Is a mid-day break still doable?

[popy]

You can, but if you snooze you lose,
take a break when you get home,

 

[NALA 24]

We are planning on leaving the parks in the early afternoon for a break and returning for our park dinner reservations each night at 6:30 pm. Should we plan on lunch at the hotel or resort?

 

[Ronaldo17]

Go for it, the skyliner gets you back to CBR quickly from Epcot and DHS.

 

[subtchr]

We are planning on leaving the parks in the early afternoon for a break and returning for our park dinner reservations each night at 6:30 pm. Should we plan on lunch at the hotel or resort?

No one can answer this for you. Where are you staying?

We decide each day where to have lunch. Typically it's in the park, because there are more options. QS options at most of the resorts are good to very good, but for multiple days can get repetitive. There are a lot of QS options at the parks we really like.

But if we have been at a park since very early morning, and it's hot, or raining, or whatever, we might head to the resort before lunchtime.

 

[DLgal]

I just returned from 8 days at WDW.

I always forget how LONG everything takes at WDW, especially commuting. It eats up a LOT of time.

We did the following, and other than a couple very warm evenings, had a quite enjoyable time in the parks with temps in the 70s:

Woke up around 10am. Late breakfast around 11am. Hung out at the resort: pool, arcade, movies in the room. Late lunch at the resort or snack in the room.

Around 3:30-4, head out to a park. Most days, it had already stormed and clouds had moved in for the remainder of the evening, dropping temps about 20 degrees from the earlier highs. Some days it was raining at this time. Ponchos on and we walked into mostly empty parks. Some days, it was actively storming. No problem, because I had lined up indoor attraction Genie+ times as I sat at the resort all morning/early afternoon. I stacked rides, overlapping each other in time so that we had a "plan" every afternoon/evening. I did it in a way to minimize criss crossing the parks. We did just CS meals for dinner, most nights around 7:30 or so. We stayed at parks until they closed, most nights. I felt we had enough time to do everything. We ended up going to the parks on 7 days. We rode numerous things multiple times, got on all the headliners, etc.

We planned our sit down meals as brunches at resorts. A couple days, we drove offsite for lunch as well.

It worked out well and we were never too hot, thanks to the rains that brought relief every evening.

That said, we are done traveling to WDW in the summer. We will no longer be tied to the school calendar starting next year, so we have decided to travel on cooler months going forward.

I will also say, I was out a couple mornings doing laundry and other stuff, and found the humidity at that time to be oppressive to the point of miserable. Even though temps were upper 70s, low 80s, it was stifling. Those same temps in the evenings with the sun low and the cloud cover/rain was FAR easier to tolerate. It felt downright cool several nights. It often got very breezy as well. I will never advocate for early morning park touring in the summer. It's terrible. Take advantage of your empty resort pools at that time while everyone else is sweating it out waiting for rope drop.

 

[tom1944]

Our plan is early to the parks with table service lunch at 1 pm then back to the resort. We will head over to either Epcot or MK later. No table service dinners.

We are staying at BLT.

We will adjust based on the heat.

 

[NALA 24]

Thanks for your replies!

We are staying at AKV and realize that the transportation time may be an issue but to avoid cranky adult children we will need a break.

Hopefully we will adjust to the heat and humidity quickly. I prefer the heat to the cold temperatures that we had when we visited in January of 2021.

 

[LSUfan4444]

Is a mid-day break still doable?​

Yep. Are things different, sure. But we still take mid day breaks almost every day.

 

[slo]

For me it’s doable if you’re ok with missing out on park time. We have never wanted to do that, so once we’re in the park, we’re there to stay, unless we are park hopping. Even when my girls were little we never left - my girls napped in the stroller, on The People Mover or Spaceship Earth, Carousel of Progress and other places. All that back and forth is not for us. My girls never complained - I don’t think they would have been happy leaving for a break. Even this past June my DD19 and I were in the parks each day open to close - it’s just what we do.

