Confused with planning ahead??

[ls1222]

Is it just me, or does everyone find it hard to plan out your days at the parks in order to make your ADR's? I am feeling completely overwhelmed deciding which park we will be in at what time for dining. We are going in August and I'm spending hours going over it (using the boards advice and TGM).

 

[wdwlvr629]

I do it backwards! I decide where we'll have our ts meals, decide which days & times to eat where, I make my ADRs and plan around that. Just seems easier that way to me, everything else just falls into place.

 

[mollyseven]

I decided which parks which days...except our flight just go changed and now we arrive at 915am so we will have an entire extra day so I added another mgm day for star wars ...or i should say extra star wars.
after I decided on the parks I then did adr's. changed them..changed them again and now i sit here at least 3 times a day reading and thinking should i change them again....maybe i should add a cake here or there or blah blah blah.
I can't imagine how I will spend my days when we get home...i have obsessed over this for 2 months now.
I've actually already wondered when we can go again...strange it's like a sickness.

 

[ls1222]

Thanks, that makes me feel better!! I have hours into the park planning (which days/nights, ect). Its making me crazy, I want to start calling for my ADR's but I am not positive about the park days. I keep re-thinking it and wondering if I want more time at a park or less time??

 

[wdwlvr629]

I definitely did alot of what mollyseven did, make adr, change adr, make another, change it. Looked at my plans, were they right, were they wrong, should I add, should I take something out???? Why, i've done this many times, but still, it becomes an obsession with each new trip to WDW!!!

 

[cdntourguide]

I look at what I want to do in the parks and plan the meal around that.
At Epcot I like the Illuminations so plan dinner at a time that I do not have to stand around waiting for 9pm, I have dinner and finish just around 8:30 so the wait time is minimized.

When at MK, I like to have CP for 8am breakfast or 6pm dinner. So I can rest a bit at dinner time before getting back into the rides and shows.

I usually go early and stay late, so like a break in mid-day: have a lunch at a time when I know I will be tired. Thus I can eat and rest at the same time.

This year I am going to be at Epcot during F&W festival: since I like the Eat to the Beat concerts, I plan my dinners so that I can get over to the first or last concert of the evening.

I also find that going to two parks with a stop to have lunch at a resort between them is a good way to spend a day. The stop breaks up the rush and makes me relax.

Also during the day, I just go with the flow: never rush from ride to ride or show to show. Just keep it steady,I don't push through the crowd, I let it carry me alone with it.

Just plan your day around what you want to do, not when you have to eat. Make the eating part of the day, a time to relax and people watch.

 

[Sandi12404]

we're planning our first trip in 15 years and my mom, my sister and I have been emailing and talking about this forever. We finally sent emails to everyone who is going (there are 10 of us) and asked if there was anywhere in particular they wanted to eat at. Nobody else seems to care. We also checked DisneyWorld.com and checked the calendar for hours and where the extra magic hours are. We knew that Magic Kindgom was the first day and that we were doing MNNSHP on thursday (so that's our DTD shopping day) and everything just kind of fell into place. Then we made our ADR's around that. Everyone seems happy and it's nice to know that it's done.

 

[belle_fan]

Is it just me, or does everyone find it hard to plan out your days at the parks in order to make your ADR's? I am feeling completely overwhelmed deciding which park we will be in at what time for dining. We are going in August and I'm spending hours going over it (using the boards advice and TGM).

The task of planning certainly seems daunting, but it's pretty logical. Creating a table/spreadsheet helped me a ton. My DH thinks I'm insane for all the time I put into it, but I think it's well worth the effort.

I have a copy of the "Unofficial Guide to Disneyworld" which contains recommendations for which days are best for which parks and which parks to avoid on those days. This helped me to plan which days I would visit which parks. From there, I decided on which attractions I wanted to go on and which shows I wanted to see. Then I added when and where I wanted to dine. It took a lot of time and effort, but everything fell into place quite easily. Hope this helps!

 

[Hopetobee]

Is it just me, or does everyone find it hard to plan out your days at the parks in order to make your ADR's? I am feeling completely overwhelmed deciding which park we will be in at what time for dining. We are going in August and I'm spending hours going over it (using the boards advice and TGM).

I know exactly what you mean, I'm doing the same thing right now. Just made my reservation Wed. for hotel, tickets and dining. We've never stayed onsite before and the few times we went to WDW , I don't think we got to see too much. I've got TGM, too, and I'm totally confused about it!!

We've got 6 day park hoppers, but I'm planning 4 days in parks (one for each park). So if something happens , like on my MK day I can't see Wishes because of the weather, then we've got tickets for 2 days that we can use to go back to MK for Wishes or for whatever we might have missed.

Got to go work on my park days and dining-good luck to you on yours!!!

