Do any of you just wing it?

[carcam51]

and by that I mean, I know which parks and which days, and I have my FP+ and my ADRs already booked, but aside from that, how many of you just go with the flow from that point on? We are leaving on June 3rd - it's me, DH and DSs (16 and 14). DH has never been and DSs were too little to remember most of it, so it will be like a first time for all. I want to make sure everyone has a good time, but I don't want to run everyone ragged either! Can you have a relaxed time without a "plan"?

 

[mnamna]

That's pretty much what we do. Make our fps and adrs and that's it!

 

[maxiesmom]

That is what I do. I don't plan much besides maybe what ride we will do first.

 

[mom2rtk]

Deciding days, FPs and ADRs is already enough prior planning to make me a little twitchy.

 

[Oneanne]

Yep, that's my current touring style in a nutshell.

I only do ADR's for about half my days and do my FP+ between 10a and 1pm, and from there it's go with the flow. My recommendation is to not over-plan/over-book but to do plenty of pre-trip research, so you know where things are and aren't wasting time running around unnecessarily or trying to think of what you might want to do on the fly. In particular check out the counter service menus as there is quite a variety to chose from. I also highly recommend a mid-day break, which could be heading back to the resort for pool time or could be a long sit down mid-day meal

 

[Accident]

Before I moved here that's how I traveled.. There are a lot of people here that do the same.. The more you know about wdw, the easier it is to do.. Also depends on your goals of the trip.. I actually find it a more relaxing vacation because we are doing what we want when we feel like doing it, not some plan from half year ago where we didnt' know our mood day to day.

What I basically did was figured out the couple places we might want to eat.. Did my best guess on when we might want to do it and get a couple adrs up front at the most. maybe even just 1 for a place we wanted to not miss trying or going back too. Fastpass basically the same, I just guessed where we might end up each day based on how we've gone in the past to have something ready.

I'd say 90% of the fastpasses we would change in the morning when we didn't feel like that park. Some days when we knew what we wanted to do the next day I'd get an adr the night before.. We've walk into a few places to get tables with about 70% success rate but we are only 2 people so thy didn't need to fit a family of 4 or more.

Now that I live here, it's not much different except I'm doing more same day planning. I only book things out when there is a special occasion, holiday, something ending/opening, family in town asking us to join then for the day.

EDIT TO ADD: Now this doesn't mean no research.. we still know if rides we like are about to close or reopen for refurb, what's new, what's changed.. we aren't blind to what's at WDW, we just aren't very planned out.

 

[SaintsManiac]

We did that last trip and we wound up criss crossing Epcot way too much, so I am making a more detailed plan for that park. I just want to reduce walking.

 

[helenm29]

For the first couple of days we tend to plan pretty much every minute but after that, it's you are on your own! we don't get to go to DW very often so when we do we usually stay a while so by the end of the first week we tend to settle down a bit...maybe a few ADR's for the places we really like and a few fast passes.

 

[richmo]

Sure! Other than picking out which park to start in and setting up FP+'s ahead, we'll pretty much wing it, looking at wait times, seeing what FP's are available after #3, etc.

 

[ShirikiUtundu]

and by that I mean, I know which parks and which days, and I have my FP+ and my ADRs already booked, but aside from that, how many of you just go with the flow from that point on? We are leaving on June 3rd - it's me, DH and DSs (16 and 14). DH has never been and DSs were too little to remember most of it, so it will be like a first time for all. I want to make sure everyone has a good time, but I don't want to run everyone ragged either! Can you have a relaxed time without a "plan"?

LOL that is planning. I would not consider this winging it/going with the flow at all.

 

[kay1864]

For us, having a plan does NOT mean "running everyone ragged". It means we can walk from ride to ride, knowing that we won't spend more than 15-20 minutes in any line.

Our plan has walk times (and wait times) built in, so we show up in time to use our FPs, have time to go to lunch, etc. We never run anywhere, and it leaves us free time in the afternoon to hit a water park, free time in the evening to play SotMK, ...and still get to experience twice as many rides as the people who show up at 1130 with no plan, FPs, etc.

