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Originally Posted by gstelmack
Oh, and with kids, don't forget the "back to the hotel for a nap and some pool time to cool off" early afternoon block.
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+1 to infinity and beyond
Unless you've got an early-to-bed child, finish lunch, knock off one more ride on the way out of the park & leave the heat of the day (and one of the peak crowd times) to the amateurs.
Unless you have enormous crowd/waiting tolerance, the mid-afternoon is a gigantic circle jerk during peak season and the combined stress/strain/exertion has a bad payoff - 2-3 hours that has the worse ratio of waiting:doing than pretty much any other time period.
And re: gstelmack
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You want to make reservations for a dinner and a show or two, but seriously, especially with kids, just go at your own pace and enjoy what you can. People rushing from place to place to make an appointment just tire out the kids and are squabbling by the end of the day.
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There's a balance that pretty much everybody has to find that works for them. We overplanned on a couple of trips, underplanned at least once. But finding the comfort zone makes the absolute most of the trip in our experience. Plus, there's the issue of differing priorities. For some people it's maxxing out rides, and there are strategies for that. For others it's about covering the key attractions and letting the rest flow as it may. And for others, it's about the overall experience, rides+shows+dining+etc.
Arguably, dining preferences -- all counter service, all sit-downs, a mix -- could very well be the single biggest thing that impacts the optimal style of "doing Disney". With sitdown meals in the picture, there's some advance planning required in most cases, and those plans will influence the timing & sequencing of everything else you do.
For us, we found the comfort level was one sit down per day, so those are picked in advance. Then it's reservation time (407-WDW-DINE, one of the few numbers I have committed to memory). Since we're two park per day people, our lunch/dinner & restaurant preferences and availabilities fill in the half the slots on the trip (broken into morning session & evening session). Once those are done, knowing our park priorities & favorites pretty much lets us rotate the parks based on the dining, avoidance of early entry days, taking advantage of Extra Magic Hours, etc. It's both an art & a science.
And in spite of those plans, we've learned how to build in enough flexibility to minimize the stress & insanity. It's neither planned to the minute nor entirely free form, it's a mix of the two. And for us, it works.