How do you feel about the pre-planning involved with a Disney trip?

[KCValerie1]

Let me begin by stating that I would consider myself a Disney veteran. We have been DVC members since 1998 and have visited more times than I am comfortable admitting to!

We have seen a lot of changes at Disney through the years, some I have loved and others not so much. However, I would love to hear everyone's input on the pre-planning that is necessary at this time.

I'm sure that this has been debated many times, but I have been absent from the boards for a while, as we have been so disappointed that we no longer wish to go. However, for the first time I have DVC points that will expire if I don't use them...so I am going to visit instead of losing the points.

I can virtually not get dinner at any restaurant that I want. I can eat at 2:40, 4:30 but that's about it! Plus I have to guarantee with a CC, I know that I can cancel 24 hours in advance, but they do not budge on the 24 hour cancellation. I find it frustrating that if I call the morning of they will still charge me! Not to mention I can't get the restaurants that I want anyway. Anyone else feel this way/have suggestions? I have always loved the sit down restaurants at WDW, counter service food simply does not sit well with me.

Then we move to FP+. I love to plan ahead, but I find it incredibly restrictive that I have to choose the park, ride and time 60 days in advance, not to mention only 3 with no park hopping. Yes, I know that I can get more after the 3, but by that time availability is so limited it makes the option virtually useless.

If I wake up and it's pouring rain, yet that's the only day that I could get 7DMT I'm stuck at MK getting soaked! In the past I was on an even keel with every other guest and could opt to go to another park that might be a little more friendly to wet conditions.

Am I the only one? How do I get past the frustration and find the magic again? Literally some of our favorite family memories at WDW, now the cast members are not as friendly and everywhere I turn I find yet another less than magical moment.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I'm over it. Sold over half my DVC points. Making a few long weekends for Food & Wine.

Next year I am going to Spain and Montana.

 

[KCValerie1]

That's what my husband says. I guess I'm holding out for grand kids...but wondering if it's worth it! Maybe the best thing is to sell. Shame that Disney isn't listening to their faithful guests.

 

[Disneylover99]

Let me begin by stating that I would consider myself a Disney veteran. We have been DVC members since 1998 and have visited more times than I am comfortable admitting to!

We have seen a lot of changes at Disney through the years, some I have loved and others not so much. However, I would love to hear everyone's input on the pre-planning that is necessary at this time.

I'm sure that this has been debated many times, but I have been absent from the boards for a while, as we have been so disappointed that we no longer wish to go. However, for the first time I have DVC points that will expire if I don't use them...so I am going to visit instead of losing the points.

I can virtually not get dinner at any restaurant that I want. I can eat at 2:40, 4:30 but that's about it! Plus I have to guarantee with a CC, I know that I can cancel 24 hours in advance, but they do not budge on the 24 hour cancellation. I find it frustrating that if I call the morning of they will still charge me! Not to mention I can't get the restaurants that I want anyway. Anyone else feel this way/have suggestions? I have always loved the sit down restaurants at WDW, counter service food simply does not sit well with me.

Then we move to FP+. I love to plan ahead, but I find it incredibly restrictive that I have to choose the park, ride and time 60 days in advance, not to mention only 3 with no park hopping. Yes, I know that I can get more after the 3, but by that time availability is so limited...

If I wake up and it's pouring rain, yet that's the only day that I could get 7DMT I'm stuck at MK getting soaked! In the past I was on an even keel with every other guest and could opt to go to another park that might be a little more friendly to wet conditions.

Am I the only one? How do I get past the frustration and find the magic again? Literally some of our favorite family memories at WDW, now the cast members are not as friendly and everywhere I turn I find yet another less than magical moment.

I don't mind the advanced planning, but if it bothers you, don't do it until the day before each park. You'll probably find more fp and ADR availability then you would 1 to 2 months out.

As for SDMT......if you wake up and it's pouring rain, chances are SDMT is going to be shut down anyways, so go where you want.

 

[stobaugh6]

I don't mind the advanced planning, BUT we only go to WDW every few years, I plan my trips out a year in advance, and I'm an obsessive planner by nature. Lol! I can totally see where the OP is coming from though. I would be highly annoyed if by chance we were able to take a trip with only a couple months to plan and I wasn't able to get any ADRs or the fast passes I wanted for my family.

 

[KCValerie1]

I don't mind the advanced planning, but if it bothers you, don't do it until the day before each park. You'll probably find more fp and ADR availability then you would 1 to 2 months out.

