how do you plan it all?

[momof4kids]

I am so overwhelmed. When do you plan for your park hours, your dinner reservations, and your fastpass? In which order?

 

[SG131]

You plan it one step at a time. I usually start by looking at what days of the week will likely have emh and then plan around that either to do them or to be in a different park than the one that has them. I try to spread my park days out instead of doing two magic kingdom days in a row. Then I make a list of top dining choices and try to fit them into the schedule. Fast passes don’t come until 2 months before the trip so by then I have modified my plan a million times and am close to its final form.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I constantly change things up until the day before we leave. I can never stick to a plan.

 

[WDW Queen]

I start with which park on which day.
I then make my dining reservations.
I then make my fastpass selections.

I do not get overwhelmed by these things as I find them fun.
Also after I choose a park, dining, and fastpasses I don't keep second guessing myself and changing things.
I stick to the plan. I also know "the best laid plans" and I do not micro plan out my days so its easy to roll with the punches when I'm there.

 

[daae3]

Dining reservations are made at 180 days so start there....that will help you decide which park, which day. Then fast passes are 60 days out...as to park hours, those change frequently so do not worry too much about those, but keep in mind your pre park opening breakfast may be post park opening.

 

[momof4kids]

ok, thank you! how far in advance of a particular month do they release park hours?

 

[WDW Queen]

ok, thank you! how far in advance of a particular month do they release park hours?

Park hours are released on a 180 day rolling calendar and usually updated about 6 weeks prior if they are going to extend the hours.

 

[WIll C]

I like to use Touring plans to setup which park we're going into. They keep track of hours and special events. From there, I keep a OneNote page for each trip and note down dining and FPs.

One advantage with TP is they will e-mail you with hour updates as they come out.

 

[YawningDodo]

I am so overwhelmed. When do you plan for your park hours, your dinner reservations, and your fastpass? In which order?

First of all, the biggest thing you need to know is that the biggest benefit of planning a WDW vacation in advance isn't that you come away with a rock solid plan--the biggest advantage of doing all this pre-planning is what you learn along the way. By reading up and making your best effort before you go, you'll learn what likely can and can't be changed on the fly and what is and isn't worth your time so that when you get there you will have the knowledge and confidence to switch things up if the plan you built isn't working for you. I always build a day by day plan, and I always change my mind about at least half of it when I get there. So don't stress about constructing The Perfect Plan!

To answer the question directly, though, I start by looking at whether there's any particular reason to do (or avoid) a certain park on a certain day, and if there's a particular event I want to attend (holiday parties, After Hours events, etc.) I check to find out if dates have been announced yet for when I'm going. If not, I look at when those events have been offered in the past and make note of the likeliest days and times so I can leave those times open just in case. For my upcoming trip in January, for instance, I knew that I wanted to do an After Hours event if one was offered, so when I first scheduled dining reservations at 180 days out I didn't schedule any dinners outside of Saturday, when I knew AH was unlikely to be offered.

After that I just tackle it in waves as more information becomes available. I enjoy sketching out a rough schedule, but it changes a lot from when I first start planning versus the end product. I chose a couple must-do restaurants and booked those at 180 days, and actually seeing the dates and times when I was able to get them helped me to adjust my rough schedule and make it a little more firm. Then the AH dates did get announced and I booked the event, so between that and the dining reservations I know where I'm going to be for at least part of most of the days of the trip--so I cleaned up and rearranged the schedule a bit again. I've still got a few loose spots where I don't know which park I want to book FP+ at, so I'll give myself a few priorities and then make that decision based on what FP+ I'm able to book once my window opens. Just take it in steps as the different parts of the planning process open up to you, and be ready to keep moving things around as you get more information.

As for park hours, I'm not sure--they come out a few months in advance but you can't count on having park hours listed at 180 days out. That's another area where I look at info on what's been done in the past--way before the park hours for my trip went up, I knew what park hours generally looked like in past Januaries and could make some educated guesses about how that would affect my trip. I was wrong in a few cases, but I'm not worrying myself over it since the park hours could still change before my trip anyway. I honestly don't really worry too much about park hours until really late in the game; I lay out my schedule in very rough morning/midday/afternoon/night fashion and just roll with it from there.

 

[DuskKodesh]

I like to go step by step.

1: Pick my dates, find my hotel.
2: Check the hours/predicted hours for those dates. Google any events going on. Stuff may change, it's okay. You can tweak things later. Don't stress.
3: Pick whether I'm paying for parkhopper. I am means I'm starting at extra magic hours parks then hopping. If I'm not I'll avoid extra magic hour parks.
4: Pick parks for each day. I'm hopping so each day we picked two. Made a little visual graph of our time in the parks.
5: Make a list of all the restaurants I like. At 180 days out I booked my dining reservations. Add them to the graph. Set up a google flights price watch, it will email you everyday.
6: Relax until fastpass day. Pick a nice block of time each day and what park you'll be at. Try to get them in order of priority.
7: Double check everything, print your graph out!

