Touring plans for the "relaxed" crowd

[HiHoWeGo]

I see touring plans from many sources that let you minimize wait times and maximize attractions experienced. Almost universally these include tips like arriving 30-45 minutes before rope drop, visit rides in a strict order, etc. In summary they are very regimented.

My question is; Are there any plans for people who like a more relaxed Disney vacation, and yet still want to avoid lines and maximize attractions experiences, as much as possible? I fully understand that sleeping late and arriving well after rope drop will limit possibilities, but that's Ok. But I think that there must be some good advice for those that like to maybe arrive later, pick parks on the day of visit, etc. and that want to do as well as they can minimizing waits given the limitations they've accepted.

 

[MaxsDad]

As someone else who likes this strategy I unfortunately think those days are long gone.

The only advice would be to go during down times (which are rare now) and use your three fast passes wisely. Even that doesn't really help much now. If you don't have kids and can stay out late when the park is open later that could help too, but the park is usually only open later during crowded times.

Its a shame that those of us who like to go with the flow are now forced to either plan every minute or wait in line.

 

[Tgrgrl]

We did this a couple of weeks ago using one of the current wait time apps. You will have to decided what is a reasonable wait time though. We went for rides 25 minutes or less and only got burned once, at Epcot, Soarin' was posted at 25 but we actually waited 80 (!) minutes due to some sort of delay.

 

[McGreezy]

Ugh. This is our first visit and I'm actually becoming a bit bummed the more I read about what an awful time people tend to have if they don't plan every second. We are pretty relaxed people, and while we knew it would be busy, we didn't realize it would be insane like so many other people seem to be reporting. We are going in October, but from what I'm hearing that still won't save us from probably having to be Anal Annies with our scheduling. Boo

 

[gwb]

we are the relaxed type also. We go the 1st week in Dec so the crowds are lighter. We make our FP+, make EMH's in the morning, make rope drop, hit the rides we want early, then use our FP's and then leisurely alk aroud the parks, seeing the street shows, etc. We just take ut easy. And if we miss a ride due to crowds no big deal, we'll see it next time. An example of this happened in our last trip. Make MK rope drop on a EMH morning, just walked to Buzz and had a less the 5 min. wait. Got off and the line was still low and went on it again. Then went ove to Big thunder and splash which both had a small wait. Then made it to Pirates all with hardly any wait. I want to point out that DW is in ECV and didn't want to go on 7 dwarfs. Bbut again our times is in a lighter time

 

[minnie mum]

If you aren't going to arrive early, you have to expect longer lines and waits.

If you are waiting until you get up in the morning to select what park you are going to, you will have to be satisfied with whatever rides are available for FPs. Don't complain if some of the headliners have limited availability. I hope you have made all of your ADRs for resort restaurants, or will be using your PH to jump to another park for dinner.

If you arrive late at the park, you will just have to accept the lines for what they are. Forget a touring plan. They aren't going to help you if you don't want to follow their recommendations. Use your FPs ( whatever you can get that morning), and use the app to check wait times. Best of luck, unless you are traveling during one of the rare slow times of the year.

 

[Lee & Kerry]

We like going in late September and early October times aren't to bad, we to FP for the rides we really like. We check the APP for times on other rides the we want to do. Weekends are crowded so we just pick and choose were to go. I think all book strategies are no go, make you own and have fun.

 

[NJlauren]

I tried to use touring plans this trip and it just didn't work for us. In the end this is what we did.

I had prepicked our parks, we didn't change this.

We never made rope drop but were usually there with in 15 minutes of park opening. Example MK was scheduled to open at 9, we made it by 915 even if people were let in at 845. You can get a lot done in this first hour or two.

I used FP+ for my must dos, A&E, Buzz, Sorian, PP etc. There are a couple of approaches here, early so you can get more FP, early afternoon as the lines get long, or you afternoon park if your PH I used all 3 on my trip depending on the day.

