How do you go about planning your day?

[Steven G]

I use the plans at touringplans, and customize my plan there.

Do I actually follow the plan? Yes and no. I use it as an overarching idea of where we are going next, and approx when we should be there.

If I am to be honest, you should really try to follow the plan as best you can in the morning, and by 11:00am you should have a good idea of how busy the park will be that day, and adjust the plan based on that.

As others have mentioned, kids can easily cause you to scrap the plan, or modify, especially if they get tired or distracted.

The only other suggestion is to have any and all shows that you want to see during the busy afternoon. It's a nice break from the crowds. Never do shows in the morning unless there is no other option, since that is least busy time in general. The other thing to suggest is to try and do the less busy rides during afternoon if you don't want to watch shows. Or just go back to hotel for rest/swimtime. If we are at DCA then we always hit the animation studio building in the afternoon.

Note that if the park is at an 8 or higher, the touringplans become very unreliable, especially if touringplans thinks that the day should be less crowded... which has happened to me lately.

 

[agamble]

I had a plan last Friday. We were going to be some of the first in line for HSM, and then I had a plan for doing other headliners after that for the first hour. We got to the rope (that day they had the rope at the end of Main Street, right before Plaza Inn, rather than one per land). Well, my friend and I were at the rope with our two little blonde girls (ages 7 and 8) dressed identically in the blue dress from the live Cinderella movie. Some BTMRR CMs were getting a few people to ride before official opening, and they chose our girls. So that was the end of the HSM rope drop plan. We rolled with it, because - pixie dust! We did HSM later with FP. It's all good. If you're there at rope drop, and you know what you're going to do next, that's really all you need.

That's awesome!

 

[agamble]

The only other suggestion is to have any and all shows that you want to see during the busy afternoon. It's a nice break from the crowds. Never do shows in the morning unless there is no other option, since that is least busy time in general.

This is why we haven't seen the Beauty and the Beast show yet. We will have to make it a priority this year. We saw Tangled twice (or 1 1/2 times since it was cancelled mid-show) and also saw that Frozen show, but Beauty in the Beast is the first showing, so we missed it.

 

[GatorChris]

The only problem with a hard plan is that Disneyland seems to have a lot of breaksdowns - especially at the beginning of the day. On our last two trips when we planned to "go left" at the beginning of the day, either Big Thunder or Splash Mt or both were down. That can really throw a wrench in what you do when you go a certain direction. Same if you go right and Space Mt or Matterhorn is down. That's why we wing it. A hard plan will add even more frustration to a ride going down.

 

[Winnowill]

This is why we haven't seen the Beauty and the Beast show yet. We will have to make it a priority this year. We saw Tangled twice (or 1 1/2 times since it was cancelled mid-show) and also saw that Frozen show, but Beauty in the Beast is the first showing, so we missed it.

This past weekend, Tangled was the first three and BatB were the last two, so you may luck out.

 

[agamble]

This past weekend, Tangled was the first three and BatB were the last two, so you may luck out.

Oh that would be so nice. I prefer to do shows in the afternoon when it's busy and hot and ride rides in the morning when the lines are shorter.