Is it possible to have a spontaneous vacation at Disney anymore?

[Honeybee83]

I'm having a bit of a personal struggle here. My family (DH, DD, and myself) will be going to DW for 9 days with FD (hopefully will be able to book as soon as it's released on Wednesday). DD will be 2 1/2 at the time of our trip. We are aiming at booking a package at All Star Sports resort and upgrading to the reg DP.

I have never used a dining plan before. In addition to that, I have not been to the parks since 2011. That is pre fantasyland expansion, pre FP+, and adding a dining package on top of that is making my head swim. I am a planner by nature, but feeling like I have to book one meal a day, three rides a day, and know which park we will want to visit, all of this four months in advance and hinging on a 2 1/2 year olds unpredictability makes scheduling feel like a nightmare. My husband and I have never done a table service restaurant before and always did QS. I know that FD is going to make it much more difficult to not make ADR as there will be a large influx of reservations due to FD. I also just found out that I would be charged if I didn't make it to my reservation as well which ups the stress level a bit.

If anyone could provide any encouragement or advice to help a mama out I would really appreciate it.

 

[DSNY4ever]

Short answer- no. Disney seems to be trying to kill all spontaneity and make it harder for families. But...on a positive note we went last September with our 2 year old for his birthday and still just seeing him light up from the magic made all the planning stress disappear, well not totally

We went during FP+ testing, and they were not yet charging at EVERY restaurant if you didn't make your reservation, so that was a little easier. I hated doing so much planning though because once we got there we found that DS liked things at certain parks and we wanted to go back and sometimes he fell asleep 20 minutes before a dining reservation (and if we woke him up and dragged him inside that would have been trouble!). I wanted more spontaneity and to spend less time scrambling on our iPhones changing stuff. We did have to cancel some of our reservations and/or move the times because wight he time difference he wasn't keeping the same nap schedule that he was at home (and sometimes he took 2 naps which was not happening at home at the time).

Advice- breakfasts are easy to book because you always know you will wake up and they will want to eat (and at 2.5 they are still free for the buffets!). Try not to book your favorite/most anticipated restaurants at the beginning of the trip in case you are all adjusting still and need to cancel those.

Stay happy no matter what. Your son will be having fun no matter where you go or where you end up eating, so if you keep a smile on your face, so will he Good luck!

 

[Honeybee83]

Short answer- no. Disney seems to be trying to kill all spontaneity and make it harder for families. But...on a positive note we went last September with our 2 year old for his birthday and still just seeing him light up from the magic made all the planning stress disappear, well not totally We went during FP+ testing, and they were not yet charging at EVERY restaurant if you didn't make your reservation, so that was a little easier. I hated doing so much planning though because once we got there we found that DS liked things at certain parks and we wanted to go back and sometimes he fell asleep 20 minutes before a dining reservation (and if we woke him up and dragged him inside that would have been trouble!). I wanted more spontaneity and to spend less time scrambling on our iPhones changing stuff. We did have to cancel some of our reservations and/or move the times because wight he time difference he wasn't keeping the same nap schedule that he was at home (and sometimes he took 2 naps which was not happening at home at the time). Advice- breakfasts are easy to book because you always know you will wake up and they will want to eat (and at 2.5 they are still free for the buffets!). Try not to book your favorite/most anticipated restaurants at the beginning of the trip in case you are all adjusting still and need to cancel those. Stay happy no matter what. Your son will be having fun no matter where you go or where you end up eating, so if you keep a smile on your face, so will he Good luck!

I didn't even consider the time difference and it's impact on naps. Great tip! I agree about pushing breakfast reservations back to a day later in the trip. We are usually late risers anyway so that was a very good point! Any other tips or ideas are very welcome and appreciated. DH and I, and DD for that matter, will definitely need them!

 

[CaryHaven]

I'm having a bit of a personal struggle here. My family (DH, DD, and myself) will be going to DW for 9 days with FD (hopefully will be able to book as soon as it's released on Wednesday). DD will be 2 1/2 at the time of our trip. We are aiming at booking a package at All Star Sports resort and upgrading to the reg DP.