 

[clonetothebone]

I made our ADR's in February and then started planning around those. I have changed different times or locations 3 times since the initial call due to timing issues or we changed our mind because we didn't think we'd have time for Mickey's Backyard Barbeque, etc, etc, etc.

When we are there in June I wouldn't be suprised if we don't change one or two again either because we are tired or not in the mood for a type of food etc.

Planning is important but the most important thing to remember is that you need to be flexible and have FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ardenne]

I know what you mean. I found it pretty overwhelming, too, when I did it for the first time last year! It's feeling more manageable this year, but I suppose that's easy to say since I haven't actually PICKED anything yet, just still collecting info.

My extended family grumbled somewhat about being 'locked into' ADRs last time, but once they realized that a) we couldn't get into the table service restaurants without them, b) the places I picked had really GOOD food, and c) we could always cancel them if need be, they seemed to appreciate the advance planning.

One thing I tried to do was schedule the ADRs I wanted most for early in our visit, so that later in the week we could cancel ADRs if necessary to do whatever we felt like without missing out on any of the restaurants we had most wanted to try. That worked really well.

Good luck

 

[jim1051]

Are you saying on property? We do and almost always return to resort after late lunch for a swim or nap. We have park hopper so we can then go to park of our choice/dinner res.

We usually have 1 epcot dinner lecellier or rose and crown
1 MGM dinner Brown derby or Mama's combine with Fantasmic
the rest of dinners are in resorts or DTD, so I try to arrange them around or after early park closures or early enough to get to MK or epcot for fireworks after dinner.
As an example, we might have an early dinner at WL then boat over to MK for wishes. or later dinner at GF and view wishes from beach

 

[mmeb144]

One thing I've found over the years, planning a few trips, is to try to schedule only one ADR per day. I do have 2 in a day occasionally, but it's not the norm. If I do 2, I schedule one breakfast, and one supper. That way, I don't feel like all I did was run from one ADR to the next.

Use the resources that you have to decide what day to do what parks. My family likes to park hop. We usually do one park in the morning, take a break and a different park in the evening. The last day, we usually do all the parks!

Marie

 

[INDISMOM]

I just planned our first trip as a family of four. My DH wants to relax and take our time so the first thing we did was decide where we wanted to eat. I made 1 ADR per day. I made 1 breakfast ADR and the rest were dinner ADR's around 7 or 7:30. One the days we have the dinner ADR's if we decide we don't want to go to the park with the ADR, we still have plenty of time to go to another park, take a break and make our ADR. Of course, this only works with the park hopper option, but that was the best way for my DH to feel relaxed and for me to feel like we weren't going to waste our dining credits.

 

[mikymouse]

It is completely overwhelming but the good news is that if you are this busy with planning then you will be ahead of the crowds with Disney info and have a great time.

I did nothing but read, read, read before our trip and made 1 ADR per day and planned my park time around those. I was a little worried that I did not have every thing mapped out nor did I know how much time everything would take... overwhelmed!

Once we got there we were fine and had a great time Because I had OPTIONS from all the research. We didn't go by the rides that the kids were too small to ride, we jumped into lines that were short because I had read that they could be longer later in the day, we stopped for snacks as I knew needed some wait time until the next show, etc....I did have our small list of must dos so we did those first as not to be disappointed and everything else was just icing on the cake. We went with the attitude this is an adventure and we will make the best of whatever they have to offer.

I am glad we did Park Hoppers because the kids 4&6 loved, loved, loved Magic Kingdom. I am also glad we went to park opening to avoid lines and glad we had no plan on our 3rd full day because we REALLY needed to have some relaxed time at play ground and pool. I think planning/dreaming is half the fun but once you arrive just listen to your family and know that you will have a blast no matter where you day takes you.

 

[jennyl772003]

We decide where we want to eat and go from there. We made our ADR's for our next trip 180 days out, and we have changed them twice since.

I think it is important to at least make preliminary ADR's right away so that you know you will have SOMEWHERE to eat. Then, if you decide to change, you can see if there is availability for your new choice before you cancel your old one.

On our last trip, after all of our planning, we decided to change an ADR. We called on our resort phone, and makd a change for that very day, but we knew if we couldn't get it, we had the original ADR.

 

[jimmalru80]

I do it backwards! I decide where we'll have our ts meals, decide which days & times to eat where, I make my ADRs and plan around that. Just seems easier that way to me, everything else just falls into place.

That's exactly what we do and it works for us.

 

[ctnurse]

I know that I want ADrs so I plan. I too have changed ADRS only once. I think Im set for now but like pp said I want to have somewhere to eat. I also know that ds needs to eat between 545 and 630 and that is prime dinner time for adrs. I knew I needed to make adrs early. I also know that we will be going back to the resort for a nap daily. Food and sleep and ds 2&1/2 will be a happy boy. Which in turn makes for a enjoyable vacation for mommy and daddy.