Are we crazy to not do a rest day?

[shan981]

I think it, overall, looks good.

Some suggestions:

Are you on the dining plan? If not, I would consider getting a Landry's Select Card so you can show up at Rainforest and/or TRex whenever you want and get priority seating. IMHO, your 11:45 am Rainforest reservation is on the early side if you want to get some AK touring in before you break for the day. Personally, I would ditch TRex on the party, particularly at 3:30 pm. You can enter MK at 4:00 pm on your party ticket. If you eat at TRex and then go to MK, you are looking at entering MK really late in the afternoon thereby greatly reducing the value of those party tickets. Especially if your 2-year olds will hit a wall later in the day. I would stick with your CM reservation that morning and just hang out at CR (or the MK area) until it's time for the party. That's a lot of traveling back and forth to go to DS. My DS was terrified of TRex when he was that young. I would, perhaps, try to get your "dino" fix in the play area in AK.

I would re-think your DHS and last MK day as well. Again, my DS was terrified of Fantasmic when he was that young, plus you are really burning the candle on both ends that day. I would ditch the Fantasmic package.

I would re-think breakfast at BOG on your departure day, especially since you are leaving early afternoon. Again, that's a lot of traveling back and forth from Pop to get to MK that early to eat. At some point, you will need to pack, give your luggage to resort check-in or bell services and then get back to Pop.

Thank you! Great suggestions! I had/have reservations about the Fantasmic package because it will make for a long day. I wonder if I can drop it but still get a PPO ADR that morning...

And I agree about T-Rex, it made sense to me at the time but as I was typing up this plan I realized that it is too much travel for an okay meal and will cut into party time. We are actually only staying at POP our first night, then CR the rest of the time, so it probably makes even less sense than you originally thought.

Hoping we can keep BOG on our departure day since we’ll only be at CR.

 

[shan981]

Not crazy but...we always plan one then end up with massages at Senses. We then plan DS for that night. Not really a down day.

Ahhh, massages. That sounds nice, but will not be happening on this trip with toddlers in tow, haha. Will probably be the exact opposite of massages, lol.

 

[KelNChrisKYDis]

We did a rest day on our first trip and regretted it... we stayed at AoA and it wasn't super hot, so we swam a bit but it wasn't really swimming weather. We went to Disney Springs for a few hours but my son was bored, and we spent a ton of money, lol. We've not taken a true "rest day" since then and have been just fine. We always take a big afternoon break to swim, it's amazing how refreshed your legs are after some pool time. Our kids are 8 and 5, they don't nap (and never have), but they are very easy to put to bed, lol.

 

[mamamelody2]

We are not "rest day" people. We have gone 3 times, 2 seven day trips and 1 8 day trip. No rest days. This year, we are going August 30, September 8 with a 9 day ticket. No rest days. That said, if we are tired, we will sleep in, maybe take a swim, and just do the evening at a park. It will be me, DH, and our 2 boys who are 15 and 12. We are all night owls. They stay up until midnight or a bit later every day during the summer. Looking forward to WDW after dark!

 

[Grammy4Lizzy]

I would skip T-Rex. Even though the toddlers love dinos, they are VERY LOUD and my DGD was upset by them. I has to be the loudest restaurant in the world.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Don't worry. After day four, the Disney legs just go numb and stay that way. They're totally beyond pain at that point.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We are going for 9 nights and have 8 day hoppers and MVMCP tickets. We have a really late flight home so I might add on a day. We are going to a park everyday but they aren't 12 hour days. Some days we are doing RD (our RD is 10-15 minutes before opening), midday break by the pool and PM park. Some days are hitting the park in the afternoon or evening and staying until close. On MVMCP day we are hitting the park at 4, doing dinner ADR and then doing the party until they kick us out. The next day we are planning on hitting DHS around 2 pm and staying until they kick us out. With FP+ it's way too easy (and it costs about $15 to add a day after you hit 4+ days) to hit a park at 5 pm, do your FP+, eat dinner and watch a nighttime show. We also have zero desire to hit Disney Springs so using that as our "rest" day doesn't sound fun at all.

