How do you plan?

[graciespeaks]

How do you all plan your days, after you decide which park on which day?
Do you have a list of "must sees" and forgo the rest unless you finish up early?
Just curious, maybe there is a "golden nugget" of info out there! LOL

 

[DJ Disney Kid]

I am actually surprised that people plan as much as they do. I basically plan my whole trip on one day. I book it all the morning I get the "bug" and then choose my days I will go to what park based on the average attendance records, print it all out and then just spend the rest of the day enjoying the thought of knowing Im going to Disneyworld again. I like to leave my trip pretty "open". I dont like setting up reservations or anything because I dont want to be forced to go somewhere at a certain time.

I like to just stroll, I've been there enough to know what I can do to in what amount of time. No need to stress while on vacation.

 

[ParrotBill]

For many of us that enjoy the food, we must sometimes make ADRs months ahead. So that drives where we will be many of the days.

Off season, we check parade, fireworks and evening show schedules and make sure we are where we need to be for those with limited schedules... and we plan to be there early in the trip in case we change our plans or the weather changes them for us.

I also look at which parks have early opening. If we are going early, we go... if we are not, we avoid the parks with early opening. We fill in our schedule with special events if any, like DVC events, and the rest we decide day by day.

This year our daughter is almost 7 and old enough to help plan. So we've been through all rides and she has told us what she wants to do..or not do... and we would set expectations about height restrictions except she has no interest in any of the ones she is too short for anyway!

I have a daily schedule grid with park hours, early and late hours, etc. for each day. with our ADRs filled in. I have a page for each park with attractions, character greeting locations and times, and show and entertainment times in one east reference. I have a page with my dining plan reference and another with my DVC discounts. These all fold up and go in my pocket in case I need them.

I spend hours and hours planning in the months, weeks and days leading up.. it's half the fun for me.

 

[Lizziejane]

For our first trip, I insisted we follow the Unofficial guide to the letter. We enjoyed it (I think!), but it was so hectic and exhausting! On the second trip, we planned which park on which day, but that was it. At that point, we already knew to do the biggies first, then take our time wandering after that. We plan on doing the same in January. In a way, the first trip is the worst. By trip 2 and 3, you know what you don't want to see/do again, so there's more time to relax and just enjoy being there, taking in some of the "details" that you missed while in commando mode!

 

[hezreck]

TOO MUCH planning can ruin WDW in my opinion. I plan what park we are going to on what day and if we are eating a sit down meal I make the ADR's. Beyond that, no planning. We go on what we want when we want. If the line is too long, we get a fastpass and come back later. I had originally booked the Dining Plan for our Dec. trip, but recently cancelled it. I like to eat when I get hungry. If I'm hungry at 5:00 and our ADR isn't until 7:00 I will be one grumpy tourist if I don't eat NOW! We are going to eat counter service most of the time and just a couple of table service. Basically this trip, it's go with the flow!

 

[rlovew]

Our first trip together, when my DH had not been to WDW at all except for a couple of special events, I detailed the order of our days, allowing for some extras at the end if the day went faster than expected.

NOw since we go about once every other month we will choose a few things we want to go to, each park has a couple must sees and then try to do at least one thing we haven't done before. When planning for a longer trip I generally make our tour and dining plans first and then look at the EMH schedule to decide which parks to go to. We avoid night EMH but go to the parks with morning EMH as we are early risers and thne like an afternoon rest followed by a new park in the evening. If I really want to go on a specific ride I plan that park for the morning of a day we are there so I can get on it without a wait, my DH has been spoiled by FP and excellent touring plans and doesn't feel that anything is worth more than a 15 minute wait if we have done it before or could do it a different time.

 

[STEAMBOAT209]

We do plan, but mainly plot out the parks by day, based on sit downs, making all the ADR's ( we do sit downs every evening, so they are necessary ), book tours. Other than that we do the parks and shops as we visit each day .

 

[goofie4goofy]

We don't plan, that's why park hoppers were invented

The only thing we do is dinner reservations.

 

[__disneygirl]

If you mean do I plan what attractions i'll see during the day and where i'll stop, then no, I don't. I just book my ADR's and then work around them. I do plan to do certain things on certain days, like the monorail food tour and the eating around the world showcase, though.

 

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

I figure out the days I want to visit each park. I note the times of the parades and night-time shows to help decide which park and whether we'll need to park-hop. We booked one sit-down meal each full day of our trip in June, actually canceled one mid-trip and it worked well for us, scheduling the ADR around parade/fireworks times.

 

[MickeyMonstersMom]

To maintain peace in the family, we start with everyone making a list of the attractions that they *must* see. Then I use the UG to put all the priority attractions in an order that will minimize time in line - for example, SM and BTMRR before Haunted Mansion. Once we've experienced everything on the list, the rest of the day is open to wandering and doing whatever appeals at the moment. This accomplishes two things for us: first, there's no arguing about what we're doing next, because the itinerary is laid out and everyone knows they won't miss the things they really want to do; and second, it gives us a great compromise between rigid planning and spontaneous exploration. We're usually done with our list by lunchtime or early afternoon.