Do you schedule a "break" day?

We normally do some half days but this year is our first trip to WDW since 2009 and we're going to be there for 2 weeks but only 10 park days and some of those may end up being half days. We are typically rope droppers til lunch, take a midday break and out of the sun (young dd has meds that can cause her to overheat extremely fast) and then head back late afternoon/early evening til the park closes. When we did 2009, we were there for 6 days and took midday breaks and were exhausted by the time we left and needed a few days to recover after we got home still, don't want to do that again!
 
I've never done break days but this will be our first trip with our son. So I have 1 planed after 2 park days, and then another planned before we leave. We also don't have park hoppers this time and I feel so restricted already.I may need to add that on.
 
My family likes to explore a park every day. I have always wanted to take a break day. Arrival day, we get in around dinner time. So the day we have planned for AK, I am opting out and spending the day at our resort, the Polynesian. I’m considering making an appointment at the Grand Floridian Spa although my DD will probably be annoyed if I go without her. The day we check out, I am thinking about renting a cabana.
 
We're doing our first full break day mid-trip this year. (Last time we did our arrival day since we drive from NJ & the next day as our Disney Springs & pool day.) We did a split stay doing Port Orleans first 5 nights and Yacht Club last 4 nights. Our first night will be resort only since we're driving again. We made our full break/pool day when we go over to Yacht Club. We also bought one less ticket knowing we were going to do an all pool day & made a dinner reservation for that resort.
 
We have been to WDW every year since 2013, so we don't really have theme park FOMO at this point. We actually have never done parks on arrival day - we like to check in and spend that first day at the pool and settling in, and usually cap it with a dinner at Disney Springs (or Hoop Dee Do Revue).

We usually sprinkle in 1 or 2 rest/pool days in between park days. Our kids love the pool and we have done the parks so often that we like having days where we do a resort TS breakfast (such as Boma or 1900 Park Fare), spend most of it at the pool and do a TS resort or Disney Springs dinner.

The last 3 years we have driven from NYC so we generally don't do parks the day before departure either because we have come home in one shot and we like to be rested for the drive.

Since we purchased DVC in 2012 and knew we would be making a lot of trips to Disney, we have tried to plan our trips to be more laid back and not commando style.
 
We don't schedule a "break" day per se, but we will usually have one day that we spend most of the day at the resort and go to a park that evening.
 


We are planning a rest day for our next trip (3 full days in parks, 1 full rest day), but we didn't do that our first time back after years not having gone to Disney. I'm sure it depends on where you're staying, too. We're doing a rest day while staying at the AKL, which has TONS of activities. I think it will be a nice way for us to enjoy the lodge and take advantage of what the lodge has to offer, while also giving us a rest from the constant stimulation of the parks.
 
I think the kids would get bored if we had absolutely no plans for a whole day, but on our previous trips we did do a day without parks. On our last trip, for example, we explored Fort Wilderness, went for a walk to look at the horses, went fishing, did the pool for a while, then went to the first show for Spirit of Aloha. It is nice to change the pace for a day, but I still like to have plans.
 
We have never had a "break" day in 10 trips. However, we have one planned for our trip this year because DH insisted on it--he needs away from people for a day. We have 9 nights/10 days, though. We are staying in a condo offsite, so we will probably sleep in, have a big breakfast (DH loves to cook), hit the pool for awhile, maybe play mini-golf or even foot golf if we can get a time.
 
We always schedule a break/non park day sometime toward the middle of our week. We love the parks, but like a day to sleep in and not have anywhere we need to be, unless we simply want to. We usually swim, visit other resorts, head to Disney Springs for some shopping, etc.
 
It's your vacation and you can do whatever you want to do. I've been going for almost 40 years. I've had trips where I was there for every minute the park was open. I once had a 2 week trip where I only went to the park twice.

I kind of miss the days before advance FPs when I'd just catch the first bus that came by the bus stop and get a FP when I got there.

I am retired, have DVC and now live close enough (10 hours) to drive. We go 2-3 times a year so I feel no sense of urgency to do as much as possible. Totally different from when I lived in California.
 
We did on our trip in February, but we stayed off site and we drove 17 hours. And to save a little money, I would have done parks every day, DH needed break days. He can be a grouch, lol!

We did
Arrival day, late
Day two- chef Mickey’s and Disney springs
Day three-MK
Day four- Give Kids the World (our daughter is a former Wish child)
Day five-Universal/Islands of Adventure
Day six- medieval times and nothing during the day
Day seven- AK
Day eight- drive home

During our daughter’s make a wish trip, we crammed as much as week could into that week and we needed a vacation from vacation when we got home! Lol!
 
I never have done a break day and last time we went in August for 9 days. We aren’t rope drop people, but we get to the park within an hour of opening and stay till close. We took I think two mid day breaks during this past trip and that was plenty. I still feel like there was so much we ran out of time to do.
 
We went from at sun-sat, and we did a break day Wednesday. I had the wake up call and ds answered the phone I could hear it was stitch and he just hung the phone up and went back to bed. So my kids determined that was their break day. After they got up we ate breakfast and went to at the time Downtown Disney now Disney Springs.
 

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