 

[shan981]

We are going for 9 nights and have 8 day hoppers and MVMCP tickets. We have a really late flight home so I might add on a day. We are going to a park everyday but they aren't 12 hour days. Some days we are doing RD (our RD is 10-15 minutes before opening), midday break by the pool and PM park. Some days are hitting the park in the afternoon or evening and staying until close. On MVMCP day we are hitting the park at 4, doing dinner ADR and then doing the party until they kick us out. The next day we are planning on hitting DHS around 2 pm and staying until they kick us out. With FP+ it's way too easy (and it costs about $15 to add a day after you hit 4+ days) to hit a park at 5 pm, do your FP+, eat dinner and watch a nighttime show. We also have zero desire to hit Disney Springs so using that as our "rest" day doesn't sound fun at all.

That was my line of thinking. I thought we could drop a park day, but it’s really like $40 total or something that we would save, so what’s the point? I figured I’ll jusr leave it as is and have flexibility, if we decide we need a day off, we lose $40, life will go on. Also don’t think we want to do Disney Springs. I personally would love to go shop and browse and wander around, but my kids will be bored. And honestly my DH probably would be too, lol.

 

[shan981]

We did a rest day on our first trip and regretted it... we stayed at AoA and it wasn't super hot, so we swam a bit but it wasn't really swimming weather. We went to Disney Springs for a few hours but my son was bored, and we spent a ton of money, lol. We've not taken a true "rest day" since then and have been just fine. We always take a big afternoon break to swim, it's amazing how refreshed your legs are after some pool time. Our kids are 8 and 5, they don't nap (and never have), but they are very easy to put to bed, lol.

That’s the other thing, I’m not sure if it will be swimming weather or not, so I don’t even know what we would do on a whole rest day. My toddlers are very, very busy (as they all are) so keeping them entertained in a hotel room for an entire day sounds like a terrible way to spend vacation. I’m sure there are other things we could do, but I don’t know that they would be content.

 

[StacyStrong]

Nah. If you get tired before you thought you would? No big deal. Go back to the resort for awhile. A full day off isn't necessary. Especially since you won't spend it just sitting in a room all day long.

 

[SaintsManiac]

A rest day for us is sleeping in and hitting a park by lunch time!

 

[pixiegoose]

Honestly, we’ve never done a full rest day. I’d consider your MVMCP day to be a decent “rest” day (which is what we’ve done in the past pre-kids, though we won’t be this trip because I’m not paying for extra event tickets until my kids can happily make it to midnight ). You have a later breakfast at your resort and can do whatever you want between then and the party, though I might reschedule your later meal to a monorail resort if you have no real interest in Disney Springs. It would also be a good day to go look at holiday decorations at other resorts before heading to MK at 4 (which is when you can enter with party tickets).

 

[Kellykins1218]

We can rest when we're dead! At Disney it's go go go. We've just never needed a rest day. If we get tired we can always go back to the hotel early. It's never happened yet but it could.

 

[kclark9830]

You've gotten a lot of advice here, so you probably don't need mine at this point . But since you asked...hahaha!

We've been a few times. Our first time we were totally unprepared, and by the end of the third or fourth day my feet and legs hurt so bad I didn't want to go back to the parks at all. We were there for 7 days, so we kept pushing, but it was pretty brutal.

Our second trip, I did not learn my lesson and we did go-go-go. But, I had prepared some in advance by doing a LOT of walking at home, and making my kids do a lot of walking. This kept all of our stamina up quite a bit, but we were still pretty exhausted at the end of the 8-day trip.

Third trip, I had learned my lesson. We did a 7 day trip, with a few half days (no full day breaks). That was better, but on the last day before we left we had to force oursevles to hit our ADR so we wouldn't be charged the no-show fee, and then we hightailed it back to the resort because we were so exhausted.

This trip I'm planning a full rest day on our second to last day. I also have two half days planned. Our 4th and 5th days will be a half day, and our 7th day will be a full rest day. We will be 4 adults, an 8yo, 7yo, 3yo, and 1yo.

I've learned I don't like returning from my vacation feeling like I need a vacation.

ETA: I wanted to note that on our full rest day, we will be having the Bon Voyage Breakfast at the Boardwalk (that's where we're staying), and doing Mickey's Backyard BBQ at Ft. Wilderness that night. So, we won't be doing "nothing" all day. But we also won't be walking around the parks all day.