As for SDMT......if you wake up and it's pouring rain, chances are SDMT is going to be shut down anyways, so go where you want.

I was just using SDMT as an example, so you are saying you don't mind going to the parks and not being able to ride the rides that you want without waiting in line for several hours? Just curious...

 

[KCValerie1]

I don't mind the advanced planning, BUT we only go to WDW every few years, I plan my trips out a year in advance, and I'm an obsessive planner by nature. Lol! I can totally see where the OP is coming from though. I would be highly annoyed if by chance we were able to take a trip with only a couple months to plan and I wasn't able to get any ADRs or the fast passes I wanted for my family.

I miss the day's when I could plan a year out! Unfortunately, I am no longer in control of the kids schedule. I feel like Disney has made it impossible to plan a last minute trip!

I too am an obsessive planner! It use to be half the fun for me! Not any longer.

 

[Accident]

Stop planning like many have done. Planning for us is literally get 1 or 2 adrs. best effort on fp+ for the days we think we might be in what parks and go and enjoy.. I spend more time in the drug store picking up travel sizes than I do plannign for disney.

Key things that help is:
1: same day fastpasses are much more plentiful now. starting about noon you'll be shocked what pops up and most people are still busy with their first set of 3 to notice them.

2: 6-8 fastpasses for short line rides saves about 1-2 hours of wait time so the 1-2 rides you wait 30 minutes for is actually less time in line than someone that had fastpasses and still waiting 20 minutes for them because fastpass isn't walk on. I actually spend less time in line when you add it up at the end of the day than most people by using fastpass+ different. Also during certain times, especially in the evening areas of each park when they are dead and you can just do those short line rides as no line rides and save even more time and not need fastpasses.

3: you have to cancel and adr 24 hours in advance. so the night before, check the hourly weather for the next day, pick the park your all in the mood for and look for adrs near midnight and you'll be shocked what wonderful ones are there to choose from. and be ready to choose from what's available, don't go nuts over the exact time and place you wanted is closed. this is basicall yhow the epcot system used to you, you went inot the park, you spoke to someone that told you what was available and you picked.. it was simple and easy.


What this allows is:
1: sleep in when we're tired.
2: eating at table service when we're ready for it.
3: swap parks when the crowds or weather isn't workig for us
4: swap parks when we made a mistake and not in the mood for where we are.
5: wake up and then decide where we are going, if we even go to a park at all.
6: walk around and just really enjoy the place, rediscover things you forgot about, discover things you never noticed. it really changed the place for us when we stopped having a schedule to follow.

Now I recently moved here and this is what a day tripper looks like:

1: decide some point during the day your heading to a park or meal
2: look up adrs and fastpasses and get what you feel like that moment.
3: head out and have a blast getting into lines that you feel like doing when your there..

It's exactly the same style, your just doing some preplanning in case you end up some places before hand and you know you'll have the full day there to do even more.

 

[Disneylover99]

I was just using SDMT as an example, so you are saying you don't mind going to the parks and not being able to ride the rides that you want without waiting in line for several hours? Just curious...

No. I hate waiting in lines. I just know I plan my fp's 60 days out and then when we get there, we almost always change our park days, day of or the day before anyways. I've never had difficulty getting good Fp's. If there was something we really wanted to do, but no fp's were available, we would rope drop and do it, or go late at night.

 

[bigmac5]

I like planning however Disney is making it difficult to plan by not giving any information. We are going in January...Will Star Wars fireworks be back in the new year? Will river of Lights be rolling out? I have snagged several ADR's that I will be giving up depending on what is happening. I know this is not fair to others waiting for ADR's but Disney needs to get its act together.

 

[DrunkJam]

I don't like it. It feels like a second job, not a holiday.
I am happy to take my children but we will not be going again.
(we knew this, despite having got married there, but, even if we were in the market for another big splurge holiday, it would be somewhere that actually provided holiday, rather than chore)

 

[Disneylover99]

I like planning however Disney is making it difficult to plan by not giving any information. We are going in January...Will Star Wars fireworks be back in the new year? Will river of Lights be rolling out? I have snagged several ADR's that I will be giving up depending on what is happening. I know this is not fair to others waiting for ADR's but Disney needs to get its act together.

Don't feel bad about hanging on to ADR's. Somebody will eventually benefit from them when you're ready to let them go.

 

[KCValerie1]

Thanks for the advice Accident. The problem I have is that I have to cancel my dinner reservation by 2:30 the day before! I may or may not know if it will work for me. At this point I think I will cancel all of them. I will check the day of to see what's available but not sure how to handle it when there is nothing available. Maybe I'll get lucky?

