how important is planning

[grannyed]

as some of you know we are taking a trip to Orlando next April - staying in a villa and hoping to buy a WDW 14 days ultimate ticket.
we are travelling with our son and his wife and our 2 grand-daughters - we have all been on holiday together before, and get on quite well, having family time together and also time off on our own, with hubby and I sometimes watching the girls to give son and wife some 'together' time - also vice versa, -hubby and I doing the same.

we have booked for dinner at Crystal Palace and also for the Princess Storybook breakfast and I am hoping to book 2 evening meals, somewhere nice for grown ups - on one evening for son and his wife and the other for hubby and I - without the children - got lots of ideas just need to make up my mind which restaraunts to book.

sorry to go on....... that's the background...we are going next Easter and we have not made any other bookings or plans. when I ask them if they have any suggestions they tend to say that they want to do 'everything' - they,ve never been before.

will we able to book things when we get there, or is it better to really plan and book before we go - considering that we are going at Easter when it will be busy

- one of the girls is only 2 so we will need plenty of rest time. Should we just go with the flow and hope that anything they find they want to do is available?

 

[JohnnySharp2]

If you have a young child my advice would be to go with the flow.

We visit every year and because of that never really plan each day as it were, we would only change when we got there anyway.

Apart from ensuring we have all our theme park tickets/Annual Passes etc and having a rough idea what we will do the first couple of days that is it really.
Everyone is different and planning is part of the fun but in your circumstances I personally would not plan too much.

I do agree that having a villa will also give you time to relax - which for us is very important.

 

[wicket2005]

You are going at a busy time and I would recommend that you at least plan to visit parks on their quieter days. We went in July, when it was peak season, and did plan which park we were going to each day. We did visit parks only on their quieter days and arrived before the park opened. This worked extremely well for us and we did do everything we wanted at each park.

We are not really into booking meals but if there are particular places you want to dine at, you would probably be best to book them up now. However, at the same time you don't want to tie yourself down to, too many bookings.

 

[crim1978]

Isn't planning the trip half then fun??

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Isn't planning the trip half then fun??

It is but if like us you prefer to be open minded about each day there is no point.
I could do a plan for each day's activities but we would never stick to it plus we prefer to be flexible and often decide on the day what we are going to do.

 

[Goofyish]

Planning is not necessarily the act of producing a regimented schedule of where you will be and what you are doing each minute of everyday, it's more a process of discovering what is in the parks, the best times/days to visit the parks, tips on making your trip more enjoyable, tips on how to save money, things to avoid, where to eat, transport details etc..

Armed with all this information you can, with just a simple day to day schedule get more out of your trip to Orlando. It also gives you the knowledge required to be flexible, especially if you have young ones

 

[JohnnySharp2]

The amount of planning you do is down to personal preference, what Tim says is pefectly true but it depends on what sort of holiday you want.

We regard our holidays as a trip to Florida and not just necessarily Disney, the planning we do is more related to booking a villa and what other places outside Orlando we are going to visit.
Whether it be Clearwater beach or a couple of nights in Fort Lauderdale....

A lot of our days and certainly our theme park days are governed by our young son, and being fortunate enough to go each year we do not feel the need to plan too much as we are comfortable about which days are best to go etc
This also means we can take things at an easy pace and not feel there is a need to rush around everywhere.
Virtually all our holiday revolves around Joshua, and ensuring he has a brilliant time, each year we go he is changing and enjoying different things. Only on our August trip this year did he really have a good time around Magic Kingdom, so naturally we will spend a lot more time there next year - so if he is happy so are we.

We do not eat out too much and tend to always have our theme park tickets and annual passes sorted also.
Little things like phone cards are always purchased the day we arrive, so I guess we sort of plan that
Having some time to relax is also important for us as we do not always get the chance at home.

At the end of the day being part of these discussions and planning/looking forward to our holidays is all part of the enjoyment, but it differs depending on your needs.

 

[eyoreaud]

Hi There

I have to agree with Tim in that you don't need a plan written in stone, but if you know that there is a particular ride/restaurant or show you want to do/see the most then a little expert knowlege does go a long way The first time we went, we had an idea what we wanted to do and see (thanks to these boards) so, i would definitly find out which parks are buisiest on which day as this in itself will help loads. Do you have a Brits Guide?

Hope this helps
Audrey

 

[Graeme]

I love the planning. I'm presently stealthily trying to suggest to my wife, Mam&Dad, sister, brother in law and two kids (who are currently on-side), that April 2007 sounds good. My sister's coming round, my Mam will jump at it if sister and brother-in-law agree, and my Dad's planning to stay at home and look after my pups.

Don't go to WDW without eating at the Boma restaurant in the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The building design and hotel layout make it almost a fifth theme park, and the food is fantastic.

Plan and dream!!!

 

[FizzyPop]

Im like Johnny and dont plan everything as we have little ones. We get all our tickets before we go and do a rough plan, but we tend to do what the kids feel like doing. Im not sure we would be able to stick to a plan.

 

[Tink78]

I prefer to get an itinery together, but not go as far as booking meals etc.

We normally mostly follow our itinery but sometimes change some parks round, or change or evening plans depending on if we are too tired or not.

We like the itinery idea though, as for the last 3/4 days you can tick off everything you have done, and make sure you squeeze the other stuff in too.

Wish I was going soon.

 

[MazdaUK]

we went at Easter and I'd say don't even think about the parks Good Friday and Easter Sunday! (Epcot on the Saturday was fine!)

get hold of the latest Brits Guide - that was my bible! I used the "busy day" timetable at the back to do my plan -it was basically a simple table showing for each day of the trip:

Which parks were quiet
which parks to avoid (BUSY)
which parks had EMH (and were they morning or evening)
Any definite arrangements (ADRs) and suggestions for what would be a good activity

Some things got washed out by the weather , some things got changed around because of , and we never saw any fireworks because the boys (and sometimes us!) were too sleepy.

make sure you build in some shopping time - a good thing to do all together as the men can take turns to amuse the kids . (we took a lot of older clothes and threw them away as we wore them, also oldest comfy trainers and did the same to make room for bargains )

I would also recommend "family style" character meals as less stressful with small ones (DS(5) did not want to get any food in case he missed Pooh!)

Have a wonderful time!

 

[#1MMFan]

Sounds like we are discussing "research" vs "planning". To my mind, planning is actually setting down/deciding upon something you will act out, as opposed to doing research into things of which you have very little knowledge. I agree research would be worthwhile, but I have never found planning to be as useful, particularly with such a large group with the age ranges I can't imagine how successful planning would be. And to quote a famous scottish poet 'the best laid plans o' mice and men'... there's always a hitch that throws a spanner in the works. I prefer to go with the flow - it's more of a holiday that way. JMHO.