Do you always follow your plan??

[KELLY'S]

Well with only 2 weeks until our dream becomes reality again - I have decided to stop plannning our days and just wait until we get there! Being an over organised individual planning our florida trip takes over - however I've had enough now of wondering if I've made the right decisions for each day and am now going with a kind of plan - and will wait until we are there to decide what we do each day

I was curious as to what everybody else does with their plans!??!

 

[Disbabe]

I plan all the days at the Disney Parks - based on touring plans and have a folder dedicated to my holiday planning. I even plan what restaurants to eat at!
We try and stick to the essence of it, but are not rigid. There has to be space for spontineity and getting caught up in special moments. I suppose our plans are the bones, but we go, see what's going on, change it and flesh it out ourselves.
What I do is take each page out and take it with us and then change it around as needed and when I get back I re-type the page up and print it off as a reminder of what we did.
I always believe you need some sort of plan, as its always helped us stay one step ahead of the crowds. I also think that part of the planning produces the excitement so that a holiday is not just the 2 or 3 weeks you are there.

 

[2Tiggies]

Yes. I can say I do because after our first trip where it was all mapped out, I learnt that it works so well when you know where you are going. However I have also learnt the importance of leaving flexible windows in the plans because being able to wing it is very important and sometimes necessary as there are ALWAYS times when something will interfere with your plans. That way it doesn't leave me feeling like the plan didn't work because deviating from the original outline is allowed and worked into the actual planning, if that makes sense.

I don't plan every moment at a park. I use touring plans on most days and do stick to my chosen park/s for the day with very few changes to that. But a ride being down or someone getting injured can throw it all out the window so you need to learn to leave room to accommodate these things. We often start with a touring plan, use it until we have done what we want to for the day and then fill in the gaps as we please for the rest.

I think also, once you have been a few times you get to know certain approaches that work for you and those that don't and just tweak them for each trip as required without having to think about it as much.

 

[dixonsontour]

I enjoy planning and have a plan for each day with dining reservations if we are eating onsite.

I use touringplans crowd calendar to decide what day to visit each park. This has worked really well for us last 2 trips - why visit a park on a 5/10 day if the day after is 1/10 (less busy)

I don't plan minute by minute tourguide mike/touring plans style.

eg my plans are

Sunday MK

Ropedrop
Plaza adr 12 noon
Leave after 3pm parade

But I do have options in so a couple of nights to watch fireworks so we can do either/or.

If we are having fun and a break is scheduled we stay and vice versa.

We also miss things out completely if we don't feel like it, esp week 2 when we are tired.

 

[orangetiggs]

not really, I book adrs and thsts it really, we do what we feel like foing, haveing been nearly every year in the last nine years we have seen alot so just go with the flow now

 

[KELLY'S]

I like having the plan to guide us - but like you've all said flexibility is important too especially if you're too tired and want to chill!

I have booked some ADR's too and just managed luckily to fit one last one in for our last day which I hadn't planned on - my 7 year old son will love it - dining at Crysal Palace with Winnie and gang - I'm not going to mention that to him until we get there!

I've heard lots about rope drop - what time is that and what exactly happens?

I love reading what everybody else does on their trips - gets me quite excited! I haven't planned the rides though - although I do think first day in MK and we'll be straight to Splash Mountain

xxx

 

[dixonsontour]

Basically ropedrop is to be there before park opening.

At MK they do a nice ceremony - all the characters come on the train and do a song and dance - the mayor is there. They gave DD some confetti to throw.

AK - characters come on safari trucks - little 5 min show.

HS - little 5 min show pretending to film a movie. wasn't impressed TBH it felt like the start of a marathon everyone was raring to go to toy story mania.

Epcot - not sure, always done akershus before park opening so not seen the opening there.

We try and do ropedrop as we can then get the main things done before lines build.

Remember to factor in the travel time to the turnstyle - MK especially takes time, so you are through bag search and there before opening.

 

[2Tiggies]

I've heard lots about rope drop - what time is that and what exactly happens?

I love reading what everybody else does on their trips - gets me quite excited! I haven't planned the rides though - although I do think first day in MK and we'll be straight to Splash Mountain

xxx

Rope drop is just another way of saying park opening time. To avoid a stamped of people rushing for a popular ride, the CMs have a rope and 'walk' the crowd through the entrance until you get to a point where everyone can disperse. Check the park hours, paying attention the the magic hours and try be there at least 30 minutes before scheduled park opening in moderate to busy season and maybe 15 minutes in slower times (aside from MK and AK where they do a little opening show so you want to be there a bit earlier if you'd like to see that).

Do you want to do Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain too? Lines build up first at Space Mountain so we do that first, then go across to Frontierland, grab a FP for Splash, ride BTMR, ride Splash (not using the FP) back to BTMR to get another FP, ride again .... It takes about an hour fr the Splash line to build over 30 minutes so you can get a few rides in but we have found BTMR to incur longer wait times first for some reason.

 

[2Tiggies]

Dixonsontour, it looks like we are following each other around the board tonight and posting at the same time

 

[KELLY'S]

If I remember rightly last time I think after reading about what to do and when we rushed to Splash Mountaingot a FP and then waited in line for Thunder Mountain - I really shouldn't have put my park tickets in my back pocket mind - they were soaking wet when we got off and that was our first ride!! Luckly they exchanged them - I won't be doing that again! I did love Space Mountain and last time our youngest couldn't ride as he was only 3 so I think I'll follow you're plan there for this trip!!