 

[KCValerie1]

I don't like it. It feels like a second job, not a holiday.
I am happy to take my children but we will not be going again.
(we knew this, despite having got married there, but, even if we were in the market for another big splurge holiday, it would be somewhere that actually provided holiday, rather than chore)

I feel like there is zero magic in being turned away from restaurants and waiting in long lines!

 

[DrunkJam]

I feel like there is zero magic in being turned away from restaurants and waiting in long lines!

exactly, so, since we can't try again, wait til next time etc, I know that in order to have the vacation we want, we have to put in the work. So, I HOPE that the actual holiday will feel better than this, but, right now, it would not take much for me to give up my deposit and cancel the whole thing.

 

[loves to dive]

Stop planning like many have done. Planning for us is literally get 1 or 2 adrs. best effort on fp+ for the days we think we might be in what parks and go and enjoy.. I spend more time in the drug store picking up travel sizes than I do plannign for disney.

Key things that help is:
1: same day fastpasses are much more plentiful now. starting about noon you'll be shocked what pops up and most people are still busy with their first set of 3 to notice them.

2: 6-8 fastpasses for short line rides saves about 1-2 hours of wait time so the 1-2 rides you wait 30 minutes for is actually less time in line than someone that had fastpasses and still waiting 20 minutes for them because fastpass isn't walk on. I actually spend less time in line when you add it up at the end of the day than most people by using fastpass+ different. Also during certain times, especially in the evening areas of each park when they are dead and you can just do those short line rides as no line rides and save even more time and not need fastpasses.

3: you have to cancel and adr 24 hours in advance. so the night before, check the hourly weather for the next day, pick the park your all in the mood for and look for adrs near midnight and you'll be shocked what wonderful ones are there to choose from. and be ready to choose from what's available, don't go nuts over the exact time and place you wanted is closed. this is basicall yhow the epcot system used to you, you went inot the park, you spoke to someone that told you what was available and you picked.. it was simple and easy.


What this allows is:
1: sleep in when we're tired.
2: eating at table service when we're ready for it.
3: swap parks when the crowds or weather isn't workig for us
4: swap parks when we made a mistake and not in the mood for where we are.
5: wake up and then decide where we are going, if we even go to a park at all.
6: walk around and just really enjoy the place, rediscover things you forgot about, discover things you never noticed. it really changed the place for us when we stopped having a schedule to follow.

Now I recently moved here and this is what a day tripper looks like:

1: decide some point during the day your heading to a park or meal
2: look up adrs and fastpasses and get what you feel like that moment.
3: head out and have a blast getting into lines that you feel like doing when your there..

It's exactly the same style, your just doing some preplanning in case you end up some places before hand and you know you'll have the full day there to do even more.

This. You can go have fun and make no ADRs in advance and make FPs the night before or the day of. I never make ADRs in advance, I make them while we are walking around and decide we are hungry. I hop on MDE either decide what time I want to eat or what park/resort I want to eat at and see what's available. I've never not been able to find somewhere to eat. As to not being able to find something where you want to eat, that might be why we find it so easy. We rarely know what we want to eat so when we look to see what's available we often decide on something we had no clue we might want. I book FPs the night before and normally only book 1 or 2, I was there the first week of F&W and literally booked one FP the entire time I was there and that was while I was in line for another ride. No I don't mind waiting in line for 20 or 30 minutes, I'm an adult, my son is an adult, there is no where else we have to be and have been going since before any kind of fast pass when you had to wait in line. Even when he was a toddler we waited in line if we really wanted to ride a ride. The only thing I didn't ride my last trip was FEA and the only reason I didn't ride it was because I didn't want to. I didn't ride RNRC, Star Tours, Space Mountain or Mission Space but all of those were because we don't ever ride those, back problems and nausea problems. All had FPs available the day of.

 

[Alesia]

Thanks for the advice Accident. The problem I have is that I have to cancel my dinner reservation by 2:30 the day before! I may or may not know if it will work for me. At this point I think I will cancel all of them. I will check the day of to see what's available but not sure how to handle it when there is nothing available. Maybe I'll get lucky?

There are a lot of great quick service options.

 

[KCValerie1]

There are a lot of great quick service options.

