Evolution of our touring strategy...

[SouthFayetteFan]

Obviously Disney has changed a lot over the past few years. With the Fantasyland expansion, closures at Hollywood studios, nothing new at Epcot, overall crowd levels growing, rising prices, Fastpass+, dining cancellation fees, and many other changes at play this has caused us to gradually shift our touring strategy. Some of these changes have been positive for us, some negative, and some neither but still have an affect.

Rewind 3 years and we were rope drop the AM EMH park everyday kind of people. We would pickup 2-3 fastpasses to use before noon, after lunch we would hop to one of the recommended parks (following EasyWDW guidelines). Sometimes we'd take a break first, other times we would head straight to another park. There was some level of spontaneity to our plans. Sometimes we would cancel a dinner reservation early in the afternoon if our plans changed during the day or we were tired. We wouldn't officially decide on which park to visit until a week or so ahead of time and even then we'd switch it up due to weather or what we felt like doing each morning.

Last year we decided no more EMH. The parks seemed to be getting busier earlier giving the EMH park less of an advantage. By 10am I'd rather be at a recommended park than the EMH park! Plus, the extra hour of sleep helped our vacation feel more relaxing and made sure we were able to go strong until dinner (don't want to cancel and pay $40 for nothing!!). The kids seemed happier, and mom and dad were definitely happier to not be rushing out the door in the morning. Then, we also made some lunch ADRs instead of Dinner (we only do one TS a day typically - so much food!) since we knew we'd at least be in the park until 1 or 2pm. This saved some money since some lunch meals are less expensive than dinner. We still got the park hopper but now we were torn on whether to book our FP+ for park 1 or park 2. Typically we'd book it at the first park because we still wanted the ability to be somewhat spontaenous on when we hop, break, etc. By the time we got to a 2nd park there weren't really many fastpasses left. Also, the idea of going to a kiosk to get another FP+ every time got annoying so we just rode standby mostly at the 2nd park. A couple days days we booked later FPs and then slept in, that was nice!

Now for our upcoming trip we did something I never thought I'd do. We cancelled the park hopper! (Pretty neat by the way that I can just adjust this online now on the disney website too BTW! Didn't have to sit on hold for 20 minutes). I started to look at this and since we are avoiding the EMH park we're already heading to a recommended park...Our desire to spend multiple portions of days at HS And Epcot has waned. The spontaneity factor is largely gone as we're bound by the fastpasses and dining reservations. Top it all off and we can save over $200! It's funny...but we are actually really happy about how our strategy has evolved.

My Wife and I are really excited about this next visit for many reasons:

- Sleep Longer/More
- No Need to always make rope drop (we do have 3 FPs waiting for us after all)
- By staying in one park we feel that we can reclaim some spontaneity (i.e. what time do we show up, adjust our fastpasses to later in the day or other rides if we want, take a break to the resort and come back, still have to make sure we're at our ADRs though!)
- Save over $200 on Hoppers which is awesome (plus if we like this strategy we'll save even more when we have to start paying for our 2nd daughter's ticket next year).
- Save additional money switching to lunches from dinners
(Of course none of this saved money is really saved since our room and tickets cost more, but it has helped keep our vacation costs close to the same as they were!)

MORAL OF THE POST: Don't be afraid to switch up the strategy and try something new. You might just like it and make Disney even more special for you and your family!

A Lot of our ideas for change came from reading the boards so thanks to everybody who has posted ideas and tips! Even though I'm not happy about all of the changes at Disney I have to say...I like how they've changed my strategy (if that makes sense, lol!) Anybody have anything to share on how their strategy has evolved over the years?

 

[DSLRuser]

wow. Lot's of words. But at least you used paragraphs

We too have morphed into the same thing. We are not rope drop people. Like to arrive around 9am or so. We are usually back at the resort by 2pm and spend a few hours relaxing there. It is why we do deluxe resorts mostly. We then head back to that park refreshed around 7pm till close.

We gave up park hoppers a few years ago as the cost wasn't worth it.

I do a rough schedule on what parks to do what days. I use this to make ADR's and FP's. But last march, by the 3rd day, that schedule was crap. Because of the new magic bands, you have to read and react. Basically, anything with a short wait of 20 mins or less, we will jump on. Many times that means trading in FP we already had.

So to me, the whole magic band and FP system creates more on the fly touring. As long as you reset your fast passes by the night before, there are plenty of options for the park you are doing tomorrow.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

FI agree - we basically make Fastpasses for the headliners each day so we have them then adjust as the week goes along. For our upcoming trip we have 7DMT FP+ for each MK day but likely will end up changing 1 or 2 of those as our plans evolve.

It's amazing how much has changed at Disney in the past few years, I'm so glad we've been able to adapt and continue to enjoy our trips! I know many others that post how these changes have made their trips less enjoyable and I feel bad. Not everybody wants to adjust and I can't blame some of them.

 

[epcotty]

Interesting to read. Yeah EMH is more unappealing all the time. And we've never done Park hoppers, we've never thought it was worth it