General Planning philosophy

[Toadman99]

I've been to WDW 3 times before, although the last time was 13 years ago for my honeymoon. This is my first trip with my family (DD7 and DD9).

Using info from voracious reading of the UG and this board, I feel like I'm pretty on top of things for our trip this Sept/Oct.

What I find interesting is that I seem to be scheduling the trip around meals, at this point. For example, right now I have made reservations for HDDR and the Luau. At 90 days out, I intend to nail down a character meal, something at CRT (maybe w/ characters, maybe not), and Fantasmic Dinner package, along with whatever other restaurants we decide on in the meantine.

It seems this ultimately dictates - to an extent - which park we we spend our days at. This isn't exactly optimal, since we don't know for sure when EMH is scheduled for, etc.

Is this the norm? I assume I can change my reservations for HDDR, etc if I want to re-arrange my itinerary, but would hate to give up my early reservation (and presumably better seats) because of that.

I suppose this would be a little different if the kids had been before and we had a better idea of exactly what we wanted to do.

Just was curious if this meal-focused itinerary is normal, and if there are any strategies people use to deal with this.

Thanks,
Todd

 

[Minerva]

I've been to WDW 3 times before, although the last time was 13 years ago for my honeymoon. This is my first trip with my family (DD7 and DD9).

Using info from voracious reading of the UG and this board, I feel like I'm pretty on top of things for our trip this Sept/Oct.

What I find interesting is that I seem to be scheduling the trip around meals, at this point. For example, right now I have made reservations for HDDR and the Luau. At 90 days out, I intend to nail down a character meal, something at CRT (maybe w/ characters, maybe not), and Fantasmic Dinner package, along with whatever other restaurants we decide on in the meantine.

It seems this ultimately dictates - to an extent - which park we we spend our days at. This isn't exactly optimal, since we don't know for sure when EMH is scheduled for, etc.

Is this the norm? I assume I can change my reservations for HDDR, etc if I want to re-arrange my itinerary, but would hate to give up my early reservation (and presumably better seats) because of that.

I suppose this would be a little different if the kids had been before and we had a better idea of exactly what we wanted to do.

Just was curious if this meal-focused itinerary is normal, and if there are any strategies people use to deal with this.

Thanks,
Todd

I've got a couple of park days that are pretty much set in stone so I'm comfortable with making definite meal plans for those nights. We'll be in MK one night for MVMCP and I want to eat in the castle before the party, our next to last day is the day we'll go to AK and we'll just stay there til we're done then relax around the resort and go to O'Hanna for our last night dinner, the next morning we'll do breakfast at Chef Mickey before we head out for our last hours in the parks. None of that is going to change. For the other days I know where I want to eat and I'm pretty sure I know which days we'll be in which parks but if Disney switches something around I'll keep the same meals and just switch the dates. Keep in mind that pretty much everyone that plans ahead is in the same boat as you and if you have to do some switching others will be too and some will be switching away from where you want to eat that night because they want to avoid the EMH stuff so it really shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

[HenDuck]

For some people, vacations, no matter where, are all about eating. If that's the case, plan your special meals first.

For us, it's all about the attractions. We want to make sure we get as much park time in as possible.

We eat only when we have to. We stop for ice cream everyday because that's important to us. But we're happy to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at the hotel or vacation home.

We do enjoy a great meal and character meals and do make time for a few of these.

We usually work our planning around how many parks and how many days we have. We make PSs for character meals or other special things. We always make time for shopping and usually one day for rest.

Of course, money is an issue too. So we don't go overboard on the things that don't matter that much to us.

As long as you get to do what you want to do, you're planning it right.

Good luck!