If a line was longer then 30 minutes we passed. But we were ok missing things, we didn't do TT, big thunder, etc.

Not planning your trip to the minute isn't going to mean a bad trip. Having no outline or idea what you want to do might. Take advice on these boards and adapt it to your family.

ETA: I used apps for wait times and the touring plans I created were hardly referenced mostly because my group would see something and we would do it, the structured plan wasn't for my group this trip.

 

[HiHoWeGo]

If you are waiting until you get up in the morning to select what park you are going to, you will have to be satisfied with whatever rides are available for FPs. Don't complain if some of the headliners have limited availability. I hope you have made all of your ADRs for resort restaurants, or will be using your PH to jump to another park for dinner.

I don't think I even implied I was complaining about anything! In fact I acknowledged that a relaxed, spur-of-the-moment strategy will necessarily have limitations in what can be done; I accept that. I was hoping to get some constructive opinions on how to approach things, touring-wise, if I want to skip rope drops, etc. Thanks to those that have provided some ideas!

 

[Ava]

easyWDW has some touring plans for late arrival, and Kenny the Pirate has some for evening EMH, but you will still need to choose your park days in advance if you want to get FP for the more popular attractions. You'll also do better if you look at a crowd calendar so you can stick to recommended parks for each day of your trip. That way you'll at least be in the least crowded parks and hopefully encounter shorter lines. Using the MDE app for wait times is helpful too.

 

[vicky33006]

We are extremely relaxed in our touring style. We've been once a year for the past three years and have a trip scheduled this summer (busy!). Anyway, the first trip I went commando. We loved it because it was Disney but my son actually had a seizure and passed out at AK (we really have no idea of the cause as it was very cool out and he had a lot to drink, but I worry exhaustion played a part). We were all exhausted and it just wasn't a good time. Now when we go we don't make RD. We don't even come close. We get there when we get there. As a matter of fact, for our summer trip we won't even bother going into the parks until well into the afternoon and maybe even evening. I have out FP+ booked and I'm happy with those selections. We have a few other things we'd like to do, but we won't sweat the small stuff. We will close the parks down so I hope to get more stuff done in those later hours, but again, we won't sweat it. I think the trick is managing expectations. When we took that first trip we got a ton done. We weren't happy, but we rode everything multiple times. The next trip (we always go during peak times because I'm a teacher) we slept in. We enjoyed leisurely meals. I used MDE to track wait times and we waited when we felt like it. FP+ was great for us, but I don't concern myself with getting more than three per day. We had a blast. I knew we wouldn't get as much done and that was ok. We enjoy the nighttime entertainment. We book ADRs and enjoy them as well. We enjoy he shows and still get a lot done. I think some people would think we don't get our "money's" worth with this...but to us it's worth it if we have a great time. Relaxed touring works for us and that's what we do. My only
worry for our upcoming trip is the heat... But I think it will be ok.

 

[itchin2go]

I have looked at "down to the minute" touring plans ... a lot. They're very informative.

That said, we have never used one of them. I have a general idea (to be fair, a really good general idea) of what rides build massive standby lines fast, so I definitely have an idea of where to head first. However, after that, we play it by ear. Now, again, I'm not stupid and going to "no line all day" type of attractions in the first 2 hours. But we don't have a "set in stone" list.

I DO insist on rope drop. It's just a liberating thing to be in a park where you can go pretty much anywhere for at least 2 hours and not encounter long standby lines for most anything. As I'm thinking this through, maybe part of the reason we don't have to be super regimented is because we go at rope drop. It is about as relaxed as you can get then.

You don't have to be super regimented to maximize your time, but you should educate yourself about which attractions to prioritize.

 

[Jennytoon]

YES!!! You can still do this on all but the most very crowded of park days (and maybe even then).

Here is the thing that I find: it is all about attitude. If you have a checklist of things that you absolutely MUST see and experience or you will feel your vacation is ruined, then you probably want a plan and you want to take all those tips about RD etc. If you are willing to accept that your choice to not go with all the strategies that will get you on everything might result in not actually getting on everything -- and it sounds like you are -- you can get an amazing amount done and have an amazing time doing it.

