Itineraries for each day vs. general plans

[momloveson]

Hi,
Going to WDW soon and wondering if anyone else with young children (DS is barely 4) has found it more or less helpful planning an itinerary for each day vs. having a general plan.

I'm tempted to structure our trip beyond just the couple of PS's we have but see 2 problems with that.
1) Son is just 4 and I don't see the likelyhood of keeping on a rigerous schedule. We've had experience with going to Busch Gardens in VA several times and Disney is like 5 times as big.
2) I have a chronic illness and only have so much energy. I'm not sure how much I'll have from day to day, so I don't want to go through planning everything each day just to have itineraries squashed.

I've got tours to do from my "Unoffical Guide" and I've seen other itineraries on these boards and they seem very cool to be able to make sure you see everything you can. So, for anyone who's done this planning (AND has a wee one), are you glad you did? or did it get thrown in the garbage.

And, does anyone know if you can get into the kids clubs with a day or so notice? or do you need reservations way in advance?

Thanks again!

 

[bettyann29]

When I went last with my kids they were 7 and 9... I had planned everything to the T and ended up not even going by it.. My personal opinion is that I would figure out which parks you want to visit on which days and then make your ps accordingly or vice versa.. so that way you have your ps for the park that you will be in that day.. I would figure out specifically which rides are a must for each park so you can make sure that you do those rides and then figure out which parades, shows, etc that you want to see and then play it by ear.. With your child being so young I would probably take a few hours mid day to go back to hotel (easier if you are staying at a disney hotel).. and depending on how many days you are there you might even do a leisure day to visit downtown disney and also take time at the hotel pool and then maybe that night go to MK to see fireworks at closing when you arent so tired.. as you would be if you had been in MK all day..

What I did was get some recipe cards.. I wrote my info on those.. and then laminated them and punch holes in the corner and got a little ring thing to hold them together.. Small enough to put in my backpack.. When I go back I will be doing this again, but will only be putting which parks on which day, ERide night info, Early Entry day info, which rides in each park I want to make sure we ride, including shows and parades and then ps info..

 

[momloveson]

Originally posted by bettyann29

What I did was get some recipe cards.. I wrote my info on those.. and then laminated them and punch holes in the corner and got a little ring thing to hold them together.. Small enough to put in my backpack.. When I go back I will be doing this again, but will only be putting which parks on which day, ERide night info, Early Entry day info, which rides in each park I want to make sure we ride, including shows and parades and then ps info..

What a great idea. I want to carry as little as possible and with a ring I could even clip a basic itinerary to my fanny pack.

Am totally planning on going back to the hotel for naps and swims (will be staying on site). DH says we won't be getting our money's worth....perhaps I'll leave HIM at the park while DS and I relax. We have 8 days there and only 4 planned at the parks. Specifically choose Port Orleans FQ b/c of the cool slide at the pool!

 

[dzneelvr]

I wouldn't even bother with the index cards.
Keep it simple so it doesn't feel like you are over scheduling.
Pick a park each day and make your PS. That done, once you arrive at the park, get a FP for one of the major attractions if there is a crowd. If not, just head to the back of the park and work your way up. As you stop to rest, check out the showtimes so that you can make 1-2 of them between attractions.
Too often families try to see "everything" on a single trip. That's impossible. And they end up missing the little street shows and/or characters along the way.
Always try to look UP around you; not DOWN at a map....it's a magical place and you'll need to come back again and again.

 

[bajanswife]

Here's what I'm considering for my family (DH and I, 3 kids aged 4 - 7, and my parents) for our Xmas trip:

I've got a spreadsheet going where I'm gathering info. I have made a page with headings like "cold day", "hot day", "rainy day", "needs whole day", "can do in a half day", "must be evening", "better in the morning", "avoid on weekends" etc. etc., and put various parks, activities, shows etc. under various headings (multiple times, as appropriate). I will schedule a character meal, one or two sit down meals at resorts/parks and a couple of special events/shows, but after that I will choose what to do each day based on stuff like the weather. e.g. a water park or the hotel pool are good things for off days, but they can only be done in warm weather, so for cooler days we'll do parks. For rainy days we'll do Disneyquest, go shopping or do MGM where it's mostly indoor shows. Hopefully by tuning in to weather forecasts we'll be able to plan each day a couple of days in advance, but we won't leave home with a plan of what we'll do each day for the entire trip, cause the weather might ruin it.

