I'm not a Disney Nazi, really I'm not!

[snyderla]

This morning I was reading a couple of trip reports before work and thinking "I sure wish I actually knew someone from the disboards, someone that shares my obsession and lives near me" but since I live in a small town of only 6000 people, that isn't really likely. So I put on my DVC shirt and off to work I went, feeling very alone in my obsession. For lunch I went to a local restaurant and was approached by someone who asked where do we own? After a few moments of disney talk I heard that question I'd been longing to hear..."do you go on the disboards?" Sure enough...princesslindy and snap21 live in the same small town in IL that I do!!! I had printed out my touringplans sheets and had them in a binder in front of me, opened to the title page. (I was just going to try to write in some places I wanted to make ADR's for so DH & I can actually eat while we are there, that's all.) snap says, "my wife has everything planned out that we are going to do before we leave, I don't like that" or something to that effect. To which princesslindy responds that she's not that bad and looks down toward my binder. OK, maybe i'm just a little over sensitive, maybe it's just because my boss threatens to have an intervention for me, but could they possibly think that I am a Disney nazi??? That I am an overplanner, push ya till you drop kinda of gal??? Maybe she didn't really look at my binder, maybe I'm just a little goofy about someone even seeing that I have a binder with our itinerary out in public and the trip is still 77 days away. I just hope I didn't scare my new found friends away. So princesslindy and snap21, if you are out there, I'm not a disney nazi, really I'm not!!! It just SEEMS that way sometimes

And I sure hope you get to take advantage of the free dinning and your free airfare.

Does anyone else out there use binders and print out plans??? I'm don't have things like " will arrive at MK at 8:52 am, quickly walk up main st and turn right to TL, we'll do this ride, then at 9:15 we'll walk to this ride" etc. Just which park what day and where we want some of our meals, so I can get those ADR's made. What about you?

Lori

 

[TSR6]

Nope, I completely wing it....minus SOME meals that are planned...

I'm from a small town in IL too...

 

[wasabi girl]

I'm not going until Sept and I've got our ADRs done, tour booked...etc. I don't FEEL like a "Disney Nazi", I feel like I'm ensuring that we will have fun.

 

[Tinkerbell10403]

HAHA Do NOT feel bad!! How cool to meet some fellow board members!! Sometimes I sit in the library at school and wonder if anyone else on Campus go on it. And if they found out I belong to a huge group of WDW loving, trip planning, dining reporting people...would they laugh, or make fun? I wish I knew people..besides my DBF, and my family (and they do not quite get me BTW...they call me a Disney Nerd.) who shared my intense plethura of knowlegde about WDW in general. I am addicted to trip planning...and yes, I do have 'materials' like binders, etc. For my next trip...I have a Mickey journal that I am keeping all petinent info. in. How fun you met some fellow DISers. Today I was in Jason's Deli, and I thought to myself "Atleast ONE person in the this restaurant MUST me a dis member.".

Funny story...
So I have these pooh bear ears..and I wear them sometimes just for fun around my house. They are from WDW. They are not big, just small ones. So one day my Mom puts on a Tiara..and I have on my pooh ears...and we are just having a conversation in our kitchen and she interrupts herself and says "Do you know we are standing here in a tiara and pooh bear ears having a conversation, and it seems normal". HaHa...my obsession is spreading...

One question...how do you pronounce it officially....D-I-S like the letters...or 'dis' like 'She dissed me'. (insult) HeHe...I just want to know for sure in case I meet someone.

 

[Mom B]

You're definitely not the only one. I keep a Disney trip folder and actually print out a table...kind of like a calendar...showing each day, broken down into breakfast, morning activity/park, lunch, afternoon activity/park, dinner, evening activity/park; I include flight times, which parades to do when, which parks have EMHs on each day, etc., etc., etc. I even have a little "key" at the bottom of the page explaining all my abbreviations, etc. I find it useful...some people would say I'm nuts! I wish I was as organized with a trip diary, trip reports, pictures, etc., afterwards, though. I leave that to the rest of the family. I'll keep my planner as my "memory." Once I'm THERE I plan to relax and enjoy, not mess with that kind of stuff!

