A different way to do Disney… should I?

[Ladyandthepuppies]

My friend recently took a solo trip to WDW and was kind enough to text me some pics and details so that I could get my Disney fix vicariously for a few days. I was very struck by our different approaches to the parks. The past few trips, I have been a rope drop and stay till close, glued to my phone, hurry we can’t be late for our ADR kind of person. I spend a lot of time planning and it is very expensive for my family of 6, so we go hard to make the most of our trip.

My friend’s strategy (or lack thereof) blew my mind. I don’t think he rode more than a handful of rides. He wandered around! When he got hot and tired, he went back to the hotel. He didn’t even stay for the fireworks! But he loved it. He even mentioned he’s thinking about buying DVC. Which has me curious- could his approach to the parks be fun for my family to try?

Are there any others out there who have done it both ways- overplanned and under planned? Which do you prefer? Which will you do in the future?

I hadn’t really considered this seriously until now, but with the right mindset, maybe on our next trip we will:

-not ride the rides we don’t love (looking at you, Tomorrowland Speedway)

-sleep in and hit the parks later. I’m guessing we’ll still stay to close, maybe we don’t have to do both rope drop AND close

-not eat at TS restaurants. I never think the food is remotely worth the price, so we always just select restaurants for the theming and a chance to sit and relax. But what if we didn’t have to plan our day around ADR times?

-walk around without a destination in mind. We are always walking to the next attraction, often times hurrying so we won’t be late for whatever I have set up (ADR, VQ, LL, experience, etc)

Curious to hear the thoughts of others! For what it’s worth, I have a DD10, DS7, DS5, DS2. DH goes along with whatever I plan

 

[Paulaparm]

I’d say it depends on how often you go. If you’re able to go often (Whatever that means to you), then give the laid back approach a try! If you miss something this trip, you can always hit it on the next trip. Personally, we do a mix, some days rope drop and stay a while, some days go later and stay later, some days just go for a few hours and do whatever. That being said, we only go every 3-5 years and spend 2-3 weeks with 10 days in the parks.

 

[fla4fun]

My friend recently took a solo trip to WDW and was kind enough to text me some pics and details so that I could get my Disney fix vicariously for a few days. I was very struck by our different approaches to the parks. The past few trips, I have been a rope drop and stay till close, glued to my phone, hurry we can’t be late for our ADR kind of person. I spend a lot of time planning and it is very expensive for my family of 6, so we go hard to make the most of our trip.

My friend’s strategy (or lack thereof) blew my mind. I don’t think he rode more than a handful of rides. He wandered around! When he got hot and tired, he went back to the hotel. He didn’t even stay for the fireworks! But he loved it. He even mentioned he’s thinking about buying DVC. Which has me curious- could his approach to the parks be fun for my family to try?

Are there any others out there who have done it both ways- overplanned and under planned? Which do you prefer? Which will you do in the future?

I hadn’t really considered this seriously until now, but with the right mindset, maybe on our next trip we will:

-not ride the rides we don’t love (looking at you, Tomorrowland Speedway)

-sleep in and hit the parks later. I’m guessing we’ll still stay to close, maybe we don’t have to do both rope drop AND close

-not eat at TS restaurants. I never think the food is remotely worth the price, so we always just select restaurants for the theming and a chance to sit and relax. But what if we didn’t have to plan our day around ADR times?

-walk around without a destination in mind. We are always walking to the next attraction, often times hurrying so we won’t be late for whatever I have set up (ADR, VQ, LL, experience, etc)

Curious to hear the thoughts of others! For what it’s worth, I have a DD10, DS7, DS5, DS2. DH goes along with whatever I plan

Well, I think it makes a difference that your friend went solo and you are going as a party of six. It’s easier for a solo to pivot in the moment and only do what they want to do, when they want to do it. I do most of my trips solo, and being able to be more spontaneous is a big reason why. However, I do think you can take some ideas from their trip and incorporate them into your next visit.

For example, if there are rides that no one in the family likes, skip them. Just because they are there doesn’t mean you have to ride them. Perhaps ask each person for one or two attractions that are their absolute favorites, make sure you work those in, and wing it for the remainder.

