Just in case you are interested when I have one and only one day at a Disney park -- typical for me and true on my next trip, to maximize my enjoyment and come up with a good touring plan, I subscribe to www.tourinplans.com. For customized plans you might not even need to pay the $15 or so subscription. Maybe someone else can tell you that. I plug in everything I want to do, ADRs, etc., even FP+ times I believe too (haven't made any FP+ reservations for my day at the park a week from Tuesday yet). I usually do a balance between waiting and walking and use their optimization program to come up with an order. For walking pace, I'd put in relaxed due to the ages of your children. Anyway, the plan gets customized by day and uses their computer model predictions to let you know how long projected waits will be and what looks feasible. // I usually too have a few things in mind in the plan the are second tier choices that I'll skip if we're behind or a plan that is not overly ambitious. // I usually follow the plan, but am definitely flexible and happy to stop and smell the roses -- not overly tied to it.
You can change plans too to get shortest waits, shortest walking no criss crossing or the default (what I usually use) -- a balance and their default.
Actually my tourinplan subscription is the first thing I look at when I am even considering a trip to Orlando. It helps me decide for example do I even want to go. This year using it: I decided to go to Puerto Vallarta Mexico instead of Orlando for spring break because ride waits looked longer than what I'd like at the parks for my spring break week. I decided to do a mini trip to Orlando immediately after my son's college finals because ride wait times looked great (doing a mini trip to hit SeaWorld one day, IOA/Universal one day (using touring plans for this too), and the MK one day. And while down there instead of doing a full day at the MK I decided to do one of the Christmas parties, as we could get in everything we wanted to do easily with shorter waits than on a regular day. They have me doing the rides that typically have the longest waits during the first parade and having us hit the second parade instead. I wouldn't have even considered that without tourinplans, // I have so much fun using it with my 19 year old to decide what we want to do, adding stuff if we have extra time, taking stuff out if our plan is too ambitious ,etc. // And OMG - last October it was amazing how close their predictions of wait times were to our actual experience on our MK morning from rope drop to 3. That was good because we only had two days in Orlando and on our one partial Disney day, we hit the MK from 9-3, the Titanic attraction on I-dirve, and then Epcot in the evening lol.
Rather than getting guesses about the best strategy from people I'd be more tempted and personally give more weight to touringplan recommendations. And when I'm paying around $100 pp for one day or $70 pp for the party it seems well worth it to me to look at what they say. But that's just me. I've been using their plans since 1089 and am a big fan. My enjoyment of the parks even on busy days has gone way up since I started using their recommendations vs. doing my own best guesses even with rope drop, something I have always done. I think touring plans for me more than anything else has added to my Disney enjoyment and is a big reason I've been back for mini trips so many times. My next trip will be number 39 for me.
You sound like a planner for sure who would love to have a detailed itinerary that will give you some guidelines, a strategy. I'm that way too and that's why I'm thinking touringplans might be a good option for you.
You can change plans too to get shortest waits, shortest walking no criss crossing or the default (what I usually use) -- a balance and their default.
Actually my tourinplan subscription is the first thing I look at when I am even considering a trip to Orlando. It helps me decide for example do I even want to go. This year using it: I decided to go to Puerto Vallarta Mexico instead of Orlando for spring break because ride waits looked longer than what I'd like at the parks for my spring break week. I decided to do a mini trip to Orlando immediately after my son's college finals because ride wait times looked great (doing a mini trip to hit SeaWorld one day, IOA/Universal one day (using touring plans for this too), and the MK one day. And while down there instead of doing a full day at the MK I decided to do one of the Christmas parties, as we could get in everything we wanted to do easily with shorter waits than on a regular day. They have me doing the rides that typically have the longest waits during the first parade and having us hit the second parade instead. I wouldn't have even considered that without tourinplans, // I have so much fun using it with my 19 year old to decide what we want to do, adding stuff if we have extra time, taking stuff out if our plan is too ambitious ,etc. // And OMG - last October it was amazing how close their predictions of wait times were to our actual experience on our MK morning from rope drop to 3. That was good because we only had two days in Orlando and on our one partial Disney day, we hit the MK from 9-3, the Titanic attraction on I-dirve, and then Epcot in the evening lol.
Rather than getting guesses about the best strategy from people I'd be more tempted and personally give more weight to touringplan recommendations. And when I'm paying around $100 pp for one day or $70 pp for the party it seems well worth it to me to look at what they say. But that's just me. I've been using their plans since 1089 and am a big fan. My enjoyment of the parks even on busy days has gone way up since I started using their recommendations vs. doing my own best guesses even with rope drop, something I have always done. I think touring plans for me more than anything else has added to my Disney enjoyment and is a big reason I've been back for mini trips so many times. My next trip will be number 39 for me.
You sound like a planner for sure who would love to have a detailed itinerary that will give you some guidelines, a strategy. I'm that way too and that's why I'm thinking touringplans might be a good option for you.
