HELP!! I am having WDW planning meltdown!!

[tngal]

I am beginning to put together our first trip to WDW and I am completely overwhelmed! I need some major help. Could someone give me a step-by-step of what you do when you plan your trip? We have got our dates pinned down (not till May 2010) and sorta have an idea of what resort we want to stay at. How do you determine where you want to eat and what day to eat there? Any help, suggestions, etc would be very greatful. Do you think I would be better off trying to continue to do this myself or to try and get a travel agent?

Thanks!!!

Lisa

 

[PrincessBetsy]

I am beginning to put together our first trip to WDW and I am completely overwhelmed! I need some major help. Could someone give me a step-by-step of what you do when you plan your trip? We have got our dates pinned down (not till May 2010) and sorta have an idea of what resort we want to stay at. How do you determine where you want to eat and what day to eat there? Any help, suggestions, etc would be very greatful. Do you think I would be better off trying to continue to do this myself or to try and get a travel agent?

Thanks!!!

Lisa

It's really exciting to be planning your first trip!! You will definitely be able to plan it and you don't need a travel agent. First, I would purchase The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. It is a wonderful book with lots of tips. Also make sure you order the free DVD from the WDW website. It lists all of the resorts and shows you what each are like. Do you know if you are going to stay at a Value, Moderate, or Deluxe resort yet? You also need to decide if you are going to be on the Disney Dining Plan. I find that if you don't want to go to a ton of Table Service Restaurants, then you can save a lot of money by not using the DDP. To determine which restaurants are the best for you, check out allearsnet (http://allears.net/index.html). Each restaurant is listed with a complete menu. Since you are not going until 2010, I wouldn't worry about which day you are going to eat at what restaurants yet. I would determine that once the park hours are released for May 2010. That way you can decide what parks you will visit on which days, then plan your meals to fit in with you schedule. I have a planner that I modified that I got from another Dis member. I can email it to you if you would like. I hope this helps and I would love to answer any other questions you have! Have fun planning your trip!!

 

[tngal]

It's really exciting to be planning your first trip!! You will definitely be able to plan it and you don't need a travel agent. First, I would purchase The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. It is a wonderful book with lots of tips. Also make sure you order the free DVD from the WDW website. It lists all of the resorts and shows you what each are like. Do you know if you are going to stay at a Value, Moderate, or Deluxe resort yet? You also need to decide if you are going to be on the Disney Dining Plan. I find that if you don't want to go to a ton of Table Service Restaurants, then you can save a lot of money by not using the DDP. To determine which restaurants are the best for you, check out allearsnet (http://allears.net/index.html). Each restaurant is listed with a complete menu. Since you are not going until 2010, I wouldn't worry about which day you are going to eat at what restaurants yet. I would determine that once the park hours are released for May 2010. That way you can decide what parks you will visit on which days, then plan your meals to fit in with you schedule. I have a planner that I modified that I got from another Dis member. I can email it to you if you would like. I hope this helps and I would love to answer any other questions you have! Have fun planning your trip!!

thank you so much for your help! I will def. pick up that book. I've read the passporter for WDW and Birnbaums for WDW, but all the info i can get is even better. I would love to have the planner you mentioned. I will PM you with my email. Thank you again!

Lisa

 

[3princesses+aprince]

And just hang out here on the boards a lot over the next year. We just got back from our first trip to Disney World, we were there May 12-19th, it was amazing, you're gonna love it. I learned so many things here on the boards and you will too. We're all ready to start planning our trip for next year too. I think we're going with September this time around

 

[RangerPooh]

Once we pick our dates we look at our budget to decide where we are going to stay. These days we haev DVC but in the past we would bounce between POR (moderate) and WL (a deluxe), if the grandparents were coming FW cabins.

Next take a look at the possible restruants availabe for your family. Are you interested in character meals, buffets, quick service? Allearsnet.com lists many of the menus avaialble. Also Burnbaums books are good for reviews and an overview of the resturant. Ask you family what ind of food they ar einterested in? Are there any characters that they would like to see? What is your price range? Read some of the reviews here for suggestions.

When it ocmes to making my dining ressies I take a look at what the park horus will be during our trip. This usually influences which parks we will be at each day. From here I make an outlines of where we would like to eat on each day.

Call at the 90 day window for your ressies. If certain resturants aren't avaialbale continue with what you have. Go back to your drawing baord and come up with a few others and then call back to see what's available.

Start on lists; lists of clothes to take with you, lists of what you need to buy for the trip, etc.

Let the countdown begin!

 

[tngal]

Thank you to everyone for your advice. I will def. try all the suggestions posted. I really appreciate it!!

Lisa

 

[My2BabiesLexis&Dill]

I agree with the other posters. One thing I would NOT do is to go with a travel agent. Just my 2 cents.

