Does anyone else miss the spontaneity

[MakiraMarlena]

Well you might have trouble just walking up to restaurants. But at anything but the really popular ones, character meals, or maybe MK which has a scarcity of restaurants when compared to park capacity, if you're not visiting at the most crowded time and you are not particular about what time you eat, you should not have any problems making ADRS up to even a few days before or even the day before, rather than 6 months before.

 

[2Tiggies]

Try being a newb its flat overwhelming.

I want to do the restaurants as that is part of vacation.

Now I have to plan what park, ADR's and FP+ and the key to all this is time. I don't know how long an ADR will last or how long to expect it to take from point A to B.

You see, this is something that some folk seem to be overlooking. In the past if you wanted to change an ADR to a different time, or park, you checked availability and you did it or didn't do it. Now when you change one, you have to go and change all your FP's and try get times that will work around the restaurant, fireworks, parades .... We do this every year and I have found it incredibly time consuming this year. I can't imagine what it must be like for someone experiencing this as their introduction to planning a WDW vacation

 

[momofmaz]

Other than dining ADRs I felt our trip was very spontaneous. We park hop so other than for A&E we varied our fast pass times and only used one a day. I didn't feel like we were tied down to a strict schedule and we got a ton accomplished! Of course we do pre opening breakfasts every day so we are walking out to an open park but even with a cranky toddler things went great! I never used paper fast passes, just never got into the running thing, but scheduling your MUST DO rides was a great advantage, everything else we rolled with.

 

[goofy4tink]

Guess I'm in the minority here. I have always told people that 'WDW is no place for spontaneity'! If you don't do some planning, you will most likely come away feeling that you had a bad experience. Does everyone 'have' to book those FP+s 60 days out? Does everyone have to book ADRs 180 days out? No. But, if you know pretty much what you want to do, and where you want to eat, then plan accordingly. I like knowing that I can go to the MK on June 9 and I'll be able to get in the FP line for Anna and Elsa with a minimum wait....'minimum' being relative! Or I can sleep in a bit and still know that I will be able to do TSM around noon....without the ability to book FP+ prior to my trip, I would have been shut out of a lot of desirable attractions if I wanted to be a bit lazy.
I can make changes to my FP as I go. I can get addtl ones each day as I use them up. So, I'm not bothered at all by the changes. These changes actually allow me to enjoy my stay a bit more than before...it's less crazy.

 

[surferdave]

Guess I'm in the minority here. I have always told people that 'WDW is no place for spontaneity'! If you don't do some planning, you will most likely come away feeling that you had a bad experience. Does everyone 'have' to book those FP+s 60 days out? Does everyone have to book ADRs 180 days out? No. But, if you know pretty much what you want to do, and where you want to eat, then plan accordingly. I like knowing that I can go to the MK on June 9 and I'll be able to get in the FP line for Anna and Elsa with a minimum wait....'minimum' being relative! Or I can sleep in a bit and still know that I will be able to do TSM around noon....without the ability to book FP+ prior to my trip, I would have been shut out of a lot of desirable attractions if I wanted to be a bit lazy.
I can make changes to my FP as I go. I can get addtl ones each day as I use them up. So, I'm not bothered at all by the changes. These changes actually allow me to enjoy my stay a bit more than before...it's less crazy.

Substitute flexibility for spontaneity. I always planned my trip well but knew how to recover if things went awry; I believe that flexibility has been significantly compromised.

I notice I hardly ever see any examples besides TSMM of the big sleep in advantage. A few people have named Soarin or Test Track but I was always able to get FP- for those if I arrived at the park before around 2pm.

 

[Mikie]

Try being a newb its flat overwhelming.

I want to do the restaurants as that is part of vacation.

Now I have to plan what park, ADR's and FP+ and the key to all this is time. I don't know how long an ADR will last or how long to expect it to take from point A to B.

I felt bad when a friend of mine, who is a HUGE planner in "real life" was having a crazy year and decide to take a Disney vacation with her family. I tried to explain how you could * either* plan and have some control over seeing "everything" (or at least all your own "must do's") OR you could just go with the flow and relax, but you'd have to be happy with maybe seeing a lot, or maybe not! She was insistent on not planning, having a relaxing vacation. . . In theory. . .