I have never used a dining plan before. In addition to that, I have not been to the parks since 2011. That is pre fantasyland expansion, pre FP+, and adding a dining package on top of that is making my head swim. I am a planner by nature, but feeling like I have to book one meal a day, three rides a day, and know which park we will want to visit, all of this four months in advance and hinging on a 2 1/2 year olds unpredictability makes scheduling feel like a nightmare. My husband and I have never done a table service restaurant before and always did QS. I know that FD is going to make it much more difficult to not make ADR as there will be a large influx of reservations due to FD. I also just found out that I would be charged if I didn't make it to my reservation as well which ups the stress level a bit.

If anyone could provide any encouragement or advice to help a mama out I would really appreciate it.

You will find an entire spectrum of opinions here, but I will offer up some encouragement since I've traveled a couple times with kids that young. (last trip was after FP+ had rolled out but had not done away completely with paper FP at that time). We've always gone when the FD promo was out. Yes, it can be stressful, but I don't love nor completely hate the new FP+. We actually didn't even use all ours last trip because we'd all of a sudden realized we were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel or my four year old decided a certain ride looked too scary. Once or twice I changed an FP at a kiosk, but we really got to do everything we wanted to do, even without using all the FP. We were there for a little over a week and had three days at MK, two at Epcot, one at AK. We've never desired to see HS.

If you use a touring plan, that can help a lot. (touringplans.com) and you can customize it to "time saver" which may criss-cross you a lot in the parks, or "less walking" which we prefer to do. I like to plan a certain area of a park and eat thereabouts or close to so we are not constantly running everywhere. We also don't leave the park for naps as it's a huge time-suck in my opinion. Both my kids still fall asleep in strollers. We use that time to push them around in an air-conditioned store while shopping for souvenirs. I make one or two ADRs a day, but no more than that. I also strive to go at slower times of the year and have a list of must-dos for the trip, of which I try to schedule several for each day so it's more easily accomplished. We rode all our must-dos (except BTMRR which was a choice to drop) multiple times last trip. I will advise if you're going during Food & Wine in Epcot to make that a priority as many of the kiosks close early when they sell out of stuff. We took our times in the countries shopping and looking at stuff as we ate, and found that by the time we got to the other side, every single kiosk we wanted to visit was either closed or ran out of what we wanted.

Short version, don't put too much pressure on yourself. If you read this board too much, you get the feeling that there's a crazed panic to do all and see all, but I've always gotten the reservations I want, even changing a few weeks before my trip. I've eaten at BOG lunch and dinner and some other hotspots without having to stay up all day and night searching for an opening. That's not the case for everyone, but I would have had a great time even if I had missed some of my favorite restaurants. You'll have fun no matter what! Try not to let it stress you out It's a vacation after all.

 

[DSNY4ever]

You'll have fun no matter what! Try not to let it stress you out It's a vacation after all.

This is very true- regardless of all the stress I put on myself planning and all the annoyances that I found w/ FP+ the trip was still AMAZING. DS loved every minute and we can't wait to go back. So when you get stressed just imagine the joy you will see on her face when she hugs that favorite character or sees that special show. Oh and try to get fast passes for the parades, that was seriously the only thing we liked about fast pass plus. We got one for the MK kingdom parade and it was awesome! Great view for a toddler without the pushy crowds

 

[CaryHaven]

This is very true- regardless of all the stress I put on myself planning and all the annoyances that I found w/ FP+ the trip was still AMAZING. DS loved every minute and we can't wait to go back. So when you get stressed just imagine the joy you will see on her face when she hugs that favorite character or sees that special show. Oh and try to get fast passes for the parades, that was seriously the only thing we liked about fast pass plus. We got one for the MK kingdom parade and it was awesome! Great view for a toddler without the pushy crowds

LOL This is actually true for us too. Lots of people rate this as a very low importance FP, but I don't think we've ever properly seen Wishes or a parade. LOL. It all depends on what you think is a priority. I was never too interested in the Move It Shake It parade, but I'm loving the Festival of Fantasy on youtube and hope to get an upfront spot. If we can't swing it on our first day or two in MK, I'll change an FP to that before our last day there (if it's available of course).

