best for us.
It is pretty much what we do as well. In fact, for our Universal Trip this year, it was exactly what we did all four days…we were done at the parks by 3:00 pm, but got there at opening each morning.
Thanks for your insight. I agree hat hitting it hard and being done early works for us. We’ve only done an afternoon break once and 4 of the 6 of us never returned after the break. The pool was too much fun. We definitely want to see F! and HEA so we have to work those in though and we can’t RD after a late night with the younger kids.
RD-close is a long day, but if we want to do TSL during Spring Break, I think RD is our only option and if we want to see F! (some in our party have never seen it) we have to be there at close. Have thrill-seekers and SW fans so I’m sure we can find ways to spend the day.
You can easily knock out most of the rides at HS in the morning and just spend the afternoon watching shows and relaxing. That’s what we did in August. We headed over to Epcot around 4 o’clock to eat dinner and then came back to HS to watch Fantasmic. It made for a fairly long day but we weren’t overly tired even with the August heat.
We even did RD at AK the next day without much in the way of complaints. Kids were 11 and 14.
my teens did okay with RD-ish, even coming from the west coast. And we were in the parks til 10ish most nights. but we took breaks most afternoons and they still napped. as mentioned above, if we kept them fed before they complained about being hungry, it helped with their attitudes. whatever you do, have them buy in ahead of time and there is a better chance of heading off future revolts.
