[00:00:00] Dana Stanley: Do you hear that? No, that’s because it is very quiet in my house. My husband took all three kids out to breakfast because we are getting hit with a lot of snow apparently this weekend, and I’m just getting ahead of very likely snow days next week and just thinking about the things to catch up on.

[00:00:26] Dana Stanley: Obviously I am. Dreaming about Disney World, and I would love to finally have some sun and warmth on my face,

[00:00:38] Dana Stanley: but I really wanted to hear from you as a listener and what you wanna chat about. So in my broadcast channel, I shared a poll on what to chat about next, and you voted very fittingly about rest days. Meaning non-par days at Disney World, what to actually do with them, how to plan them without overthinking it and why they can end up being some of your favorite days of the trip.

[00:01:14] Dana Stanley: So these questions came straight from my Instagram broadcast channel, which I will leave a link in the show notes if you aren’t already in there. So we’re talking like real scenarios of what people are struggling with and just what to do on a day that you don’t have a park ticket for one of the four Disney World Parks.

[00:01:34] Dana Stanley: Okay, let’s get into it.

[00:01:39] Dana Stanley: So my friend Melissa, asked for new ideas that she loves a good rest day, and I hope that in this episode we’ll do exactly that because we really do want to rest on our rest days. IE we don’t wanna do too much. So let’s first talk about what a quote rest day even is.

[00:02:03] Dana Stanley: So this is really just referred to a day that you are not going into the parks. Let’s say you have a week long vacation. If you’re one of my members, you know that I recommend Park, park, rest, park, park, which ends up being perfect for a seven day trip. You have your two travel days, one day in each park, and then a rest in the middle.

[00:02:27] Dana Stanley: And there are a lot of different scenarios of where your rest day falls, but this usually is not a day that you’re traveling. This is like a full 24 hours kind of smack dab in the middle of your trip, hopefully, of just not being able to scan into a park. Maybe you did it intentionally, maybe you just didn’t wanna pay for a ticket that day.

[00:02:50] Dana Stanley: Whatever it is. This is a day that you are in Disney World. You are on Disney property, staying at a Disney resort, and you are not going into the park. What do you do?

[00:03:05] Dana Stanley: Heather asked, what does your perfect slash ideal rest day look like? And this has really changed a lot over the years, and I don’t think. I see it ever being exactly the same for the rest of my life. And I’ll be honest, like in the past we haven’t really taken true rest days because we usually have annual passes, meaning doesn’t feel like it’s costing us any more money to go into the park every single day that we’re there.

[00:03:34] Dana Stanley: Either it’s a travel day, if we’re there for eight days, it doesn’t matter because we’ve already paid for that annual pass. Which I understand is not free, but you get what I’m saying. So ideally for me, when I think of rest day, I still do something. So ideally, and when I think of rest day, and I still do build these in, even when we have annual passes.

[00:04:02] Dana Stanley: It could be even like a late start. Maybe we’re doing something in the evening. This could be a scenario that comes up a lot this year because Disney had a get four day ticket, get two days free. So you could be used to maybe going for four days and you’re like, what am I gonna do for six park days? I would still treat.

[00:04:26] Dana Stanley: One of the days in the middle as a rest day in terms of you are resting, so you’re catching up on sleep and you are letting your body relax for a little bit before going into the second tail of the trip.

[00:04:44] Dana Stanley: Because I think it almost gets more overwhelming because when people talk about rest days or their off days. You know, they think about, you can go to Disney Springs, you can go mini golfing, you can go to a waterpark. I don’t really think of that as a rest day, to be honest. I don’t like mini golfing.

[00:05:02] Dana Stanley: You can certainly do that if that’s your favorite thing. Maybe your kids are a little older and you get bored really easily, then that could be a great option For me, it’s kind of like. A little bit of a torturous experience for me. Maybe I’m not patient enough. If I could, I could spend a day at the spa maybe.

[00:05:21] Dana Stanley: I certainly would. But when you have kids, that can get hard. So the perfect rest day to me isn’t to do like more things in Disney. It’s really to have that opportunity to rest, and that usually looks like. And that usually looks like catching up on sleep. And for this, it’s kind of in the morning and in the evening, even if the kids are early risers, there is still a different feeling of going to bed and just not having an alarm set.

[00:05:50] Dana Stanley: Like you don’t have to wake the kids up if they do sleep in, if they do wake up early, you’re not in a rush to get to the parks. You, you got nowhere to be. That is ideal for me is. That is like a very big sign of arrestee to me is like, I’m not setting my alarm. Sounds so wonderful

[00:06:15] Dana Stanley: because we don’t get to do that a lot, and I’m gonna talk about this more, but there are other things that I really like to take advantage of, of not just a rest day, but also like a reset day, which I’m gonna talk about more towards the end of the episode.

