I love Disneyworld but

[Nohal]

I love Disneyworld but all of this pre planning is stressful. Made my ADR's at 180 days out no big deal. Now I have to coordinate my meals with the parks with the FP+. I am second guessing everything I have planned. Still have a few weeks before I make my FP+ reservations. Please tell me it won't be as stressful to make the reservations as it did the planning.

 

[Disfan1968]

EH, lucky for me I find the planning fun. I get that it's not everyone's cup of tea though.

 

[amg35]

I'm sorry it's stressful for you, that's no fun!

So, we didn't make a ton of ADR's, we don't like to be tied down to restaurants and we find a lot of good quick service options. Another thing is we are fine sitting in bar areas of restaurants - no reservations usually, maybe an option for you?

But for the ADR's we did make we picked our parks for each day, then planned where we wanted to eat from there. For you, just do the opposite! I don't think it will be that hard, do you have hoppers or will you just plan to be in the same park you will eat at? I think I've been reading at 60 days out it's easy to get the times you want for most rides.
I have an estimation of the times we would like to try for with our fast passes, so if we get near that time, I'll be happy.

And then that's it. I won't look back, rethink selections, none of it. I will make my fast pass reservations and then enjoy the 60 days leading up to the trip. I think that's key to de-stressing, just be confident in your plans that you make and enjoy the excitement build up!

Have fun!

 

[DisneyLvr55]

I love the idea of planning, and planning out the days and restaurants, I'm great at, but when I get down and dirty into the touring planning mode, and planning what ride we will do when... I totally feel your pain! I'll sit on my couch with my computer running and my maps all around me, look at everything, and then start plaing poppit! We have 27 days till our next trip, and I still haven't planned everything out. And with the FP+ thrown in - That just makes it more complicated for me with the timing! Just take a deep breath, and realize that no matter what you do, it will be a good trip

 

[Nohal]

I'm sorry it's stressful for you, that's no fun!

So, we didn't make a ton of ADR's, we don't like to be tied down to restaurants and we find a lot of good quick service options. Another thing is we are fine sitting in bar areas of restaurants - no reservations usually, maybe an option for you?

But for the ADR's we did make we picked our parks for each day, then planned where we wanted to eat from there. For you, just do the opposite! I don't think it will be that hard, do you have hoppers or will you just plan to be in the same park you will eat at? I think I've been reading at 60 days out it's easy to get the times you want for most rides.
I have an estimation of the times we would like to try for with our fast passes, so if we get near that time, I'll be happy.

And then that's it. I won't look back, rethink selections, none of it. I will make my fast pass reservations and then enjoy the 60 days leading up to the trip. I think that's key to de-stressing, just be confident in your plans that you make and enjoy the excitement build up!

Have fun!

We are on the DDP so it was necessary to book ADR's as I wasn't going to lose out on my TS credits. Fortunately we have park hoppers wouldn't go without them and will be there for 8 nights. Also we have been there a few times and are rope drop people so I'm sure we will be able to do all of the headliners. Just gonna go with what I have and change on the fly if I have to.

 

[lugnut33]

Not going to plan it that much. I know why you have to OP, but personally I'm just not doing that anymore.

 

[coolbrook]

Yeah, its a little stressful, but so worth it when you get to the parks and already know you will get to easily ride your favorite must-do rides with FP+ and a nice air conditioned place to have a break and enjoy a good meal.

 

[Judyfun]

I understand, while I like planning, my DD LOVES it. And she is so good at it, spreadsheet and all.

Based on how many persons and time of year, dining reservations may not be needed.

 

[disneymomoffour]

Not going to plan it that much. I know why you have to OP, but personally I'm just not doing that anymore.

You have to if you have the dining plan!!!

I do enjoy planning, but this is getting a little over the top. I am frustrated over waiting it out to see if I can possibly get a BOG dinner ADR. If I do, then some of my other ADR's need to be reworked-ahrggg!!! Then what if those particular restaurants are gone? I planned my meals first, then when it was time to book my FP+ I just planned them around the meals. That wasn't too bad-everything was open that I wanted. I am worried that things will have to change if we decide we want to do something different in the moment though. Ah, for the good old days...

 

[sethschroeder]

Pre Disney Trip Checklist
#1 License
#2 Reservation to a hotel
#3 Tickets

Everything else is gravy

While I do a lot of pre-planning of what days might work best for certain parks I am never locked into anything and remain open to whats available. With FP+ I just went off the list in my signature of the key rides to FP+ and picked our favorites for roughly 10am to 1PM time frame.

I think if people planned not when they would do something but how they can go about getting something done it would work better. For instance with FP+ I know to get a 4FP+ I can either see an in park kiosk or the concierge at the hotel. I don't worry about what exactly will be available because things can change so much from day to day.

 

[pigletgirl]

I tend to agree with you, OP. I at least know what day we're doing what park. It would be easier if it was just DH and I, but with our DD we need to be extremely flexible so to stick to a particular plan won't be easy.

Well, we'll see on Thursday what this brings!!

