How do you tour?

[ernierich]

So, how do you tour?

Do you play it by ear or do you have a definate plan? If you follow a plan, is it your own, one from a web-site (not that I've seen any?) or one from a book?

I'm looking for ideas. We've got the Unofficial Guide to DLP with the touring plans. Has anyone used them? Are they any good?

How many questions can one person ask?

 

[Ware Bears]

How many questions can one person ask?

LOL!

Because we've been a few times now we only tend to do our favourites but on our first visit we had worked out beforehand what we wanted to do.

I've half-used the Unofficial Guide's tours for WDW and they do work (or at least did the year I used them) but IMO it's not necessary to be quite so regimental at DLP although I think it's good to have some sort of plan.

As you're staying at a Disney hotel you'll be able to benefit from EMH (which is on every day until end of December) so be at the park gates by 8am and then you'll be able to do the rides that are open in Fantasyland and Discoveryland without the queues that will build up later in the day. Have a look at the park maps and study DLRP Magic to see which rides/attractions you definitely want to do/give a miss - many have fastpass where you can obtain a ticket to ride at a later timeslot. You can only hold one fastpass ticket each at a time and it's got the time that you can obtain your next fastpass printed on it.

The busiest ride in Disneyland park is Big Thunder Mountain - we usually ride this as soon as Frontierland opens at 10am plus get a fastpass for later. In the Studios Crush always has a big queue so best to get in that one as soon as the Studios opens, they sometimes let you in to start queueing at 9:30am - also Toy Story Playland is very busy as it is still new.

We always plan and book our meals before we go so there's no dithering about when and where to eat although not everyone likes to do this. There's no need to book anything until you get there unless your heart's set on a particular place and day.

 

[tennisfan]

I hardly ever plan. The only planning I really do is where we are going to eat the next day so I can make reservations at the hotel concierge.

 

[Brummig]

Its about what works for you as a family. We don't plan too much, and never have, but that's because we are not very organised! We like to go to Cafe Mickey once, so we have learnt to book that! We use the EAC for our son and some fastpasses so we have to work round those times, and the rest we just go with the flow. Our son loves the place, but needs some time out, so we have learnt to allow some down time.
Restaurants don't work very well for us as I am a picky vege on a diet, hubby a carnivor and ds (like most children) doesn't like to wait so we would mainly do fast food (in DLP this is not particularly fast!), but we always make sure we have some snacks and a drink with us (sometimes snack in queues), and we have some emergency supplies in the hotel (we once ended up going to eat too late - ds was past it, everywhere was full and we ended up having a horrible burger and chips on Main St, standing outside *** there was nowhere to sit and it was freezing and we all went back to the hotel fed up, so since then we always have pot noodle type things (anything you can make with hot water) as well as crisps etc, so we always have a back up plan!).
When we have planned we generally find things conspire against us! Like when we promised ds the last morning we go on BTM and queued for an hour, then it broke down!

 

[ernierich]

We arrive on the 19th of Novemeber so I'm assuming that if we don't want to spend all weekend in long queues then we need some sort of plan.

My question is, will we be able to play it by ear for the monday and tuesday? Will park attendance be low?

 

[Brummig]

When we've been on Mondays and Tuesdays in November its been pretty quiet - queues not normally more than 15 mins (its a bit of shock after the weekend!), so you should be able to play it by ear.

 

[Isila]

I love to plan and our trip was great because of planning. I do try to get most of EMH. We're in parks by 8a.m. and rush for Buzz lightyear - we do 5 rides in a row (this keeps DS happy for whole day). Then we do other popular rides. I'm lucky - DS is no fan of thrill rides, so no BTM, Indiana Johnes etc. We do watch every parade. We stay at plaza and watch where characters will go and hurry up to follow ones we want to meet. This came out pretty good, we managed to get lots of autographs and pics everytime. We did have lunch around 11.30 and then wander in park and riding DS favorite rides and not queuing more than 30mins. DS is impatient and I do think no ride is worth more than 30min queue. Also I do make notice when and what characters will be available for queued mee'n'greet. And I planed where and what time we'll go for our dinner everyday. Meal planing saved time.