Kids and difficult park days?

[kempydee]

We are here now - got a large age gap between our kids.
The melts downs so far in the parks have been that the 4yr old wants Its a small world (30min queue yesterday) but the 12yr old wanted Space Mountain (70 min queue).
So our “spending time as a family” went pear shaped fairly quickly and we have had to separate and take a child each!
4yr old is tall enough for “big rides” but wouldn’t last the longer wait times.

So both had massive strops in MK and we ended up leaving early.
Gona chuck them in the pool today and see how long it is before they have a melt down over the swimming ring!

[scoobydooby]

Apologies I have not read all the replies. Mine are 17 and 20 now but have been going since they were 4/7. When they were little I used to get them up (as we would at home for before school club), concentrate on rides in the morning with short queues (needed a FP runner back in the day!) and then a TS meal with lots of air conditioning at lunch. They couldn’t do more than that and most mid afternoons were pool time. Evenings we always played by ear and they were often in bed for 8pm. My son last came aged 19 and was a royal pain in the ass for what it’s worth 😂 I also recall him at age 9 only wanting to do water parks and watch Power Rangers on the TV 🙄 I think the heat gets to them when they are little. Good luck.

[macadoo]

Originally Posted by Procrastinator

Last year, our first family holiday to wdw we fell in to that trap. Had plans to hit 20 odd rides per day and it all went wrong the first day or 2. We solved it quite quickly last year by scaling back our plans and getting them both "strollers". We then had happy children the majority of the time.

But our eldest is almost 8, he is not having a stroller this year. Trying to manage it with a gentle pace and long air con lunch instead. But that did not work today!

Will try again with a shorter day tomorrow, but i totally agree with the happy child happy day comment and we are not going to keep repeating the same mistakes. If things don't work we will change things. I guess that is part of the point of this post. If we do change things from here the option is reduce the park time - but then we are going to a park to basically do our 3 fp and then leave, or flip things around so we spend most days either in the hotel pool or a water park and only the odd day in a park. Think i am just having a public debate with myself about which is the better option if we do change things.

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We quite often do our 3 faspasses and then just see what there is with minimal wait. If everything had huge queues then we wouldn’t hang around too long unless there was something we all really wanted to ride.

I’d personally go with the half days, mix the days up with a bit of both. If you do pool one day and full park day the next then they’re still going to get hot and fed up even if they spent the day before in the pool.

[disney_chick13]

Mine are still very little (16 months and almost 4) and we make the most of early wake ups... aim to be in a park for opening time and we leave between 1pm and 2pm (earlier if they need to)

They both still have their afternoon nap and a bit of chill time by the pool... then we may go back out to a park or Disney springs for another 1-2 hours if they are up to it.

We never push them any further than what they can cope with, we see far too many tired, hot and grumpy kiddos at the parks and it’s just not fair to them.

I don’t see it as losing time in a theme park but rather gaining time together as a family whether that be out and about or snoozing in our room. 😊

[Loopylooloo]

Originally Posted by Procrastinator

Maybe part of it is that they are siblings who are either causing trouble together or are arguing with each other. And being in a Disney hotel room for a week is amplifying that a bit.

Yesterday was always going to be the longest day, will see how it goes today. Plan is HS and a busy ish 9-1 and then lunch. With 1 last fp after lunch and then back to hotel pool.

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Are you planning in rest days i.e. no parks? We have found just the getting to the park and into the park quite stressful often, and try to stagger lots of down days or shopping mall days etc instead?

[ELLENUT]

That is a long day for children that age in August heat. I also found when my children were that age that it was us enjoying the parks/rides more than them and they did ask alot 'when can we go back to the pool?'

[loves2plan]

Originally Posted by Procrastinator

Yes, definately see a lot of tired and crying kids at wdw. Which i try to avoid with ours by a very slow pace with lots of air con and sitting down.

The 10 hour park day i have been talking about was a very gentle pace with 4 hours of sitting down in aircon. We did only 4 rides, 2 shows and lunch - not exactly fast paced!

Tomorrow is planned to be 9-4 including a 2 hour air con lunch in the middle. Will see how that goes. But i'm almost at the point where i think the kids would be happier just being in some form of a pool every day and not actually go to the parks.

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10 hours for 4 rides, 2 shows and some food? I know you said the pace was slow, but that's virtually sloth like! Did you spend a lot of time just wandering around? I'd be cranky and whiny if I'd spent 10 hours in a park doing that too. From what you said about lack of queues and using fastpasses, surely you could have done that in the morning, had lunch and then headed back to the resort for some relaxing pool time? That's what we do as we just find long park days too tiring. We enjoy them in shorter doses with down time in between, and it actually makes the holiday feel longer as we do more each day, but in a much more relaxed way.

[Ellelledee]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbell 1

Is there a reason you’re doing a 9-7? We’ve been brining our DD since she was 4 (19 now) and we rarely did anything longer than 9-2 or we stayed at the pool and then went our late afternoon/evening. At their age 10 hours is a lot.

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I agree - we really struggle to last if we are there for rope drop. Especially animal kingdom I’m afraid much as I love the park it’s the one I find myself wanting to leave soonest.
I think it’s very hot and very spaced out so you go to Dinosaur and then it’s such a walk to Everest and then another long walk to KRR and then the Safari. It just seems the actual rides are a massive walk between and lets be fair adults we might like to wander into shops and stuff but unless you are getting something shops are nothing to kids! We pretty much never in the past have lasted beyond 4pm in the parks unless it’s been a 2 park day.
We always feel like we have missed out but they are such long days. This year we have planned different. Obviously due to time difference in the first week you are up early and so we take advantage of this and go early but as I said never last past mid to late afternoon. But then in our second week we have planned to get up a bit later once the jet lag settles , perhaps have an hour or so around the pool and then go to the parks after lunch and stay til night.

[Mymemories]

We set our routine many years ago when the boys were 2 and 4. It was park early at rope drop and we always went for the EMH park as we said on property. Then about noon we’d head back to the hotel for pool time and lunch at the poolside diner. When they were that young we’d got back to the room after a bit and have a nap. Nowadays we just stay by the pool. Then after our decompression time we’d shower and get dressed and head back into whichever part had evening EMH. As the boys had had their pool time they were more than happy to have more park play time and we’d be able to have a TS dinner and stay for the fireworks.

We still stick to pretty much the same routine and the boys are now 21 and 23.

[pchivvy]

Try split days.

When our kids were your age, we went in early and got to late morning/lunch time, then went to a water park for 3 hours. This then chilled everyone out, refreshed everyone and just generally 'toned it down' for a bit. Everyone was then ready to hit the parks again after that, and we could then usually go through to fireworks.

With regards to the toy buying demands, we gave our kids their allowance and told them they could buy whatever they wanted with it, but once it was gone, it was gone. It's amazing how quickly they think twice about a toy when they are buying it themselves! We did buy a few things on the quiet for them and gave them later but as far as they were concerned, their money was at stake!

Whatever happens, just remember that sometimes, doing less is more. If its too much and they want to spend the morning at the pool- they will be happier for it, and therefore so will you be!