 

[Tinkerbell10403]

HaHa...how funny we are up this late on the boards...I love DIS!

 

[RyMickey]

One question...how do you pronounce it officially....D-I-S like the letters...or 'dis' like 'She dissed me'. (insult) HeHe...I just want to know for sure in case I meet someone.

I pronounce it "DIZ-Boards," since the word "Disney" sounds like "Dizzney" to me.

 

[thesoldtrain]

Yes!!! I sooooo do that! Okay, so I have a funny binder story of my own! We live in a mtn. town that was completely evacuated a few years back due to a forest fire. Everything ended up being fine thanks to an early snow that quenched the flames, but since that time, summers and fire season tend to get people a bit ramped up about evacuations, etc. Well, one day before our last trip, another fire came close and we were put on an evacuation alert. Now, mind you, during the PREVIOUS evacuation, I packed up SOOOO much stuff within a very short time. When this alert was called, I did the basics, when GASP!!!!!!! I realized that my BINDER (my husband calls it my "precious" ) had been left behind in my classroom where I teach. Well, no way in bleepbleep was I going to have my little baby BURN after I had put all that work into planning that dang vacation, so yup! I got in my car and RACED up to rescue the poor thing from certain doom. Well, again, nothing occured but I can tell you for certain that my beloved trip binder does NOT leave my side wherever I go! LOL

You know, everyone thought I was crazy for planning (and I, too, do not think of myself as an overplanner, but I do certainly get down the basics) but now I have planning converts....my dad and stepmom, who NEVER planned out a vacation in their lives, decided to cross over to the DARK SIDE when planning their recent Hawaii trip and they said they would never do it another way, because things were so smooth for them during the trip. AND their binder was HUGE! WAAAAAAAAAY bigger than mine....dang, they had a 3 incher! Mine only has 1 inch rings, so I have yet to graduate up! LOL But hey, maybe this trip?!?!?

I am one of your peeps!

Jeanette

 

[Marcy Mouse]

I always plan the park days - which rides are a must and all of our ADR's. I also plan our Counter Service. We went last year for the free dining so we tried alot of different resorts for our Counter Service.

I didn't find the parks busy but everyone in our party who thought I was crazy couldn't thank me enough after we would get to a rest and get right in when they were turning so many people away.

I think planning is our way of being there. Every trip I plan takes me back to the trips before.

So can you plan to much - I don't think so. As long as your willing to adjust those plans once your there if need be and you consider everyone in your party planning makes things easier.

 

[STEAMBOAT209]

You are not alone by far, DW and I have 3 sets of plans going, a Excl Spreadsheets for the upcoming June trip, day by day times listing parks attending, ADR's for each with conf.#'s, planned events listed for each day. Also printing out all the menu's where we plan to eat, official calendar from the Disney site for times of all the parks, parades,,, we have this going on for three different trips, June, Dec, and May 07. Note: they go with us wherever we go, to manage any discussions during the day, so we can update at any moment for a change. We try not to be to obsessive with it through, I don't know if its working.

 

[Yacht Club Family]

And, I'm proud to say I'm one of them! We have several sets of forms we set up every year. From our ADR's, Itenerary with airline info, resort info, etc. We have tables of all the attractions at each park with a column for each family member and "Y", "N" or "O" (yes, no or doesn't matter) so that we know how many days we want to spend at each park. We schedule out how early we want to go, when we are breaking to rest/swim/etc., and the evening hours loosely based on where we have ADR's for that night. Now, this is all flexible based on the weather, how crowded, and what we simply decide we want to do. But, having planned out so much, we usually have a much more relaxed and enjoyable trip since we know we'll have plenty of time to see and do everything we each want. Oh, and we have packing lists printed out for each of us as well as a Misc. Packing List that covers everything else. In our binder (a converted day-minder), we have all of our information, hole-punched, and handy. We even keep our airline boarding passes in the inner pocket, our ID is ready and convenient. We have copies of our kids birth certificates and current pictures of each child (if there is ever a problem, I'd rather be prepared than not) and copies of our medical insurance cards and our copies of our ID's/licenses. We even have several pages for each section (i.e. resort, dining, each park) to jot down notes throughout the trip about anything we want to remember, significant changes or even problems. The next year, we read those notes and plan accordingly.

