Do your homework!

[carone0318]

I guess I don't get the big deal about making ADRs at the 180 day window. With the exception of a few, it's sort of "no harm, no foul" in my book. I always book ADRs at the 180 day mark and then when we are actually on our vacation if we choose not to go, we just call & cancel, but with having kids I'm always happy to know that I have at least somewhere to eat lined up.

As for stopping and "smelling the roses" well we do that too. We are a big character family and when we walk into MK and see Daisy front and center, the kids want to wait and see her. It's not uncommon for us to wait the 30 minutes or whatever the wait is to see her or who ever else. The crazy thing is though that while myself and the kids wait in line, dh might go and get us FPs for one of the mountains and then come back to us in line.

We tend to build our day around of FPs. We always have one for somewhere and do our character hunting in between waiting for our time and we always get another FP the minute we are able to.

 

[kleigh1969]

I had a co-worker who was going to Magic Kingdom a few years ago for the first time. I wanted to sit her down and share all of my wisdom with her, but I didn't want to come off as a nut, so I really didn't say very much. I figured she would ask if she wanted my help.

They were going Easter week (maybe not a good idea for first timers) and I remember I checked the weather the day they were supposed to be going and it was HOT. So big crowds and hot.

So I guess they showed up around noon, paid for two parents, two kids, and two grandparents (at one-day ticket prices) and headed for Fantasyland. It was insane as you can imagine with the crowds and the heat, her husband had a meltdown and insisted that they all leave. And they did! They have never been back since.

They didn't do their homework! I still feel bad that I didn't explain it all to her a little better - she just didn't seem that interested.....

 

[pat fan]

I also think Pooh is overrated, and I haven't ever done it either.

*WHAT It's POOH!!!! It's not over-rated, it's wonderful and magical and nostalgic and you BOUNCE for heaven's sake! Pooh is one of my must-do's, and I must do it at least a couple times a trip! Please just ride it once, for me, ok?

Seriously, different strokes for different folks, and that's what makes our world so great! Personally, I will never ride EE again, once was enough, and I know 3.3 million people love it


*Disclaimer-this is said tongue in cheek, not meant to be hurtful but playful!

 

[juliebug1997]

*WHAT It's POOH!!!! It's not over-rated, it's wonderful and magical and nostalgic and you BOUNCE for heaven's sake! Pooh is one of my must-do's, and I must do it at least a couple times a trip! Please just ride it once, for me, ok?

Seriously, different strokes for different folks, and that's what makes our world so great! Personally, I will never ride EE again, once was enough, and I know 3.3 million people love it


*Disclaimer-this is said tongue in cheek, not meant to be hurtful but playful!

I actually throw my head back and laugh during this part. Throw my head back. And laugh. "Come and bounce with me!"

 

[catm]

I do think it is crazy that Disney reserves all the tables in their sit-down restaurants and leaves no ressies open for walk-ups. I am a planner but really I don't know where I'll want to eat in 6 months.

My daughter is a food service manager at Disney World and they actually do leave some tables open for walk ups at most of the table service restaurants.

 

[pat fan]

"Come and bounce with me!"

"Woo-Hoo-Hoo-Hooo!" aahh....good times!

 

[NewlyDisneyCrazed]

My husband's never been to WDW and was sort of thinking I was off my rocker for all the time I've spent researching for our August trip. I made him read some of these posts and now he's sooo happy that we have all our ADRs and itineraries laid out. Also, I have the park maps pretty much memorized! Now he's starting to get it! Thanks for this thread!

 

[goofyernmost]

Well most of our stuff isn't really cross-crossing. Plus we have more than 1 day for each park. It's just DH & I this time, so waiting in line isn't the problem it is when the kids are with us.