 

[GillianP1301]

That is pretty much what we do, although I have a very detailed plan of what attraction to do when, I rarely follow it. I do that more for fun to fill time while I wait for my vacation. But, I do know each day what park I'm going to, my ADRs, my FPs and a general idea of what I want to accomplish in the park on any given day. I don't worry about following my order or timing from my plan once I'm actually there.

 

[kay1864]

We did that last trip and we wound up criss crossing Epcot way too much, so I am making a more detailed plan for that park. I just want to reduce walking.

I would recommend RideMax. It minimizes walk times and wait times. The RideMax plans hardly ever have criss-crossing of praks.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I would recommend RideMax. It minimizes walk times and wait times. The RideMax plans hardly ever have criss-crossing of praks.

Thanks!

 

[carcam51]

Thanks everyone! All of your feedback has calmed my nerves The last time I was there was about 10 years ago and everything was planned. Now that the kids are older, I just don't want to over-plan like I did last time. I want to have some flexibility and enjoy our time!

 

[ElsasFan]

and by that I mean, I know which parks and which days, and I have my FP+ and my ADRs already booked, but aside from that, how many of you just go with the flow from that point on? We are leaving on June 3rd - it's me, DH and DSs (16 and 14). DH has never been and DSs were too little to remember most of it, so it will be like a first time for all. I want to make sure everyone has a good time, but I don't want to run everyone ragged either! Can you have a relaxed time without a "plan"?

We are super-planners, but I know that not everyone wants to do that level of planning for their vacation. Since you have FP+ and your ADRs booked, you have the general structure of your days set, so I would just recommend looking over the park map beforehand (night before, on the way to to the park, etc.) to get the lay of the land a bit and to see if there are any must-do's. Maybe look over the QS restaurants for that particular park to get an idea of which are appealing. Have fun!

 

[gatorlisa]

That's pretty much how I roll. I look at hours to determine where I think we might go each day (hoppers, we like rope drop and try to use EMH to their fullest). Based off of that, I pick 3 FPs for each day and that is the extent of our plans. So far we've stuck to our planned FPs, but our trips have always been very short. I fully expect with our first ever week-long trip later this year to scrap the FPs planned for some of the days and change up the plan. We don't do ADRs, so that doesn't come into play at all. We just show up at a park and ride what we feel like based on wait times, what we feel like doing, how much we feel like walking, whatever strikes our current mood, etc. It works for us. The uber planning many do wouldn't work for us at all. To each their own.

 

[Angeliki19]

I wish I could say that I leave some time to "wing it", but in all honestly, we go with a pretty structured plan. Every year I feel like it gets more and more detailed and I need to find a way to balance it out! I may try on our next trip just doing FP's and ADR's and leaving it at that.

But I will say, depending on the personalities of your family, one good thing about having a general touring plan is there is no standing around and discussing/arguing over what to do next. Our family is all captains, no crew, so this is key for us, ha!

 

[disneyseniors]

and by that I mean, I know which parks and which days, and I have my FP+ and my ADRs already booked, but aside from that, how many of you just go with the flow from that point on? We are leaving on June 3rd - it's me, DH and DSs (16 and 14). DH has never been and DSs were too little to remember most of it, so it will be like a first time for all. I want to make sure everyone has a good time, but I don't want to run everyone ragged either! Can you have a relaxed time without a "plan"?

That's pretty much what we do too, but we pare it down even more. Sometimes we don't even use the fast passes, or only use one of them.
We also only have one or two must do adr's, and eat the rest when and where we want to. It is very freeing to only eat when you want to, and the QS food is pretty good too!
So, we pretty much have a plan but don't usually follow it if we don't want to. I don't want a structured vacation, but the option to use fp's and adrs if we want to.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Our best trips have been when I heavily planned. Winging it sounds nice but it doesn't work well for us

That being said, on this next trip, which we have already rescheduled 4 times, we are winging it. We'll see how it goes. We will probably have a DAS due to some new medical issues (see rescheduling 4x) so I think that will help with flexibility