I’m heading down soon with the DW and two DDs (7&4). Just curious how long your breaks are in the day when you schedule them? Right now, I’ve scheduled for 4 hours, but I’m wondering if that’s enough. Thoughts?
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4hrs is perfect
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I was gonna say four hours!
I planned on 4 Hours, but it ended up being more like 6 because my kids never wanted to head back to the parks 7 and 11. We had to bribe, beg, coerce, threaten to punish. Of course we went in June and it was always drizzling in the afternoon and they had no interest in ponchoing up and carrying on.
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I think 4 hours i a good plan, but if it is anything like my family it will vary each day - some days its shorter as everyone wants to get going, other times it’s longer as we choose to stay by the pool or relax a bit more.
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Depends on the park hours and time of year. I’m going in August and planning to do breaks of 5-6 hours just to avoid the hottest and most crowded hours of the day. Doing morning EMH to get in as early as possible before things heat up, staying till around 12:00 or 12:30, then coming back around 6:00 and staying until park close.
We’ve always set it for 3 hours, which is gone in a blink. 4 might be the new 3! Good tips. Thanks. (I’m 40, kids are 10–12).
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We do four hours too. That gives us enough time to get back, have a swim and relax a little before showering and getting ready for the evening. 
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Partly could depend on where you are staying and where you are headed after the break. Just allow for that. 4 is a good placeholder at least. My teenagers even sometimes ended up napping longer than planned.
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4 hours can quickly become only 2 hours when you subtract off the time it takes to leave the park and get back to your room, change into swim suits, and then get dressed again, and back to a park. So the answer to your question depends on what you will do during the “break”. Remember, no break is refreshing if it is mostly, hurry, hurry , hurry.
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Those of you who do breaks and then return to a park in the evening, do you then RD the next day? Do you ever go take a break and then not return? I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this afternoon break thing. I must add that we have never gone between June and September so searing heat has not been an issue. We tend to prefer RD to late afternoon/early dinner or sleep in and lunch to close.
Last spring break, we tried a mid-afternoon break: we RD HS on day 3, stayed until after lunch maybe 2 pm and then planned to return to grab snacks, stroll around, and see F! with our dining package seats. Only 2 of the 6 of us returned after a break from 300-630 not including transport.
None. No kids and I only go in the winter months. My “break” is a nice TS lunch somewhere.
Break? What is this thing you call “break”?
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That is exactly my notion! For the sake of my family I did put some of those “break” things into our plan. But even those weren’t enough for them and in the end we cut out large portions of my skillfully laid plans. But at least everyone was happy and we are going back again.
Our last trip in April had us going all day from early morning ADRs to late nights. After the 4th day of that my teenager just rebelled and we ended up in first aid with her lying down for an hour. We did rest during our innumerable ADRs, but it was a pace we couldn’t really keep up with. I am scheduling afternoon breaks for our next trip and no early morning ADRS. The only day we are getting up early for RD is on our AK day so that DD16 can ride FoP. Whether this works or not, I don’t know. I know that we’ll go back to the parks because we will have ADRs to get to.
If we do fireworks we probably don’t rope drop the next day. Some days we may not return after the break and I know that going into it and plan must do’s accordingly
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We always returned back to the parks at some point bc I wanted to see the fireworks, nighttime show. We rope dropped every park. We had one Resort day in the middle. Even with the long pool days my kids were beat. The worst is that their feet, and mine were just sore. And I started walking a few month earlier to gear up.
It varies for us depending on how late we stay - for normal 9/10 closing times we will do RD the next day, for evening EMH we plan a late start. In terms of going back, we often change plans depending on everyone’s mood and what they want to do. It’s the most common time for us to split up and do different things. All of this allows everyon to have the holiday they want while giving us lots of family time and spontaneity
We tend to stagger things so that if we’ve done a late night we either have a later start or a Resort day that next day. Late nights double backed onto early mornings are tough! We try not to have a RD morning after a night that ends beyond 9pm - and by ends I mean at that time we are in room and jammied up, reading or watching tv and lights out by 10.
We have learned that early am ADRs are not worth it. Better to rope drop and tour a couple of hits and TS around 10:30ish when we are truly hungry and ready for a bit of a break!