[00:06:43] Dana Stanley: Crystal asked what is the best vacation memory that had nothing to do with theme parks and was more focused on rest day. So like I mentioned, we don’t do a ton of like true rest days because we usually have annual passes. So in my mind when I think about this, it immediately went to a trip where the parks closed for a hurricane.

[00:07:08] Dana Stanley: And I do admittedly think I’m cheating a little bit with this answer, but it is what my mind went to because I was forced to stay in the room. Like the park was closed, Disney Springs was closed. Mini golf was closed, it was raining obviously. So I truly needed to just sit in the room like we needed to stay in the resort.

[00:07:30] Dana Stanley: And I will tell you, we had a one bedroom. So during nap time, I kind of had like my own space. And I will tell you that during nap time we had a one bedroom. So, and I was in the main bedroom area. With the baby kind of sleeping in the bathroom, if you know, you know, and I made some tea. I threw my phone across the room and I just did nothing.

[00:08:02] Dana Stanley: I think I maybe watched Seinfeld and it was really my favorite memory, and I think of why it was so special is that I just didn’t miss going into the park. I didn’t think about what I was missing, and I know it had nothing to do with my kids or like. It was a rest day and something magical happened and a cast member did this, or a character did that, but it was very relaxing and for whatever reason on that day, it was exactly what I needed.

[00:08:33] Dana Stanley: But then other than that, if I’m not being selfish and I’m thinking about my children on any chill day or a day that we’re getting a late start, or maybe an early bedtime even, I just love. Watching our kids play on the grass, any grass. I have memories of this very vivid memories of all three of my kids individually where you kind of just stand off to the side with your husband and just kind of all at your little creations that you’ve made.

[00:09:04] Dana Stanley: And I, we’ve done this at Boardwalk, we’ve done this at Riviera Grant Floridian before dinner. The Polynesian, just kids kind of frolicking and then there’s, then there’s other kids that are also frolicking together and they make friends so fast. You actually feel bad when you like have to leave and it’s just really sweet.

[00:09:26] Dana Stanley: That’s probably my favorite thing to do as a family, is just find a patch of grass. I’m rem, I’m remembering now at Caribbean Beach. We did that after dinner and. They found some kids to play with and they were racing and it was just really sweet and I was able to sit down, which is wonderful.

[00:09:48] Dana Stanley: Danielle asked, if you were going to Disney and not going into a park or only doing one park day, what resort would you choose? So I’m sorry if I’m translating this wrong, but when I read this, I think what she’s asking is like, what resort would you choose to stay at, not like what resort would you visit that day?

[00:10:08] Dana Stanley: I believe, but really, I guess it doesn’t matter because the answer for either is the same. If I knew I was going to have a lot of rest time, a lot of resort time, I would book the boardwalk, and I know that that is my answer for everything. But besides the fact that I love it and it’s my favorite, it just has the most to do on the property itself because you’re not just getting the boardwalk.

[00:10:36] Dana Stanley: You have the beach club right next door. You have the yacht club right next door. Plus you have swan and dolphin too. So including all of the restaurants for each of those resorts, all of the shopping for each of those resorts. Uh, then it also has like a cool bar. You can get a drink at the bar. You could just take a boat ride.

[00:10:57] Dana Stanley: You would have access to the Skyliner station if you. Enjoy the skyliner and wanted to go for a ride over to Riviera. There’s just a lot of different options, whereas other resorts you kind of are like just more sticking to that resort. The monorail resorts will touch on in a little bit. That would be another option, but still, if I had to choose, it would definitely be the boardwalk.

[00:11:26] Dana Stanley: Okay, Tracy said, considering a resort only stay for a couple days over Memorial Day Weekend Resort suggestions considering Animal Kingdom Lodge or Polynesian, but open to others and a good pool. If

[00:11:45] Dana Stanley: I was choosing between the two resorts, I would definitely go with the polys. Over Animal Kingdom Lodge again, because you just have a lot more options. I think Animal Kingdom Lodge is beautiful. The splash pads, slash pool are really fun. I love the food there, but it just doesn’t excite me. Imagining being like stuck there, like you were truly there.

[00:12:12] Dana Stanley: You could walk between the two houses like Jambo House and Kani Village, but other than that, like you’re there. But this is for like a resort only. Stay hands down. I go.