Unfortunately, to a Disney newbie, I guess it just didn't make sense until she saw it in action. Being budget-conscious, she was defining success on "I paid HOW MUCH for this day and only rode X number of rides, or couldn't even eat at X restaurant, or I slept until noon and then the parks were so crowded!" the kids, of course, saw things they wanted to do but no one was prepared for wait times, or the heat, or the idea that you CAN take breaks, but Disney transport takes longer than your hometown trip to the store.

All about expectations, I guess! You can go spontaneous as long as you remember that sometimes magic will happen and sometimes you'll have a dud day - and BE OKAY with that!

 

[2Tiggies]

Substitute flexibility for spontaneity. I always planned my trip well but knew how to recover if things went awry; I believe that flexibility has been significantly compromised.

I notice I hardly ever see any examples besides TSMM of the big sleep in advantage. A few people have named Soarin or Test Track but I was always able to get FP- for those if I arrived at the park before around 2pm.

This is what it comes down to for us

And since we don't care about TSM and do rope drop anyway, we are being rewarded with lines stacking up much earlier.

 

[SpectroMagic*o*]

I have a lot to say about this but I wont. In a nutshell, I think Fast Pass Plus is ABSURD and there is absolutely no way I will be able to know with 2 small children where we are going to be at what time of any day. I like to go on a ride when I'm near that ride. I don't want to be running all over the place trying to make ride reservations. And what happens when people DO reserve their Fast Pass Plus and then don't show up?? Sucks for everybody else! And what about the older people who want to go on some of the classics but not willing to learn all the new technology? (This goes for MagicBands too). I don't know, I guess they'll test it out but I hope they don't make anything permanent til they really see how it affects everyone.

 

[pjhootch]

Isn't that what we have always done when we have gone to disney? With the touring plans, FP- runs and crowd calendars, a Disney vacation is never "spontaneous." Not sure where this idea came from. Every one of us looked at crowd calendars and crowd levels prior to going. We look at historically low attendance dates to book our vacations and knew which park we were going to hit on which dates. ADR's have been 180 + 10 for as long as I can remember, so we planned our meal ressies six months prior, so we also sort of planned which park we were going to be in.

I can't think of one person that I know that would just up and go to disney and make their plans the day of. That is spontaneous. Spontaneous is getting up and flipping a coin to decide which park to visit. Spontaneous is walking through the park and saying "Wow, I want to ride X ride now, let's go."

The "lack" of spontaneity has been a rallying cry for those opposed to FP+ since it started, most without ever having experienced it. "It takes away our spontaneity." Well, didn't they plan which FP- they were going to run to first and in which order they were going to get them months in advance?

Just not sure where this idea came from....Disney and spontaneity are diametrically opposed ideologies.

I guess you're right. You don't know me.

We have gone when we can go, regardless of crowds or crowd calendars. Period. We have gone at holidays and slow times and whenever... the only thing that impacts our decision to go is our own schedule.

The last trip we took I used free dining and planned some ADRs when I booked the trip a couple of months out from arrival. That was a first for us. Prior to that we never planned where to eat except for 1 reservation made day of at Cinderella's castle. When we got hungry we found a place to eat.

We used fastpass to the extent we grabbed them as we reached a ride and the standby line was too long to wait, or we rode and grabbed a fastpass to come back for a 2nd ride later. We did not make any plans about what to ride when until we were at the park and saw how the lines were forming.

Believe it or not, it was completely possible to have a great trip time after time, with only the most rudimentary planning imaginable. We've been doing this for 30 years and never been disappointed.

Things change, and I understand we need to plan some now or be shut out of rides and restaurants. That doesn't mean I don't miss spontaneity.

 

[tink20]

We are not going back until next June, so who knows if anything will have changed.... but we were going to go to a WP for the first time while there and I hate that I can't just decide while there what day that will be (because of the weather) But if I already have all my regular park days planned out, it would be a pain to change them around at the last minute, if that day's weather looked bad. (I guess, we haven't used the new system yet)