We didn't have much of a plan last time or this for the rides we just winged it really and got FP for the rides with big queues that we wanted to get on but we didn't find the queing to bad as it's not like normal que lines

Getting quite excited now

 

[wayneg]

We only make a very rough plan, have all our ADR's done, know which parks for first couple of days, picked a couple of Seaworld days, a Busch day, Dismeets, Drinks around the world one eve, Hot air balloon. 4 day cruise.
Will then fit in things as we go along, I know others disagree but I don't think sites advising low crowd days work that well.
I just like getting to parks for opening, I think you get more done in 2-3 hours at opening then 5-6 hours in the afternoon.
Its different for us planning our 26th trip compared to someone on their 1st or 2nd. We go into the parks looking for things beyond the rides, we are far more relaxed than most. just go with the flow and see where it takes us.

 

[Daysleeper40]

Well we have only been once before and are heading off for our second trip in three weeks. We have planned the same each time though -

Step 1:
Decide which parks we want to go to (Disney is not our favourite Orlando attraction i.e. we will only be going to MK, Epcot & half day each at HS & TL on this trip)

Step 2:
Rate the attractions at each park we will be visiting (A,B,C ratings) and make sure we are agreed on our "must do's" at each park.

Step 3:
Decide how many days we will send at each park based on step 2

Step 4:
Decide on any extra tours / shows e.g. Blue Man Group / Behind the scenes tours at SW & BGT.

Step 5:
Plan any specific meals e.g. last time we went to AK once and knew we wanted to go to Rainforest Cafe so it would have to be that day.

Step 6:
Decide what days we will be going where and make the schedule which just an excel spreadsheet with each day split into morning / afternoon / evening / extras / notes & reminders. Book all tours & extras.

Last trip we did swap a few days around based on the weather. We don't have as much leeway on this trip as we have booked lots of tours & extras so our second week is pretty much set. We are also going for 17 nights so have to make sure we make the most of our tickets. We don't book up or set all of our dinners but we do have a list of places we would like to eat.

 

[KELLY'S]

We only make a very rough plan, have all our ADR's done, know which parks for first couple of days, picked a couple of Seaworld days, a Busch day, Dismeets, Drinks around the world one eve, Hot air balloon. 4 day cruise.
Will then fit in things as we go along, I know others disagree but I don't think sites advising low crowd days work that well.
I just like getting to parks for opening, I think you get more done in 2-3 hours at opening then 5-6 hours in the afternoon.
Its different for us planning our 26th trip compared to someone on their 1st or 2nd. We go into the parks looking for things beyond the rides, we are far more relaxed than most. just go with the flow and see where it takes us.

Wow 26 times - that's impressive!

 

[Muscateer]

We tend to go for rope drop and do our favourite rides then slow our day right down and just go with the flow. I have only made 4 ADRs in our 18 night stay as didn't want to fit my days round where we went to eat and of course on our non Disney days we will be eating offsite too.

Can someone tell me if you can have a few FPs on the go at the same time, I don't mean for same ride I mean can I have say a FP for Space Mountain and say one for Splash Mountain. I seem to recall reading something about certain times in between FPs but thought that was just for same ride

 

[loobzuk]

I have a rough plan of which park to visit on which day and have notes of our ADR's but I've never planned a day once I'm in the park. I know roughly what we will do - for example head straight to TSM at HS or SM at MK - but it's not planned. We also swap complete days around when necessary (uusally becuase of the weather). As we're going for 3 weeks this time I've been a bit more generous with rest/shopping days as the children love pool time.

 

[ben1993]

I have parks planned for each day, a few ADR's and a plan for seeing Wishes, Illuminations and Fantasmic! I won;t be following a touring plan or anything, not my style.

 

[wayneg]

Can someone tell me if you can have a few FPs on the go at the same time, I don't mean for same ride I mean can I have say a FP for Space Mountain and say one for Splash Mountain. I seem to recall reading something about certain times in between FPs but thought that was just for same ride

Usually you have to wait 2 hours from getting 1 to the next unless the 1st one you get is for less than 2 hours then you can get another when that one starts. There used to be one or two machines in different parts of the parks that didn't work in sync but don't know if thats still the case.

 

[paulh]

we plan and use as a guide depending on weather.As we have been plenty of times parks are much easier for us but we still get there at rope drop do our fav rides and get FPs for later in the day.Remember the time on the FP is a guide you can use it any time that day from the start time
We usually head back to hotel in afternoon for a swim and to freshen then head back to the park to use our FPs gained in the morning and watch fireworks usually the theme parks take up 4 days of our stay and Water-parks4-5 with pool days thrown in unless we have bought longer tickets like Flex pass for universal and bush or have a AP
Paul

 

[dixonsontour]

Dixonsontour, it looks like we are following each other around the board tonight and posting at the same time

You are a night owl like me!

Need to go to bed soon - work in the morning

 

[higgy66]

We always go with the attitude that we're going back so we never feel the need to rush and see everything.

If we have the DDP then we make our ADRs and therefore some sort of plan develops from that. The 4 of us get to organise a day each where we choose the park and where we want to eat and then I fill the gaps in between so we visit all the parks for a least 1 1/2 days + 1 day for water parks. I also allow 2-3 days at the end so we can decide between us which parks we want to revisit etc

Having said that we're only doing Disney, Seaworld and Aquatica so this may all change next year when we add on Universal!