[00:12:34] Dana Stanley: And while I mentioned the boardwalk in that last answer for like staying at the resort being a good option, I will mention that if your priority is a pool, the boardwalk kind of has like a lackluster pool. It’s not the most exciting. Polynesian has a really fun pool, painkillers the cocktail at the pool bar, which we really like, and you do have just your options of walking on the beach.

[00:12:59] Dana Stanley: You could go over to the new Polynesian Tower, you can watch the fireworks from there. So between Animal Kingdom Lodge and Poly, hands down poly.

[00:13:20] Dana Stanley: I actually have friends that stayed at the Polynesian and they were so overwhelmed with the thought of going into the park because they had planned zero things that they ended up just staying at the Polynesian and like sitting at the pool. Having chicken fingers and they said they had a great time.

[00:13:41] Dana Stanley: Okay, Terry asked, staying at Disney’s Boardwalk, how can we make a full day of it nearby? Must use resort highlights and fireworks views.

[00:13:55] Dana Stanley: I

[00:14:01] Dana Stanley: so if it were me and I had a full day at the boardwalk. I again, would not set my alarm and I would book a character breakfast over at Cape May Cafe, which is at the Beach Club, but for a little later that I know that we’re not like rushing to get there. For my family, that would be like 9, 9 30. Then we would get some pool time.

[00:14:23] Dana Stanley: My girls are at that age. They love the pool. My middle just learned to swim. They like lots of pool time.

[00:14:31] Dana Stanley: We got hungry. I think it would be more of like a snack pool bar situation. You know that I’m probably getting a margarita, but I’ll probably get like something light for lunch. Like right before we tell off and head back into the resort. And I know this is like for my family in particular and the ages of my kids, but we are going to take a nap at the room, so most likely.

[00:14:56] Dana Stanley: My husband is going to take the two older kids to the, over, to the like board wall community hall to do some type of. Like craft, like do some type of activity that’s going on at the boardwalk that could be even something that is happening at the pool. Like they do the Mickey Tie dye t-shirts and my girls love these t-shirts.

[00:15:25] Dana Stanley: They wear them all the time at home. Like I have them, like I seriously have them for years. They’re probably, I wanna say it’s like, is it like 20 bucks? It’s something around that ballpark, and it’s probably the best thing that I buy in Disney because they wear them to death. So just a reminder, you can go on Disney’s website, find your resort, and then under the recreation tab it will have the full schedule now ahead of time.

[00:15:53] Dana Stanley: So you don’t even have to wait until you get there to see the different activities that are going on.

[00:16:06] Dana Stanley: Like I’m looking right now at the boardwalk and it has Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from three to four. They’re doing that Mickey tie dye craft.

[00:16:21] Dana Stanley: So they’ll, so while they’re doing that. I would for sure get like an afternoon coffee from Carousel Coffee. I prefer any of their espresso drinks over their like drip or cold brew, just FYI. And then I would take a lovely midday shower, get ready for dinner. This would most likely be a reservation. And again, there’s so many options.

[00:16:44] Dana Stanley: So depending on my mood, we would probably end up at Trattoria Al Forno and then get ice cream next door after. Let the kids play on the grass. If we wanted to watch the fireworks from afar, the bridge on your walk over to Epcot in the back towards the international gateway is gonna be your best bet.

[00:17:17] Dana Stanley: If that is not enough for you, there’s. So many things that you could do on the boardwalk. You could also rent the Surrey bikes. Those are like the paddle bikes. I wanna say it fits 1, 2, 3, 4. I think if it’s four people, I think if it’s four adults, but then you can squeeze more kids on again, a paid experience.

[00:17:43] Dana Stanley: And I really like the gift shop at Boardwalk. It’s probably one of my favorite. Resort gift shop, so you could spend some time, so you could spend more time being at the gift shop. You could make a reservation at Cake Bake Shop, or just get a slice of cake after. Again, there’s just so many things to do at the boardwalk.

[00:18:02] Dana Stanley: You could definitely make a full day out of it.

[00:18:09] Dana Stanley: I think this person’s name is Kim. I think this is, it says Kim Tess. She asked. Walk around Boardwalk and Disney Springs on a rest day. Your thoughts? So yeah, I totally think you could do both. It sounds doable. I wouldn’t go hard at either, and I would probably, which I think is gonna sound a little weird.

[00:18:30] Dana Stanley: I would do Disney Springs first and then Boardwalk. I think it’s like the opposite of how most people would think about it. ’cause I think people think Disney Springs and think nightlife and that type of thing. But I would do that first for that reason.

