Disney with no plan?

[MistyLRobertson]

I hate being on a schedule. My family is planning a trip April 27th thru may 2nd. DH and DD 8 and 4. Is it possible to have a good time and do disney world with no plan? We will be spending 5 days in the parks with no park hopper. 1 day for each park as of right now and 2 days for mk

 

[EagleG17]

I hate being on a schedule. My family is planning a trip April 27th thru may 2nd. DH and DD 8 and 4. Is it possible to have a good time and do disney world with no plan? We will be spending 5 days in the parks with no park hopper. 1 day for each park as of right now and 2 days for mk

If staying on Disney, you might want to pick your FP+ options ahead of time.

 

[MistyLRobertson]

Sorry forgot to mention we are going to be staying offsite. I plan on making top drop just because its our first trip and I think it's something we should see and I plan on doing some fast pass selection after we ride a couple things before the lines get to long.

 

[kerriemiller]

it is going to be pretty busy at that time. You really should have an idea of what you want to ride so you don't end up waiting for hours in line and you really should know where you are going to eat because there will be long lines for counter service restaurants and unless you make a reservation you will not likely get a table at a sit down restaurant. Since you said this is your first trip I really encourage you to have a rough outline of your day it will save you frustration.

 

[Viva Las Disney]

If you just want to spend time with your family and enjoy the parks you can still have a great time without a plan.

-BUT-

I'd at least check out easyWDW's crowd calendar to choose your parks so you don't end up at the most crowded park everyday, make advanced dining reservations if you want sit down meals, make your FP+ reservations ahead of time for the major rides, and check out the show schedules ahead of time so you have a general idea of where you need to be at certain times. You don't have to plan your whole day but it really pays to have at least a basic plan.

 

[Skywise]

MADNESS!!!!!

You can easily do DW without planning with 2 sacrifices -

You might not get to ride everything (or as much as you would've) which, if you're only concerned about the younger rides like teacups, dumbo, etc might not be a big issue with you because you WILL be able to get most of those. (Space, Splash Mountain on the other hand...)

Dining. If you're eating at the parks, eating at Quick Service at normal meal times will be a real trick fighting for tables and such and getting into nicer restaurants may be impossible.

Now, some light planning is still a good idea - Do you want to see the parades? Shows/characters at the castle? You might want to set up so you're in fantasyland before a show or go into fantasyland after a show.

Frankly I hate planning but I ended up planning out the entire trip for my family (my sister and I and older parents) completely by accident - Here's how!

I started out grabbing dining reservations for dinner so we could have a nice break and sit down after a day in the parks without having to fight over tables or wait in lines. Then I thought it'd be fun to have breakfast in Cinderella's castle for my sister and mom... so that got reserved... and then entry into MK before opening would be cool too... so reservation at Crystal Palace for breakfast... We were going to go to Hollywood Studios one day and wanted to eat at the drive in theater... bing went a lunch reservation. Then I saw they had a cool dessert over at Liberty Tree Tavern... bing went another lunch reservation.

So then I started getting worried about tiring out my parents with all the walking around so I made loose plans about getting around the park and riding rides in such a way so we wouldn't double back/retrace our steps (No FP or anything like that) For instance we had breakfast at Cinderella's castle then rode the tea cups, tomorrowland raceway (Mom's choice, surprisingly) and walked up to Dumbo then followed the northern path back to ride little mermaid, stopped at Gaston's for a cinnamon roll, then hit small world, philharmonic and then lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern. I didn't *plan* it that way (I just knew we had to end up at LTT by 12:30) but I had the map with me and was cognizant of where we were going/direction. (The last thing I wanted to do was end up at Space Mountain at noon with a reservation at the other end of the park in 30 minutes!)

YMMV!

 

[MistyLRobertson]

I looked at the crowd Calender it says it a low crowd I was planning on using it to go to the least crowded parks. There's only one maybe 2 restaurants we want to eat at I'm fine not eating at any TS. I do plan on seeing some parades I just don't want be rushing from one thing to the next because we have to be somewhere at that certain time. As long as we catch one parade ill be ok with that. My family tends to do better more spontaneous and my little ones are easier to deal with as well if we just go with flow. id like to ride a couple of the bigs one like splash mountain that would be one id want to a fast pass for if possible. I just don't want spent 1000 dollars on tickets and have to be a scheduled and feel rushed the whole time. My DH is trying to talk me into universal but Id rather do disney If I we can without being on a right schedule all day

 

[mejo]

You may not have a plan but you are here on the dis board so you are researching it. You will have a great time as long as you have some idea of what is there and you will.

 

[MistyLRobertson]

You may not have a plan but you are here on the dis board so you are researching it. You will have a great time as long as you have some idea of what is there and you will.

Yea lol true I have a plan but I just don't want to be constantly on a time restraint. That's why I don't mind If we don't get any TS meals id rather grab something quick and move on to something else

 

[Spunky946]

My best advice to you is to at least have an idea of your must do rides and your maybe do rides and the layout of each park. The reason you want to do that is so you have an idea of what you might want to do next and you don't spend every five minutes looking at a map and trying to figure out where to go next.

