Help/advice with Planning!!!

[Janine1983]

Hey,

We're going for 3 weeks on 23rd October this year.

We want to do near enough everything. We're a party of 4 adults and 3 children (2, 12 & 14) It'll be my step mums first time and the 3 kiddies too.

But I have no idea how to plan this!! We have ultimate 21 day disney ticket, and 2 weeks unlimited for US/IOA/SW/AQ/BG.

Halloween is my birthday, and we have 2 nights booked (28th & 29th) for HHN. (dad and his wife go 1st night, then hubby and I second night) Other then that we have nothing else booked.

How on earth do I go about this, we booked the 3rd week to enable us to fit nearly all parks in and to have 'days off' as I know how hectic is can be having been 6 times before.

Any help/advice would be great!! Could I maybe see your planning if you dont mind? Would be good to see how diff people see disney and want to get the best out of it! xx

THANK YOU!! xx

 

[Pegasus928]

What we did was to start with a grid like the one below and went from there.
We had a list from my Sis - as it's her first time going so we wanted to make sure we could fit in everything she wants to do - and then started to put stuff in based on the days that they were available (e.g. MNSSHP, any dinner reservations we wanted etc)
We soon got to see if we had a late night one night that we couldnt do some of the things in the mornings that we wanted to do - so we had to make some adjustments.
We are now on something like revision 10 - and I am sure it will change again before we go.

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[loobylou44]

We have also done a spreadsheet, and ours has changed numerous times also! And even once we get there we will vary things a little as we go along, we use the plan as a guide. One important thing to remember is if you are staying offsite you need to avoid EMH at the Disney Parks.

 

[Janine1983]

Spreasheet sounds like a fab idea! Thanks for that!

Also, EMH is that early magic hours? Can I ask why we should avoid disney on these days? xx

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

Hi there - 3 weeks will pass really quickly - but with everything you are going to do it will be great

I normally write each day down on a sheet of paper and then normally allocate a park or swim park to each day - I normally check crowd calendars to get an idea of what parks they suggest to see if I want to move any to fit around the crowd guides.

If you are making ADRs for eating in a park - then you know what day you will be there.

If you go to a water park for the day - in the evening you might go to DTD or The Boardwalk?

I'm sure you'll fill out your planner once you start.

 

[Janine1983]

A crowd calander?? They do these??? xx

 

[~Piglet~]

EMH is that early magic hours? Can I ask why we should avoid disney on these days? xx

If there is an EMH day at MK on a Monday for example, then you (probably)wouldn't choose to go to MK on that Monday if you are staying off-site, as most of those guests staying onsite would be at MK to take advantage of the EMH day. HTH

 

[wilma-bride]

We started by making a list of all the parks we wanted to visit and anything else we wanted to fit oin, like shopping, water parks etc.

Then I used the Touring Plans webiste to establish the best days to visit and we started to slot things in to a grid very similar to that used by Pegasus.

We also made a note of how often we wanted to visit, for example for Epcot we have a morning and an afternoon scheduled and for MK we have a full day and an evening.

 

[gaston_the_great]

Spreadsheets seem to be the best method for planning, i know that for our next trip, we have a spreadsheet all planned out, just so that we do not have to waste time deciding on what/where to go and do!
It can take a while to do, but will be well worth it in the long run!

 

[VailaTigger]

I too have a spreadsheet, with the days, and morning afternoon and evening like Pegasus. Version 3 so far... and plenty more to come I'm sure!

I used the Brits Guide to Orlando as my main reference tool (WELL worth it!) and will also contact them nearer the time to buy a detailed personalised plan (1st time visiting with kids, and 1st time visiting at a busy time of year - I ain't takin' no chances! )

Use the busy day guides to select what days the parks are quiet, avoid EMH (I'm staying onsite and still avoiding them), and allow as many days as you think you'll want for each park. I generally follow 2 days for MK, 2 days for Epcot, and one each for HS and AK. Then leave a couple of "spare" days to go back if we haven't done all we want in that allocation. Factor in "rest" days every 2 or 3 days, for a water park, a long lie, shopping, DTD etc. You can then see where you might want to eat each day, and plan in any ADR's you need to do. Also plan in the parades and fireworks displays. This is just for Disney, but the same thing works for the other parks too. I've left a day for SeaWorld in my plan too.

My other plan is to get up early, see and do all we can until we're tired or the parks get too busy, then head back to the hotel for a siesta or swim. If we have dinner bookings we can head back to the parks for those.

Having said that, I think you're going at a relatively quiet time of year, so your plans can probably be a little more flexible than mine!

Hope you have a wonderful holiday, and happy planning.

 

[Danauk]

I too have tables for everything (I'm not a fan of spreadsheets, I prefer to do tables in word.)
I have a table for the days we have decided to do what, so I have:

Date Morning Lunch Afternoon Dinner Evening

There I can note down the park we plan to go to (inc EMH hours if applicable), what time we need to leave our resort to arrive for rope drop, where we plan to eat (if it is table service I note theADR number) and can add any other notes such as parade and firework times.

I also have tables for the best day info in case we have to change our plans for what ever reason whilst we are there.

I then keep a seperate table with all our dining confirmations on.

Because we go at a busy time I also use ridemax to help with daily plans. I create daily plans for each theme park and put those into a table as well. I create a few different daily plans in case we arrive later than planned at the park.

Then I upload all these tables onto my iphone so that I have easy access to all this info when I am in the parks.

Finally I have one master word document with all the travel details, car hire details, hotel details, any tour confirmation numbers on etc. This also gets uploaded onto my iphone as well.

As you can see I love creating tables to help with our planning, but I find this very useful when there is a lot to consider to get the most out of your trip.

Happy planning.

 

[elainejacobs]

All the above and print it all out to a nice itinary - one thing not to forget do include all the zip/post codes makes like so much easier with the sat nav!