Anyone else feel this way? Chasing rides?

[DisneyGuy]

We go to WDW once or twice a year and I am the planner and controller of the trips - the ADR’s, the LL’s the ILL’s, making things work with dining reservations and trying to avoid any major overlaps. I keep up with the systems and changes so I know what to do when our next trip is planned. I enjoy it - love planning and getting those hard to get reservations and watching it all go so smoothly - we barely wait for anything and have good trips.

After the last few times, I’m starting to feel like we’re chasing rides - I’m constantly picking the next ride/show after we all tap in and not enjoying the queue, or anticipation of getting on the ride. No, I don’t want to wait an hour or two for a 3 minute ride, and won’t go without some type of skip the line system in place. But, I feel like I’m missing out on atmosphere while being on the phone. Also, LL skips some themed queue’s so you miss that. I think part of it is I want to make sure we all have a great time, but also get our money’s worth out of these extra’s. It does cause a little anxiety about scheduling throughout the day.

We’ve stopped park hopping - there’s no way I’m scheduling for two parks and I think we’re done running around like that at this point.

I really want to make it easier on myself next time but hate the idea of only going in a few rides while walking by ridiculously long lines.

Does anyone else get like this? I feel like I need to slow down and change my expectations at this point.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Last trip we didn’t purchase any LLs or book any ADRs. Just took each day and moment as it came and it was glorious!! We enjoyed our times in lines rather than just waiting for them to end so we could ride.

Loved the change and will be doing the same next visit. We lived in the moment rather than always looking forward. It was a game changer!

 

[Brian Noble]

I try to manage this by asking myself: Why am I going to WDW? Is it to ride a bunch of rides, or is it to enjoy my time with friends and family? For me, it is the latter. The important part is spending that time, and the attractions are just the stage on which that happens. What's more, they are only part of that stage---so are the resorts, the restaurants, and the ambiance of the overall setting.

I still take the time to manage the day, but it is not the priority, it is secondary. I might miss out on an attraction or two, but that's okay, because the point is not the attractions. The point is time with my traveling companions.

I've also started doing "no line days". Last trip, I spent a day in MK without getting in a single line more than 15 minutes long. That mostly meant shows and "anytime attractions". You know what? We had a GREAT day! Throw in a last-minute ADR at Crystal Palace, and it was great fun.

Finally, it's also worth noting that the standby lines have been moving a lot better lately, because of some operational changes Disney has made to how the LL queue is managed. That has also helped a lot.

 

[lisset005]

We go to WDW once or twice a year and I am the planner and controller of the trips - the ADR’s, the LL’s the ILL’s, making things work with dining reservations and trying to avoid any major overlaps. I keep up with the systems and changes so I know what to do when our next trip is planned. I enjoy it - love planning and getting those hard to get reservations and watching it all go so smoothly - we barely wait for anything and have good trips.

After the last few times, I’m starting to feel like we’re chasing rides - I’m constantly picking the next ride/show after we all tap in and not enjoying the queue, or anticipation of getting on the ride. No, I don’t want to wait an hour or two for a 3 minute ride, and won’t go without some type of skip the line system in place. But, I feel like I’m missing out on atmosphere while being on the phone. Also, LL skips some themed queue’s so you miss that. I think part of it is I want to make sure we all have a great time, but also get our money’s worth out of these extra’s. It does cause a little anxiety about scheduling throughout the day.

We’ve stopped park hopping - there’s no way I’m scheduling for two parks and I think we’re done running around like that at this point.

I really want to make it easier on myself next time but hate the idea of only going in a few rides while walking by ridiculously long lines.

Does anyone else get like this? I feel like I need to slow down and change my expectations at this point.

I could have written this myself! I am the planner and keeper of all of the plans (and honestly I like it this way, haha!) I find myself constantly glued to my phone and thinking about what is next.

 

[japanese maple]

Not really.

We've been enough to where it's like if we don't get on it this time, maybe next time? This trip it's almost a chore just to pick some rides. Definitely taking a break after this trip to wait for the new stuff.

Plan to do a lot more stand by this trip and just see where the day takes us!

You go often, you can definitely take it easier. Skip some rides this time, go on the next. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder!

 

[RivGirl]

It’s definitely a tough balancing act. I’d like to be where Brian Noble is at. Let’s just spend time together and see how the day goes! But I also have 10 and 14yo kids that have certain expectations about a) riding specific rides and b) not waiting too long for them. (And they have those expectations thanks to me and my planning skills. Sounds like you are in the same boat. Congratulations, we made this boat ourselves! LOL.)

