Are we the only ones?

[fireflymedic]

3 day trip first time my 2 and 3 yr. old have ever been, planning nothing other than one time be at rope drop for toy story and that is only if they like buzz lite yr.

 

[#1 Pocahontas]

Until we started the dining plan we only planned a few things. I love to watch Spectro Magic and they don't show it every night so I would plan our Magic Kingdom day on a Spectro Magic day. Other than that we really didn't plan much.

 

[disneynewbee]

If I had a smaller family and older children I would probably do the same thing but with so many of us it's hard to get in places last minute.

 

[npmommie]

Just curious about something. I read lots of posts on here from people who have everything planned for their trips. Nothing wrong with that at all but is my family in the minority. The only thing I ever plan is where we are staying. My ds's are 9 and 16, my wife and I all just love to get there and fly by the seat of our collective pants.

We usually plan out what parks what days, but that even changes according to the weather or changes in park hours etc. We try to stay pretty relaxed and don't plan everything out ahead of time. Of course we do a lot of research ahead of time though and that's what allows us to roll with the punches. I could never follow an actual touring plan or have ADRs every day.

You aren't the only one. I agree with the above poster, we also try to stay relaxed, lots of pool time as well as park time, eat when we feel like it.....hate being too scheduled on vacation.
Last trip I only made 3 ADR's, one we ended up cancelling
we also do research ahead of time, but like to be spontaneous as much as possible.

 

[disykat]

I've made basic touring plans so we utilize our time well and checked out our eating options, but we've never made dining reservations. Disney doesn't happen often for us and I can't imagine "wasting time" on sit down meals. I wouldn't want to have a certain time I had to be somewhere.

 

[dzneelvr]

I think the level of planning depends on how your family prefers to do their vacations. We love knowing what park we'll be in (evening extended magic hours), what time our sitdown meals are, and of course, using FPs to the extent where we get to do everything we want multiple times And going in the summer you just can't let those things to chance or you'd never eat! With just a wee bit of planning, you can see so many of the special events each park has to offer (with excellent seats) instead of missing them.

 

[MinnieLove]

Wow the boards make everyone question there planning of vacations. I feel the same way as the original poster. The sites make you OCD. I am trying to to plan only a few things for our vacation. Resort, park each day, dinner and each person gets to pick a must-do for each day. Obvisously we will get in many more signature rides but this way we will exceed expectations instead of missing the mark.

What still cannot get over is the Tour Mike packages. I would have never considered putting a schedule to vacation. Has anyone used his service or one like it?

 

[lc1965]

I'm sort of in-between. I do quite a bit of research in advance to know what parades are happening when, what atttractions are closed, etc. It helps me decide which park on which day.

Don't laugh now, but I even keep a spreadsheet of information! Okay, laugh, but it's true. On each day, I list the early opening park (so I can go somewhere else!), parade info (if it's not a daily thing, like Spectromagic), & any show or dining reservations we may have so we don't miss them.

Having said that, once we get there, we really just wing it. We've even been known to cancel dining reservations. I usually take a look in the morning, then never consult it again until the next day.

 

[Grendalynn]

As usual, I havent read every post...

But what you are talking about is sometimes known as "going commando"! No plans and doing what strikes you when it strikes you. ANd thats great - to each his/her own. However, being that so many people are dining at the wdw restaurants, you will want to make a dining reservation if you want to dine before 9PM. Or if there are specific places you want to eat. They are often booked up with no availability!! WE made ADRs and the figured that we could always cancel should we change our plans... which we did on a few occasions...

WE also decided that if we had some sort of plan sketched out, there would be no wasted time deciding what to do that day... kept us on track so to speak. not so much walking around aimlessly. We changed our plans here and there and dint feel like we were limited to our plans or flying buthe seat of our pants.. very much limited the indesciciveness... "What do you want to do?" " I dont care what do you want to do?" or "Where do you want to eat?"... lol you see where I am going with this!

...Don't laugh now, but I even keep a spreadsheet of information! Okay, laugh, but it's true. On each day, I list the early opening park (so I can go somewhere else!), parade info (if it's not a daily thing, like Spectromagic), & any show or dining reservations we may have so we don't miss them. ...

I have the same thing - day by day - almost hour by hour! With ADR #'s, which park has EM hours each day, parade/wishes times.... I think it helps keep things organized and unnecessary trip to guest services! You are not alone by any means - I think if anything - you are in the right place!!



Good luck with whatever you decide!

 

[monorailsilver]

I don't really plan but I guess I sort of do.

The only things I do plan are the days we go (duh!).

Then when the time gets closer I look to see which parks have the EMH & I plan on going there on those am's.

At that same time, I do my few ADR's (max of 3 a trip) & I plan them for my days off (non-park days).

I don't plan our evening park. We either go to the MK or Epcot every night we do a park.

And we don't plan on a specific ride at a specific time.

 

[mikehn]

You are probably planning a lot more than you think you are. You may not write it down, or put it on a color coded spreadsheet, but you are probably still 'planning' in some fashion. You are 'planning' by reading these posts.

