How do You plan your days in the parks?

[disney is my life]

We are headed to WDW for our 4th trip in March. On our last 3 trips we have planned the basic things but nothing more than that. This trip I would like to go in having a better idea of what we plan on doing. We already have the resort and ADR's booked. My problem is I find that we spend a lot of time criss crossing parks and walking around aimlessly trying to decide what to do next. How do you plan your park days and make sure that you get to do everything that you want to do? Do you bring an itinerary into the parks with you? Do you go in with a list of rides/shows you plan on experiencing that day?
Thanks for any advice you can give me!

 

[YouGotaFriendInMe]

Okay... i'm like overly OCD about my Disney experience in the parks and out in resorts. the first time i went it was when i got engaged. we had no plans and just decided to go in a big circle around the parks... lets just say I was young and dumb and it turned out we did 2 things at AK and left because that's all we really found to do. I can now spend 2 days in AK honestly...

Then i went to Disney a few more times on random days with family and threw together a daily plan and it worked well but we did have time we ran out of stuff to do or really deciding what to do next... so now i have this (below) and i swear by it. it takes time (and previous visits to know how long things take) but i will not be wasting park time (and honestly the downtime that i'm also paying for). So i have lists and then little sidebars about if it rains what to do, if we go back to the resort what to do.. etc.


-So here's a park day...

Hollywood Studios 9am-7pm (bus to park by 10:30)
ECHO LAKE
-Indiana Jones FP+ (11:15)
-Lunch: Pizza Planet
-Star Tours FP+ (12-1??)
STREETS OF AMERICA
-Muppet Vision
PIXAR PLACE
-Toy Story Midway Mania FP+ (1-2??)
HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD
-The Great Movie Ride
SUNSET BOULEVARD
-Frozen, For The First Time In Forever Sing Along 1:40pm
ANIMATION COURTYARD
-Voyage of The Little Mermaid 2:35pm
-The Magic of Disney Animation 3:00pm
SUNSET BOULEVARD
-Tower of Terror ++
-Beauty and The Beast On Stage 4:15pm
-Dinner: Sci-Fi Dine In 4:45pm
FANTASMIC: 7pm

Port Orleans:
-Carriage Ride- 6-9:30

----------
So a quick note. it's just me and my husband in February so please no one harp on me that we can't get places this quickly...

 

[SmithSmith]

We do rope drop. For a 9am opening we head for the bus stop at 7:45ish. I then pick a must-do attraction for us as the first stop. If we have multiple must do's then I pick the one that is the slowest loading ride i.e Peter Pans Flight. I then work my around to my other must do's in an efficient and logical order. I try my best to do the least amount of walking possible. For me, this saves time and my feet.

We break after lunch, then head back to the parks around 4. This is when we do the least popular attractions (i.e. Country bears, CoP, Peoplemover.) and schedule fast pass+. Dinner will be scheduled around 7 or 8 at a quick service (to avoid the rush) or an ADR at a table service can be scheduled for anytime.

Hope that's what you were looking for.

 

[SmithSmith]

I should also add that I memorize my itinerary.

We usually get to do most, if not all of our plan. I just make sure to allow reasonable time for the walk to each attraction and the attraction itself.

 

[msmama]

I try to have 5 things that I want to do, and if we do those, I consider the day a success. We've been enough times that we know what are must dos and what we can skip, so this works for us.

Generally, this is my ideal and I have very few trips this length, but I re-work for # of days -

For MK, I try to have 3 mornings, 1 I start right, 2, starts left, 3 starts in Fantasyland (order may vary, but you get the point).

Epcot (ideally 2 full days) - DS likes to start at Journey into Imagination (I don't know why). Then we work backwards to the Land and the Seas, Innoventions and then 1/2 of WS. Other day we do the other half of Epcot.

AK - Start at Safari, walk some Trails, Rafiki's planet watch, stroll trails towards Dino stuff (stopping for shows if convenient). Play in Boneyard, ride anything else.

HS - probably our least planned park, but it's small enough that I don't mind traversing it several times.

We don't do a lot of the headliners so waiting or fastpasses for those have never really been an issue. I know that generally, if we go left first thing in MK we'll make it to HM before lunch time.

 

[IBLarsen]

I find it best to have a written itinerary with me in the parks each day.
I start with the rides that lines build quickest on (if there at rope drop)
plug in your fastpasses and then fill in around those for rides and shows. I don't have a current one handy but mine would look something like the following:
I don't list exact time from ride to ride, just which order I plan to ride in, with my fp's listed. We may fit in an extra ride before the fp or have to save one for after...but just continue on with our plan. I have ADR's listed on the side, along with any quick service options we have planned, or a choice of a couple to give options for what everyone feels like. Hope this helps!

(A fake made up version)
MK - 8:00am-9:00pm
Line up at 7:30 for rope drop

Peter Pan ADR - Chef Mickey's 5:00pm
7D mine train (fp time window listed) Lunch: Pecos Bill
Dumbo
Haunted Mansion
POTC
Big Thunder (fp time window)
etc..
etc...
Parade - 3:30pm
Fireworks - pm

 

[metz72]

For previous trips we had our list of must do's, every member picked one. We would do rope drop and start with whatever attraction would have longest wait time later i.e. TSMM, space mountain then work our way to the others using fp when we could. Usually by lunch we would have done the must do's and sometimes extras. We would then decide during lunch the game plan for the afternoon/evening. I also used a wait time app on my phone which helped a lot on wait times but did sometimes cause some criss crossing of the park.

