how do you keep track of your plans, in park?

[SpringSprite]

Excel is a mystery to me, so I'm not a spreadsheet girl, although I wish I had that talent!

I've been making generic lists on Word - day, ADR time/place, general sleep in/rope drop day info, etc. What do you include on your spreadsheet? I would love to add more to my lame Word docs.

I subscribed to Touring Plans and am making personalized plans with my FP+ choices and must do / want to do rides

I saw recently someone had laminated cards on a binder ring type of thing. Forget who it was but it was SO COOL If someone has the link for that thread I'd love to revisit and steal the idea.

How does everyone keep track IN the park? Phone? Printed out sheets? Memory? Notes on the park maps? Do you give them to family so everyone has their own?

TIA, my family is sick of hearing me already, so this'll be my fix for today

 

[Dallas_Lady]

I have evolved as technology evolves

Our first few trips I bought a Passporter and carried that around. It was big and bulky but it worked.

Then I started making little index sized cards that I laminated and bound together. Less bulky than the passporter.

On our last trip I kept it all on my smart phone in the notes app I used the Undercover Tourist app for maps, menus and wait times.

This trip I will use MDE as much as I can and supplement it with the notes app.

I will say the more I go, the less I need a printed plan, because I have a lot of things memorized. I haven't looked at a park map in years!

 

[BrianL]

I do keep a spredsheet, though word works jsu tfine too. I break it into boxes for each day, and enter my travel needs, park of the day and hours, adrs and FP+ and any confirmation numbers (for travel and dining). I'll also put show times for whatever I want to see.

For in the park, I print it onto a card-sized paper (two sided or even fold out depending on how long the trip is). I will laminate it, and by laminate I mean tape it to a peice of cardboard, and keep that in my wallet. The card has my entire trip on it, and no need to mess with the phone.

 

[Dreamport]

I'm pretty "old-school" when it comes to having notes, so I buy one of those pocket notebooks with 100 pages and hand write different things before the trips. One page holds MK showtimes we want to make, one for ADRs, one for character meets and one for best times we should hit our favorite rides. Rinse and repeat for the other parks. It's a lot of work, but the notepad fits very well into my small park bag and I can flip through the pages just as quickly as pulling up an app on my phone. Of course, that doesn't help with crowd calendars or anything. Most of the important things (one/two ADRs, a special show, etc) I tend to remember on my own.


Long-winded ramble over, if you have your days completely mapped out, then I'd print out a sheet to keep with you just in case technology is taking too slow to load or is temporarily down. But that's just my two cents.

 

[ericstac]

We set our plans up in MDE app for ADRs and FPs then we YOLO after that

No idea what we want to do until we are there.. We go nog though to know we will rope drop or early ADR and then hit test track, barnstormer, toy story mania, and other rides first while the getting is good.. But no set schedule.. This past weekend we totally changed up MK day. Had early ADR as usual but hit buzz ride, then the rocket ship ride atop of people mover...then.. We convinced the DS5,10,12 to ride space mountain!! It was a blast.. Where if we went by a planner we would of done barnstormer 2-3 times, then buzz ride, then over to big thunder mountain..

 

[CdnCarrie]

I use to jot down my touring plan and ADR numbers on index cards. I would tuck it into a pocket or bag for the day. For each day I had a card so I was only carrying one.

But we have been to WDW many times now and don't feel we need a touring plan. We know what the must dos in the morning are and that is all we really need to know. The ADRs are listed in the MDE. I did write those down and kept them in my wristlet as sometimes MDE took a while to load.

I do up our itinerary in Google Docs and print off a copy. But that is kept in my suitcase. Really I don't need it now as I can just check MDE so it may be the last trip I do this for.

 

[PEC]

I do an excel sheet for planning but once there I have memorized the Big Event (daily ADR if I have one) and when I go with FP+ I will remember the initial FP+. I think I did bring the excel sheet last time but I never actually looked at it in the park.
Keep in mind I had done the excel spreadsheet and studied it several times before arriving to WDW. I do try to minimize hard set times. Example if I have an ADR not at the park I give myself plenty of time to head to exit and to ensure I don't get stuck in a long wait times line or anything. I don't see FP+ reserved being a problem because there is an hour+ window for most of them.

 

[katt789]

As much as I LOVE the way of writing everything out in a notebook, down to colour coding everything, it's more a way of planning for me than actually carrying things out.

Beginning of the day, I'll go into the MDE app, and screenshot the fast passes/adr's that I have, and hope to try and remember what time they're all at From there, it just becomes a "hey, what is the thing/things you want to do most today" and we'll mentally map out the best way to do them, and go from there!

 

[heybravo626]

I create a plan in Excel and include ADR’s, FP+ times and overall touring plans. I print out one day per sheet and we take that with us. In addition, I save the Excel doc as a PDF file and then put it on our phones.

 

[epsmith921]

I'm an excel planner (accountant, it's just how I organize my thoughts) for the big picture. Then I like to be a super nerd and break out a notebook and markers to lay out one page per day. Then I can see everything a little bit more clearly.

Last, I make a note card for each day that includes any confirmation numbers and the park hours for each park. Then I only bring one card with us.