Our list:
MK: HM, Philharmagic, Wishes (dinner at CG timed for Wishes), BTMRR, and maybe SM, depending on weather
EP: TT, Innoventions, Illuminations (cruise ), maybe Mission Space, maybe Soarin
HS: RnRC, ToT, Star Tours, Stunt Show, Fantasmic, maybe TSM (it'll depend on FP/standby times, we are NOT getting in the TSM RD stampede)
AK: EE, Nemo, FofLK

I don't think that's really gonna make us feel like we're rushing from thing to thing over a 10 day trip. And if it does, we'll change plans. Since we accomplished way more last time, even with the kids with us, I'm not worried. And by hitting the important stuff first, I mean things like getting FPs, not that we'll pass by other stuff we want to do just to get to the next thing.

I was going to comment on how, in my mind, the more time you have to spend there the less need there is for attraction planning. Then I remembered that not all attractions are operating everyday a lot of the time, so I understand.

I have mentioned on these boards before that I tire of the place very quickly. When I do I start to get cranky. I love WDW, but still my attention span is limited and it just gets to be a lot of walking to me. I have never stayed more than 7 nights on site and when I did, after the fifth I kept looking at my watch to see how much closer I was to when I could leave. But, as I said, that's me.

As often as I have been, I have narrowed down the ones that I care if I see or not. That makes it quicker and less in need of a lot of planning. Meals, well most of the time counter service works fine for me. I have been known to stand there and look at the menu's posted outside the full service restaurants and get heartburn as soon as I see how much it costs.

The other key thing with me is that I always know that unless I die, I will be back so I the only time I concern myself with a particular attraction is if I have heard someplace that a particular one might be closing. I wish I had known, for example, that 20K was on its last sea legs when I was there the winter before it closed. I didn't ride it and have regretted it ever since. That I would have planned for totally.

It boils down to personal preference. Many people just love to plan and for them that is as an exciting a part of a trip to WDW as actually going there. I say that's great. The only thing that I disagree with in threads like this is when we, collectively, make fun of those first timers that didn't research their trip ahead of time. I believe I always will feel that unless one has some incite into that actual 3 dimensional thing that is WDW, there is no way it would occur to them that they should or even why. Can you imagine how upsetting it is to travel a long distance only to get to someplace that their mind had envisioned as a fun theme park wasn't able to give them a place to eat a sit down meal without making reservations a half a year in advance. Personally, I see that as a flaw in the Disney planning.

 

[mekjj]

Vacation for many people means relaxing and not having a schedule. I understand that there are folks who feel they want/need to plan everything for their trips, but WDW has gone overboard because of the dining and their push to make "the happiest place on earth" into "the busiest place on earth" with nary an empty seat at a restaurant or on a ride at any time of the day/week/month/year. I so miss the days of going off peak and having it be a truly relaxing experience.

I don't think it is unreasonable to expect to go on vacation and be able to dine at a restaurant without planning it 6 months in advance. There is no other location that we travel to that almost necessitates this. Unless WDW adds some restaurants, I think the FD push and ADR stuff is going to cause more and more problems.

You said it perfectly.

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

I'm a planner. No, I guess really I'm a researcher. When I prepared for my last trip, I spent hours a day on this site. I didn't want to miss anything important or face a disaster that could have been averted. I planned obsessively but not in a "10:00am Pictures in front of castle. 10:02am Bathroom break. 10:07am FP Peter Pan" sort of way. I wanted to know everything that had gone sour for anyone else and learn from it. So I learned about dollar store ponchos and moleskin and extra shoes and wicking socks and the rules of reusable mugs and all that kind of stuff. I knew about finding meet and greet times, and how to use FP and Photopass and looked over the maps of each park enough to have a general idea of where we were going. I *DID* have a mental list of all the things I wanted to do in each park each day (i.e., on our half day at MK, we our goal was to explore Fantasyland and possibly Toon Town if we had time before Wishes).

But there were no clocks. No hard and fast time tables. We just went. I didn't burden my family with my mental checklist, I just tried to remember so we didn't miss too many things I thought someone in our family would enjoy... And do you know what my son's favorite thing was? The puddle he found after it rained. The PUDDLE. Thousands of dollars and he found a PUDDLE. ANd he splashed his heart out in that thing for at least half an hour. It sure wasn't on my list of things I wanted to do, but I surely didn't stop him so we could 'make good time'.