For this trip my sister in law turned me on to touringplans.com. OMG it is a planners dream. I don't know how tight I will stick to the plan but it certainly helps the waiting but making them

 

[Frozen2014]

You haven't said who you're coming with (e.g. kids...and if so, ages), but in my case we were travelling with a boy and a girl 4 years apart. So I started researching the rides and seeing what would just he like, what would just she like and what can we all do together.

Next step was to use a park map and to basically pick a spot and , no pun intended, but map out the rides....so the rides were physically in order. And if we were split apart, then I'd try and plan for rides near each other.

Then I tried and booked the FP to fit in (and adjusted the schedule if FP times were different). I had this all documented in a spreadsheet which we brought with us. Of course, it was only a guide, but it seemed to work well so we weren't zig sagging as you say.

 

[Mikie]

I like to use the Cheat Sheets on easywdw.com They are a general description of where to start in the park and how to work your way around (clockwise, divide the park into 2 halves, etc) and gives general ideas of what rides build long lines, vs which ones are usually shorter waits.

I use the 'Fastpass+ attractions and strategies" thread on here by Mesaboy2 to pinpoint the things that I want to do that are my best use of fastpasses and schedule those rides for late morning thru afternoon when lines are longest. Once I've used those, I use the Lines app by Touring Plans, or the MDE app to look up nearby rides with shortest current waits.

MK I plan to tackle Adventureland and Frontierland and Liberty Square on one day, then Fantasyland and Tomorrowland on another day.
Epcot I try to do roughly the right side of the park on one day and the left side another day - this includes some of Future World and some of World Showcase on each day
AK I hit the safari and trails early in the day, plan out some show times, and ride Everest as many times as I can
DHS is my trickiest to schedule because of all the shows to work around. Criss crossing this park is less of a concern to me because its not too big.

 

[disney is my life]

Thank You so much to everyone who posted! This gave me a really good idea of how I want to plan my park days!

To the PP who asked we would be travelling with our daughters ages 17 and 8.

 

[Frozen2014]

Thank You so much to everyone who posted! This gave me a really good idea of how I want to plan my park days!

To the PP who asked we would be travelling with our daughters ages 17 and 8.

So when creating your plan, you'll want to think about if you'll be splitting up or doing everything together.

 

[kathy884]

I get a subscription to touringplans.com every year. We start with a copy of their adult highlights touring plan for whatever Disney park we are doing. We usually just to mini trips to Orlando with one Disney park date per year. Then we add and subtract things and use their optimize feature to give us a good touring order. You can change settings to have a balance, do the shortest waits in line, or do the least amount of walking. You can schedule in breaks, ADRs, etc.

They give us time estimates for waiting, walking, and riding -- too cool. It saves us from the "What do we do next" which is even worse when you have a large group like we usually do. If something else strikes our fancy we have no problem being spontaneous and not following the plan exactly. And sometimes we skip something we have on there. I love these plans, though, visit WDW annually and use one every year. I have been using the plans since 1989

And if it's a ride I haven't been on before I like looking at their descriptions, ratings by age group, and the author, and that helps me decide if we want to do it. I also based on the wait predictions decide whether I even want to go to Orlando.

I'm a huge fan of doing it this way and having stuff mapped out ahead of time. It's so mindless and enjoyable, a real vacation for me.

 

[JaimeA]

One word, Josh, from easy wdw. He plans my days, then I make ADRs around that. I then plan the FP based on ride popularity and stand by time, I usually hop so I will plan the FP for the later park. Hasn't failed me yet. We don't plan anything else though, we go with the flow.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

I pick my park days based on easywdw.com's crowd calendars, schedule ADRs around them, and then make up a rough itinerary before the 60 day FP+ window opens so I can figure out what we should FP. Right before the trip, I reconfirm character M&G times and take into account any other late-breaking changes, and then put everything into an itinerary that I print on 4X6 index cards and then put into a little $1 soft-sided photo album I bought. Unlike some people, I don't finalize my touring plan/itinerary until about a week out, since it seems like something always changes at the last minute. We leave next Friday and I've just started working on the itinerary for the trip.

I'd think it would be super overwhelming to walk into a park without a general idea of what to do. I tend to totally forget about things if they're not written down somehow.

 

[soniam]

I get a subscription to touringplans.com every year. We start with a copy of their adult highlights touring plan for whatever Disney park we are doing. We usually just to mini trips to Orlando with one Disney park date per year. Then we add and subtract things and use their optimize feature to give us a good touring order. You can change settings to have a balance, do the shortest waits in line, or do the least amount of walking. You can schedule in breaks, ADRs, etc.

They give us time estimates for waiting, walking, and riding -- too cool. It saves us from the "What do we do next" which is even worse when you have a large group like we usually do. If something else strikes our fancy we have no problem being spontaneous and not following the plan exactly. And sometimes we skip something we have on there. I love these plans, though, visit WDW annually and use one every year. I have been using the plans since 1989

And if it's a ride I haven't been on before I like looking at their descriptions, ratings by age group, and the author, and that helps me decide if we want to do it. I also based on the wait predictions decide whether I even want to go to Orlando.

I'm a huge fan of doing it this way and having stuff mapped out ahead of time. It's so mindless and enjoyable, a real vacation for me.

 

[disney is my life]

Thank you to everyone! You've all really helped me prepare and decide when/what to book fp+ for!

 

[Danitomzoe]

We use Touring Plans to help us plan our days at Disney