7. Be willing to take breaks
It takes a rare person to go full steam ahead without breaks for an entire Disney day—attempting to have your whole party do so is a recipe for problems.
If you have party members who tend to move at a very fast pace, they may exhaust slower members of your group. Along with simply planning times to split up, one of the best ways to mitigate this problem is to plan deliberate breaks.
The most convenient way to do this is to plan an afternoon break away from the parks for an hour or two—this may sound counter-intuitive, but it can actually be a very useful strategy. Most Disney parks have specific hours in the afternoon when they reach peak line lengths. Queues stretch to their highest, and dining options become difficult to come by. Usually these hours arrive from around lunchtime to 3 PM, though this can vary depending on the park and crowd trends.
Being able to easily get to and from the parks is one of the biggest benefits of staying at a resort on the Walt Disney World property—either Disney-owned resorts, or on-property options like the Swan and Dolphin (owned by Marriott) or the Four Seasons Orlando. Ease of being able to quickly come-and-go using Disney transportation or walkways allows guests to be able to take a very nice break when the parks are most stressful. You can still pull this off at nearby resorts like Disney Good Neighbor hotels, but you will lose some time driving, particularly if you are coming and going from Magic Kingdom’s Transportation & Ticket Center.
You can certainly manage an afternoon break others ways, such as touring Disney resorts and finding a nice lobby or deck chair to rest in but having access to a proper room is ideal. After a true break, you’ll come back to the parks refreshed and ready to enjoy the rest of your day into the evening hours.
This strategy has another benefit—party members who are content with a half-day only can simply call it and remain at the resort. It can be very frustrating for families with pacing differences if they feel like their Disney day got cut short because one half of the family doesn’t want to go back to the parks and has control of transportation and planning. Avoid this conflict by planning ways to get to and from the parks, as well as how to split up if you run into this scenario.
8. Be flexible and exercise patience
This is broad advice, but it’s important—be flexible and patient.
Values will clash, and the unexpected will happen on theme park vacations—prepare to be flexible without losing your cheese. Impulsive decisions may be made that alter carefully laid plans. A kid may see something you didn’t account for and want to detour. Characters may appear. You may find out about an experience you didn’t know about. A reservation may suddenly open up that a family member was longing to try.
Be flexible to change plans if need be, and be patient with each other.
Our differences are often what make family vacations wonderful. Yes, they can lead to conflict, but it can also lead to unexpected joys. Practice flexibility, especially when kids are involved. Nothing sours a vacation quicker that bitter words and bad attitudes. You’re going to experience something negative on your vacation, whether it be an unmet expectation or a clash of values—instead of stressing about it, prepare what you can, and ride out the emotions. Consider your options, exercise patience and wait to see what will happen. Most of all, exercise compassion for each other. You might just end up with a magical moment you never expected.
Enjoy this article? Keep reading to learn…
- Disney Just Fixed a Major Mistake In One of its Oldest Lands—and the Results are Delicious…
- 10 Things You NEED to Know Before Visiting Walt Disney World (Series)
Add new comment