1 Month To Go - DLR and WDW Planning Comparison

[spgoad]

My DW and I are very excited... 1 month till our first DLR trip together. She has been multiple times before, but I never have. We are very blessed for this to be our second Disney trip of the year, having gone to WDW in January (again, first time for me with the exception of a half day in Magic Kingdom that I had in college). So, while I'm a long time Walt Disney fan, this year is my first experience with the world of Disney theme parks. Obviously, we are going to DLR just 7 months after WDW, I'm rather enjoying it so far.

As the trip draws nearer, I started thinking about how the two resorts compare from a planning perspective. Not rides, not experiences, not magical touches, just strictly the planning process of a trip to a resort. I'm new to both resorts, so I've spent TONS of time researching and planning our trips. My wife will tell you she doesn't ever see me much more excited than when I'm finding cool stuff about Disney parks. Now I'm not quite the type who goes to the Ridemax level and plans out our exact days, instead I like to be well informed about crowd flow and little touring quirks that I use when we get on the ground and start having fun. We like to maximize our time, but still have flexibility to sit and enjoy ourselves in the magic.

So, that said, at WDW my planning consisted of pulling all the park hours, show times, and Touring Plans crowd levels into spreadsheets, then using the data in figuring out what days to do what and when to hop between parks. I spent a good bit of time doing this, trying to figure out how to optimize our time, and also where to eat when (we had a quick service dining plan). I enjoy planning and organizing, so I actually enjoyed figuring out all those things, while still knowing we could adjust whenever we wanted if we wanted to do something specific (like how we went back to AK to catch Festival of the Lion King and a parade). Fast foward to planning for DLR. I knew it wouldn't be as involved, but I still figured I would pull hours and shows into spreadsheets and work out some basic ideas of when we'd want to be where to see what we want. I pulled up the park hours for our trip, and found out the schedules are exactly the same for all 6 days we are there. So basically, my spreadsheet would have been pointless. I've still spent time studying up on crowd flows and when to do what, so I've worked out some ideas in my head... but with the proximity of the two parks, I really feel like my style of planning from WDW is almost a mute point. Of course dining is a whole different story at DLR too, but since we won't be doing any table service again, so my planning there is minimal.

So my conclusions... for normal people, planning for DLR would be awesome because there is not alot you need to do. Get hotel reservations, flights, and tickets, and you are good to go. Do some reading and you can easily optimize your time without alot of thought ahead of time. At WDW, this doesn't work so well. You need that overall picture to try and fit in everything you want, as well as to get those magical extras (like the time we caught Wishes at Magic Kingdom and Illuminations at Epcot in the same night, with just 20 mins to get between the two). So for me, I actually enjoyed planning for WDW more, simply because there was more to do. I'm sitting here a month out from DLR feeling like I've exhausted my planning options... something I wasn't really expecting. Definitely aspects to both that are very nice, and which planning experience you enjoy more could definitely depend on the type of person you are. Either way, my anticipation for the magic is very high!

 

[TeddiBarra]

As a DL vet, and as you can see planning our first trip to WDW next fall, I am utterly overwhelmed when i get into the details. And don't get me wrong, I like planning. Love it. Makes me happier to be able to have a trip TO plan, BUT, omgomgomg WDW is so complex.

And actually DLR is getting there, though it will clearly never be as involved as WDW.

Also, if you want to do table service, you have very excellent odds of being able to do so on a walk up basis. In DCA, Wine Country Trattoria is pretty good and we've .. hmm... we've eaten there 4 times total and I honestly don't think a single one was ressie'd, but one MIGHT have been. In other words, you aren't precluded those options just because you DON"T have an "adr". **

I love that. If we decided to splurge or changes plans, I love that. One thing that is hard to plan for with WDW on a first time basis is just NOT knowing what WILL work best for our family. I can only THINK I know, but it could be a totally different ball game once there.

I did a handwritten spreadsheet of EH and GEEZ just that part was hard! Summer is easy peasy. DL is open 8 - 12, DCA 9:30 - 10. BUT hopefully DCA will have longer hours after Carsland opens. And you do know that at DL you absolutely can use your FPs anytime after the start time (I heard that it can be hit and miss w/that in WDW).

If you really want to plan, and you have things like EE or are staying onsite, you can plan every meal- plan every night event (like F!, Fireworks, WOC, etc) and make a very detailed plan that can be time intensive, but you are just NOT going to have to have that... 180 oh wait plus 10 days, thing, that so very confuses me for the ADRs.

** WOC dinner preferred viewing dinner packages, and Blue Bayou during peak seasons, excluded. Make ADRs for those, but no need to do it right at the 60 day mark.

 

[spgoad]

Yeah, I definitely hear you about WDW's complexities. We didn't do any table service at WDW, so we really had a more DLR like flexibility for our time schedules. We had specific places we wanted to eat (Epcot's restaurants are awesome), but we had no specific time that we had to do it. Certainly if you want to do table service every day, at 180 days is pretty tough to make your plans.

I do think Touring Plans helped me alot with navigating the complexity. I don't plan to get that for DLR, I just don't see the same need. Having crowd calendars won't really help me, because it doesn't make sense at DLR to dedicate days to one park or the other. We can just hop when we want or take a break if things get too busy.

It probably also helped that it is just me and DW at this point, not as many family members to keep happy or keep track of. We can also move through crowds really fast without struggling to stay together. Definitely makes a difference in what we can handle and how flexible we can be.

Good luck planning your trip!