How do you decide which parks on which days?

[rcpae]

Do you use some type of guide? Does it depend on your PS's? I haven't made any PS's yet, so I'm not sure where to begin.

How do you map out your plan? We have 5 day park hoppers.

Also, once you decide what park you will be visiting on each day...do you then get even more detailed and "loosely" think about what areas and ride orders you will visit first?

This seems a little overwhelming.

Thanks

 

[emilymad]

Sorry, I don't have an answer for you but I wanted to subscribe to the thread. A friend is borrowing my UG and I feel lost!!

 

[brentalex]

You may get very many different suggestions, people do many different things. There are a number of guide books which have some suggestions, some with fairly detailed plans of which rides in which order depending upon your touring style. Since we usually stay on site, we most often take advantage of the EMH at the parks. It does mean waking up early to get to the park close to when it opens, but we often find that we can get a lot done in a short time before the park gets too full. Since we can only go when our kids have school breaks it means the parks are usually crowded, so the early hour does allow us to get stuff done before the parks get too full. After that we may leave the EMH park and go to one of the other parks where it may be less crowded. We have used the Unofficial Guide book and its touring suggestions, but do not worry if we don't exactly follow it. If we come upon an attraction that we want to see and it is not on the plan,but it is not crowded, we go.
Knowing what you want to do is fairly important. Having no plan can overwhelm you. But having too detailed a plan can also drive you crazy.
Most of all try to have fun.

 

[ncbyrne]

touringplans.com

 

[exwdwcm]

we are already starting planning on our early Dec 2005 trip. we try and do the following to help us along:

1- find park hours (or historical if not yet released)
2- identify early magic mornings, nights or other special events like MVMCP you want to do
3- decide which EMH mornings we want to do- we try and do one in each park, so that's 4 early mornings
4- schedule at least one night in each park to see nighttime fireworks each place
5- we hop- do one park (early entry) in the am, leave by noon, take a break at hotel/swim, then head to another park at night.
6- we try and spend our last night at MK and we decide how much time our group wants to spend in each park- usually more time devoted to MK and epcot
7- we also try and schedule a break day in the middle where we won't visit a park at all, but tour resorts, do dinner at Cali grill or hotel character meal etc.

from there, we try and figure out our schedule and THEN we make our PS around that, depending on which park we are in, we schedule meals there. So far that works for us and we were able to see so much and avoid lines on our last trip. hope that helps!

 

[disneykid1961]

Having just returned from a great 1st trip with the kids, I swear by Touringplans.com. I also got alot of info from the unofficial guide. Here's what I thought was helpful:
Check our which parks are open late, and go to that park early the next day. For instance, on a wednesday when we were there, MK had a late night, and we had a manageable crowd level when we where there on the following day. I think the recommendations on the website are very helpful. Not perfect, but I can vouch that we did not wait in a line for longer than 30 minutes.

We were early risers and saw headliner attractions (and rode everything in fantasyland, some even twice!) by 11:00 am. Used FP if lines were approaching 45 minutes. Used child swap to let DS what he wanted. Also, bring cell phones if you do decide to break up for an hour or two. DD and I spent time getting autographs in Toon Town while Dad and DS rode space mountain. Then we hooked up and he got to ride with me using the child swap pass.

Took a break to escape the heat in the afternoon. Came back to a new park around 5-6 for the evening. Check out touring plans...it also had some great advice on parade viewing, quick exits to same time out of the park, all the times of entertainment.

I felt fairly in control of the adventure after doing some research and coming up with a touring plan. We did the best we could and it was a memorable trip!
have fun!

ps: just thought of this...a friend suggested not going to MK first because all will be a disappointment after that especially if kids are young. We went to AK first, then hit MK that night for Wishes, MK full day, full-day Epcot, then MGM and back to MK for evening.

 

[NCombs]

I am going by the suggestions from my Tour Guide Mike subscription. The logic makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[Claudia Kellenberger]

Because I vacation solo, and my age is 51, my touring plans may be different than most people's with kids. First of all, I refuse to use an alarm clock, unless I am meeting someone for breakfast. I let my body tell me when I am done resting !

1. I plan "which park - what day" on the basis of totally avoiding the extra
magic hour in the morning.

2. I only make a couple of PS's to restaurants that I would hate to miss.
( Like the Sci-Fi in MGM )

3. Once I am actually In the park, I do not make any kind of plans. I just go
with the flow, and do whatever I want, whenever I want.

 

[mill4023]

I am going by the suggestions from my Tour Guide Mike subscription. The logic makes a lot of sense to me.

I also used TourGuideMike for our trip last month. I followed his recommendations on the best days for each park. I also followed his sample touring plans. Actually, I printed out his sample touring plans, best times for each attraction, and parade and show viewing tips all on 4x6 index cards and brought them to the parks with me in a soft-cover 4x6 photo album I bought at Target.
We were in Orlando from 4/28 - 5/7, spent 2 days at MK and 1 day at each of the other parks, and saw everything we wanted to see without ever waiting longer than 10 minutes in a line.

If you are willing to spend some time reading and planning your trip, I highly recommend subscribing to TGM. It's about $20 and he'll give you a full refund if you aren't satisfied.

 

[ktglads]

On some trips, it is done by going over park hours and nighttime schedules to make sure we see the shows we want to see.

On others, it is based on what events are going on in the parks during the day (ie Star Wars Weekends, MVMCP)

And on others, it depends on what bus comes first. Some times its best not to plan at all

I only make PSs far in advance for the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving since those days are so busy. Otherwise, I will make them in the morning at the park we are at. I have gotten them over the phone up to 2 hours before the actual time.

 

[mill4023]

Just another comment on planning vs not planning:
Everyone is different. If you enjoy going to the parks and just strolling around, doing whatever you want, that's great.
But if you have kids and want them to be able to go on lots of attractions without waiting in long lines, being at the parks before opening and having a plan is important.

I know lots of people say they just want it to be relaxing and they don't want to stress over the planning. But personally, I found it much more relaxing and stress-free to have a good plan. Using TGM, we were able to hit all the popular attractions without waiting much. Most days, we had hit the big rides by lunch, so the whole rest of the day, we could do whatever we felt like doing. I don't know about anybody else, but sleeping in, showing up around noon, then spending the day waiting in 60 minute lines with 4 kids is not my idea of a relaxing, stress-free vacation.

 

[tn_disney_addict]

Unless we have a breakfast PS, we decide when we get up and get ready for the day....
MOM: "What do you want to do today..."
DAD: "I don't know...what do you want to do today"
DD7: "Duh, I want to go the Magic Kingdom"...

We usually start there and hop to another park, unless we are doing Animal Kingdom, then we go there in the AM and hop to MK in the afternoon.

HAPPY PLANNING!