Does anyone else have a partner driving them bonkers?

[Sundancer UK]

With planning, I mean? Do they just not get it?

My husband is lovely. He isn't a huge Disney fan but he knows how much this means to me. He bought and read the Unofficial Guide book (I've still not got through it all), he's prepared to get up early for the parks but that's it.

Through me going on about it, he's made two reservations (one breakfast at Contemporary Mickey's, one for me and DD at the Castle for lunch!), but he doesn't see the point in doing any more.

It's only when I found out (and swore, a lot) that he decided to sort out travel insurance and he doesn't want to arrange a day to go to Island of Adventure in advance.

The one that's grating on me now is that he wants to get some breakfast and snack groceries in, so I've suggested that we order them. I'm not saying that we order them now, but at least decide on if that's what we're doing!

But he wont, he doesn't want to commit to anything and it's starting to bug me, the more obsessed I get with planning...

 

[DaniB]

If I let my husband plan our trip, he'll be doing it at the week before we go!

I totally do the planning myself! I do try to get him involved, find out where he wants to eat; particular rides he wants to do; I plan 1 or 2 extra things as a surprise for him, and make sure he's still willing to get up early - thank goodness he sees the value in that!

But if I left it up to him... yeah, never gonna happen!

He's happy and I'm happy this way!

 

[NMAmy]

I'm not a huge planner myself but I do all the trip preparation. I ask for input on restaurants--if I get none, then I decide and after one Christmas trip with crazy crowds, my family is grateful that we have one guaranteed sitdown meal per day. I order all the snacks/drinks, etc. and make the plane reservations and shuttle plans. It's second nature to me now so it's not a big deal.

DH just doesn't get as excited as DD and I do and that's okay. He told me the other day that he loved doing WDW with us but didn't think he could stand to go with anyone else because we make it fun and we don't plan too much--just enough.

DD and her boyfriend are coming with us on this trip. I called and asked dd if they were excited. She said, "I am. C says that he's excited--just not as excited as me." Apparently, he's just like DH.

Really, as long as he happily comes along with us and don't complain about the plans I've made after we arrive--I'm okay with DH not being involved.

 

[MinniesYooHoo]

Sounds to me like you're going to have to take matters into your own hands! Now I will say that my husband loves Disney just as much as I do. However, I would NEVER leave the planning in his hands. He has absolutely no clue what is involved in planning a trip to Disney,and says as much every time we go. "I have no idea how you manage to plan such convenient and carefree trips everytime we go". Well honey..... I plan out our park days appropriately, make the ADR's to coincide with which park we will be at, research the resort extensively so I can request the best area for our family, place our order through Garden Grocer in a timely manner, arrainge for DME to pick us up from the airport, decide what DD is going to have autographed this time (scrapbook pages, pillowcases, t-shirt, fabric squares for making a blanket, etc...), and research show times, parade times, and firework times. Anything else? If I left that to my husband, we would be in BIG trouble. This man negotiates multi-million dollar deals on a regular basis, but couldn't plan a vacation to save his life. Go figure.

 

[pkondz]

Does anyone else have a partner driving them bonkers?

Oh, sure. All the time. Why just the other day she.... what?... oh, with planning? Nah, I do all the planning.

 

[hughjulia]

My wife loves the fact that I plan and take care of everything. All she has to do is go and enjoy. I study the crowd levels and park hours to determine where we are going each day. I make the dining reservations. I make the hotel and flight reservations. I plan everything and more. I’m smart enough to ask for input so we do the things she wants to do, but I know I’m the one who is going to have make the arrangements.

Typically, what I have seen in relationships is that there is one planner among the two. If your husband is not the planner, then you may need to take over. The option of badgering, bugging, nagging or yelling probably isn’t going to achieve the end result. You need to take command. May 10th is just around the corner. I say order the groceries now! Go a head and make more dining reservations. You can always cancel.