If you don't do that, then you are in danger of not doing nearly half as much and coming back complaining that Disney is boring and busy and you don't get why people like it.

Just doing the research helps, but you dint have to do a minute by minute plan.

 

[ZoZo]

Sorry forgot to mention we are going to be staying offsite. I plan on making top drop just because its our first trip and I think it's something we should see and I plan on doing some fast pass selection after we ride a couple things before the lines get to long.

Getting to the parks at rope drop will help a lot, so that's a good strategy.

Are you open to picking which parks on which days, using a web site like easywdw.com? On this site, Josh provides info about which parks are recommended, highly recommended, most recommended, and which parks to avoid, all based on tons of great research. That can help you maximize your time in the parks and avoid huge crowds. Even if you just decide to avoid the "worst park" of the day, you'll still have some flexibility about which park to pick, even if you decide that day which one you want to go to.

 

[moriaw76]

This past Dec we went with minimal planning. I knew what days we were going to which park but that was pretty much it. I only had 1 ADR and that was for the hoop-dee-doo revue and that was a non-park day. We were off-site but could utilize EMH because we were staying at shades of green. We thought we knew what we wanted to do first but it changed when we got there except for DHS.
Relax, have fun, and be spontaneous!!

 

[MistyLRobertson]

Yea I looked at the easy wdw Calendar. I'm going to pick the parks for each day by it

 

[SmallWorld71]

My best advice to you is to at least have an idea of your must do rides and your maybe do rides and the layout of each park. The reason you want to do that is so you have an idea of what you might want to do next and you don't spend every five minutes looking at a map and trying to figure out where to go next.

If you don't do that, then you are in danger of not doing nearly half as much and coming back complaining that Disney is boring and busy and you don't get why people like it.

Just doing the research helps, but you dint have to do a minute by minute plan.

This
And know your audience - in this case your kids!
For example, if I were taking my 3 year old niece - I would know that she is a princess fanatic, particularly Ariel and Rapunzel. She also loves Minnie Mouse. She would also have a hard time passing up the visually appealing rides.
So, a morning at MK with her might look like this: Meet Rapunzel, Meet Ariel, Ride the Little Mermaid Ride, Ride Dumb, Meet Daisy and Minnie, ride the carousel and It's a Small World. If I got there at park opening, it's probably not even 11 yet and it wouldn't matter what we do the rest of the day as we've hit our must do's.
I seldom plan out my whole day. BUT, I do plan out the first hour or two. All that really consists of is polling my family and finding out what is most important to them and doing that before the lines get long.

ETA: and as hard as it can be, I highly recommend rope drop! The earlier you are there, the less you have to worry about planning. I know it can be tough. I've got 3 kids and when they were little, I had all kinds of crazy ways to make it out of the hotel room on time. A few of them were: baths in the afternoon after swimming or at night, pack the park bag the night before, eat breakfast in the room (or at the bus stop!), have the clothes picked out, do DD's hair while waiting in line for the bus, put on our sunscreen either waiting for the bus or waiting for the park to open etc....
Since you are coming from offsite, allow time to park the car and get to the park. When I drive, I aim to be at MK at 8, DHS at 8:15 and Epcot and AK by 8:30.

 

[MissionMouse]

I hate being on a schedule. My family is planning a trip April 27th thru may 2nd. DH and DD 8 and 4. Is it possible to have a good time and do disney world with no plan? We will be spending 5 days in the parks with no park hopper. 1 day for each park as of right now and 2 days for mk

The majority of people who visit WDW each year do so without planning, but this doesn't mean they have a "good time." If you go with the flow and take things as they come with a laid back attitude you will be fine.

Otherwise, a certain level of planning helps to know a park, since WDW is very large and it is very easy to miss something you would of liked to have seen only finding out that it existed and you walked right by it.

Plan to arrive a little early to parades helps to scope out a spot where young children can see. Just be prepared to "defend" your spot, since parade can produce some ugly display of human behaviors (especially when the sun goes down)...not magical at all.

Parks do have a set of shows/attraction offered at certain times during the day, so a little planning here helps.

 

[Nemo32]

But seriously...I think WDW can be done without a plan IF you arrive at rope drop with in mind the rides you MUST ride and hit those at rope drop. You can also do it if you're willing to eat only CS because most restaurants are booked in advance.

There are also ways to plan and still relax. Like others have said, arrive for rope drop and pick your top 3 rides and get those done first thing. Then relax at the resort in the afternoon and go back in the evening for fireworks/shows.

 

[MistyLRobertson]

Yea I going to have somewhat of a plan to the extent to where in know what I want to do and know where things are an the parades and possibly a show or two. It just seemed like ALOT of people have a VERY elaborate plan and my family just seems to do better when we go with the flow. But that's good at least I know it's doable and we can still have a great time as long as we have an idea of what we want to do