Dining quick service only not only makes your schedule more flexible in regards to when you eat, but also takes less time than TS dining. Take advantage of mobile ordering when you can.

As far as rope drop or late nights, vs. an open to close day, some of that may depend on the time of year you visit and how many days you are there. If you are there when it’s really hot and humid, skipping the worst heat of the day is a good idea. You can either rope drop and leave early, or sleep in and hit the parks late, or do both with a substantial break in the middle. If you are visiting during cooler weather, the park hours may be shorter anyway, and there isn’t a need to leave the parks midday. So you might enter the park midmorning and leave early evening with no break at all.

Walking around the parks with no specific goal in mind is fun and relaxing, but I don’t know how your kids would like that. It might work better at Epcot and AK for you than at MK or DHS. I am a huge fan of wandering and people watching. One of my favorite places to just sit and people watch is outside the Imagination pavilion at Epcot by the leaping fountains. Your kids may enjoy trying to catch the water while you get a chance to catch your breath.

You know your family best, but taking one step back from going at full speed in the parks does allow you to fully enjoy the theming and atmosphere as well as the attractions.

 

[scrappinginontario]

We’ve done both. For us we prefer riding the rides and spending long days in the parks but resting when needed. We normally do a couple of TS ADRS (none this year) as we like the freedom of not having to be somewhere at a specific time.

I think a trip without plans works better on a solo trip than it does for a group trip. With a group each person may wish to do different things so all do something for each person adds up to busier days.

We went with my parents in 2019 for their last trip and we only did about 3 rides per day as that was all they could do. We enjoyed that trip as it was geared towards them but we wouldn’t want to do it all the time.

For us a Disney trip is to make memories together and experience things we can’t at home. We enjoy wandering too but having a bit of a plan works well for us and we really enjoy the attractions and shows.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The running from ADR to ADR is likely to make a big difference in your feelings towards rushed or super planned out. It's enough to do ride selections without adding more to that.

But maybe instead of going cold turkey if your traveling party is really used to them you could collectively decide on one TS meal everyone wants to go back to and then leave the rest to QS. Another thing is to keep in mind that you can waitlist or get TS day of if everyone is really hankering for that without having to actually plan that. It can be a spontaneous decision worked into existing day of park touring. QS places are easy to relax in too. We primarily eat in QS places anyhow. You can look for places that have indoor seating and seating under shade too. Don't underestimate shows for that a/c break too

And yes if you've been enough times it's okay to skip out on an attraction. We didn't ride Peter Pan last time because the wait time then when we saw the wait was decent enough we got in line only for it to break down. It's not a must do attraction and we're okay skipping it. Other attractions we skip too. Concentrate on the rides that really feel like if you didn't ride them it wasn't a Disney trip.

One thing I did for our 2017 trip that I just updated for the 2022 trip was separating out rides and shows into Must Do and Time Permits and separated it out between my husband and I so that I knew what he really wanted to do (like ToT) and what I really wanted to do (PeopleMover). If you feel up to doing something like that with your group (and I don't know the ages of your traveling party) you could learn what attractions you want to focus on. With us doing a category of Time Permits it allows us to keep a ride or show on the list but know we're okay if it doesn't work out. We go for the rides primarily but this allows us to not feel overwhelmed by trying to get every single thing done and leaves a lot of "in the moment" decisions.

 

[PPFlight75]

We've only stayed open to close once and that was our very first trip. We were cranky and grumpy and never did this again.
We do like rope drop to get the most rides with the least wait but we may be in a park anywhere from 3-6 hours and then we need a break. We shower, rest and may do something later, maybe not.
We build in rest/pool days and do table service at our favorite places, but cancel many when we don't feel like it. I also have kids who have gotten older and like lots of down time. Since that makes them happy, we try to accommodate this.
We have a much better time this way. Everyone is different and should do what makes you happy.

