How do you tour?

[dabecs]

With flights, accom and ADRs all booked I am starting to think about our day to day WDW plans

How do you plan a Disday? If for example you were planning 2 days in a park would you try to do half each day or headliners one day then minor attractions the second?

We are going with our 5 and 6 year old girls so I don't want to go commando and have them exhausted by the 3rd day and no one having any fun, but I don't want to be one of those families who doesn't have a plan and spends the day chasing their tail missing out..

So do you go in with a time sheet? A park map and show times and wing it from there? Plan your day over breakfast or dinner the night before? Or have it all planned before you get on the plane to go?

Sometimes the internet has too much information

 

[Melbourne5]

I guess it's about being comfortable with your priorities. For the melb 5 with 3 boys 5-13 we ensured our park preferences then dinners then shows and then built our day plan around that.

So on our last trip we had 2 days each WDW park, ADR 's each night except mnsshp and got to the shows we wanted like illuminations, magic kingdom fireworks, nemo at ak etc.... A basic skeletal plan and just filled in the rest of the day with rides, other shows, what time to arrive etc as we went/ felt.

Good luck

 

[Toy Story]

Agree with Melbourne5 about the priorities - on this trip, DD wanted to character greetings in MK and Epcot, so we planned days around this and our dining reservations.

 

[australiankaren]

PM EMH's dictate what and where for us..

we always do night time at the parks, and therefore dining at emh parks..so pretty much just flows on...

 

[dabecs]

Thanks everyone

I guess one good thing about this being our first trip is we don't have any expectations

And we haven't told the girls so they don't even know what rides/attractions are at WDW, and when I was talking about planning with hubby he casually asked what the Magic Kingdom was

I think I will have a rough plan for some days (eg I know the girls will want to do the Jedi training so that will be our aim at rope drop on HS day) and the rest we will go with the flow..

That is if an over planner like me can find 'the flow'

 

[5ofus]

Well, I can tell you that our touring is WAY different now to what it was pre-kids! We use to go commando. From rope-drop till last call we'd be on the go. We use to have a vague plan and mostly play it by ear as to what exact order we'd do the attractions in. Usually we'd decide what side of the park we'd hit first and away we'd go. Dining has never been a big thing for us, but if we had a reservation, we'd factor that in too.

We've only been once with the older two boys - to Tokyo when they were three years and 16 months. We knew what they liked, what they'd want to do and how long they could go for and plan our days around that. We were also able to make time for one of us to go off and do E-tickets while the other stayed with the boys and had something to eat or ride a tamer ride for the kids.

The boys don't know about our trip next year yet, but they know we're going to WDW and DL in 2015. I have park maps and they are pretty familiar with the MK parks and DCA from watching our home videos, planning videos and other Disney shows so they have a fair idea of what it's all about. I know we'll be spending most of next year's Disneyland tip in Carsland (the boys will be 2,4 and 6 - perfect!) and Fantasyland. DH and I are determined to get the eldest on Big Thunder, but mostly we'll play it by ear. We'll hopefully have a full week at Disneyland Resort (I hate that term!), so we can afford to ease up on the planning a bit. I imagine we'll all be having mid-day naps back on our room each day as well.

I think as long as you are pretty familiar with the parks, you can get away with minimal planning. I don't mean having experience of having been there before either, but as long as you have a general idea of where things are you can make decisions to stop you from traipsing from one side of the park to the other over and over.

You'll probably find that you hit a mixture of big and small attractions each day as you utilise fastpass and the smaller queues of the smaller attractions.

My husband and I would still (even with the kids with us) sit down each night and look over the park maps and mark off the attractions we had and hadn't done, coming up with a vague plan for the following day.

It's so much fun, you've got me wishing my trip was sooner!

 

[dabecs]

I think as long as you are pretty familiar with the parks, you can get away with minimal planning. I don't mean having experience of having been there before either, but as long as you have a general idea of where things are you can make decisions to stop you from traipsing from one side of the park to the other over and over.

I'm hoping this is true! At least I am aware of which rides we should try to tick off or fastpass early and which ones should appeal to our family.

My husband and I would still (even with the kids with us) sit down each night and look over the park maps and mark off the attractions we had and hadn't done, coming up with a vague plan for the following day.

Great way to recap and talk about favourites, what we would like to do again, what worked and what didn't etc. I'll definitely be doing this