There is definitely, definitely a happy medium between not knowing which park the castle is in and planning every minute.

Completely agree with this. And I think the majority of people on these boards (including the "lurkers") fit into this category including myself. As most things in life, you can't categorize people using an all-or-none mentality when most of us reside somewhere in the middle.

I've spent a lot of time on these boards for my prior trips and still do. But the product of time spent and doing my "homework" was not a spreadsheet or an egg-timer, nor was it being a slave to the clock. They were things like learning to let our kids set the pace at the parks (as a result, we spent over 90 minutes at Dinosaur Boneyard one time because they were having such a good time!), learning which rides might be a bit too scary for our 4 year old, learning about being able to enter an empty park with an early ADR, learning about how to be best prepared in dealing with a disappointed child who didn't pass the height requirement and not to take it out on a CM, about how to hang back after Wishes at MK park closing time while enjoying some ice cream and staring at the castle, and countless others things.

Bottom line is, as long as you're having a good and magical time, it doesn't matter how you got there, whether by winging it or doing your homework.

 

[magicbob]

It suggested that people arrive early to the MK, in order to make sure to book ''an early dinner at CRT, because it's usually fully booked at 10 AM''.

I remember fondly the good old days when you could actually do this. Of course, it was called King Stefan's Banquet Hall back then. Odd that this tip has survived in a 2011 edition, though.

 

[mom2rtk]

I remember fondly the good old days when you could actually do this. Of course, it was called King Stefan's Banquet Hall back then. Odd that this tip has survived in a 2011 edition, though.

I remember trying for a couple trips to get in AT ALL to CRT. The advice back then suggested synchronizing your clocks with the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory, calling on 2 lines at once, and having tons of luck to get in at all. Back then all tables were gone every day within 5 minutes of the lines opening.

Of course, they have now added lunch and dinner as princess meals, but still.......

 

[magicbob]

There is definitely, definitely a happy medium between not knowing which park the castle is in and planning every minute.

It's kind of like jazz improvization. You don't pre-determine every note you're going to play, but you DO need to know the tune!

 

[dsnyrn]

"I remember trying for a couple trips to get in AT ALL to CRT. The advice back then suggested synchronizing your clocks with the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory, calling on 2 lines at once, and having tons of luck to get in at all."

I remember doing this 15 years ago. My daughter was soo disappointed we did not eat with the princesses. Now my granddaughters get to eat with the princesses every trip because of my daughters planning!

To each their own! We are planners, and it only makes our trip that much more enjoyable!!

 

[amberdburke]

For 7 years I lived in the Orlando area, had APs, went dozens of times each year, and never planned anything. Our last trip was October 2009, right before we moved to Indiana.

Fast-forward to today....We are going again in October, but because this is the first trip my daughter will remember, as well as the fact that we will only be going every few years, I have spent hours planning everything.

I have planned the time we need to leave each morning, our ADR's, and a list of the attractions I want to do and in what order.

That being said, this trip is all about my daughter, so if she decides to stand in one character line after another and we don't get to ride any of the rides I have planned, I'll be ok with that too

 

[mishkamushka]

I do think it is crazy that Disney reserves all the tables in their sit-down restaurants and leaves no ressies open for walk-ups. I am a planner but really I don't know where I'll want to eat in 6 months.

Totally agree. I'm a huge planner/organizer (my friends refer to me as "Monica" from Friends) but I hate the fact that I have to do all this six months in advance and if I change my mind about something I might be S.O.O.L.

I do it however -- because I want what I want out of my trip and I'm going to try my best to make it happen.

Oh, and forgot to say I'm not totally crazy about planning either. I just now plan around the dining but if say we decide we want another day in MK when we had Epcot scheduled, I'll deal with it -- we'll either eat CS or try and get an off time reservation (and I'll make sure to cancel my Epcot reservations!)

 

[DeaverTex]

Is this just me, or am I getting a distinct impression -- from reading threads like this one -- that the real "trick" to making an unplanned or only vaguely planned trip to the World work is having the opportunity to make many, many trips? Not all by any means, but many of the posts espousing going without a worked out battle plan seem to be from posters with thousands of posts, years of board membership, and uncounted visits to WDW.