Now at work my wife is completely different. She is a planner. She is in charge. She is that one person everybody depends on. On vacation, she doesn’t want to be that person. It sounds to me like your husband doesn't want to be that person on vacation either.

 

[quagmire0]

@hugh - DW and I are the same way. She's a hyper planner at work, but when she gets home she doesn't want to make any decisions.

@sundancer - I can definitely relate to your husband, although I am the lead vacation planner in our house - so I have an interesting perspective. With all the info I have absorbed through books, websites, forums, and videos, I still see the wisdom in leaving at least some things about our trip open. We'll be staying offsite, so I'm thinking breakfasts and most lunches will be at the condo. I've staked out the grocery stores, so we'll probably hit those when we get there. (although if I had the option to ship them, I would...) I've made ADR's for dinner every night except two (the night we get there and the night before we leave). But even still, I'm not sure we'll even make all of our ADRs. I know that with two small kids, our schedule needs to be open and I'm not worried about making this appointment or that.

I know there are many on this board that would accept nothing less than a 100% planned trip, but I see a lot of value in leaving part of your trip to chance. I'm not saying go in blind - definitely read up and know your stuff - but let go a little and let things happen. Go with the flow.

 

[fan1080]

There are plenty of guests who would rather not do in-depth travel plans.

A Disney vacation can be done without all the crazy planning. It's all about expectations and what you are willing to accept.

 

[EastonCat]

My every minute of my days gets planned and scheduled in my real life. The pressure of continual deadlines and living off of my agenda is part of what I want to leave behind.

I agree though -- you've got to figure out what you're doing with things like picking a day to go up to Universal - there is some happy medium between hyper planning and leaving it to chance that you'll get to the important things. I actually like working out detailed touring plans with my daughters ahead of time because it spills vacation time into our every day, but we leave those behind so that we don't feel like we need to keep score each day.

If you need an accomplice on the details, look in to using a reputable, well recommended travel agent. They'll help you out.

 

[TagsMissy]

There are plenty of guests who would rather not do in-depth travel plans.

A Disney vacation can be done without all the crazy planning. It's all about expectations and what you are willing to accept.

This is us... we do not do crazy plans but we don't go at Christmas time either.... We make 1 or 2 reservations; do some overall very basic planning (by that I mean glance at the crowd calendar and extra magic hours) and other than that go with the flow and have not really had any problems. Even with a group of 7 we went with the flow and it was so nice to just go at our own speed when we wanted without living by a schedule.

 

[disnut8]

You can do what I do with my husband. I come out here every day, I look to see the best options, I have the answers. However, I just don't talk to him about it. He doesn't want to know it. He loves our trips but he's not a detailed person when it comes to travel. As he says, "tell me when we are leaving and I'm fine". And he really is. So, if I do have a question I need to ask him, I tell him that I have to ask him one quick question and then that will be it. Maybe it's about a dinner reservation or something I think he might like or whatever. But I make it quick and I tell him to get back to me either "whenever" (if it's not important) or "by --------" (fill in the blank with when you need to have the answer). I limit things and don't bombard him with lots of info.

Been doing this since 1998 and it hasn't failed me yet.

 

[Chip's My Hero]

Yes. LOL I book the trip and the dining. He and the kids give me where they want to eat and top 3 "things" from each park and then walk away knowing that mom will take care of everything. For them they just have to be there. And they know that for me the organizing and planning is part of the trip.

But on the other hand...the DH handles the money part of the trip, he's the one who stresses over the paying for it and saving for it. I leave that to him, I just let him know when the 45 day mark will be. LOL I really don't want that getting in the way of my planning.

We both belong to different disney blogs and disney groups, and we share the important info we learn.

 

[Sundancer UK]

Well the thing is, I'm not even hyped on detailing everything. We have 14 days and we're going mid May, so we should have enough time to cover a fair bit, right?