Also, I don't know what my kids will be up to energy-wise, which is why I'm thinking mainly in half day slots. The exceptions are Seaworld and Universal - since we won't have multiday or hopper type tickets for them, once we're in we'll want to stay the whole day. But anything Disney can be done for just a few hours if everyone's tired, and later when we're feeling fresher again, we can go do another slot back at the same park or a different one.

I doubt we'll want to make PS' in advance for every park day, so this system will work fine - we're not going to be there at a super busy time (it will be earlier in December, not between Xmas and NY), and I can call and see what PS' are available as soon as we know which park we'll be in. Plus, counter service places offer enough healthy alternatives nowadays (sandwiches, salads, wraps), not just fast food, that I'd almost rather do those most of the time - they're quicker and more informal, and we can get on with our day sooner. When we need a break we'll leave, or we'll do an airconditioned show or find a shady bench somewhere - we won't rely on sit-down restaurants to give us a break. Plus, many counter service places have seating areas that are relaxing enough - I like the ones for Flametree BBQ at AK, down by the water.

When I went recently with only adults we had a set plan because we have energy, we could handle weather vagaries, and it was such a short trip we had to have a good plan - but for a longer trip with little kids and unpredictable weather, I didn't think a detailed plan would really work well.

 

[normmo]

We're going tomorrow with my 2 1/2 DS and for the first time I did not plan every minute of every day. The only thing I did do was make a PS for Chef Mickey's. I too have the UG touring plans and I figure we'll go to whatever park we want depending on when my DS gets up (Extra magic hour if it's early, the park after EE if it's not or the resort pool if he's tired). With a wee one who has never been before I have no idea what it will be like so I'm going in with extremely low expectations and will just wing it. Now when I go again in January with my best friend, that will be a different trip and planned planned planned.
Have fun!
Mo

 

[mollyandsteve]

I have done a lot of itinerary planning because I have never been before and want to make sure I approach the parks the right way and make things less hectic with the DS. That being said, like one of the other posters said, I am taking the half day approach due to our son's age. We will hit a couple attractions after lunch, but that is it. Back to the hotel for a good nap to rest up for a good dinner and maybe a small activity. I used Tour Guide Mike plan for touring with toddlers. It is great. Gives you a good plan for the parks (we are only doing MK and MGM) - and does not overschedule you. We are doing the 2 day MK plan.

I would not overschedule, but I would probably get enough structure that you do not totally feel overwhelmed by the parks. In our case, that could create chaos with DS. Allow naptimes - hotel breaks - sit down meals, etc. so you do not feel so rushed, and you and your son can refuel.

HTH!
Molly

 

[Ambassador]

The time of year when you are visiting gives importance to planning. During the busiest seasons, you should plan to go on the must-see rides early, then relax the pace and use FastPass to avoid crowds. You and your kids will do better with rest each day at your resort. Even Dad will burn-out on a 'Dawn Patrol' elephant-march, full-regimen in a few days.

Sadly, we always see some frustrated, tired parents yelling at their kids, "why aren't you having any fun?" With our little Delegation, we always followed our plans loosely, and allowed them to linger longer. Their joy and our relaxation are tantamount to our vacation.

 

[momloveson]

I've told my husband that we need to plan on nap/pool break during the day. I've explained to him that everything I've read in the guidebooks at the library and online says that taking breaks and naps is a MUST MUST MUST. He, as expected, is NOT happy about that. He doesn't think he's going to be getting his money's worth. I need to make sure that this vacation doesn't end up a huge stressful hectic thing that leaves me begging for another vacation.

I called wdisney last night to add a night to our room. Mentioned my illness and he put notes all over my reservation to try to get us a centrally located room at each resort. Also told me about a special card to get at the entrance of the park that I can use throughout the stay if I find I'm dwindling. DH is not thrilled with me getting the card...he doesn't even like when I use my handicapped placard on my car to park because it is not readily obvious that I have an illness that sometimes requires its use.

We trying to decide now on adding a 5th day to our park hopper passes (we'll be there 8 and maybe now 9 days). I think this will help us enjoy the time even more.

The Disney people are so nice on the phone. Reservation guy insisted that it isn't a big deal to make accomodations for health accomodations. I'm hoping our experience with them in person will be just as nice.

Anyone else's spouse have issues with leaving the park for a couple of hours? How did ya'll handle it?