 

[saraheliz]

I've done two separate week long trips with no rest days- one with just shy of 3 and 5 year olds, and one with 8 and 10 year olds. It was great, but we do a mix of days between rope drop and staying until evening, rope drop with a break, and sleeping in a couple of days and hitting the parks around lunchtime. We couldn't do no rest day if we were rope dropping every day or staying in the parks all day/every day.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

Thank you! Great suggestions! I had/have reservations about the Fantasmic package because it will make for a long day. I wonder if I can drop it but still get a PPO ADR that morning...

And I agree about T-Rex, it made sense to me at the time but as I was typing up this plan I realized that it is too much travel for an okay meal and will cut into party time. We are actually only staying at POP our first night, then CR the rest of the time, so it probably makes even less sense than you originally thought.

Hoping we can keep BOG on our departure day since we’ll only be at CR.

Oh, sorry! I missed the part where you are staying at CR for most of your trip. Yes, doing BOG on your departure day, in that case, is easy peasy!

That’s the other thing, I’m not sure if it will be swimming weather or not, so I don’t even know what we would do on a whole rest day. My toddlers are very, very busy (as they all are) so keeping them entertained in a hotel room for an entire day sounds like a terrible way to spend vacation. I’m sure there are other things we could do, but I don’t know that they would be content.

If you want to consider a non-park activity or even partial rest day, consider taking the boat from CR over to Ft. W. There is a playground right by the boat dock and the stables for all of the WDW horses is right there as well. Your 2-year olds are probably small enough to take a pony ride. There is also a Chip and Dale sing-a-long there and Mickey's Backyard BBQ might be fun for the little ones as well as they can dance with the characters there. Might get some of those wiggles out without having to go to a park!

 

[Thing 1]

We did a rest day our first trip years ago. We were newbies and had a young child. We spent that day wanting to go to the park. We never do a rest day. We have gone with little ones and now Dh and I are in our 50s. We would much rather have more days in the parks and not feel as rushed . We do take mid afternoon breaks most days and go back to a park after dinner. We are pros now and good planners so we get a ton Day. Extra days mean more fast passes and it cost so little to add on an extra couple days after you pay for a 5 or so. A day at Disney Springs will cost you much more than a day in the park.

 

[QueenIsabella]

I don't know that you need an entire "rest day", but it does seem like you have a nice mix of busier days and not-so-busy days. Are you counting on the twins sleeping in a stroller? If so, do they do that now? I ask, because not one of my four kids would sleep in a stroller. Ever. I would look at the parents serenely pushing sleeping toddlers with naked envy. Obviously, the fact that mine wouldn't stroller-nap affected our touring style.

The other thing I would stress to you is flexibility. You seem to be willing to switch things up if needed, which is good. I would just keep an eye on the kids, make sure they're still having a good time. If you need to drop an ADR or two, well, there will always be a future trip. When my younger DD was 2-3, we realized on about Day 5 or 6 (slow learners!) that, if she needed a break or to get out of something, she'd just wet her pants. It was quite effective. Just a reminder--kids have a way of letting us know when they've had enough...

 

[MickeyWaffles]

We go to a park every day.

Rest days sound good to us in theory.
We have tried to plan them before and ended up finding ourselves drawn back to the parks by later afternoon anyways and have added a day of tickets each time. Now we don’t plan them at all.

I have a 3yo and (almost) 2yo. We were just there in May. We planned like you did - our TS meals were either breakfast or lunch. Anything after lunch was flexible. If the kids were in good spirits, we stayed until 3 or 4. If they needed a break, we went back to Poly. Sometimes we went back to the park after our break, sometimes not.

As long as you are either taking a break or calling it a day early, I don’t think a full rest day is necessary.

The only thing I would maybe avoid is two TS meals in a day. That would be pushing it for us.

 

[DizneyMommy]

We did 6 days last trip and didn’t plan a down day, and we are staying 6 this time and don’t have one. We do mid-day breaks but I feel like we would all want to go to the parks and get bored just sitting around.
Last time 5 and 2yo and grandparents. This time 13, 10, 2 and grandparetns.