We found that the new FP works well for those who don't want to arrive at the parks early and weren't FP super-users in the past. If you can bring yourself to decide on a park even the night before, there is often availability left for all but the most desirable of the headliners. And this is true even in the morning if 12 hours in advance is too much. You don't say when you're going, but we found that to be true this May in similar crowds to what we had previously experienced in August, and others have reported it as well.

In every park there are worthwhile attractions (possibly these are not rides) that can be experienced without a significant wait, or are not timed experiences. Mix these in with headliners you have FP for, headliners that you catch relatively low wait times on, and other things that you decide are within your wait line acceptability window, and you can have a great time.

The best thing you can do in order to enable this strategy is to make yourself knowledgeable in advance. If you don't want to do this that's fine, but the advantage is that you will be able to make speedy and smart decisions in the park. Just because you didn't use a touring plan doesn't mean you can't get value out of making decisions that include knowledge of the things those touring plans take advantage of.

--Familiarize yourself a bit in advance with the attractions. That will let you decide what is a "must do" for you, and knowing whether attractions are classed as headliners / secondary / tertiary will enable you to assess wait times on the fly.

--Touring Plans will allow you to make free customized plans that start and end at any time (access to other features is subscription only, but the ability to make the custom plans is free). Play around with them a bit before you go and see what you can get done at different arrival times crowds similar to what you expect. You don't have to actually use these plans when you are in the park, but you will have a realistic idea of how much you can get done, and you'll be able to see how much of an effect things like criss-crossing the park can have. We often find that the biggest factor that impedes how much we get done when the park is more crowded is simply that it is much slower to move across the park because of all the people.

--Many sites including TP have information how the the lines build over the course of the day. Obviously you don't have to memorize everything, but for rides that generally build significant waits you'll be able to tell when deciding what to do next if that's a great wait time on Kali and you should jump on it right this minute, or if the wait will be in that range for another hour or so and you can do something else first.

--Familiarize yourself with the park layout and roughly what attractions are where. The parks are BIG! If you're making decisions on the fly in the park with a wait times app (or with one of the wait times boards posted around the parks), you will want to be able to readily know two things when comparing different attraction waits to decide which one to do next: (1) is that a normal wait or something you should take advantage of and (2) is that near me or not.

--If you're into that, phone apps can be a really helpful tool. Some are configured to show wait times on a park map, making it easier to pick one near you. Some show what the normal wait time would be, or offer predictions about whether the line will be longer or shorter later in the day.

Lastly I would recommend you to make FP+ reservations for some park each day in advance of your trip, no matter which park. If you decide you don't want to do that park on the day of, you are no worse off. But if you happen to feel like doing DHS on the day that you happen to have FP for DHS, you'll have some desirable FP already in your pocket. The only downside to this is if you think it would have a negative effect on your attitude/perception of freedom because you would feel pressured to go to the parks where you already scheduled the FP.

 

[ArwenMarie]

I think that the best thing you can do for a relaxed trip is be ok with whatever happens. If you are ok with missing stuff and don't set your expectations too high, then it's all good. The only reason to hyper-plan is to extract the most experiences out of the time there and to do that does take a lot of pre-planning and hustling once you are there.

I've sort of hit this point myself. I think I am done trying to fight the system and I am just going to book my FPs from now on and go with the flow and be ok with getting less done if needed.

 

[brighteyes]

i have been twice. Once in late August and once at Christmas!! Both times we never used a touring plan or a crowd calendar. We did some rope drops on our first trip but not many and park hopped according to our ADR, and usually closed whatever park had late EMH.

We rarely went to the resort for a break in the afternoon but did park hop a lot and feel like we did just fine. When we went we had to get the FP in the park and did just fine. We took advantage of nighttime parades and were able to ride empty Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain several times in a row during EMH in August.