[00:18:47] Dana Stanley: I’d grab like lunch over dinner or maybe like brunch if it’s the weekend, and you could go to Chef Art Smith’s do some shopping, get coffee with way less people around bugging me. And then I would do all the nighttime things at the boardwalk, which I think I have talked about to death at this point.

[00:19:11] Dana Stanley: In that same line of thinking, travel made savvy, asked a go-to plan for Disney Springs because lately we avoid going and I get that. I actually typically avoid Disney Springs unless my in-laws are with us because they really like the boathouse. So if and when I do go, it is definitely best to not go on a weekend.

[00:19:34] Dana Stanley: If you can avoid. Like prime, nighttime if you can. Of course with like scheduling things and the way your park days and travel days, some things are beyond your control. But the nice thing about Disney Springs is I feel like you don’t have to have a big plan. Like, not to sound too blunt, but I really just, but I really feel like it’s just a shopping center to us.

[00:19:56] Dana Stanley: Like that’s how we view it is it’s beautiful and it’s lovely to walk around and I know there are lots of, and there are lots of great restaurants. And you can, you know, do Cirque de Soleil or bowl and do all of these things. But when we go to Disney Springs, it is usually for a nice meal and we go to like one to two stores and head out.

[00:20:23] Dana Stanley: Something that has been on my radar is the bracelet. Is the bracelet bar of little words project. If you or anyone is listening that has little girls that are into those right now, they have a Disney Springs bead bar.

[00:20:50] Dana Stanley: I think it’s about, I think it takes about 30 minutes. For a single bracelet, you have to make reservations ahead of time. But this is something that’s been on my radar because my girls are getting really into, you know, the little personalized bracelets. Now I have admittedly not eaten at a ton of places in Disney Springs.

[00:21:19] Dana Stanley: The two spots that I do really like is Chef Art Smith’s Homecoming for brunch, specifically, not dinner. They have brunch on Saturday and Sundays. I know that I said avoid a weekend, but if you go earlier in the, but if you go earlier in the day, it’s really nice.

[00:21:41] Dana Stanley: And then for dinner, we really like the boathouse. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I like sitting inside for a little bit more of an upscale feel or just out on the back deck if my kids are being crazy and I don’t wanna disturb anybody. But we always have a good meal there. The kids love watching the Amfa cars go by.

[00:22:10] Dana Stanley: On one of our last trips with my in-laws, we actually got my father-in-law a ticket to ride in one of the said Amfa cars with my husband and two kids, and one of my daughters actually fell asleep. So very relaxing. If you wanted to look into that, I will leave a link in the show notes so you can learn more about it.

[00:22:39] Dana Stanley: Alexis asked about a monorail slash skyliner crawl options with kids, and it’s funny, like kids really do love the skyliner, so you could do a few things depending on where you’re coming from. If you don’t have access to the skyliner. You could Uber or take a bus to Hollywood Studios and then take the Skyliner from there to Riviera.

[00:23:04] Dana Stanley: This is going to have the best food options on the Skyliner for sure. Bar RVA is great. Uh, the coffee bar there is great. There is a little gelato stand over by the pool. It’s not there all day and you won’t be able to go. Into the pool, unless you’re staying there, of course, but it is outside of it, so you’re good.

[00:23:25] Dana Stanley: My kids loved that they have bocce ball and a big chess game. So if I’m going to do some type of skyliner crawl, it is definitely going to include Riviera, and then I would probably end at the boardwalk.

[00:23:43] Dana Stanley: And I’m skipping the monorail part of that question because Kelsey asked. For must dos and a laid back way to enjoy the Monroe Loop Resorts on a rest day plan is to have a late breakfast at Ohana that morning. Yeah. So if you’re starting at Ohana at the Polynesian, I’m definitely,

[00:24:08] Dana Stanley: I would do the contemporary as kind of like the midday resort popin, and then I would end. At Grant Floridian. So if we’re at the Polynesian, we have Ohana. I’m definitely grabbing a coffee from not Kona Cafe, but like the Kona coffee bar and just get a coffee to go for the long commute on the monorail to the contemporary.

[00:24:33] Dana Stanley: And then I would use the contemporary as more of like, do some shopping. Let the kids kinda get their wiggles out. You could. If you are getting hungry, you could mobile order from Contempo Cafe. So if you wanted to make that a little bit longer, instead of doing the monorail, you could also take the boat from the Polynesian to Magic Kingdom just for like a nice boat ride and then hop on, and then hop on the monorail to the contemporary.