 

[gharter]

I start with which park on which day.
I then make my dining reservations.
I then make my fastpass selections.

We do the same order. I'll look and figure out which parks are Early entry and avoid them and usually go to that paark the next day.

Also after I choose a park, dining, and fastpasses I don't keep second guessing myself and changing things.

I don't second guess, but keep looking for things I couldn't get originally, right up to the day of.
We are 5 days away and I'm still looking to change 2 FPs. No luck yet, but I can hope.
However, I don't make huge changes once things are set.

 

[WDW Queen]

We do the same order. I'll look and figure out which parks are Early entry and avoid them and usually go to that paark the next day.


I don't second guess, but keep looking for things I couldn't get originally, right up to the day of.
We are 5 days away and I'm still looking to change 2 FPs. No luck yet, but I can hope.
However, I don't make huge changes once things are set.

I stay onsite and personally like taking advantage of Extra Magic Hours. Especially the morning ones as I find I can get more done in that one hour than I can get done in the 2 hours at night.
Also many people barely even make it to rope drop because they are too tired especially if they were at the parks late the next before so I find not as many people are at the morning EMH.

 

[rflorek]

We didn't book until summer for a trip coming up in 10 days. First thing we did was look at the park hours for our stay and decide which parks on which days. Then we figured out character dining options we wanted in each park (we're o the middle dining plan). We didn't do a lot of Fast Passes because we plan on taking advantage of all EMHs and MNSSHP hours during our stay. We don't plan EVERYTHING, just what we feel is important to do. Most important thing is to have a fun and magical stay!

 

[Sara_H]

I agree with most above.

1. Pick park days by looking at calendars and see where we want to be. We like EMH so we will take advantage of those.
2. Make any dining reservations based on where we will be.
3. Fastpasses

We try to go with the flow a little because I don't want to be on a strict schedule the entire time we are there.

 

[Karnor00]

I use an Authorised Disney Planner for mine.

She discusses with me what kind of things I like to do and what kind of budget I have. She then comes up with some suggestions for hotels, dining, tours and magic passes. And then once I've decided what I want to do she goes ahead and books everything for me.

 

[vonnie87]

I highly recommend TouringPlans. It has a great checklist you can follow with recommendations on when to do what.

 

[DrunkJam]

I have a month until my ADR date, and I have changed everything about a million times.
I start by making a shape for my holiday, having a vague idea of which park on which day, and fit my ADRs to that (if I need to swap my ADR to get the thing I want, I will swap the whole days plan, so that park and ADR go together, even if the meal is in a resort)
Then once ADRs are booked, I can pretty much leave it be, and book Fps for the parks as the schedule allows.

 

[tguz]

You plan it one step at a time. I usually start by looking at what days of the week will likely have emh and then plan around that either to do them or to be in a different park than the one that has them. I try to spread my park days out instead of doing two magic kingdom days in a row. Then I make a list of top dining choices and try to fit them into the schedule. Fast passes don’t come until 2 months before the trip so by then I have modified my plan a million times and am close to its final form.

Sounds like me. It is usually my Fiancee, my Son, and I going and we have been before so everyone knows generally what it is like. We all throw out what we like and FP suggestions and each persons fav places to eat. I take all that information and form a park plan. I too arrange park days so we aren't back to back at the same park two days in a row and we always do the MK again on our last day. I think it is fun to sit down after I have booked fastpasses and read out the FP's I was able to book for each day.......my Fiancee and my son like the suspense of "what we got". We always eat a BOG for lunch so I print off menus and have everyone choose what they would like so I can preorder at 30 days.

 

[Miffy]

1) Resort booking--onsite.
2) If I'm taking the train, I book that next. If I'm flying, I don't do that next.
3) If there's something special I want to do--like Up Close with Rhinos--I get that as soon as I can.
4) If there's a hard-to-get ADR that's next, but it's pretty rare. For this upcoming trip, though, I did book Oga's as soon as that became available.
5) FP+s at 60 days out.
6) As soon as the FP+s are done, I do the ADRs.
7) Plane rez, if I'm flying. Usually about 6 or 7 weeks before departure.
8) Get cash for tips
9) Attempt to rearrange FP+s to more advantageous times--I do this randomly, when I'm in the mood.
10) Go to WDW.
11) Have fun!