Our December trip we tended to arrive later in the day even though it was so crowded we still got on all our favs more than once.

 

[Jeannie in NJ]

We have never done rope drop but we still end up doing everything that we really want to. We go to the recommended parks per easywdw. We stay late at the parks. We rarely do any adrs any more, last trip only 2 table services in 9 days, we enjoy counter service (we also had club level so used that a lot). We get park hoppers and just go with the flow, that is the kind of family we are and we have great trips (at least in our opinion lol).

 

[maryandtyson]

We are rope drop people. Not because we have to but because DH and I are awake by 6:00 anyhow. We wrestle the children out of bed on half the days and experience as much as possible, usually whatever we feel like with no plan until about lunchtime. We take a break and come back later. I use crowd calendars to plan park days for the first few days and then it's more play it be ear.

Like everyone has said, it's about expectations and attitude.

 

[itchin2go]

We are rope drop people. Not because we have to but because DH and I are awake by 6:00 anyhow. We wrestle the children out of bed on half the days and experience as much as possible, usually whatever we feel like with no plan until about lunchtime. We take a break and come back later. I use crowd calendars to plan park days for the first few days and then it's more play it be ear.

Same with us. You know, I never thought about it until I was posting in this thread, but I think that going at rope drop is what enables us to just go with the flow. I think if you show up later, it's more critical to have a plan, depending on what you want to get done.

 

[maarowak]

On the cheat sheets from easyWDW, they have touring plans for late arrival. It's manageable, you'll have to sacrifice some things, etc. Still, you can do it! FP+ really helps with that.

 

[MrInfinity]

I don't think I even implied I was complaining about anything! In fact I acknowledged that a relaxed, spur-of-the-moment strategy will necessarily have limitations in what can be done; I accept that. I was hoping to get some constructive opinions on how to approach things, touring-wise, if I want to skip rope drops, etc. Thanks to those that have provided some ideas!

Keep in mind the audience you're writing to here. By default, this is probably the top 5% of Disney World guests in terms of the amount of planning done. So naturally the response you might get when asking a planner if not planning would be ok -- is that it would not. After all, we all plan because we want to be ahead of the crowd, etc. Why did you come out here? To get some sort of edge over everyone else presumably...

My question is; Are there any plans for people who like a more relaxed Disney vacation, and yet still want to avoid lines and maximize attractions experiences, as much as possible? I fully understand that sleeping late and arriving well after rope drop will limit possibilities, but that's Ok. But I think that there must be some good advice for those that like to maybe arrive later, pick parks on the day of visit, etc. and that want to do as well as they can minimizing waits given the limitations they've accepted.

I guess you just have to decide what it is you're asking! Do you want the more relaxed unplanned trip? Here you are asking about how to avoid lines and maximize attractions... Maximizing Rides and having a relaxed unplanned trip are generally opposite approaches on a spectrum -- all perfectly good! We are kind of in the middle.

I plan a lot, but we go with our family and lots of kids, so it's not like we're power tourers running from one ride to the next. To me, that level of planning sounds awful. But we also don't just show up empty handed and w/o an idea of what we want to do. As a result, I get my kids on everything we want, and into any restaurant we want... I lean toward doing more planning now, then having those plans as a baseline while we're there, but doing pretty much whatever we want on the fly. Thus the planning for me is not restrictive, but provides options.

Because we walk at a kid pace and do kid things, I'll plan in 2 hours in the mornings to just do whatever. Ride some rides, eat breakfast, etc. Things a power rider might think are a complete waste of time... but with kids, are essential. We'll take our FP's and a lunch midday, and plan to not ride much else during that time. We'll build in a sit-down meal per day, which is planned... but that gives us one staple thing we can all meet up and do together (group of 10).

Just plan as much as you want! The tools are here to plan what you want, and wing the rest. There is no bad way to plan a trip to Disney World. Also, find a facebook group for the month you're going.