The first thing I got when we were "thinking" of going to WDW was "The Unofficial Guide to WDW" Boy did that open the gates. I have spent pretty much my entire 8 hours at work as well as 3 hours at home every day for the past month planning this trip and it's only a 5 day trip! Most of the research has been which parks to hit when since we want to experience all four. We're doing 2 days at MK and 1 each day at the other three parks. We don't know if we will ever go again (plan is to go whenever a kid turns 5 for his/her bday, only have one son and yes we are going when he turns five in Dec. I want four more kids but it's up to God, so dont know if we'll ever go again for that reason). So we are trying to experience all the good stuff in those 5 days. Candlelight processional, Fantasmic, Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, Cinderella's Royal Table, all the parades, fireworks, castle lighting etc. Then I have poured over every single attraction and we have come up with 5 star attractions/rides that we WILL see (if they're not closed), 4 star attractions we really really want to see and 3 star attractions we will see if we have time. If we have more time we will go back and do 5 star attractions again. So far we have only covered Epcot and Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom attractions. That took a week just for those since I do them with the husband. I still have to try to decipher where those fall on the touring guides at the back of that book since apparently lines get full for different ones at different times etc.
Obsessing about which days to go to which park took a large part of my time as well. Consulted touringplans site as well as easywdw site and then also asked the mom's panel on the disney website. Touringplans and easywdw matched so that's what I finally settled on.
Third major chunk of time went into ADRs. With enough persistence we have scored ADRs to every single thing we wanted to hit. Akershus, Chef Mickey's, Crystal Palace, Tusker House and going back and forth between Ohana and 1900 park fare for the fifth one, but got these all for super early times so we can enter before park opens and be done eating by rope drop. Plus those breakfasts cover 90% of the characters my son loves so will save time by skipping character meets. Lunch and Dinner were harder to a) decide upon, since my parents have completely different tastes from me and I have completely different tastes from my husband. Husband is a meat and potatoes guy, I am a chicken and fish girl, parents are veggies, fruits and water people. I am a healthy eater, but my parents are suuuuuuuuper healthy eaters. b) my parents are only visiting the parks for 3 days so had to juggle those reservation numbers since they couldn't decide which three days they wanted to visit, they finally told me last night. Last night was a victory because I finally scored a Be Our Guest dinner at the time I wanted yesterday after checking multiple times everyday. So I had to pour over every menu with my husband, make sure that location was on site (breakfast was the exception) AND make sure there were things my parents would enjoy. Then I had to find reservations for those exact restaurants at the exact times we are planning to eat since we are only eating 2 main meals a day. Breakfast and a "supper" at 4pm.
So looks like other than pouring over all the attractions in MK, we are at the end of the planning. Only planning left is clothing since it can get to the low 50s and possibility of rain. Oh and we are on the Deluxe DP atm so going over the snack credits list on these forums (oh so thankful for this list btw!) and need to figure that out with husband. But yeah that's "all" lol.
I have never planned this much for anything in my life including when we got married (eloping = zero planning required LOL).
Some of the resources that helped my OCD planning nature are disneyfoodblog/touristblog, **************, allears, mousesavers and reading tripadvisor forums and reviews on restaurants/resorts, in case you were looking to spend more time planning
Who knows when we get there maybe we'll just sleep in and say "screw the plan" (we better not.... or this will be me
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