I'm thinking that for the novices for whom "next time" may be years away (umm... that would be the Tex family) it's at least highly advisable, and probably essential, to have:

• ADRs (if you want something besides counter service)
• Definite plans on which park to do on what day.
• A general route through the park, avoiding criss-crossing where possible.
• Definite plans on what fastpasses you'll need or want.
• At least a few alternatives regarding rides/shows (in the Army, we called those "branches and sequels") in case your original battle plan for the day goes awry.

Am I on the right track, or have I gone off on a dead-end siding?

 

[juliebug1997]

I remember trying for a couple trips to get in AT ALL to CRT. The advice back then suggested synchronizing your clocks with the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory, calling on 2 lines at once, and having tons of luck to get in at all. Back then all tables were gone every day within 5 minutes of the lines opening.

Of course, they have now added lunch and dinner as princess meals, but still.......

This is where my "Unofficial Guide" kind of failed me last year. They were still talking about getting up at the butt crack of dawn and making the phone call because the princesses were only there for breakfast. They hadn't updated that the princesses were there for all meals and I didn't find that out until I called Disney myself (well within my 180 days). I did manage to get breakfast at 9 AM so I was pretty happy but I was stressing from the time I read about the meal (midnight on Sunday) until I could call the next day (Monday at 3 PM).

 

[pat fan]

Am I on the right track, or have I gone off on a dead-end siding?

In my opinion, you are on the right track

 

[MoonFaerie]

I was going to comment on how, in my mind, the more time you have to spend there the less need there is for attraction planning. Then I remembered that not all attractions are operating everyday a lot of the time, so I understand.

I have mentioned on these boards before that I tire of the place very quickly. When I do I start to get cranky. I love WDW, but still my attention span is limited and it just gets to be a lot of walking to me. I have never stayed more than 7 nights on site and when I did, after the fifth I kept looking at my watch to see how much closer I was to when I could leave. But, as I said, that's me.

As often as I have been, I have narrowed down the ones that I care if I see or not. That makes it quicker and less in need of a lot of planning. Meals, well most of the time counter service works fine for me. I have been known to stand there and look at the menu's posted outside the full service restaurants and get heartburn as soon as I see how much it costs.

The other key thing with me is that I always know that unless I die, I will be back so I the only time I concern myself with a particular attraction is if I have heard someplace that a particular one might be closing. I wish I had known, for example, that 20K was on its last sea legs when I was there the winter before it closed. I didn't ride it and have regretted it ever since. That I would have planned for totally.

It boils down to personal preference. Many people just love to plan and for them that is as an exciting a part of a trip to WDW as actually going there. I say that's great. The only thing that I disagree with in threads like this is when we, collectively, make fun of those first timers that didn't research their trip ahead of time. I believe I always will feel that unless one has some incite into that actual 3 dimensional thing that is WDW, there is no way it would occur to them that they should or even why. Can you imagine how upsetting it is to travel a long distance only to get to someplace that their mind had envisioned as a fun theme park wasn't able to give them a place to eat a sit down meal without making reservations a half a year in advance. Personally, I see that as a flaw in the Disney planning.

Yup, personal preference. The meals are a big part of the experience for us. I think DH might divorce me if I tried to suggest no Raglan Road, and I'm soooo excited about Victoria & Albert's.

Really, all the planning we've done is:
1. Figure out which shows and such we want to see
2. Plan parks based on seeing those things while avoiding crowds as much as possible
3. Plan ADRs around which parks we'll be in
4. Decide which few rides we'd really like to do, and then decide which ones need to be done at/near RD or FP

*This is obviously not factoring in the 1 night/2 days of platinum plan, which is extremely planned to make sure we can fit in the tours and meals we wanted to.

Also, while Disney isn't a once in a lifetime, rare trip for us as a family, this is a rare trip without the kids. We're moving away from family in 2 years (no Disney planned again until Dec 2013, after we've moved), so it'll be a good 10+ years before we can even think about a big trip like this again sans kids.