 

[Lollipop Mom]

My husband was "anti-break" before we left for our first vacation but very quickly he realized that everyone was happier if we took that break. Even if the kids can nap in the stroller, we still left the parks for a few hours. Our boys are 2 and 4 and even if they nap in the stroller (common for the little one, rare for the older one) they still needed down time away from the sensory overload of the parks. Now my husband is all for the mid day break. :lol

What we do is plan out what parks we will be at on what day and evening (most of the time it's a different park for day and evening). I subscribe to TourGuideMike.com so we use his "least crowded parks per day" suggestions to plan this. For MK and AK we have a VERY loose touring plan for the morning but evenings are always more play it by ear. For mornings, we basically have our "must do" list. I use the touring plan info from TGM to rough out a plan for us to get all of our must do's done. It is far from a "do this...no hurry there for that...quick now back this way for this one" type thing and I don't do any criscrossing. Basically for MK we know they want to do Fantasy Land so we head right for Dumbo (like everyone else) after that it's more directing their attention away from the stuff that typically doesn't have big lines later (like the carousel) but if one of them INSISTS on, say, Peter Pan NOW and teacups were next on my "suggested list" then we do Peter Pan and head to the teacups next. Our must see list for MK is usually everything in Fantasy Land except Snow White, Buzz, TTA, Toon Town, Jungle Cruise, Pirates and Haunted Mansion. If my little one grows another 3/4" by Christmas, we'll be working BTMR and Splash in there too. We break up that list into 2 mornings with ABSOLUTE faves (like Buzz and Peter Pan) on both days. From our early lunch to the time we leave, it's more of a play it by ear. Same with evening. Evenings are less about rides and more about shows for us.

That plan has worked for us for 3 trips and kept everyone happy and not feeling over scheduled. There is no way I could do commando touring with preschoolers.

 

[crisi]

Originally posted by momloveson
I've told my husband that we need to plan on nap/pool break during the day. I've explained to him that everything I've read in the guidebooks at the library and online says that taking breaks and naps is a MUST MUST MUST. He, as expected, is NOT happy about that. He doesn't think he's going to be getting his money's worth. I need to make sure that this vacation doesn't end up a huge stressful hectic thing that leaves me begging for another vacation.

I read this piece of advice before traveling with toddlers. And it was the single worst piece of advice I got.

My kids didn't nap back in the room. They jumped on beds for two hours. Then they were too tired to go back into the parks. We'd have been much better off plowing through the day than trying the hotel room nap.

We ended up doing the "Disney transportation nap" An hour on the train through the MK. The bus. The monorail. The ferry. The stroller.

We also kept our evenings fairly early. My husband went out one night to see Illuminations, while I stayed back with tired kids

One size Disney touring does not fit all. There is nothing that is a MUST MUST MUST.

This last trip my daughter was just four and my son five. They didn't even take the transportation naps. We got up at 7am, went to bed at 8pm.

 

[bigbabyblues]

We went at the end of Sept with our two boys, ages 3 and 15 months. We had a plan for each day of what park, and pretty much what things we really wanted to do, and we just went with the flow of things. There were a couple of things I didn't get to do this time, but there's always another trip.

Steph

 

[StephMK]

We just returned from our first trip & I had the same issues before going. My kids are 2, 4, & 10. I ended up not being able to make detailed schedules like I originally wanted. It turned out fine & we had a great trip. We knew what park on what day, I had parade times & only 3 PS for the week. If you pick the 3-4 top things you want to accomplish in a day, then everything else just somehow fits in fine.

It's a little overwhelming - well, a lot - to be there & surrounded by so much activity. We enjoyed Magic Kingdom so much the kids voted to go there another day instead of Animal Kingdom - and they love animals! We didn't break for naps except 2 days but it really depends on the kids. My DS2 is so easygoing even when tired so it made it easy. We didn't get there first thing & didn't stay til close either.

The info here was invaluable & really helped make our trip wonderful! It was nice being able to have some basic knowledge about places/things going on.

 

[3MouseMom]

My approach was to decide which park on which day (a combo of when I could PS's and avoiding ee....going super early doesn't work for us, the only exception being an early breakfast PS at MK).

Next , I knew which 3-5 things were must-dos at each park for us. I also knew times of a show if it was on our must-do list. I never did one of the tight touring itineraries, I just tried to hit the few things I knew I had to do. All the other stuff we got to do was bonus--we relaxed and just "smelled the roses." I did use fast pass, so there was bit of planning there, but we tried to keep it no pressure. Another helpful hint on fast pass....it gives you an hour window to come back and ride, but if you miss your hour, you can still come back later in the day and use it. As long as it is AFTER the first time listed on your pass.