 

[lntsmom]

Actually, before I ever did my first trip with kids I worked with a gal whose family went every year. They used your plan. When I got back after our first trip, for which my planning was pretty basic because it was me and a 4 year old, she was amazed at how much we'd been able to see and do. There were things we did that that in all her visits she'd never stumbled across.

I guess if you go fairly regularly, know the parks well, keep up with special stuff that's going on via the boards, and feel as if you're getting everything out of the trip that you want, your way is a good one!

For my family, that would be a total waste of money. As you can see, we don't go very often, so planning is critical. I don't make time schedules, and the plan is always flexible, but we don't just go and wing it.

 

[sau418]

We are still quite a ways out from our trip (5/31/09), but I only made reservations for CRT and Chef Mickey's. I am kind of nervous about that, but we are taking our 2 and 3 year olds with us and I do not want to over plan them and lead to tired cranky kids during meal times.

Am I crazy? I have always planned planned planned for every other trip. I just want this to be a little more fly by our pants, which means if we have to ride Dumbo 5 times and the carousel 5 times then so be it... I don't want to say to my girls we can't do X right now because we have to go eat.

HELP!!!

 

[PollyannaMom]

I research like crazy, but don't do a strict plan. - DH hates to feel "scheduled" on vacation, and I like to be flexible with things DS just discovers or wants to do again.

I do go with a list of each person's "must-do's" and "want-to's", and a vague idea of which-park-which-day, but heavily subject to weather.

We also like to have one sit-down meal as a break, but tend to be very flexible, and are happy to take "off" ADR's we can get the morning of. - There are still so many places we haven't tried, we always get something on our list! I definitely wouldn't plan a whole vacation around eating.

As long as you enjoy your trips, then follow your own instincts and your own kind of plan.

 

[arielmomma]

It depends on when we go. I am going in 2 weeks. We have no ADR's, no plan for each day. I know when my flight is and where we are staying. Other than that, we are just going to go have a great time. Now, when we went in September for the free dining, we did have all of our ADR's planned out, thus we had all of our park days planned. So, I guess it really depends upon what type of vacation we want at the time.

 

[jerseygirl81]

Our level of planning has changed over the years. We've been to disney 6 times and always rented a car. Our first 3 trips we mostly stopped and ate when we were hungry or ate a the food court at the hotel or we ate at restaurants outside of disney. Back then I had more of a schedule planned out as to what parks we went to and the order of the rides we would go on. Our last 3 trips we did the dining plan and made our adrs ahead of time but when we went to the parks we went and did what we felt like doing at the time. I think if you go at a busier time of year it's good to have some things planned and if it's quieter you can plan as you go a bit more. Linda

 

[Nie0214]

Don't laugh now, but I even keep a spreadsheet of information! Okay, laugh, but it's true. On each day, I list the early opening park (so I can go somewhere else!), parade info (if it's not a daily thing, like Spectromagic), & any show or dining reservations we may have so we don't miss them.

You are not alone. Here was my cheat-sheet for our trip in September:

We ended up sticking to the outline of the plan and going back to the hotel every day for naps, etc. It was very very empty in September, so we didn't need to spend hours at the park. It was very relaxed and my planning helped make meals flow well with the rest of our day. We didn't eat at Rainforest Cafe, for example, and we ended up running to EPCOT on our last day too. We went to Hollywood before Typhoon on Saturday, etc. It was an outline that let us have a lot of flexibility, but gave us the option of changing it on the fly too.

 

[disney_family_1247]

The only thing we did besides booking the hotel was plan our days based on the parks' times for our stay. Then came the Free Dining Plan...for the past three trips, I have had to plan things down to the second to make reservations for our family, which usually includes other relatives. It has taken a bit of the fun out of it for me because I'm the one who has to do all of the work. Everyone else just gets handed a carefully laid out itinerary (made by me) so that they all know where and when we are dining each day. The free food is great, but I sometimes long for the simpler days

 

[drnlhome]

We used to "fly by the seat of our pants" and stand in the LONG lines. We do use a "touring plan" on our trips now. The first time 2 years ago I had every day scheduled from wake up until noon for each park. My dh looked at me like I grew another head. I told him to give me 2 days to see if it worked and if it didn't, I would toss them. Keep in mind we went Easter Week the last 2 times. The lines were unbelievable. I can honestly tell you we never waited more than 40 minutes and that was when we went back to do something later. By the 3rd day my dh asked "where are we going today?" I am a believer!! We just make sure we are there at rope drop and go in a certain order. This way we have ever afternoon free to swim/rest and then go back for the evening. Hope this helps!

I forgot to add that I make all our ADR before we leave since there are certain places my family likes to eat. I look at a sit down restaurant as a place I can rest and cool off while enjoying the food.

 

[dvcdisney]

I think what you plan and how much you plan depends on your comfort level and what you expect from the vacation. On our first vacation to Disney, we planned very little. We still had a good time, but realized after a few vacations that we wanted to make sure we had certain ADRS or what park is best at which day in order to get the most out of the day. Either way, your vacation will be as great as you make it -whether it's all planned or "go with the flow" attitude.

I, myself, is an obsessive planner. But I only plan which parks we go to on which day and book the adrs for dinner each night.