He doesn't want ADRs for the same reason I wasn't keen on the meal planner: because we don't want to be rushing from one place to another just to make sure we can eat. To be totally honest we're probaby going counter service for much of our time there, but I've been trying to explain to him that we can make ADRs and cancel if we change our minds. He's not so keen.

The idea of planning (un)birthday celebrations for our sons doesn't particularly appeal either, because that means more fuss lol

All I want is a basic plan - so write down each day we are there, mark out important things like character meals (and I was thinking of getting DS3's 1st hair cut, does that need a reservation?), then go through the Unofficial Guide to get some suggestions on touring - simply because if I don't do that, we're sure to squabble over what to do and end up standing around doing nothing much!
So, vaguely know what park I'm aiming for, rather than insisting we are any place at any time.

 

[jecskc]

Yes !! My DH is driving me crazy asking me how much everything costs - EVERY day !! Dude, price was the same yesterday and will still be the same tomorrow. Obviously, I need to just make a sign and have it on the fridge. And he was the one that insisted I upgrade to a 1 BR !!! I do all of the planning, he is allowed to have input and sometimes he actually comes up with a good idea.

 

[growinupdisney]

Some days my DH will actually ingage in a convo with me about Disney but most days I really like talking to him about it and get his imput but for the most past he does not care, I have to get him when he is in the mood.

This year he only wanted to do 5 park days so it took some begging and pleading at got the 6th one. I try and explain the more days we are there the less stressful it will be on trying to get stuff done. before we were married I would always go for atleast 10 days so I really having to adjust.

 

[bumbershoot]

... we don't want to be rushing from one place to another just to make sure we can eat....


All I want is a basic plan - so write down each day we are there, mark out important things like character meals (and I was thinking of getting DS3's 1st hair cut, does that need a reservation?), then go through the Unofficial Guide to get some suggestions on touring - simply because if I don't do that, we're sure to squabble over what to do and end up standing around doing nothing much!
So, vaguely know what park I'm aiming for, rather than insisting we are any place at any time.

If you make no dining plans, and then want to go to a certain place, and they have no availability...then you really will be rushing from one place to another, and you'll also be hungry while doing it! IMO it's a lot easier to have something and cancel it...rather than be hungry while finding out that there's no availability at the places you're near....



Why not just do that, then? Since he's willing to go with the flow...*be the flow*.

When I go to Disneyland with my brother and his wife, they want to wing it. My sis in law especially has a very structured life, and likes to relax. I have a relaxed life and like structure! And I'm violently allergic to stopping in the middle of the path and looking at a map; I nearly go ballistic (in my head) when I hear "so, whaddaya wanna do next?"

So I have a plan, and when that map is brought out by a family member, I'm the first with the idea that I "just thought of" (planned out months before). We ALL have a good day that way. They go on more rides than they imagined possible, and I rarely have to hear those phrases or stop in the middle of a path.


I have two days to decide what parks we're going to do when. I subscribed to tourguidemike to see the recommended days (though just by looking at the times that the parks are open I came up with a plan of my own, and was pretty much in line with what he recommends), and now I'm narrowing it all down.

We had 4 days in the parks with another group of family members last December, and they liked winging it (though they secretly had tourguidemike info as well, which was funny when I finally realized it), but I'd made a tentative "if they ask me" plan...we went with the plan for the most part and had nice days. Once they went back home, we went with my plan entirely and had very nice days.

I don't torture anyone with the plan...if anyone (including me) wants to divert from it, as long as they understand what it might do to the rest of the plan, we can certainly do it.

But I do like having things plotted out ahead of time! So I say, go for it!

 

[smalltowngirl504]

my partner, told me not to talk about it anymore, that I was beating it into the ground... whatever...lol!

 

[MomiTo2SwtGuys]

Well, I am the one to get super excited. But my sweet husband is as much of a planner as me. He wants to help with all the dining reservations and park planning. It is a group effort here and I love it.

 

[duffy]

I would just do it myself.