How to convince family to plan?

[DumbosMagicFeather]

Hi Everyone!

Alright, so our trip is a little less than two months away, and frankly I'm starting to worry. My family wants this to be a very laid back "go-with-the-flow" trip, and they don't believe me when I tell them that's not the way you should do things. My parents haven't even reserved hotel rooms yet! AND they think that we can just walk into Goofy's at 9:00 on a Saturday morning and be seated immediately. How can I convince them to plan before it's too late?

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

Hi Everyone!

Alright, so our trip is a little less than two months away, and frankly I'm starting to worry. My family wants this to be a very laid back "go-with-the-flow" trip, and they don't believe me when I tell them that's not the way you should do things. My parents haven't even reserved hotel rooms yet! AND they think that we can just walk into Goofy's at 9:00 on a Saturday morning and be seated immediately. How can I convince them to plan before it's too late?

You can direct your family to these boards and give them some guidebooks and encourage them best you can to make some real plans, but it's really hard to make people do things they don't want to do. My suggestion would be for you to do the planning. It will help you feel better about the trip and satisfy your need to make plans. Then when everybody is standing around, saying "what should we do next?", you be the one ready with an answer. And if you think your family wants to do Goofy's at 9 AM on a Saturday morning or whenever, then book it! If you miss the reservation, then nothing lost, but if you get there within 20 minutes of either side of your designated time, you'll be set.

 

[Ariel224]

You don't say if your family for purposes of the trip involves just your parents or if you have a spouse/children or anyone else going.

If it's just you and your parents going, all you can really do is keep stressing that you will be there at one of the busiest times of the year, meaning lines and crowds will be everywhere. Maybe you could find some historical attendance figures for that time of year and throw some big numbers around. Maybe hearing that x-thousand people could be there that day will be a wake up call.

If you have spouse/children and your parents are coming along too, employ above strategy, and....make sure your IMMEDIATE family is taken care of. I'm assuming you already have your hotel booked. Make a couple of key meal reservations, including your parents in the count. Be prepared to employ whatever park strategies you feel need to be done.

If your parents wait too long and can't find lodging, I know everyone will be really disappointed, but....it is not YOUR problem; you tried to tell them! Assuming they can get a room, when mealtime rolls around and everyone is hungry, you will already have ressies. If they want to join you, great; if not, you simply go without them and inform the host that your party size is less than expected. If you want to be there at park opening and they don't, you just GO and agree to meet up later, or have them call/text you when they arrive. It's okay to tour separately at times.

Traveling with extended family can be hard. Plan for your immediate family's needs as best you can, and be willing to bend a little so that your parents don't feel they are having every minute dictated to them. Get their input on some decisions once you are there. The one thing you don't want to do is say, "I told you so!" if their lack of planning backfires on them.

Good luck with this. Last year I decided against inviting my mom and stepfather on our trips to avoid these kinds of hassles. I'm a detailed planner, but my mom is an over-the-top super planner, and we would clash horribly!

 

[dmked]

When traveling with family...I make a plan and if people want to follow it (and save a whole lot of time) then they can, or they can sleep in and wait forever in lines and spend all day wondering what to do next

 

[rentayenta]

If you plan it, they will follow. No one is going to hang out while there is fun to be had. And if they don't follow, they can meet you later.

 

[DmaxHawk]

If you plan it, they will follow. No one is going to hang out while there is fun to be had. And if they don't follow, they can meet you later.

I agree.
During spring break I was the only one planning but after a day or two the rest of our group saw how it was like and began to plan things themselves.

 

[TSRE]

When traveling with family...I make a plan and if people want to follow it (and save a whole lot of time) then they can, or they can sleep in and wait forever in lines and spend all day wondering what to do next

I agree. If your immediate family is with you on the planning but your parents are not, just make your plans and kindly let them know "we'll be at such and such a place at 8:00 - you guys can join us if you'd like or meet up with us later - we're good either way". After one really bad trip with my in-laws, we started to do this. They were offended at first, but they got over it (what could they say - we were polite and really meant that we were good either way). After a few days, when they heard how much we had done by the time they met us in the morning, they started to become converts. Then, the real fun began - my DFIL got up one morning to do Early Entry with us. He must have said "wow, this is great" "I just can't believe how empty it is" and the like 20 times in one hour. Hah - a convert! We don't have to explain ourselves anymore!

 

[mystic_path]

Disney Vacations are strange because they do require planning. Its not like a beach vacation where you 2 worries are... Can I get to the beach and find the best spot before everyone else, and where is my next drink?

There is so much to see and do, and some of those fun things require in advance reservations and such. So all I can recommend to you, is to throw some ideas at your family such as...

1: Do you want to do a character meal?
2: Do you want to go to other theme parks like Universal besides Disneyland?
3: Transportation... Do you guys want to take a taxi, Disney express, Super Shuttle?
4: Fantasmic with Dessert package? etc.

There are many options on things to pre plan for, but you get my point. Once you get to the parks itself, its free game to do whatever, but explain to them their options of things they may miss out on if you dont pre plan. Then it leaves all the reservations and planning up to you, but dont feel bad. This is half the fun.

 

[01spirit750]

I think that people do not want to plan because it seems like too much work. This is a vacation and all the planning is just to hard.

We do not plan all the details but we have a general agenda, of course this is for Disneyland in Anaheim. For WDW a good plan is almost required.

When we went to WDW a few years ago, I definitely had a rough plan with a few dining reservations.

 

[Leofoenget]

Hi Everyone!