For LL days, I use Standby Skipper. I simply won’t do LL without it. It eliminates most of the “constantly on my phone choosing the next ride” nonsense. That’s all I’ll say about that. If you aren’t familiar with it, check it out.

Another thing we did last trip was buy an After Hours ticket for Magic Kingdom. It was our only time in Magic Kingdom that trip, and we went on a day when we weren’t otherwise using a park ticket. It was awesome and really allowed for that spontaneity. I’m Team After Hours all the way.

On an upcoming trip, we are planning to go to Magic Kingdom on a Christmas Party Day. We are not going to the party itself, so we’ll get kicked out at 6pm, but I’m hoping to take advantage of lower crowds throughout the day without using LL. I’m sure my kids will still ask, “Do we have a lightning lane for this, Mom?” But perhaps this day will be an experimental step in the future no LL direction for our family.

I’ll also add that if we still were inclined to rope drop parks, I would think we could forego LL more easily. But at this point we are not so into the rope drop experience. I would rather have a normal wake up time, get to the park without rushing, and have LL lined up. The meltdowns and physical stress on abnormally early wake up days just aren’t worth it at this time in our lives.

 

[Tatebeck]

I have gotten very good at scheduling the rides over the last few years, so I try to do it quickly without looking at my phone all dang day. The first time or two we did it I did feel like I was on the phone all the time. Now I really just check right as we are scanning into LL, pick the next and be done with it.

I have for the most part been very successful at it so I just do it as quickly and smoothly as I can so that the rest of my group can fully enjoy everything. Such a sacrifice I know . Small price to pay to make sure we all have a great time

 

[marmentrout85]

We go to WDW once or twice a year and I am the planner and controller of the trips - the ADR’s, the LL’s the ILL’s, making things work with dining reservations and trying to avoid any major overlaps. I keep up with the systems and changes so I know what to do when our next trip is planned. I enjoy it - love planning and getting those hard to get reservations and watching it all go so smoothly - we barely wait for anything and have good trips.

After the last few times, I’m starting to feel like we’re chasing rides - I’m constantly picking the next ride/show after we all tap in and not enjoying the queue, or anticipation of getting on the ride. No, I don’t want to wait an hour or two for a 3 minute ride, and won’t go without some type of skip the line system in place. But, I feel like I’m missing out on atmosphere while being on the phone. Also, LL skips some themed queue’s so you miss that. I think part of it is I want to make sure we all have a great time, but also get our money’s worth out of these extra’s. It does cause a little anxiety about scheduling throughout the day.

We’ve stopped park hopping - there’s no way I’m scheduling for two parks and I think we’re done running around like that at this point.

I really want to make it easier on myself next time but hate the idea of only going in a few rides while walking by ridiculously long lines.

Does anyone else get like this? I feel like I need to slow down and change my expectations at this point.

Totally get it. It's tough for me to turn the switch off when it comes to "maximizing" everything, especially when it comes to LLs. I now view it as I'm getting value from those 3 initial rides I get to pick. Anything on top of that is just a bonus. I'm not going to go out of my way to focus on my phone or put any stress on myself that I HAVE to book more, but if I happen to check my phone during some downtime and see some nice time slots then it's a welcomed surprise.

What also really helped us stress less during our last trip was using a Lightning Lane "loophole/hack" where we were still able to scan into a ride up to 2 hours past our initial time expiration. So, for LL Multi-Pass, even though the app gives you a 1 hour window in reality you actually have a 3 hour window. It was nice not rushing to try and make it to rides within that 1 hour window.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

What also really helped us stress less during our last trip was using a Lightning Lane "loophole/hack" where we were still able to scan into a ride up to 2 hours past our initial time expiration. So, for LL Multi-Pass, even though the app gives you a 1 hour window in reality you actually have a 3 hour window. It was nice not rushing to try and make it to rides within that 1 hour window.

That’s not a loophole. The grace period was extended to 119 minutes about a year ago,

For us, it does make things much simpler and efficient.

 

[picktails]

Are you traveling with kids or all adults? I am also the lone planner before travel. BUT we are adults, and I make sure everyone is linked in MDE. During our trip last month I checked Thrill Data for Tron drop times, and then 3 of us kept refreshing while on line for Remy. Got it easily!

 

[marmentrout85]

That’s not a loophole. The grace period was extended to 119 minutes about a year ago,

For us, it does make things much simpler and efficient.