 

[RllngRckBrw]

I for one couldn't be happier about the whole FP+ situation. I know that the crazy planning isn't for everyone but I love the comfort of knowing everything is booked before we go. To be fair I haven't used the system yet so I don't want to give any misconception, but I like the idea of it all. I am thinking for us the best way to plan is going to use our 3 FP around dinner, as our ADRs are set ( we don't feel the need to go for a 4th 5th, etc FP. If it happens it happens, but we aren't planning for it.) We figure this leaves us the most flexibility for the rest of our day as I am not deciding that far in advance which days we are doing rope drop or want to hang at the hotel.

 

[rwdavis2]

IMHO, the last thing to do after everything else is make ADRs. I don't think Disney food is that spectacular to revolve the trip around it. Most of it is solidly average.

 

[BuzzinDownToDisney]

I get the overwhelmed feeling, but I'm the polar opposite. I just discovered with this trip how much of a compulsive planner I could be. This sounds weird, but I actually like that I have 2 ADRs I still have to hunt for multiple times daily. If not I would have started climbing the walls as soon as my final FP was booked.

 

[lovedonald]

I personally do not like planning at all. I am on a tight schedule at work all week and just want to relax and wing my vacation. We always get the quick service dining plan and eat whenever. The new fast pass system makes you plan a lot. We just go to extra magic hours and try to plan fast passes at the kiosks there when we decide what park we feel like going to. I don't mind waiting in line. I have a lot of friends that love to plan and I think that is great. It just isn't for me.

 

[babydoll65]

Definitely know what you mean but I actually like this part of the planning. Our last trip in November we were dealing with just the three fps(no fourth) but was lucky to just miss the tiering in epcot and hs. We had the regular dining plan so we had seven ts credits. That was a bit overwhelming trying to narrow down who wanted what. There was three of us (me, my son and mother). My son wanted nothing to do with character breakfasts but wanted a buffet so we did The Wave at the contemporary resort for 9am. We were seated immediately and was done eating in 45 minutes. We did epcot that day so it was easy to just grab the monorail with our first fp at 11am. Dinner adrs were done on our ak or hs nights since we tend to finish these parks early. I may be the only one but I didnt particularly care for the ddp. It was just too much food and time away from the parks. I normally only do a few adrs and the rest qs so there is less planning.

 

[kay1864]

I love Disneyworld but all of this pre planning is stressful. Made my ADR's at 180 days out no big deal. Now I have to coordinate my meals with the parks with the FP+. I am second guessing everything I have planned. Still have a few weeks before I make my FP+ reservations. Please tell me it won't be as stressful to make the reservations as it did the planning.

As usual I recommend RideMax. It will optimize the FPs around your ADRs.

Here's what we did:
- In RideMax, we selected FP attractions (but not times) based on the mesaboy list. (Note that RideMax has tiering built in)
- Then we selected the rides for each park (including ADRs as scheduled breaks), and RideMax generated the touring plans, including FP+ times
- Then we got on MDE to select the FPs, based on the FP times in the RideMax schedule.

Total planning time:
Time on RideMax planning a 5-day trip: 45 minutes
Time on MDE getting 5 days of FPs: 15 minutes

If you're getting FPs for A&E or SDMT, I would get RideMax a few days before your 60-day mark, and generate the plans as above.

Alternatively, you can get your A&E or SDMT FPs at 60 days, then include them as breaks when selecting rides in RideMax. Then update your FPs after you get your RM touring plans.

 

[Cold71]

I always try and find some fun in the planning of the trip. The actual trip itself goes so quickly that I realized if I find a way to enjoy even the most basic of planning tasks that I overall enjoy the vacation more. Half the excitement of a vacation is planning that vacation and thinking about how much fun you're going to have.

 

[SoonerSean]

When I was a kid all we knew was we were going to Disney World... you got there and stood in line and ate whenever you felt like it.

As an adult planning our first trip in 1999... still pretty much winged it. Then for the next few years... the only things we planned were our table service meals and the rest of our schedule was simply limited to what park(s) we'd hit based on where we planned to have dinner.

Last Thanksgiving was the first time with FP+ and so we obviously not only scheduled ADR's but also our FP+ rides. And honestly... I didn't care for it because I felt like we were constantly checking to see what time it was. The only blessing I found in it was that it eliminated the need to be somewhere at RD. We could ride Toy Story and not get to the Studios until a few minutes before. Or we could ride Soarin and not need to be at EPCOT when it opened.

I didn't really find it to be stressful in scheduling things - there were glitches and I hit the back button several times, but it didn't take all that long. But now when we went they didn't have the limits based on types of attractions. I booked Toy Story, Rockin' Rollercoaster and Tower of Terror. Next time - apparently you can't do that so I'm not sold on the purpose of FP+ in the Studios or EPCOT - there's simply not enough attractions that require a FP to only be able to use them on 1-2 "A" list attractions.

Sorry for the rambling... it is interesting how the amount of planning has changed over the years. We're going to Disneyland in two weeks - actually looking forward to the old FP system and playing things by ear. Watch me come to regret those words. LOL.

 

[Disfan1968]

The only blessing I found in it was that it eliminated the need to be somewhere at RD. We could ride Toy Story and not get to the Studios until a few minutes before. Or we could ride Soarin and not need to be at EPCOT when it opened.

For me, this is more than a small blessing... I love love love this fact.