Every family is different, so you gotta do what’s best for yours. Whatever you choose - have a fun & safe trip,

 

[scrappinginontario]

For us it depends on the length of our trip and, how long it’s been since we were last there. The longer the trip the more likely we are to take breaks a few days.

 

[lizzyb]

We always take a midday break. Just to get some rest and get out of the heat.

 

[wilderness-girl]

It's absolutely doable. The most important thing is that you're 1-2 rides ahead of the crowds, which all tend to follow a similar pattern whether they arrive half an hour early for extra magic hours or at the normal rope drop. In general, as long as you get the biggest headliners over during extra magic hours, you'll be ahead of the pack. We use touring plans to make a strategy for avoiding the queues, and we use Genie + at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios on busier days and stack reservations in the late afternoon/evening. I find being in the parks between like 12pm-3pm pretty much unbearable because you can't achieve very much and I hate crowds!

 

[DisneyFive]

Our plan is early to the parks with table service lunch at 1 pm then back to the resort. We will head over to either Epcot or MK later. No table service dinners.

We are staying at BLT.

We will adjust based on the heat.

Just be aware that with a 1pm start to a TS meal, you may not be starting your journey out of the parks until 2-2:30 or so. No problem if you plan to return to the parks a little later, but it might cramp the time you wanted to relax at the resort. I'm not suggesting you do different, but we try to book about an hour earlier like 12pm or even earlier.

 

[rotlex]

My go-to strategy for visiting the parks in the summer has been to be there for rope drop and do a bunch in the morning, eat lunch in a/c, head back to our on-site resort for rest / swimming during the hottest hours of the afternoon, and then return to the park in the evening. However, with the early magic hour now a 1/2 hour and extra magic hours no longer open to us because we are staying at CBR rather than a deluxe, will this strategy still work, or will the back and forth travel eat up too much time? We're planning a visit in June or July of 2024 so heat will definitely be an issue.

For sure. We are just back from a 12 day trip. Heat was CRAZY every day. (We usually go in August and this was the hottest August we have seen).

We did a mid afternoon break every day back to the hotel to swim. Staying as the Wilderness Lodge made this easy on an MK day, but it wasn't bad on others either. We don't rope drop, hate the crowds, but rather leave the hotel around 9 and find far fewer crowds at the gate. We usually hung in the parks until 1 or 2, headed back to the hotel for the afternoon, and then hit the park again after dinner. Say 6-7pm. Even doing this, with no lightning lane of genie plus, we managed to do everyone we wanted at least twice and then some.

The only note I would add is that we drive to every park other than MK so that saves quite a bit of time by not having to use the bus system.

 

[MommyTaraLee]

We just got back from an 8 day (6 park day) trip, staying at CBR. We did a mid day break for each park, except AK. Rope drop everyday, then headed back to pool and rest in the early afternoon. Back in the parks by 5/6. I made sure to keep adding in lightning lanes so we had rides stacked for the evenings.

 

[zavandor]

You can do more in the first 3 hours of operation than in the following 6. I wake up at dawn, arrive early for rope drop and ride attraction after attraction with low wait. Then when the lines build up, move to shows or anytime attractions until it's time to go back to the resort. Pool and/or nap time, wait out the afternoon storm and then back to the park for evening entertainment.
Works very well for me and I actually go back home relaxed!
When I used to go commando style all day it was exhausting! I went back more tired than when I left.

 

[amandolin]

As others have said, the mid-day break is quite doable. I've even stayed off property and done it. I like getting there early and doing a bunch of stuff before the crowds arrive, which happens to be the hottest part of the day! I get on out of there! I love going back to the room and relaxing. I usually hit up the pool, relax or even take another shower so when I head back when the sun goes down I'm completely refreshed!

 

[katyjeka]

When the kids were small it was a must, now that we are getting older my husband and I want one and they don't!!! We were able to in December when the crowd level was crazy. We went over one evening around 5 and there was a noticeable decrease in the crowd size. I think people have caught onto the importance of arriving early which is making for some quiet nights..just a thought.