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

This part I highly recommened

-sleep in and hit the parks later. I’m guessing we’ll still stay to close, maybe we don’t have to do both rope drop AND close

I have never rope dropped and never will. Issue is, I still got to get up early for VQ and Genie if I want it. At least I go back to sleep for 2 or 3 hours after but damn I hate waking up for that

I would never be able to do the rest of the items you posted. Sure, in my mind, I would be like yeah lets try that.. then the minute I got to my hotel and entered the park, I would say " nope not doing that, doing what I always do "

 

[pens4821]

We get there early for rope drop, and usually are at the parks for (or close to) closing. Now we’ve started taking long breaks during the day. Maybe 4/5 hours. That way you get to ride everything, and also get to relax. The mornings we don’t rope drop (usually two of our six mornings) we go in around lunch time and spend the entire day.

We do headliners beginning and end of the day. Then the late morning and early evening we do lesser wait stuff and just kind of take it easy. Rope drop we rush around, closing we try to get a few rides down so we usually end up doing a lot of walking then too.

We find this works out pretty well for us. We’ve done the all day and that’s too much for us. Sleeping in every day we feel like we’d then have to pay for genie everyday to do everything we want.

 

[Disneylover99]

OP, you have 4 young kids. Do they enjoy doing parks rope drop to closing? Running from ride to ride and eating at TS restaurants? When my kids were young, they mostly enjoyed swimming and hanging out at the resort doing pool activities and snacking the day away.

So yeah. If I were you, I’d try a more laid back trip.

 

[afan]

I travel solo and enjoy my mid day breaks for a nap or at least relaxing. I rope drop and spend the evenings in a park maybe not until close but close to it.

I love the shorter lines in the morning and also the parks lit up at night. The break let's me do both. Even when I travel with a friend, they've taken to enjoying the mid day break. Open to close is hard and can make it less fun. It is easier for me to do open to close if I'm with someone else, solo I'd hit a wall if I tried to do it.

 

[Matrixleos]

@Ladyandthepuppies key question would be how many days would you normally go? For example, if you choose just 1 park per day (no hopper) and went for 5 park days, the current cost for going May/June time frame would roughly be $729.93. After that it greatly gets cheaper, 6 days at $767.02, 7 days at $783.52 and 8 days at $800.68.

Basically if you and your family usually go with 5 Park days, for just an addition $70.75 you would be able to add 3 additional park days per person. Less than $24 for each additional day! Even less per day if you add a 9th or 10th park day.

Maybe use that as a "Test" for your family on your next visit. Possibly use your normal 4-5 park days as you normally would use them. Then for those additional park days in the scenario above, do off the beaten path items that your family might skip or sometimes overlook. Some things like....

Magic Kingdom: Do what your friend did, do fewer rides, less time waiting in lines and spend more time enjoying the unique experiences and shows that often get overshadowed. Like Swiss Family Treehouse, explore Tom Sawyer Island in more detail, ride the Liberty Square Riverboat.

Epcot: Maybe, just spend one of those extra days just in World Showcase and forget the front section of the park. I know when my three kids were the ages of your kids, they absolutely loved doing the kids scavenger hunt. In the past it was based off of Kim Possible, then Phineas and Ferb. Although the current version is based off of Duck Tales with Scrooge McDuck tracking down ancient artifacts in the World Showcase.

Hollywood Studios: Another option, maybe just do a Galaxy's Edge day. Especially if your kids enjoy Star Wars animated series or movies. If they enjoyed the Duck Tales scavenger hunt in Epcot, then they might also like the Scavenger hunt in Galaxy's Edge where you pretend to be a bounty hunter and track down many different bounty's hidden across Galaxy's Edge.

End of the day, it might be hard to justify these "relaxed or stress free" days when you're paying $100+ per day and want to get the most bang for your dollar. Although with those extra added days, sleep in and then casually enjoy a park day that might only cost you less then $24 if you decide to get a 8 day park ticket (even less with 9 or 10 day park tickets)!

 

[saraheliz]

Our issue tends to be this- we say "oh, we aren't going to totally exhaust ourselves, go nonstop etc" but....then we arrive and can't help ourselves.
Case in point- it was SO hot last August. We arrived on a Tuesday, went hard for a few days. By the weekend my middle was all "can we do an easy day, sleep in, not as much busy-ness and walking." Sure. Sunday we had a lazy morning at the pool while I did laundry, did mid afternoon at the parks, had dinner, and came back and crashed. Then she said "we barely did anything today!! Why didn't we go to the park all day!?"
Seriously though we just have a hard time slowing down and not taking advantage of everything once we are there, despite our best intentions. We did a little better at the end of our last trip since we were just so hot and tired but I'm hoping this summer we can take it a little further and not only slow down a smidge but also do some things we normally just don't take the time to do.

