Q for Super Park Planners

[ChasingLeslie]

I'm looking for a little direction from those of you that are super planners! We're officially booked for next year and our 180+10 is in December, so I am starting to think about park planning and which days I hope to be in each land.

If you are a big time planner, how seriously do you consider previous year park calendars...? Crowds are going to be 7/8 when we go and, while I have an idea of when and where I'd like to be, mostly I'll probably end up planning around ADR availability and FPs. While I am a WDW vet, this is the first time I am taking my kids and the first time dealing with ADRs and FPs. I've been reading here and other WDW planning sites for months, but any advice you want to share would be appreciated!!

 

[BudgieMama]

I like to look at the previous year, but personally I wouldn't start getting my plan sorted until the parks hours are announced for the month I visit, and I can check out the park recommendations at easywdw.

We had a rough idea of what number of days we wanted where, and what ADRs we were looking for, but things got serious when I could see the park hours and set my timetable around them!

 

[rwdavis2]

Personally, I would not allow too many ADRs to dictate my planning. Unless it is a specific character meal most WDW restaurants are not worth the effort.

Given the ever increasing attendance in the parks I would not rely on past calendars. The ones available by the time you can make any reservations should be sufficient.

 

[amylevan]

We start with the crowd calendar. We decide which days are the best days to be in which parks, and pick our ADRs based on that - NOT the other way around.

 

[kelmcg]

Since this is your first time with kids........

We always get to Disney with an excel spreadsheet (color-coded) with all of our ADR's, parade times, FP+ times, etc.....I have it all planned out!!!

.......And then our kids find some kind of attraction and think it's the most wonderful thing in the World!! We had to learn to sit back and realize that they are having fun playing Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom (or something else) and although we wanted to get them to the (insert any ride here) because we knew they just had to ride it, they were having fun and enjoying Disney doing something else. If they end up missing a ride or two on this trip it will just be something new for them next time!

I wouldn't skip any of my hard to get FP+ reservations or ADR's .............

I remember one year at EpCOT, there was some little game set up where you would push around little garbage/recycle trucks from station to station and earn points for recycling. I was bored to death, but the boys were LOVING it! It wasn't in our plans but we realized that they were having fun so we just hung back and let them play. (although in the back of my head I wanted to scream...."Nooooo, let's get moving. We have rides to rides and characters to see!!) I think they played that game, and a few others right by it, for over an hour!

Just remember.....you'll never have time to do it all, and they won't even know what they are missing.

 

[ChasingLeslie]

Love hearing about everyone's planning and touring styles!

We are going for eight days (seven day PH tickets) and I am planning for 4-5 character meals, plus our anniversary dinner. I'm trying to put a game plan together of parks + ADRs so we are not traveling all around for a meal, but it's hard to balance that against a suggested calendar and reasonable hours for the kids (ie: no prepark breakfast the night after fireworks).

 

[Jfsag123]

I remember one year at EpCOT, there was some little game set up where you would push around little garbage/recycle trucks from station to station and earn points for recycling. I was bored to death, but the boys were LOVING it! It wasn't in our plans but we realized that they were having fun so we just hung back and let them play. (although in the back of my head I wanted to scream...."Nooooo, let's get moving. We have rides to rides and characters to see!!) I think they played that game, and a few others right by it, for over an hour!

Just remember.....you'll never have time to do it all, and they won't even know what they are missing.

This caught me off guard the first time we were at Epcot with the kids. I had made all these lovely plans, but hadn't known to account for all the little exhibits and activities they have after the rides. My kids absolutely loved those things and were a big part of why they both named Epcot as their favorite park after our first trip. I still make ridiculously obsessive schedules, but I now build time for play and exploration into those schedules, which has worked really well for us.

 

[MainMom]

I use Easywdw recommended days for most of my trip and plan my ADR's around them not the other way around.

 

[TeamSy]

I'm looking for a little direction from those of you that are super planners! We're officially booked for next year and our 180+10 is in December, so I am starting to think about park planning and which days I hope to be in each land.

