second guessing 5 night plans

[mariak]

I'm second guessing all the plans I've made so far because I'm afraid i'm getting too planned and scheduled...(I believe you need to be to some extent though). We are going early April for 5 nights and staying at AKL.

I'm not sure anymore how to best fit everything between our dinner reservations and getting enough time in at the parks, AND relaxing around the resort.

Example of one of our planned days -
7:30 Breakfast at Boma
Epcot
11:30 Lunch at preferred QS location
1:00 Head back to resort
3:00 Head to Magic Kingdom
4:50 Dinner at Be Our Guest

I really am the type of person who loves going back to the resort mid day to refresh, but I just don't know if it's realistic or worth it? If we go back around 1 we might get back around 1:30.. which would leave about an hour and a half to rest and recharge.

I'm looking for opinions here on whether this type of little break is worth it or not. We don't have enough nights to schedule a full resort day, but I wonder if we should try... since we're staying at our dream location and it won't happen every time we go.

What is your park schedule like on a 5 night trip? (we don't do parks on departure day)

 

[Schneewittchen]

You probably don't want to hear from people like me, but I like to commit to either being in a park or just hanging out at the resorts. Scheduling more than one table service meal a day plus resting at the resort plus park hopping really eats into your park enjoyment time.

 

[rob0519]

In over 20 visits, I don't think our family has ever had a "resort" day. Granted those visits started when our youngest daughter was 13, so we don't need to let the kids recover. The trips are so expensive (and getting more expensive by the day) and there is so much to do that a few hours at the hotel between parks works for us. We generally stay at a monorail resort with quick access to the MK and a monorail ride to Epcot. We always have a car, so HS and AK are a short ride away with no waiting for buses. For our family your schedule is workable, but we would try for a later dinner and spend maybe 3 or 4 hours at the hotel. Hope you guys have a great time.

 

[dmatt87]

I believe that the mid-day break is a must - with or without kids, especially if you're starting your day early. I would however try to push my dinner reservations a little later.

We usually have a quick breakfast at the resort, then spend the morning and lunch in one park. Go to the resort for 2-3 hours in the afternoon. Go back to another park a little before dinner, eat and then enjoy the evening in the park. This allows us to stay later in parks, especially this time around with DS4.

 

[nickys]

I'm second guessing all the plans I've made so far because I'm afraid i'm getting too planned and scheduled...(I believe you need to be to some extent though). We are going early April for 5 nights and staying at AKL.

I'm not sure anymore how to best fit everything between our dinner reservations and getting enough time in at the parks, AND relaxing around the resort.

Example of one of our planned days -
7:30 Breakfast at Boma
Epcot
11:30 Lunch at preferred QS location
1:00 Head back to resort
3:00 Head to Magic Kingdom
4:50 Dinner at Be Our Guest

I really am the type of person who loves going back to the resort mid day to refresh, but I just don't know if it's realistic or worth it? If we go back around 1 we might get back around 1:30.. which would leave about an hour and a half to rest and recharge.

I'm looking for opinions here on whether this type of little break is worth it or not. We don't have enough nights to schedule a full resort day, but I wonder if we should try... since we're staying at our dream location and it won't happen every time we go.

What is your park schedule like on a 5 night trip? (we don't do parks on departure day)

At AKL there are a ton of events scheduled from 11 through to 5 or so. Tours, a wine tasting event (which I think was $25 and only once a week, maybe Wednesday?), a tour of the kitchens at Boma, and talks from the cms on both animals and the culture of their home countries.
Could you make time for a resort afternoon followed by an evening at a park? And then maybe an evening at the resort, for dinner and animal watching with the night-time goggles or an evening Safari of the savannahs. The goggles are taken in around 10pm, and you need to allow time for the kids hogging them! The cms will often keep an eye though and "encourage" them to share....

I really wish we'd had an afternoon at Kidani. Oh well, next time .............

 

[sheriffwoody]

We almost always go back to the resort at some point during the day. I don't schedule it to the hour, but it's usually in late afternoon and then we get back out when it's time for dinner. For a 4:50 dinner though, we MIGHT just not go back and leave the park earlier that evening. I just can't do the rope drop to close...it's too much for me.