Though last trip I had most of it memorized and would just check out the notebook the night before and I had the confirmation numbers all on my phone so I wound up leaving the notecards in the room.

I'm admittedly not very sophisticated or well versed in iPhone usage so I like my little notes sometimes.

 

[nalajms]

A few days before we leave, I'll sit down and add everything to my Google calendar. This pops up a reminder on my Android phone. This was especially helpful for FP+ that I made 2 months prior!

We found out on our last trip that MDE does not run very well on smartphones. It took a long time to get it running and sometimes I couldn't log on. We ended up carrying an ipad mini so we can see wait times...

 

[BlueFairy]

A few days before we leave, I'll sit down and add everything to my Google calendar. This pops up a reminder on my Android phone. This was especially helpful for FP+ that I made 2 months prior!

We found out on our last trip that MDE does not run very well on smartphones. It took a long time to get it running and sometimes I couldn't log on. We ended up carrying an ipad mini so we can see wait times...

I like this idea.

Also, last time we went AT&T access was still not very good, so I used paper for my touring plans. Just prepared on touring plans or RideMax and print. I take a pocket folder which includes those, reservation confirmation, airline confirmation, any other receipts for grocery orders or transportation, my Magical Express vouchers, one sheet with a which-day-where kind of overview, a printout of all of my ADRs on one sheet, and some notepaper to track spending and journal. Most of it stays in the room and we take the touring plans for that day in our daypack.

 

[texasroni75]

Despite the fact that we all have smartphones, I still have a small notebook for my touring plans. I do a spreadsheet at home leading up to the trip (it's easier to edit that way), but the week of the trip, when most things are finalized for us, I write it all down. We don't do ADR's - since we eat mostly CS meals, so I really only need to know what the recommended parks are for each day, and what CS locations we will probably eat at in each park. I do a "bucket list" of main rides we want to do too, which will now become our FP+ already reserved lists.

I do have confirmation and reservation numbers backed up in my phone.

My spreadsheet is more for the "planning" stages of the trip, and it's also useful when we return so I can compare what I wanted to do with what we actually did. Some days it's spot on, and others it's completely off-track (but not necessarily in a bad way!).

I also used my notebook for logging miles and expenses during our roadtrip to and from WDW last year. It was very helpful, and I'm enjoying going through it to remember what worked and what didn't and to plan our drive and budget for next time.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

You can compile your notes like an engineer or a poet. Through 14 years of WDW vacations it has always been a fear of mine to have a vacation that looks like an engineer planned it. That being the case, my notes have always been some variation on scribbled notes here and there. In day-to-day life I carry around a pocket sized notebook that I often scribble notes on, so extending that to WDW trips has been a cinch.

Having said all that, this is what works for me. There are some mighty effective and happy "engineer" planners and chart-makers out there too.

 

[LSUfan4444]

I MOSTlY use MDE in the parks, but always have these just in case. They are more for me to use during planning then while actually there.


I have not made these FP+ yet just trying to get an idea of times...obviously alot of them will have to be adjusted.

 

[NavyDotz]

A few days before we leave, I'll sit down and add everything to my Google calendar. This pops up a reminder on my Android phone. This was especially helpful for FP+ that I made 2 months prior!

Did this last couple of trips & it works great!

Also this trip I'm setting reminders for ADRs 24 hours out w/ Disney Dining # noted in case want to cancel to avoid cancellation fee.

Sent from my LG-E980 using DISBoards

 

[richmo]

I'd like to say I use the MDE app, but it takes too long to navigate. (It would be nice if MDE linked up with Google Calendar, but I don't think it does)

Anyway....I do a couple things:
- I have a small spreadsheet in Excel that I do before I leave home. I print out a copy of that and shove it in my pocket.
- The other thing I do is create an Evernote document that I can bring up pretty quickly with my FP+ times. I'll also have a document that has the rental car info...license plate, etc. and I'll change that upon arrival to the location where I parked....like 'Simba 46 rear'. Rarely need it, but its nice to have.

 

[ceemys]

I normally organize in excel, but I have everything in the apple 'numbers' app for now. I need to transfer it over sometime to my regular calendar for scheduled reservations and confirmation numbers.

I haven't done anything with the MDE app yet. I will need to download it and play with it a bit to get used to it and see what it can do for me. That will depend on how I proceed with my information.

 

[Altoqueenkelly]

I used to have it all written down...


Now-a-days its simpler..... iPhone

 

[Gracefulskinny]

We have multiple stages of notes.

We have the main planning binder. This is a standard 1.5" binder I use to organize everything during the planning stages. This comes with us on the trip but stays in the room. While the family gets ready in the morning I review the notes for that days plan and look over the park map for that day.

Before we leave we put all of our FP+ and ADRs into our Google calender with reminders set to alert on DH's smart watch.

As back up (because DH works in IT and therefore we both know better then to rely solely on technology) We carry a small 4x6 photo album with our notes for the day as well as our ADR confirmation numbers. This actually came in handy a few times on our last trip. Especially when BOG had trouble tracking down our ADR. This set of notes is small enough that it stays in our backpack and goes with us into the parks. There were a few times where it was quicker to pull this out than deal with the MDE app.