[00:25:06] Dana Stanley: Either way works. Then you’re ending at Grand Floridian. I think this would be so fun at night to just kinda let the kids explore again, the grass, just let the kids run around again, the grass outside, explore kinda the grounds there, and then get a nicer dinner. So my favorite reservation there would be Citric.

[00:25:39] Dana Stanley: I’ve had so many of my favorite meals at Citrico, and it does, and it does feel like a luxury dining experience. Then the most laid back thing to do is just to head back to wherever you’re staying and get an early bedtime. I was kind of assuming that you’re staying at Polynesian because you said Ohana, and if you wanted to stay up, I would put their kids, I would put the kids in their PJs and you could watch the fireworks back at Polynesian.

[00:26:08] Dana Stanley: Maybe if that’s where you’re saying.

[00:26:20] Dana Stanley: Brit asked about an ideal rest day working around a midday nap. So if I had to do like a formula of a perfect rest day for me, it would be a late morning character breakfast. Then the pool slash nap, depending on the ages of my kids and what’s going on. But this is key. I am going to take a shower, like a middle of the day shower.

[00:26:47] Dana Stanley: I’m going to bathe my kids in the middle of the day, get our hair all nice, and do all those things and really like reset everything before venturing out to like a nice dinner.

[00:27:05] Dana Stanley: I feel like this isn’t really mentioned a lot about a rest day, but I. Want to take advantage, but I wanna take advantage that this is halfway through my trip. So like this is a rest day. So if you think of it as a reset day, because now you’ve done most likely like two, maybe three park days, you know by now at this point, even if you’ve never been to Disney, you’re getting all.

[00:27:33] Dana Stanley: You’re getting a read on if your kids are into the characters or not. Maybe you did a character meal in the first half of the trip and they absolutely hated it. You know how, or vice versa. Maybe they keep surprising you and they’re asking to meet all of these characters and you think that they wouldn’t be into it.

[00:27:52] Dana Stanley: You know how the kids have been on rides, the dark ones, the fast ones, you know how long they’ve been able to sit still and eat a meal. So I like to sit my booty down in bed preferably. And you know, you can start canceling dining reservations, make new dining reservations. You can modify your lightning lanes to completely different rides.

[00:28:17] Dana Stanley: I would check the weather for the next few days, ’cause now it’s gonna be even more accurate. And kind of have a game plan, like just do a little light housekeeping on the actual trip and. Look at your future plans and tweak them if you need to. So that’s a little light housekeeping on the trip, but also my room.

[00:28:41] Dana Stanley: I want to reset my room by two, three days in, it’s getting a little messy. Clothes in the drawers are starting to get all mixed in together.

[00:29:00] Dana Stanley: So I want to like clean out the stroller, get all the crumbs and all the things out of the stroller, kind of repack our things. Maybe repack my park bag with,

[00:29:14] Dana Stanley: you know, fresh bandaids or crayons or whatever I need to do. Like, really don’t forget to take advantage of that downtime. Get yourself rested and ready and prepared for the next leg of the trip.

[00:29:33] Dana Stanley: If I have a washer and dryer, or if this is a longer trip, I’m gonna take advantage of this to do a load of laundry. And the most important thing, ideally is to catch up on sleep like I have mentioned.

[00:29:54] Dana Stanley: Shelly asked, what do my kids love to do on rest days? So I asked them, I literally asked them last night, and I think the thing that they did not mention, that I know that they enjoy is to not be woken up. I think they like just waking up on their own. Not being disturbed with, even if it’s just me waking up before them and starting to like make some noise or anything, I just stay in bed until one of the kids gets me, and I do think that that is something that they really love.

[00:30:27] Dana Stanley: Of course, they didn’t mention that though. They said that they like to shop. They said that they like the pool. They said that they would just be at the pool all day, go down the slides. Make tie dye t-shirts get a slushie or some type of smoothie situation from the pool bar. And then I thought it was really sweet, that story my oldest said to play on the grass, and I thought, oh, I said that too.

[00:30:54] Dana Stanley: That’s it for today’s q and a. And I think after saying all of this and seeing your questions, I think my biggest tip is to not overthink a rest day, because the point is for it to be. So I hope this helped reframe that a little bit. If you want help planning your trip in a way that actually leaves room for days that look like this, you can join Laidback magic@laidbackmagic.com to learn where to start before anything else gets booked.

[00:31:23] Dana Stanley: If you’ve submitted one of these questions, thank you. I’ll be sure to do more listener q and as like this, and I will see you next Monday where we are chatting all about the Disney Dining Plan.