 

[DisneyJoe]

Example of one of our planned days -
7:30 Breakfast at Boma
Epcot
11:30 Lunch at preferred QS location
1:00 Head back to resort
3:00 Head to Magic Kingdom
4:50 Dinner at Be Our Guest

If I was to write that schedule, mine would look like this:

7:30 Breakfast at Boma
Epcot
QS Lunch
Head back to resort
Head to the Magic Kingdom in time for 4:50 dinner at Be Our Guest, possibly arrive earlier

In other words, I don't lock in times unless I have to.

 

[Weather_Lady]

I'm a huge fan of the mid-day break, personally. My feeling is that if you want to take a mid-day break, though, you shouldn't deprive yourself of rope drop time by having a sit-down breakfast ADR (unless it's early enough to get you to a park by rope drop, without having to rush through the meal). Otherwise, you'll be arriving at the park when lines are already long, won't have time to do much before leaving, and then will be rushing back to get to an ADR, leaving only a swatch of time in the evening to get any real touring done.

 

[Herdman]

We typically stay 7 or 8 nights and have a resort/DS day in the middle to relax and recharge. I don't think we'd be able to do that on a 5 day trip, but I'd still like to work in some mid day breaks were possible.

 

[mariak]

Thanks so much for the input everyone. It really helps! I appreciate every point of view. I think I'm going to try to work in some later dinner reservations as suggested. The issue there is I hate eating too late and then feeling crappy right before I zone out which, at home, is usually around 9:30 hahaha.

I expect to stay up a lot later on vacation... but I might also still be ready for bed at 9, who knows.

The times I like to have just to gage when would be an ideal time to head one direction or the other, so we don't miss a reservation or anything. I haven't even hit the point for scheduled fast passes yet and kind of dread doing so!

Again, thanks so much for the input! Hopefully next time we can stay longer and won't have this problem haha.

 

[JChoma]

Since AKL is your dream resort, if I was in your shoes, I'd work in one or two breaks there. Personally I wouldn't do a full resort day on a 5-day trip, but we are a "parks-all-day" kind of family. That said, on our last trip (last April!) we worked in one afternoon at our resort pool and it was pretty nice! To echo others- I'd move dinner later if you schedule a mid-day break, so you're not rushing to make a reservation.

 

[MickeyfromSTL]

Every time we go to Disney, we do things a bit differently. Never the same trip twice which is what makes it fun.

For my two cents:

· If you want to “max out” on how many attractions you will see, eating more than one sit down a day is really going to take away a good chunk of time. Especially if the meal is not at the park you plan to experience that day. On a 4-5 day trip, we normally plan 2 max 3 sit down meals (not saying that is right or wrong, just our typical trip).

· keep in mind some table service dinners take longer than others. A couple of “fast” ones are Mama Melrose at Studios (need reservations), Nine dragons at Epcot, and Biergarten at Epcot (you can make the biergarten as fast or slow as you want being a buffet).

· We normally do not go back to the room to rest. That might be changing now that we have a little guy...

· Obvious statement coming... the more you jump on and off buses the more time you lose from the parks.

I have had great trips where we run from attraction to attraction for 2-3 days straight and others where we spend a whole day walking around the back of epcot with a drink watching the bands. Both are fun... just different.

 

[BraveGirl]

Sometimes we do mid-day breaks, sometimes we gut it out and stay all day. We are more apt to stay all day now that security lines have gotten so long, particularly at MK. We were just there last week and it took us 45 minutes to get through security - ate up almost our entire extra magic hour. We were not prepared for that so didnt realize we had to arrive so much earlier than 8 to avoid that. We had planned to go home and let my little ones rest, but changed our mind so we wouldn't have to go through that again, and we stayed straight through till closing.

However, the next day we park hopped from AK and Epcot, and went home midday for a nap for the kids. No problems getting into either of those parks.

 

[carriebeth]

You are really only spending a couple hours at Epcot outside of your lunch. By the time to get from one attraction to another etc you will be able to do very little I think. Then by the time you wait for a bus, ride back, get to your room you don't really have a lot of time before you have to be heading back to a bus stop once again to head twords magic kingdom. To me, its a lot of travel time. I would stay at epcot until it was near my diner reservation time and use the monorail to travel there. If you have to have an afternoon break I would opt for a much later dinner so that you could spend more time at Epcot before leaving and also extend your resort rest time a bit to make it feel more like a break.