 

[MSSANDRA]

One point is that most of the time with free dinning the values are offering CS plans so unless you upgrade, you will not need to book ADRs.

FP+ is harder. We tried to save our FP for the late afternoon when crowds were the heaviest but then we often decided we needed a break during this time but did not want to miss our FP. Just really a toss up.

 

[Honeybee83]

Oh and try to get fast passes for the parades, that was seriously the only thing we liked about fast pass plus. We got one for the MK kingdom parade and it was awesome! Great view for a toddler without the pushy crowds

I didn't know they had fast passes for parades. What do they do? Can't everyone watch regardless of fastpass?

 

[MandiC]

Didn't read the other responses but with the dining plan the answer is pretty much no I enjoyed having our meals all planned out ahead of time (and by planned out I mean our table service meals we knew where we'd be eating ahead of time, for counter service I picked 2-3 restaurants with good reviews in the park/land we were going to be in that day), I am sure some people do not. We were pretty spontaneous other than that, we knew roughly where we wanted to be but other than the FP rides and rope drop rides we just wondered whatever area we planned to be in and went on rides as we pleased. You really don't have to plan but you will get more done if you plan.
If you want any specific restaurants, yes you will need an ADR, we saw restaurants taking walk-ins (not popular ones or character meals) BUT I am going to bet that that doesn't happen during free dining.

 

[CluelessDisFan]

I think if you're looking for more spontaneity and worried about your toddlers schedule. Maybe it'd be better and cheaper to stay at a Value and just go with the free quick service plan. If that's what you're more comfortable with.

However, if you're really looking forward to the table services, and new dining experiences for your family, then yes you're going to need to plan. But it can be done, and well. I'll share how we've done it with our toddlers and infants.

Our days start early, my children are up and happy in the morning, that also happens to be the least crowded time at the parks and coolest time of the day. So we rise by 630 or 7am. We get ready, grab some breakfast, and head to the park by rope drop. I try to schedule our parks during some morning EMH. We go straight to the busiest rides first and then we enjoy our time in the park before we eat lunch usually at like 1130. Then we head back to the resort for a nap, my older child will either stay at the park with one parent or go for a swim. Sometimes if we have a lot scheduled my LOs will nap in their strollers. Then by 5 we are getting ready to head to dinner. I try to book all our dinners by 6 and no later than 630pm, or my LOs will be very crabby. We figure out our tentative park schedule based on projected crowd calenders, then book our ADRs based on which park we plan to be at.

We only schedule 1 park per day, this tends to work best with small kids. This also leads to some complications with spontaneity. But if you book at least half of your ADRs at resorts it's less of a problem if you need to change around some park days. This will make it possible to have some flexibility with out park hopper tickets.

 

[texasroni75]

We've adjusted to the change by doing a few things. (1) We eat more CS meals so we aren't panicking over or tied down by ADRs. (2) We use park-hoppers, so we can change parks in the middle of the day if we find it's too crowded at the one we started out at (which works for us since we arent' tied down to ADRs in a certain park!). (3) We give ourselves a "basic" idea of what rides we want to do in one day, everything else is not really planned, we just pick the shortest standbys. (4) We try not to get upset if we miss something, and just put it into our "do it next time" agenda.

I can understand the worry if it's a once-in-a-lifetime trip, or if your family pretty much only does top-tier rides and Table-service meals. For us, though, it's still possible to have a relaxing trip, even during FD.

