Is it possible over plan?

[mastermind307]

I love planning almost as much as I enjoy actually going to Disney. However, this time around, I'm beginning to think I'm over planning and rethinking things too much. I had a plan in place and I was happy with it, but then I start doubting it and began looking at other options. I have to make fast passes on Friday, and I need to stop second guessing and just stick with a plan and be done.

I've come to realize that I can't plan every single moment of our trip. I won't know what we'll feel like doing on May 31, will we want to take a break and have lunch at a monorail resort, or will we want to stay in the MK for lunch. Our trip will be great, we have ADRs for restaurants we want to eat at, and we'll hopefully have FP+s for the rides we want to ride. But for everything else, I can't predict exactly when and what we'll want to do, and it will be ok. At least that's what I keep telling myself, but the planner in me has a difficult time accepting that.

Am I the only one who gets overwhelmed and starts second guessing everything?

 

[AprilDreamsOfDisney]

I get how you're feeling. I do!

But, I think it's important to plan for WDW vacations. The key is to be flexible once you're there. If you'd planned to eat at Casey's Corners for dinner on one of your MK days and everyone is tired and wants to head to the resort by 3:30, go! Enjoy dinner at your resort instead that day. If you have a FP+ booked for 10 am and someone is cranky, tired, and doesn't want to rope drop again, take a sleep-in day and play in the resort pool. Go later that day and be okay with the changed plans.

Again, flexibility is key!

 

[GillianP1301]

Personally, I can't plan enough but that's because I just find it fun not particularly necessary. I love to try to imagine what my day will look like and map out a whole touring plan, but I honestly very rarely follow it. I follow it roughly, like you said by knowing what park I'm in at what point each day, my ADRs, fastpasses, etc..., but often all the stuff in between becomes pretty fluid and I tend to go more with the flow while I'm there.

I feel the detailed plan makes going with the flow a lot easier for me though because it's easier to change things up if you have a basic understanding of where things are, how long they take, etc...

 

[disneyvoice]

Have fun with planning everything just allow yourself to be flexible and cancel/change your plans. I always plan, plan, plan and then we end up changing at least 50% of what we planned because we feel like going to a different park, aren't hungry for an ADR, would prefer to sleep instead of do rope drop, get tired and decide to leave a park early, etc. I typically start to thin things out as we get closer to our arrival day since I am starting to look at things more realistically. We've never had a bad trip because we decide to change everything around once we got there.

 

[georgina]

Yes, I believe it is possible to overplan. I think if you have ADRs and your 3 FP, that is enough. I think it is nuts to have a schedule for every ride and minute of your day! Enjoy, smell the roses! It seems you have been to Disney World before, so you can take it easy. Have a general framework, but feel free to deviate.

 

[Bete]

My plan is to always use the extra magic morning hour park to start, book my three fastpasses after the magic hour, have a table service lunch between noon and 1 pm and try for a fourth FP while eating lunch. If we get the fourth FP we like we do it and then take a break from the park until evening. Then, try for that fifth FP before getting back there for the evening. Also, we don't try to backtrack too much in any park.

If this is too much planning then I'm guilty.

I do feel with the expense of any vacation I want to make sure we get some value out of it. We can always revise the above especially when it comes to the fourth FP and/or not going back in the evening.

 

[Delirium]

You can't overplan. You can, however, be too stubborn and try to stick to your plan no matter what. In my mind, planning is half the fun. But, you have to understand going in that your plan will fail at some point.

Our last trip was in October 2016, I spent hundreds of hours planning, only to have Hurricane Matthew blow those plan up. That said, I did not regret having the plans get derailed at all. The planning helped us be better prepared to adjust and still have a great vacation.

 

[GeneralTso]

ABSOLUTELY!! This message board is full of people who do. It's their hobby and it makes them happy.

 

[CrazyHare]

For our family, we can over plan. Our first trip I should have left more down time. Each trip we have taken since that one has had less and less structure.

I enjoy planning our trips. But having to actually follow all those plans leave me stressed when we start getting off. So I have been letting go. We do our first 3 fast passes and go from there. If we see something we want to stop and do, we stop. I move fast passes if possible. And we just have fun.

 

[Delilah1310]

I feel the detailed plan makes going with the flow a lot easier for me though because it's easier to change things up if you have a basic understanding of where things are, how long they take, etc...

1000% THIS!

 

[cgattis]

You can't overplan. You can, however, be too stubborn and try to stick to your plan no matter what. In my mind, planning is half the fun. But, you have to understand going in that your plan will fail at some point.

So well said; totally agree.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

I plan my three fast passes and go where the wind takes me until the night time shows. However, it’s always better to overplan then regret and miss something!

 

[disneydreamer1980]

For me, planning is half the fun. But I always include chunks of days with just rough plans that can be changed “on the ground” if need be. I like to build in plenty of time to absorb the atmosphere and details, and you can’t do that if you’re running from one ride to the next. But with crowds always high nowadays, you have to have a plan or you won’t get much done.

 

[Artygal90]

Never!!! (says the woman who is still carrying around a 15-page long itinerary from our spring break trip.)

But in all seriousness...at a certain point you just have to set your plan and go with it. And then if you need to call an audible that day and do something else, that's fine. You'll still have a great time. The plan is there to guide you and hopefully help you do what you REALLY want to do, and if the plan is causing a problem, it's okay to chuck it. The point is to make new memories with your loved ones, right?