 

[msmayor]

I think my family would get way to frustrated if we planned out days in too much detail. We still want to accomplish things, but need flexibility.

Our strategy has always been...each person in the family/trip group gets to pick one thing as their 'must do' for the visit, and one must-have snack. That becomes the checklist and helped us plan out park days (only to the extent of a must-do in a park...not necessarily the day we have to go to that park). We enter a park only knowing those one or two items have to be done, the rest of it is free-form. Having this type of plan made sure that regardless of what we were able to do or not do, as long as we hit the must-do items on the list, everyone left happy.

True story...my son's must-have snack was always churros. There was a stand in Frontierland at MG where we would always go to get them, and one trip...suddenly...no more churros. They'd discontinued them at that stand (and all of MK, apparently. We found a cast member and asked where we could find them and were told "Mexico pavilion at Epcot". So...we finished up at MK, pivoted the day, and hopped the monorail to head to Epcot (we'd already spent a whole day in that park) just to get the churros. Checked the box and created a fun memory.

 

[cruising spud]

I feel that how a family does Disney, often depends on their length of stay, the ages of family members, and if their trip is a "once in a lifetime" or a "we will be back" trip. Your children are on the young side, and from your post I am thinking that you will be back. No idea of a typical length of time.

Because of the age of your kids and because I think you will return to Disney, I would suggest mixing the two plans. Let's imagine you are going for seven days:

Arrival day-relax, swim, get to bed early. If it's in your budget, maybe do a table service restaurant.

For the next two days, hit early entry and go commando. Hit all the rides you can. Around noon, grab some QS lunch and head back to your room. Swim and nap. Head back to the park late afternoon. This is when you relax-meet some characters, eat some snacks, hit the stores, and do some short wait line rides.

Day four-sleep in. Relax. Swim. Hit a park later in the day. Ride what you can, see the parades, watch the fireworks.

Days five and six-go back to rope dropping.

Last day-relax. Get to the airport/drive home.

As your kids get older, how you do Disney will probably change.

Although I am all for relaxing on vacation, doing Disney well and relaxing don't always go hand in hand. I never wanted to vacation at Disney and not get on all of the rides and see the shows we wanted to.

Our family of eight (two grandkids included) is going to Disney early next year. Everyone wants to do everything. I have already started planning, which I think is the key to a great Disney vacation.

 

[reylas]

This is our family's new mantra.... "When we quit trying to get our money's worth, we finally got our money's worth"

We went once a year for years and frantically worked the parks for a week trying to get our value out of the money we paid. It got to the point that we almost gave up going because the stress and bickering was not worth the money Disney was charging us for "vacation". One year, we got a "less expensive" version of the trip and decided to enjoy ourselves instead of chasing our money's worth. We swam at the pools, came to the parks late (sometimes 4pm) and had few plans other than a couple of big rides.

We went home after that week rested and relaxed and actually felt pampered instead of cattle. We have done every trip since then that way and now look forward to our next trip every year.

It may not be for everyone, but if you think of it as a "vacation" first that you just so happen to get to visit Disney as well, then for us, it became a family vacation instead of a game to optimize.

 

[MikeandReneePlus5]

Genie+ and $ILL really make it possible to relax and still get all the "good" rides.

But it is expensive.

And you do have to do the "7am rush" on your phone.

 

[dez1978]

Our issue tends to be this- we say "oh, we aren't going to totally exhaust ourselves, go nonstop etc" but....then we arrive and can't help ourselves.
Case in point- it was SO hot last August. We arrived on a Tuesday, went hard for a few days. By the weekend my middle was all "can we do an easy day, sleep in, not as much busy-ness and walking." Sure. Sunday we had a lazy morning at the pool while I did laundry, did mid afternoon at the parks, had dinner, and came back and crashed. Then she said "we barely did anything today!! Why didn't we go to the park all day!?"
Seriously though we just have a hard time slowing down and not taking advantage of everything once we are there, despite our best intentions. We did a little better at the end of our last trip since we were just so hot and tired but I'm hoping this summer we can take it a little further and not only slow down a smidge but also do some things we normally just don't take the time to do.

