Did following a touring plan work for your family?

[jle323]

Hi all!

I've been to WDW many times, and I've always used an Unofficial Guide touring plan. It's always been great. But this is the first time I'm going with my kids, ages 6 and 9. I'm not sure how they're going to handle skipping certain rides just because the plan says to. They're not going to want to go from riding one ride in Fantasyland, then going over to Adventureland for another, then somewhere else. We're going in 2 1/2 weeks, so I'm not sure how crowded it will be. Did a touring plan work for you and your kids? Thanks!

~Jaime

 

[Alesia]

I always make a touring plan. It's the single biggest reason that we have never waited more than 30 minutes for anything (90% of the time it's less than 20 minutes.) I have to say, though, that I have never used a touring plan like what you're describing.

The absolute most important thing when creating a touring plan is to make sure that everyone is getting to do the things they really want to do. That's the whole point. Why would you follow a plan that skips rides that your family loves? Also, zig-zagging around the park is a really bad idea.

Making a touring plan that actually works for your family is easy:

• Start with the cheat sheets at easywdw.com
• Take out what doesn't interest your family
• What you're left with is a touring plan

 

[toweristops]

Given the wide variety of touring plans that are available that would certainly fit your family, you should at least use it as a basis for your trip. We typically have started with the plan, planned our FP+ and ADR's and then when we hit the parks we started the plan and made modifications based on crowd levels and wait times. When we have been there when crowd levels are 6 or below we typically have been able to jump on some rides sooner or ride twice and work around are FP+s. A quick check of the Crowd Calendar makes it look like your trip will vary from a 5/10 during the week to 7/10 on weekends.

My kids usually were okay going where I told them but when they see a character they really like it is hard to convince them not to wait for 20 minutes in that line.....

 

[ajwolfe]

We don't really follow a specific touring plan. We always keep in mind the schedule for shows/parades/fireworks we want to watch and try to plan around that and to be in the same area as any ADR or FP+ that we will be using. But we definitely do not zig zag around the park just because a ride on the other side might have a smaller wait time. If we come across something that has a crazy wait time we skip it and pick it up later when the wait has gone down.

 

[Alesia]

My kids usually were okay going where I told them but when they see a character they really like it is hard to convince them not to wait for 20 minutes in that line.....

Why try to talk them out of it? A touring plan doesn't have to be so rigid that there isn't room to improvise.

 

[toweristops]

Why try to talk them out of it? A touring plan doesn't have to be so rigid that there isn't room to improvise.

You are absolutely right. We "go with the flow" but there are many others who prefer a rigid schedule.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Fo sure. Usually it's just in our heads, though. A general list of hit which ride when. When we went to DL, we actually created a real plan, because we have no idea when we'll get back there.

 

[keelyhealthnut]

Haha! Oh my word, no! We tried and failed miserably. LOL To be fair, we got there two hours later later than I anticipated, only had one quick day at MK, and my kids totally blew my mind with the things that they wanted to do. They wouldn't even ride a carousel at the fair, but they wanted to do everything that they were tall enough for at Disney! They were so amazed at everything and wanted to stop to look at everything neat. They were only 2 and 4 so it's totally understandable. So those things really threw a wrench in our plans. I am going to do a touring plan for our second full week-long trip next year. I think it will work out better this time.

 

[jle323]

Thanks everyone!

 

[DisneyCAL]

Depending on how many days you are there, you could plan your parks by sections. Use the easywdw cheat sheets for recommended days. We have a solid week, and since our kids are still "small" meaning they can tire easily we will be doing MK by areas; fantasyland day, frontier land/adventureland day, and tomorrow land/main street shops day. That way you can really focus on all the rides in one area and decrease the amount of walking.

 

[lisski76]

I always type out a plan of action for each day, but of course we adjust if something comes along that wasn't in original plans.

 

[Jewel3k]

My kids handle skipping rides pretty well. Before we went the first time (7, 5, almost 3) we talked a lot about how we didn't like lines and mommy promised we'd come back to stuff. Which we did, so they learned to trust me. We did get off track some with things like snacks, little shows catching our eye or the need to reride Big Thunder Mountain.