At least that's what I told myself when my whole family trekked from Jungle Cruise to Gaston's Tavern to stand in a huge line for breakfast at 9 am on a 10/10 Magic Kingdom day. And then backtrack through Old Fantasyland to do Haunted Mansion with three bathroom breaks along the way. It was fine. Totally fine. (we're not traveling together again).

 

[KJeff90]

I think you can do all the planning in the world, but not having contingencies and the willingness to part from your plan can be the hardest for some individuals. In reality, the only person who knows your plan is you; the thousands of other guests, cast members, mother nature and technology have no clue what your intentions are... so they can sometimes work against you. Your activity may be tracked my those pesky magic bands, your reservations, and other fancy magic, but even with patterns that may be predicted, you are a human being that doesn't run on a program.

I think the tighter your itinerary is, the more and more you are likely to be crushed by the variables that may come up unexpectedly. Being in a forum, we all seek the opinions of others when it comes to planning, but our perspectives and life experiences that have molded said perspectives differ. You'll never really know how great all the planning you've done will be until you actually execute it. I think the most important thing to have when it comes to planning a trip to that place we all love, Walt Disney World, is to have flexibility. Spontaneity, and maybe some actual plans as to must do's for those in your party which includes Fastpasses and ADRs.

It's interesting to see how intense the planning can get here on the DIS. For the most part, everyone seems to share the endearing communal spirit to help each other out. On occasion, there's the stigma towards newer planners, or even veteran planners, for their input on tricky questions and hypothetical answers; but we get through it together. Sometimes opinions and ideas may seem harsh, or blunt; tone doesn't translate well in text. But never let these strong feelings of others affect your plans that are "good enough for you".

Regardless of whatever other people may say, your plans are well... your plans. Do with them what you will; second guess, delete them all, steal ideas, or may they fall victim to the last resort of cancellation. People may have their limit when it comes to planning, but if there's even a smidge of joy in changing plans, go for it! If things don't go according to plan, that doesn't mean that they've necessary gone wrong... it may open up an opportunity you may have never considered. Happy planning!

 

[tinkerjo]

Planning is 1/2 the fun. It is anticipation for all the fun to come. I personally don’t like the FP+ system though because it makes it difficult to change up your park if you wanted to because you lose all your FP and there are few “good ones” left so a moderate amount of preplanning is almost required. We are rope drop people so we plan our entire morning up to lunch and will wing it in the afternoons. Sometimes we stay till 3-4, sometimes we go back and swim/rest. It all depends how we feel

 

[Klayfish]

Planning is an individual thing. We have a very contrary view to most here.

To us, anything beyond writing a few things down on a 8x11 sheet of paper...or even sometimes a restaurant napkin (really, we've done that) is over planning for a WDW trip. As I've mentioned many times before, the full extent of our planning takes no more than 30 minutes or so from start to finish. We come up with a very loose plan of what park on what day, and the only reason we do that is so we can get our FP+ at 30 days out. Even that we change fairly often. The rest of it is purely winging it. If we had any kind of a true time plan, spreadsheet, etc...it would be a 100% deal breaker, we simply wouldn't go. But that's just our taste.

 

[piratepride]

I love to plan! We are a family of four and always try to Rope Drop each day. When the kids are a little tired in the morning I always laugh and say to them..."Let's go, get up, we are not here to have fun, we have a schedule to keep!". I always tell our first time friends that without a plan at Disney you are going to be overwhelmed! Sometimes its still overwhelming with a plan! Well thought out Fast Passes and ADR's are a must in my opinion.

 

[kniquy]

I love planning almost as much as I enjoy actually going to Disney. However, this time around, I'm beginning to think I'm over planning and rethinking things too much. I had a plan in place and I was happy with it, but then I start doubting it and began looking at other options. I have to make fast passes on Friday, and I need to stop second guessing and just stick with a plan and be done.

you sound very much like me (and probably many people on these boards). The problem is that the way disney handles things makes us over plan from FP to ADR to dessert parties. You could plan every second of your day. I went into our April trip and initially started over planning. It will be DD 4 first trip -- after I had made our spreadsheet, made our ADRs I took a step back and realized I was trying to pack too much into our day and poor DD would never be able to keep up the pace. I went through, discussed with the family the must do things and what we would like to do if we have time. I canceled some ADRs and planned some more afternoon free time. It eased up our schedule, allowed for a couple mornings to take our time and not having to hit EMH or getting there at rope drop. If we are close to rope drop great but we are not going to kill ourselves getting to MK for 8am.

Am I the only one who gets overwhelmed and starts second guessing everything?

I have been driving myself nut questioning my choices or actions -- Such as - we put in a second morning for AK just to get a Navi FP, but this would mean holding up 2 other FP for that one ride, well when i thought it through and heard the reviews of the Navi River I said - we will ride it if it happens to have a short wait, if not then so be it. Maybe next time. This freed up the 3 FP so that we could plan AK in the morning for breakfast, then resort time for the afternoon and MK for the evening where i selected our 3 FP. Sometimes planning is give and take. As much as you want to do everything you cant. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a vacation and i have to ensure my daughters needs are met and that we actually take some time to "smell the roses". There is so much detail that goes into the parks that if you are just worried about going from one FP to the next and getting to your ADR that you will miss out on the little things.

 

[hertamaniac]

Planning for dining is one thing; planning for restroom breaks based on location is another (yes, I started down this path!).

I have become more liberal in our planning as I get older/wiser/realistic. It is definitely essential to make a "war" plan and strategize, but always have other options in the back pocket should things get derailed.