 

[MickeyMouse'sBFF]

You dont need to go with a travel agent because you have the dis board to help you with all your travel questions. I dont think I EVER used an agent for our trips as it would lose all the fun in the planning.
The first thing you need to do is go buy a three clip folder. On the outside write with a permanent marker DISNEY 2010. Then ad some loose leaf paper in it and start writing ALL the little bits or info from these posts that you want to remember. Your gonna get a LOT of info about any question you have on disney world here.
I definately agree with the book reading too. I spent hours just reading in barns and noble from all their Disney world travel books in their travel section. I usualy buy one or two books to read at home, but I read the others there at the store. They are a huge help in planning.

 

[srwarden1928]

How do you determine where you want to eat and what day to eat there?

I start with how many park days I have for the trip and decide how many days to go to each park. Then I consult the recommended days calendar from touringplans.com to fit that into which park on which day. Then I start to make some decisions about ADRs (and CS). Any park restaurants of course must be on days we are visiting that park. (We do NOT hop.) This is most limiting at Epcot and somewhat at DHS since we LOVE 50s Prime Time and sometimes want a Fantasmic package. We then look for natural matches. AKL restaurants with AK, monorail resort restaurants with MK. We fit any DTD restaurants when we are going there. Any resort restaurant can fill into any dinner if travel is considered.

 

[Karenj2]

I like www.tourguidemike.com. When we go to WDW with my sister is to pick when, then pick where we want to stay, then get on TGM to find out which parks to go on what day, then figure out where we want to eat in/around each parks, then make our ADRs, then read the DISboards 'til the trip (and listen to www.subsonicradio.com for Disney Park music.



Enjoy your planning!

 

[cassandrap83]

Okay, so we just decided we were going to Disney in September about a month ago. Here are the steps I have taken so far to plan (and future steps)

1. Ordered "The Unofficial Guide" off of ebay for like $6
2. Went on the WDW booking site and put in different combinations of dates and park tickets to get a ball park figure $$ amt.
3. Read "The Unofficial Guide" pretty much front to back
4. We're doing (FREE) Dining so I then printed out the list of DP restaurants and while referencing "The Unofficial Guide" and taking our own tastes into account, I highlights restaurants that I wanted to go to.
5. FOUND DIS BOARDS! since doing so I have been on this website multiple times a day, gathering all sorts of info
5. Officially booked my trip so now I have set days. I booked my airfare through expedia.com so that if the price goes down lower (it's already pretty cheap) they'll refund me the difference.


Now, it's just a waiting game for me. I need to see when the park hours are released for September (hopefully a few days now) so that I can decide what days we are going where (we're not doing hoppers).

Once I decide when we are going where, I will work in where to make my ADRs & then have alternates available if certain places are unavailable. Since we have never been there before, I don't care so much where we go because we've never experienced any of it before. I'm going mainly off of "The Unofficial Guide's" rec's and rec's of people here on DISBOARDS. Once I have all THAT figured out, I am going to call June 15th (my 90+10 date) and book my ADRs.

After that, I'm sure I'll just be micromanaging myself & redoing everything 100x!

Good Luck! Disney planning is like a disease!

 

[tngal]

Wow..more great info! I have confiscated one of my dd's 3 ring binders from this past school year and have loose leaf paper down on my shopping list

When I get the $$ I'm going to subscribe to the websites mentioned as well.

You guys are great!!!

 

[Trixie15]

After deciding dates, the next thing we do is pick which park we are going to be on which day. If you want to see Fantasmic! at DHS, for example, then you'll want to make sure you are at that park that evening. Check the park hours to see if you want to take advantage of EMH or not, see when the shows are that don't show every night.

Don't try to do too much at once with your planning. Pick a date to have your park schedule made and work on that for now. Then, when you know where you are going to be and when, start going through the menus. Start by picking out the restaurants that you KNOW you want to try if you have some. Then slowly fill it in so that you can be ready to call for reservations when your time period opens up to do so.

After that, if you choose to plan further, you could put together a general plan for each day. For example, if you are spending a day at Epcot, you might want to look at the listings for some of the street shows, so that you know approximately where you should be in the world showcase so that you don't miss it.

Most importantly, though, is to be flexible! Don't try to plan out what time you will be on which ride. It never seems to work out that way!

Good luck and have fun. Break it down into smaller pieces so that it doesn't get so overwhelming.

 

[Worfiedoodles]

Here's another great free planning tip -- you should listen to the Podcast! You will get a ton of information, reviews, previews, etc., and the Podcast crew gives great reports -- plus they're fun to listen to! There's a discussion show and an e-mail show most weeks, and you can listen right from your computer.

Since you have quite awhile before you are going, you will be able to listen to past and current shows, and get a feel for different venues at WDW and beyond. If you go to the main DIS page, you will see an orange icon for the podcast. There's also a Podcast discussion thread, which will have more information about various items from the shows -- sometimes photos and videos. The podcast crew has kids at various ages, they are various ages, and you get a good sense of what may or may not be a must do for your particular family.

Best of Luck, and you absolutely do not need a travel agent to plan a wonderful trip -- half the time they haven't been and don't know the ins and outs, anyway!

Maria