Traveling with an 18mo and 4yo. I am ambivalent about what to do about our touring plans-- the 18mo is early to bed and early to rise and the 4yo sleeps until 9 am if we let her and if she naps its at 4pm. So, I think that some days we will get to the park early and perhaps some days we won’t.
I KNOW THAT I SHOULD PLAN FOR MIDDAY NAPS, but the book has nothing but complaints about the buses and it seems extremely onerous to go back to Port Orleans Riverside for naptime-- particularly given that my 4yo doesn’t really take them and my 18mo is rather unpredictable and at 13.5 mo is still on two naps (9 am and 2:30p)-- I do figure he’ll be down to one nap by the time we travel.
So much depends on your kids personalities & the time of day. Even my DD5 non-napper takes a nap many days at Disney, at least if we have evening park plans.
Some choose a midday break. Some choose to do RD-afternoon or afternoon-close on different days. I think the biggest thing with young kids is to try to keep your plan flexible & adjust based on how they are acting. I’ve found for my kids that 5 hrs is about the max we can do in a park before everything starts to fall apart. Some days we do a midday break, some days we just stay at the resort for the evening.
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Gosh it has been so long since we’ve had little ones, I’m not even sure I know why I’m responding to your post. Nonetheless, we’ve been fortunate enough to stay on WDW resorts 6 times in the last 5 years (twice at POR … loved it) and in all that time have never had a bad experience using Disney buses regardless of the time of day or night. You know your little ones better than anyone. I’d plan accordingly and not worry about the buses.
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I had this same feeling last year, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. We chose instead a late breakfast/early lunch TS and then let the little ones sleep in the stroller. I knew they would sleep in the stroller though. My phone is filled with photos of my 4yo falling asleep in random places. If the kid is tired, he will sleep. And my then 15mo napped in the carrier on me most of the time. I also knew that if my kids fell asleep in the car on the way back, they would not stay asleep once we tried to get them into the hotel. You know your kids and what they can handle.
We also had a varied schedule. Some days we were up for RD or PPO breakfast, other days went late and stayed for fireworks. There’s no “right” way to Disney. There is a way that is best for YOUR family though. Be flexible and remember that the whole bubble is magical!
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Buses are not evil. The are often quite efficient. Struggles occur most often at peak hours - park open and close. At midday to and from you will often be the only ones on your resort bus. Getting seats during those hours is never a struggle. This will mitigate the challenge you are envisioning in your mind. The bus ride can be quite relaxing, a break in and of themselves.
Midday breaks especially with littles can be fun savers; pushing through can make everyone miserable. We’ve done both and when ours were small it never worked out to push through. But that’s us. Even today (they are 15 and 11) while we don’t always take a midday break we plan our touring so that we are getting plenty of rest, which sometimes means a late start or early finish if we opt for no break at lunch.
But only you know your kids’ (and adult’s!!) personalities. I think the biggest struggle you will face is the difference in your kids’ natural schedules. Perhaps that means you vary your plans so that everyone gets some of what they need. This might mean an early start with a midday break to accommodate the little one and a late start with no break but an early finish for the big one. Or some variation thereof.
In any case pace yourself. You will ALL need some down time to recharge the batteries and escape the (fun but) overstimulation of the parks during your visit.
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I just went with a 2.5 yo and 4.5 yo. We stroller napped. 2.5 yo did it every day and 4.5 2x which exceeded my expectations. We also went back for good by 3:30 on HS and AK days. Even our other days we left right after dinner by 6:30/7.
You know your kids. If you think a stroller is possible try that. I agree going back is a waste of time. I don’t think we’d return if we did. Don’t plan anything for afternoon. Focus on TS lunches. This way, if you decide to end your day early it’s fine. Definitely plan for an in park rest in the afternoon. Even adults need it!
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Thank you! This helps. Our dining reservations are very 11-11:30 heavy for character meals and what not. It helps to hear that making plans to go back to the hotel doesn’t work for everyone and that I’m not entirely inviting disaster by not doing this.
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Yes! I will just want to stick around the hotel. I’m like that for work-- once I’m home after work, it takes an act of God to get me out of the house again! Your daily schedule sounds a lot like what I’ve got us set up to do.
We stayed off property with two little ones in 2011 and my 15 month old napped in the stroller or carrier the whole trip. Even then we either started late (arrival day) or ended by mid afternoon each day and didn’t take them back. One night hubs and I got a last minute dinner reservation at Epcot and left kids with my mom, but that was it. This year I’m planning (for kids ages 5-11) mid day breaks or late starts for all of our park days minus the first (when I think we’ll still have a lot of juice).
We did get to the food court at the resort but DH didn’t even want to use the pool.
Port Orleans French Quarter would be a much better option for your situation. This resort is the first stop back from all parks. POR has four bus stops and can take up to 20 minutes depending on where your room is located.
I always abandoned our home schedules for vacations and I never “paid a price” for it. For the most part they would fall asleep in the stroller for a while when they were tired enough to need it. Expecting kids to nap on demand “we are now in the room so sleep will occur in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1” seems like it’s set up to fail. Especially given the new environment of a hotel room. We just dropped our touring back a notch between lunch and dinner and let naps happen.
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My kids are now 25 and 28 (both were had their first vist prenatal) and they (we) still take afternoon breaks of some sort.
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I think this is the key. To everything - Disney and otherwise.
My idea of downtime is doing ONLY two things at once. My kids and husband are the same. We are all also very good at “drop back and punt” (though I do hate needing to).
In 19 years and 6 kids we’ve never had one have a meltdown on vacation.
Now - at home when a sibling gets the last brownie… 
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We have taken 2 trips with little ones… 3 & 5 and 5 & 7.
Last trip was to POR. We make the mid day breaks non-negotiable. But we also rope drop and stay to ose most days. Not only do the kids need the brake, my dw wants one. Most days I find myself even stealing 20 mins of shut eye. The buses to and from for breaks were fine. We did opt for an Uber back to AK because we just missed the bus, but that was just a preference on our part. The buses mid day as one pointed out, are pretty empty. Nice air coonditioned break by itself.
Just comes down to the schedule you want to keep and if you want to avoid the mid day heat. What works for us, may not work for you. If your unsure, try it couple ways the first few days and adjust to want it working the best.
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This. My kids have enough trouble napping. Expecting them to nap in demand in a strange hotel just wasn’t going to happen. Plus my kids are notorious car nappers so they most likely would have fallen asleep on the bus never to go back down at the hotel. Stroller naps on their terms worked great. We had some whining in the trip but no meltdowns.
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