Alright, so our trip is a little less than two months away, and frankly I'm starting to worry. My family wants this to be a very laid back "go-with-the-flow" trip, and they don't believe me when I tell them that's not the way you should do things. My parents haven't even reserved hotel rooms yet! AND they think that we can just walk into Goofy's at 9:00 on a Saturday morning and be seated immediately. How can I convince them to plan before it's too late?

It bugs me when people refuse to plan. We had friends go to WDW on Spring Break, and they wouldn't plan. FINALLY I guess my bugging them paid off and they listened. They called me from Florida, and asked me to send them the Ridemax I had printed out for them I guess once they got there and realized I WAS RIGHT , they used the ridemax and had a pretty good time. Unless you go on a really off season, Disney is just not a "go with the flow" type of vacation

 

[HydroGuy]

Disney Vacations are strange because they do require planning. Its not like a beach vacation where you 2 worries are... Can I get to the beach and find the best spot before everyone else, and where is my next drink?

Disney is a vacation. But not a passive vacation. It is an active vacation. It is not "relaxing". When people say "I just want to have a relaxing trip to DLR/WDW" it is just so unrealistic. You might as well say you want to have some peace and quiet while attending a Dallas Cowboys football game at their new stadium.

DLR and WDW are the opposite of relaxing. They are about stimulation. Of all your senses. Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste. They are all there in abundance. You cannot escape them.

Now if someone wants to "go with the flow" and not plan because it is too stressful or not spontaneous enough, well that is unfortunate. But most people do Disney that way. And always will. Would those same people show up in Hawaii after paying $10k for a trip with no idea of the island or activities? No guidebooks? No maps? Well some do that. And they get the worst of everything - the leftovers - and miss out on so much.

So how to deal with non-planners in your group? I agree with others. Make your plans on the side. And then invite them to join you or not.

 

[mommyof2boys1girl]

I am an obsessive planner. Seriously - I had little recipie cards made up with what we were going to do each day, and where we were going to eat. I even went so far as to go through CS menus and write down the kids choices ahead of time, so that either dh or I could split up - one sit with the kids at a table while the other got the food.
Realistically, did we follow that plan? Not really - in fact, each day we'd have a laugh back at the hotel about how we hardly did any of the same stuff as the plan stated. HOWEVER, having done that much work and research made me comfortable enough with what I knew to be a bit more "go with the flow" - I'd memorized the parade times and which restaraunts had stuff we liked, so when we found ourselves at Red Rockets instead of the Hungry Bear for lunch, I knew what to do.
Knowledge is power, and planning is, IMO, a very necessary part to a fabulous vacation. I am not capable of enjoying myself at DL without a plan. Planning cannot hurt - it can really only help you, and yes, it requires time, but really, how much more fun can you have without actually being in DL???
Best of luck!

 

[Huff]

I've been to DLR 14 times in the past year for 3 to 4 day trips each time. Mostly at last minute with little planning. Made hotel reservations 1 or 2 weeks prior at most.

Character dining I made reservations a couple days before we left. For Lilo & Stich we could have just walked up as it was not crowded two times we went. Minnies was more crowded but was still able to get a reservation the night before.

Other than that I did no real planning for our days. I've been to DLR enough times to know which attractions I need to ride first or get FP's first and which rides to avoid at certain hours. So I really don't plan our our days and instead just go with hunches as to where crowds won't be at any given time.

 

[amym2]

So you are going at the end of June? Isn't that supposed to be a very crowded time? I'd encourage them to at least make hotel reservations. We're staying at the HOJO in July and a the hotel is fully booked a couple of the days. I'd definitely suggest you look into hotels yourself and have a few in mind.

I don't think I could do Disney with non-planners. When DH and I went to WDW for our honeymoon we didn't have dining reservations and we quickly learned that it was a big mistake. Eating dinner at 9pm was not pleasant. Since then it's our big family joke whenever we go to Disney. I agree with what others have said- you make some plans and when you get there and everything is busy you can come to the rescue!

 

[DumbosMagicFeather]

Thanks for the help everyone!

My parents are grabbing the hotel...all I can do is keep pushing them to make reservations on that one. But I decided that I should make us dining reservations ahead of time, even if they have no say in it, just in case. As for the rides, well...if they can't keep up, they'll just have to learn my route!

I'm a planner by nature so I might be over-worrying a touch. But I'd rather know we have for sure places to go and eat without having two-hour waits. Everyone here is probably right...they'll want to catch up once they see how hard go-with-the-flow is.

 

[mikayla73]

If you go with nonplanners, maybe a compromise to have "off" days where you just go with the flow would work? Possibly at the end of the trip when you have gotten all/most of what you wanted to done.

DH and I have to compromise on our Disney trips. I like to plan it out and know park hours, make ADR/PS's, know which parks for which days (at WDW anyway), etc... He likes to go with the flow. Even though he has seen and benefited from the wonders of planning, doesn't matter to him, he's on vacation and wants to relax and sleep in. I get that and want him to enjoy our vacation too. So we usually end up with a plan of ADR/PS's and a (flexible) decision of which days for EE/EMH, then go with the flow the rest of the time. If I don't feel like sleeping in or hanging out at the pool, I'll go to the parks and he can sleep/swim. It also think it gets easier to do that when you have been to DL more and don't always feel the need to do comando everyday.

I do think that there are some things you have to plan, like Goofy's at 9a on Sat morning, grabbing a FP for SM first thing when you head in to the parks, F! dinner package, get a hotel (soon!) etc ... but if EE works better on Thurs then Tues, go with it. You'll have more fun too because you aren't as worried what's next.