Oh wow no kidding? It looks as though I'm very late to the party in that case lol. Guess I should have read through all the LL fine print a bit better. I didn't realize that it was such an established thing.

 

[PetePanMan]

Definitely understand where you are coming from. Also understand it can be difficult to adjust to a different pace. We have definitely transitioned to slower pace over last few years which places higher priority on enjoying resorts, sleeping in more, going to nearby beaches / springs / small towns, enjoying a handful of attractions in each park (rather than almost everything) etc. We enjoy our trips more now but recognize that we have adapted because we come frequently since we became DVC owners.Although expensive, we have also have found that annual passes and park hopping over a few trips actually helps us be less frantic about all rides and attractions (we often go in to parks for few hours only rather than good part of the day)

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Oh wow no kidding? It looks as though I'm very late to the party in that case lol. Guess I should have read through all the LL fine print a bit better. I didn't realize that it was such an established thing.

You won't find it in the fine print. Disney hasn't published the grace period anywhere since it was printed in military time on the original paper Fast Passes 26 years ago.

 

[Lumpy1106]

On our last trip we decided to do two things;
1) Rope drop every day (but hear me out)
2) Take an afternoon break every day

We did both things without fail. Why? Because we had planned on buying LLMP for MK, but then chose our first three rides while in the process of purchasing and realized we would not be able to take the breaks if we also were doing as OP described and making the most of the LLMP. So we didn't.
It went great. Most lines were well under an hour, but there was one ride in each park, usually the LLSP ride, that we were going to have to gut it out in a long standby line. Even that was not bad. We waited a little over an hour for 1 of our two rides on Guardians, and about the same on FoP.
Now let's do some quick math;
LLMP for 4, let's say $25 per person per day to make numbers round
LLSP for 4, one ride per day, again assuming $25 per person to make numbers round
Over 5 days, that is (25 x 4 x 5) (LLMP) + (25 x 5 x 4) (LLSP) = $1000 - just to skip lines. Youch.
We did take advantage of EM0.5 mornings and EMH evenings at EPCOT and MK. We also took advantage of single rider lines. We saw absolutely everything we wanted to, saved money on food (had breakfast and lunch in our room every day), got a nice break, avoided the hottest, sweatiest part of the day each day, as well as dodging the largest of the downpours. We had ZERO meltdowns, and overall, would rate the trip as possibly the most relaxing we have ever had (2020 notwithstanding ).

If you still want to spend money on LLMP and LLSP, well, be my guest, but we did not miss it in the least.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I found out how different our touring styles are to our friends who are very frequent park goers. Because my husband and I don't go often we zig zag our way around the parks, park hop, and primarily focus on doing rides or theater shows (although it's been a bit since I did the Epcot ones), etc. We haven't purchased Genie+ when it was around and haven't purchased LL yet. We did purchase MaxPass on our two trips to Disneyland back in 2019 though. You would think we would be the type of people to purchase something at Disney because we don't go often but it's mostly a principle thing and how much all the other stuff costs. Never say never on that however. Like we didn't hold back at Tokyo Disneyland mostly because it's Japan and we had no idea when or if we'd be back, that said Tokyo is a lot more cost effective for their Premier Access and their park tickets are as well.

Our other friends especially over time take a different approach because they know they will be back again they tend to not go ride heavy and do more experiences. I'm often hearing how they went to this show or did this meet and greet when it's probably not something I had even heard of. One of our friends who used to own DVC her ex-husband hadn't been on Test Track for years due to the wait time but did go on it with us in 2022 and had a blast.

However, one of our couples that we know that got married in Disney in 2022 and moved down to Orlando so they could go to the parks whenever they wanted to found out over time that they do not in fact go to the parks as often as they assumed they would (I feel like a lot of people end up this way). Now they avoid MK like its the plague due to the ferry/monorail situation and the park reservation system unless they have friends or family in town who want to do that park. They mostly focus on DHS and AK.

If you go once or twice a year and feel like you want to put the phone away more maybe pick one trip (if you're going twice in that year) to be that, ease into the "go with the flow" type trip where it's less stakes since you'll be back soon enough. Or decide that you'll plan more the morning or the afternoon/evening and leave the other to more go with the flow. Book one less ADR in advance see how everyone feels about dining in the moment.

I can relate to the feeling, my husband and I have branched out a bit more over the several times we've gone together but in our case booking ADRs has never been a priority and never was something I even thought about until I joined this Board, for some it's absolutely necessary for us nah though we have enjoyed the several we have done. However, because of the infrequency we're still going to be more ride focused than if we went all the time at least for the foreseeable future.