Now, all this said, we really are fairly spontaneous

 

[dakyak]

For our trip last year, my mom and i had teh spreadhseet with what park we were going to do what day, our ADRs with confirmation numbers, and which nighttime show we were planning to see!

Everyone thought we were insane, but it helped us so much.

Going in October, and my mom and i are starting to do it again...This time my dad is coming with us...he's not very happy about all the planning

oh well!

 

[millerjudi]

I am so thrilled to read this since I am now planning/have planned two trips--June 06 and November 06. I have a folder where I keep everything (airline tickets, ADR confirmation numbers, touring plans etc.), and yes, I plan where we are going each day, TS meals each day, pool time, etc. I am lucky because my sister-in-law is as obsessed with Disney as I am, and she is the only person I can talk to about it who understands how I feel! She is also an overplanner, so she thinks its totally normal. My DH, who is not a planner, loves it, because you never get in a fight or have complaining kids if you are not walking around in the Florida heat, starving, not knowing what to do or where to go.

What I am trying to do is not necessarily find DIS'rs in my town, but instead CONVERT all of the rest of my family members and friends!

 

[DISBeth]

I pronounce it D-I-S, every letter. I also have a binder (I've even decorated it)

 

[scoolover]

I was having a discusson with someone at work about who is the better planner. After I told her about the binder and the ADR's and everything else, she simply looked at me and said "ah, but do you have a plan B". She got me. I could say nothing else.
I decide early what days we are going to do what parks and have about one planned meal per day. Beyond that we sort of wing it.

 

[tmt martins]

I not only have a spread sheet (times of day in what park we hop).But I use my cell phone as well. in calender I keep all my times and ADR's.Then in notes I keep all my Confirm numbers,PAP,DVCand DDE numbers.

 

[goofy4tink]

Have a binder for every trip we've ever taken. I use them for the whole planning process before we go. Everything you can imagine is in there. Then, when we get home, resort maps, souveniers, whatever, go into the binder.
We went to WDW with another family in '01. The dh in the other family thought I was a WDW Nazi, and said so on several occasions!!! My dh jokingly agreed. But, on subsequent trips my dh has admitted that my preplanning has enabled us to have some terrific experiences. I am presently planning a 13th birthday trip in Oct for my dd and her friend. This other girl and her mom are the family we traveled with in '01. The other mom has told me to plan it all....she trusts me implicitly since we had such a good time in '01...except for her dh who she has said she is never bringing to WDW again...ever!!!
So, those of us that plan obsessively are appreciated by some. But, I have to say...it's a little un-nerving to ask where people want to eat and be told.."Oh, we don't care. You choose."

 

[joshsmom]

The people I work with think I'm nuts. My office is COMPLETELY decorated in Disney and they fear each time I come back because they know I will be adding, rearranging, etc. They also fear each vacation because of my endless planning--they're afraid I'm going to talk to them about it!! I've learned long ago that I'm obsessed and the only folks that understand me are all of you here on the DIS!!!

Now, for the part of my response: Snyderla and TSR6, where do you guys live? I'm in Illinois too (Granite City--Southern part of the State). Maybe we need a DIS meet to obsess together and not bother others!!!!

Now back to your regularly scheduled DISing. . .

 

[emma'smom]

Hello.....this is why the Passporter is on every Barnes and Noble shelf in America! I'd say... better to have the binder than to wait in lines for rides! Some people like to wing it...i think the planning is half the fun! It is part of my vacation anticipation system!

 

[goofy4tink]

Hello.....this is why the Passporter is on every Barnes and Noble shelf in America! I'd say... better to have the binder than to wait in lines for rides! Some people like to wing it...i think the planning is half the fun! It is part of my vacation anticipation system!

Love the Passporter...we have many. I don't use them so much in the actual planning. I do write down all pertinant info on the back pages. But, what I like the most is being able to use it as a Disney Diary at the end of each day. We are able to relive all our trips long after we return home by rereading them!!