 

[kohlby]

This is one of the reasons we stick to quick service. (Others are we can save more with other discounts and I want it to be a vacation. And meal time in a sit-down restaurant isn't quite my idea of a vacation quite yet with my youngest). This will be our first trip with FP+. However, looking back, we would pull fast passes and not use them sometimes in the past, since we use the kids cues. This time, we will plan our FP+ in advance though. I'm hoping that's all the structure we need, since we'll be there in the off season. Luckily, we've been with the kids many times so we can do FP+ for the rides that we know they would want to do.

However, even with FP+ we can change our plans. It means a smaller chance of getting the rides we had originally wanted if done on park day, but it doesn't mean we have to stick to it either. We've had trips where we used park hopper and ended up in a different park than we started at due to a last minute decision. We've also left earlier than planned or stayed later than planned. We're going to make our FP+ for a time when we expect to be there. And if we're not, oh well. We have enough days that I'm sure we'll hit our favorites. (Or could do a higher demand ride without FP+ at rope drop, as we're always there at rope drop).

*I think I'm in the minority - but hopping parks with young kids has helped us out many times. Sometimes we plan for it for smaller crowds. Other times we realized it was in our best interest. (Like when the 3 year old refused to do anything at Hollywood Studios one trip since he just wanted to dig for dinosaur bones at AK or when we realized that AK didn't work on several other trips, so we hopped out and saved the day).

 

[Biggie Smalls]

Thank you so much for asking this question! It's been swirling around in my mind for some time as we are planning on going next January with our (then) almost 3 year old. He def has a mind of his own so I'm worried about a lot of the same issues and schedule conflicts!

 

[Gillyrose779]

We just got back on Sunday from a Week at Disney with an almost 3 year old and a 4.5 year old. We had the Deluxe Dining Plan with up to 3 table services a day.

We scheduled all three fastpasses for after breakfast/before lunch so, if a nap is needed, we could go back to the resort for a break right after lunch without messing with our FPs or meals and would not have to leave our room until dinner time. Worked perfect for us.

I also loved the addition of the 4 fastpass option once you used up the other three. I usually booked that from my phone during nap time.

We never waited more than 20 min. for a ride and were able to ride every single ride that was 40" height or lower.

 

[piperdown]

I have no experience with touring with a toddler/small child. However, we are a family of three, and for us, the room only discount is a better deal.

Free dining is great if you have 4 or more people, especially if the kids are "Disney adults". But for smaller families the room discount is usually the better deal. For the last couple of years, they have offered both types of discounts in the fall.

If I were you, I'd wait for a room discount and just schedule a couple of ADRs (paying OOP). It would give you more flexibility, and still get a good deal.

 

[Honeybee83]

I appreciate all of these suggestions so much! I need to discuss with DH, but after reading I think we may just plan on doing all star sports like we planned and sticking with the QS FD plan that comes with the resort. It was going to cost us $335 to upgrade from QS to the regular DP. We can still schedule one or two character meals paying OOP and pay less than we would to upgrade plans. That takes out the frustration of having to schedule at least one of our meals EVERY day. Between EPCOT and BOG quick lunch there are some really good looking meals on the QS plan. I think taking a super scheduled vacation out of the mix will make it much more fun and relaxing for all.

 

[magicwishes]

I think that's a good plan. We save more money paying out of pocket for the meals we want than paying for dining. I think sticking with the counter service free dining and doing a few ADR's will give you some special experiences but the freedom to follow a toddler's lead most of the time.

 

[DSNY4ever]

I didn't know they had fast passes for parades. What do they do? Can't everyone watch regardless of fastpass?

Yes, everyone can still watch parades of course, but if you get a fast pass they rope off a section right in front of the castle (well that is where the afternoon MK spot was) and then you get to walk right up and have a perfect front row view. It was awesome! We got so many great pictures and it was so nice to have DS dance and wave to the characters without having to stake out a spot so long in advance or have other families breathing down your neck. We didn't care so much for FP+, but that was the one things we thought was great. I wish we could have gotten one for the night time parades and shows, but they didn't offer any others while we were there.