If you are a big time planner, how seriously do you consider previous year park calendars...? Crowds are going to be 7/8 when we go and, while I have an idea of when and where I'd like to be, mostly I'll probably end up planning around ADR availability and FPs. While I am a WDW vet, this is the first time I am taking my kids and the first time dealing with ADRs and FPs. I've been reading here and other WDW planning sites for months, but any advice you want to share would be appreciated!!

So a little about us and our style: We typically don't do park hoppers. We do one park per day. We NEVER do rope drop, and we mostly always stay until close. We spend time eating IN the parks and most of the time we don't do quick service. We also like to see and do EVERYTHING. We've also never NOT gotten something done.

We also NEVER look at crowd calendars. Ever. Personally, I don't see the point to them at all. They've never influenced our choice of day at a park. We've been when it's dead to when it's PACKED, and it never changed what we were able to do and not do. It just changed our amount of "free time" (walking around shopping, going on rides multiple times). We usually base which parks we're going to which days around this:
- Hollywood is a half day park for us, so we typically do this on arrival day.
- For the rest, we look at the hours (how late the park is open). We'll go to MK on the day its open the latest. We typically do 2 days here, but still get everything done on the first day. The second is just a leisurely day, to do what we want yet again, shop, etc, and we typically like to do that second day over the weekend when there's EMH until 2am or so. We'll do other stuff in the morning and then head to the park that evening. This past trip, we were able to hop on a 10 min A&E line during the EMH. We didn't really care to meet them, but since it's SO popular and the line was so short, we figured why not.
- AK and water parks are planned on a day we want to do dinner at a hotel (California Grill, Narcoossee's, V&A, Jiko, all the dining options we want to have without sacrificing park time). Sometimes we look at MK fireworks schedule so we can watch them from whatever restaurant/area we are in outside of the park, and then book our ADR on that.
- We then plan on our ADR's based on which park we're at (obviously). We DID have to switch around a few days this past trip because of Be Our Guest. We ended up planning our MK park day when we got dinner at Be Our Guest, which ended up working out well. But on days we're at Epcot, we always will do breakfast at Akershus and then dinner somewhere. AK this year we did Tusker House for breakfast which was great, then dinner at a hotel, etc, etc.
- We then plan out our FP's, with understanding that day of, we may need to change them based on where we are in the day (if we feel the need to move any up so we can get a 4th). They are really easy to change except for 7DMT since it's so popular.

 

[mousiemom]

I'm looking for a little direction from those of you that are super planners! We're officially booked for next year and our 180+10 is in December, so I am starting to think about park planning and which days I hope to be in each land.

If you are a big time planner, how seriously do you consider previous year park calendars...? Crowds are going to be 7/8 when we go and, while I have an idea of when and where I'd like to be, mostly I'll probably end up planning around ADR availability and FPs. While I am a WDW vet, this is the first time I am taking my kids and the first time dealing with ADRs and FPs. I've been reading here and other WDW planning sites for months, but any advice you want to share would be appreciated!!

I'm looking for a little direction from those of you that are super planners! We're officially booked for next year and our 180+10 is in December, so I am starting to think about park planning and which days I hope to be in each land.

If you are a big time planner, how seriously do you consider previous year park calendars...? Crowds are going to be 7/8 when we go and, while I have an idea of when and where I'd like to be, mostly I'll probably end up planning around ADR availability and FPs. While I am a WDW vet, this is the first time I am taking my kids and the first time dealing with ADRs and FPs. I've been reading here and other WDW planning sites for months, but any advice you want to share would be appreciated!!

we usually do one park each day. we are early risers, so we are at the parks when it opens, we don't do breakfast(we grab a cereal bar or muffin in the room) we make adr 180 days out when we do TS dining, and we like doing dinners around 6ish. MK & HS are the parks we do all day so we do a ressie inside that park those days. All of our trips I make itiniearies for each day and all of our trips, we do everything. The FP system is great cause u can always change those up if u miss one. stay here on the dis cause we've done 37 Disney trips and I started learning all the tips and trip planning right here! have fun planning!!