This!!! lol If I plan, or rather don't plan, and we have a lazy day, then everyone is all "we didn't do anything today" but if I plan all the things, then everyone complains about going non stop! I can't win lol. Our next trip is over thanksgiving. We are doing 2 days at Universal, then 5 days at disney. I said 4 day hoppers were enough and we should plan a rest day, but I know dang good and well that rest day will be spent with complaining about being bored lol. So this time I am planning to sleep in, take advantage of the extended evening hours and see how it goes.

 

[GirlDreamer]

We never plan. It helps that it’s just me and DH though and we’ve been several times and know we’ll go again, so we don’t feel like we have to do everything. We never rope drop, although we have planned to rope drop on the first day next trip as we’re travelling from the UK so we usually wake up very early the first day anyway because of the time difference. But we don’t even set an alarm clock on holiday unless we’ve planned an activity that requires an early start. We just wake up naturally and get ready in our own time in the morning. We’re usually ready to go out around 10am, give or take. We don’t pre plan which park to visit or what to do on a non park day, we usually decide either the evening before or on the morning of. We only eat QS as we don’t want to be tied to any schedule and we’ve tried some TS restaurants or previous trips. We don’t always stay until park close either, it all depends. We haven’t been too thrilled about the recent fireworks shows in MK or Epcot (we haven’t seen the current one in Epcot yet though), so we don’t feel the need to stick around for those.

 

[Genie+]

My friend’s strategy (or lack thereof) blew my mind. I don’t think he rode more than a handful of rides. He wandered around! When he got hot and tired, he went back to the hotel. He didn’t even stay for the fireworks! But he loved it. He even mentioned he’s thinking about buying DVC. Which has me curious- could his approach to the parks be fun for my family to try?

Our trip style has definitely evolved. For a while there we did commando trips squeezing to maximize the time we had. I get it. Especially with kids these trips are expensive so of course you want see as much as possible.

But we never left much time to enjoy our resort or mix in experiences other than park, park, park. Now our focus is having fun without killing ourselves in the process. Our loose schedule doesn’t mix ropedrop with late nights, we’re going at a more enjoyable pace in the parks and spending more time outside the parks.

This change did coincide with our buying DVC. I guess knowing we’ll be back allows us to pick and choose what sounds fun today and be less concerned with what we may be missing.

 

[neverlandsky]

Kids were 12 & 14 with first WDW trip. 7 nights / 6 park days 1 park per day + MNSSHP. What they remember the most is not the parks, not the rides, MNSSHP, or the food; it was spending nights 3-7 in Stormalong Bay from 5pm to close, playing marco polo in the lazy river, holding onto our tubes in the lazy river to form a train, doing different poses at the end of the water slide, talking to the lifeguards (they were asking favorite rides, snacks, etc.), having the area mostly to us, and then getting to-go ice cream from Beaches & Cream Soda Shop. We also learned that our family vacations need to be at least 3 nights minimum - 5 nights maximum with more of Flash Slothmore vs. Tigger Fast.

For our vacations we start our days Tigger Fast, about 11:30-noon we start easing into Flash Slothmore, and end our day Flash Slothmore. What does that look like for our 2nd trip to WDW this mid-July? Probably RD given the huge advantage that has (has been our experience at DL 2009, 2011, & 2023 & WDW 2017), only ride the rides we want & under wait time of 45 minutes max. That's our family agreed wait time cutoff.

QS/TS lunch between 11:30-noon, afterwards rest at resort, and maybe a return to the park in the late afternoon/evening for stroll, snacks, and dessert, or it's a family game, resort pool, snacks, and dessert afterwards. Parks are just an excursion of our day not the entirely of day. We always skip the fireworks since we live in a city that goes all out 4th of July & NYE. It's what works best for us.