Agreed, there are a lot of quick serve options, I have tried most of them and know from experience that I do not care for them. I know how that sounds, but one of many things I that I have liked at WDW is the ability to have a decent meal in a civilized location. I literally hate trying to scarf down a terrible burger or pizza standing because there are no tables available. I much prefer (and am willing to pay for) a nice cobb salad at Brown Derby or Pizza at Via Napoli for instance.

 

[Accident]

Thanks for the advice Accident. The problem I have is that I have to cancel my dinner reservation by 2:30 the day before! I may or may not know if it will work for me. At this point I think I will cancel all of them. I will check the day of to see what's available but not sure how to handle it when there is nothing available. Maybe I'll get lucky?

Unless it's changed, I know disney words it as 24 hours but it's really the day before you need to cancel it. The local part of me, generally about 3-4 in the afternoon I know I don't want to cook dinner and head out to eat (and want to hit disney). I can usually find somewhere in the area I want to go with a time slot. Now it might not be when you would eat dinner normally but its never been in the way of anything else. When I check the night before (meaning around midnight) I can find just about any place I want to eat, even the mega hard ones to find.

Give it a shot this trip. you'll find out fast if you can't cancel it that late and look for a new reservation first. I beelive the app will ask if you want an overlapping adr replaced with the new one when you find it. Right now your convinced you have to plan to find something good and that's just not the case. if it doesn't work out, you have the situation you hate that you do now but when it does work out, you'll end up in a different park having a better time. even if it only works once or twice, you score and have fixed a couple days and get an idea what this style is like for a future trip.

There are a lot of great quick service options.

Agreed, there are a lot of quick serve options, I have tried most of them and know from experience that I do not care for them. I know how that sounds, but one of many things I that I have liked at WDW is the ability to have a decent meal in a civilized location. I literally hate trying to scarf down a terrible burger or pizza standing because there are no tables available. I much prefer (and am willing to pay for) a nice cobb salad at Brown Derby or Pizza at Via Napoli for instance.

How often do you come because many have revamped their menus in the last year or two. not saying your wrong and some are annoying but they all aren't. There are a lot of hidden gems usually in the form of a specific meal they make all over the place. Also with your example, brown derby has a counter service window and generally plenty of seats just outside of it. it's actually one of my favorite places to eat.

I only have trouble finding a seat when it's "meal time". if you can be flexible with eating a hair earlier or later from what most would consider dinner time it will make a very big difference on quality and finding that seat. not all families have that luxory but maybe get lunch a little earlier and dinner a little earlier so there is that gap where you are hungry before the 5-7 dinner rush. also the dinner rush there is a drop in wait times and you score twice with a seat for dinner and a couple rides a little faster while peopel go off and eat

 

[KCValerie1]

Unless it's changed, I know disney words it as 24 hours but it's really the day before you need to cancel it. The local part of me, generally about 3-4 in the afternoon I know I don't want to cook dinner and head out to eat (and want to hit disney). I can usually find somewhere in the area I want to go with a time slot. Now it might not be when you would eat dinner normally but its never been in the way of anything else. When I check the night before (meaning around midnight) I can find just about any place I want to eat, even the mega hard ones to find.

Give it a shot this trip. you'll find out fast if you can't cancel it that late and look for a new reservation first. I beelive the app will ask if you want an overlapping adr replaced with the new one when you find it. Right now your convinced you have to plan to find something good and that's just not the case. if it doesn't work out, you have the situation you hate that you do now but when it does work out, you'll end up in a different park having a better time. even if it only works once or twice, you score and have fixed a couple days and get an idea what this style is like for a future trip.





How often do you come because many have revamped their menus in the last year or two. not saying your wrong and some are annoying but they all aren't. There are a lot of hidden gems usually in the form of a specific meal they make all over the place. Also with your example, brown derby has a counter service window and generally plenty of seats just outside of it. it's actually one of my favorite places to eat.

I only have trouble finding a seat when it's "meal time". if you can be flexible with eating a hair earlier or later from what most would consider dinner time it will make a very big difference on quality and finding that seat. not all families have that luxory but maybe get lunch a little earlier and dinner a little earlier so there is that gap where you are hungry before the 5-7 dinner rush. also the dinner rush there is a drop in wait times and you score twice with a seat for dinner and a couple rides a little faster while peopel go off and eat

Thank you so much! This is very helpful!

I wasn't aware that Brown Derby added a counter service. My last visit was June/July 2015 and we didn't see it at that time. Can you tell me where I can find it? I know that on one side of the restaurant are the bathrooms and the outside smoking area, the other side is starring rolls. Have they added something?

Any other gems you could share?

Once again thanks for the encouragement!