We aren't personally "take a break mid-day" people either, but everyone has to find what's best for them. Because we do not do ee, we start off with good nights sleep, no early morning rushing. I find that a late lunch or early dinner ps at a sit-down restaurant really helps with the fatique. We take our time and recharge, and still feel like we aren't spending too much time with transporation back and forth. We also find seats pretty early for fireworks... it only works if my dds have something to keep them busy. This year I got them small (fit easily in my fannypack) princess toys. For Wishes, I got some snacks and those toys and they sat for almost an hour. They NEVER sit still for me at home, but the new little toy was great. My mom and I got to relax and chat and we felt less pressured than trying to rush back from the hotel in time to see the fireworks.

I hope you have a great trip. I know doing WDW with a chronic health issue is a challenge (I am able to take high doses of meds for one week to stop flare-ups of my own challenge for my trips)...but you will get so much joy over watching your child enjoy the magic. I hope your dh helps you out!! (I know that can be challenging too!!) Your idea of letting dh have some speical dad/child time seems like a great idea..you can relax a bit in your room to recharge and meet them later.

 

[bobcat]

EE at MK is a must for parents with small children. In the EE hour you will be able to ride the fantasyland rides with little or no wait and sometimes even hit your favorites a second or third time. That's getting your money's worth! Lines for these atractions are so astronomocal later in the day that you can waste precious touring time waiting in the lines.

On days when we did EE I would schedule an early lunch ps (or a late breakfast ps). That gave us time to rest up from our comando touring. We would then hit a couple of more rides, look in some of the shops and when the crowds got too much to handle we would head back to the hotel for a couple of hours. If EE was at 8am and you were in the parks until 1pm you will have 5 hours of less crowded park touring. You can see more in a shorter period of time. It works for us!

If you think you might come back in a years time, say a week earlier than this years vacation, an AP migh be a good solution. When we have Annual Passes we find we have a more relaxing vacation. If we want to just visit the parks for a couple of hours we can. It makes us much more flexible and not feel like we have to fit it all in because we are using a day on our hoppers.

 

[BevS97]

We trying to decide now on adding a 5th day to our park hopper passes (we'll be there 8 and maybe now 9 days). I

if it's financially viable, I would look into adding more days to your hoppers. We find the key to a less stressful trip is to visit the parks every day, or at least most days, but for short days. This works well for us, if we only have a few days in the parks we feel compelled to spend ALL day there as we don't have many days to visit and we don't want to waste any of them.
What are you plannign on doing on your 4 non park days? We did downtown disney, swam, mini golf, went shopping, but we still find that we prefer to be in the parks for at least part of everyday.

we don't generally do a mid-day break, we just stop when we are tired and that can be anywhere from 3pm to late. if we know we must stay late for wishes for example, then we won't go to the park until mid-afternoon so we are up for a late night.

 

[Massey33]

We've been twice, once for 7 days with DH, DD (5 at time) and my 60+ mother and once for 5 days with all from previous trip and my brother and his family when my daughter was 11. We are planning our third trip as a short 3 day trip in mid-December with just DH, DD (turning 13 during our visit). The first trip I planned down to the minute with a detailed map of what attractions to ride when, what shows, where characters were, etc. We kept to a rigorous schedule and although we saw a lot, we were all pretty stressed. The second trip I had a schedule, not as tight, but we pretty much tossed it after the first day. We had a much more enjoyable time seeing what we could and taking our time. We were even pulled into the Country Bear's Dance down a street in MK

This time we are going with only the bare minimum of planning, letting our daughter pick which parks to do on which days and looking at what attractions, shows we can skip and not feel sad about.

It's Disney - you'll have a wonderful time if you just relax and enjoy it even if you can't see everything.

 

[Buttercup26]

Here's what I do:

Have a list of "must do" items that the family has picked, each person picks 3 - 5 rides/shows/etc.. that they absolutely do not want to miss.

Know which park I am going to in the am and which park in pm. Try to go to the least crowded park for that day time. Schedule your PS accordingly. Make sure you do your "must do" items in each park.

Go back to the hotel for swim & nap mid-day. The trick to getting the kids to nap is to have them swim & snack first. After trekking thru the parks for the morning then swimming, they are ready for a nap.

 

[momloveson]

I've got the general itinerary.,...which parks on which days so we can take advantage of ee. A couple of days we want to go to 2 parks....this will appease sweet 4 boy who is BESIDE himself with pride on how good he's been doing behaving before our trip. He's goitn to do a couple of "homework" things at Disney too.

We are noting the rides to def do, and the def don'ts. will do a cople of trade-offs I'm sure. Really want to focus on relaxing.

Lots of great input from everyone. Can wait to pull in to PO-FQ.

 

[LMC]

Go to the disney world website and look at the descriptions of all the rides. I think they have a height calculator that you can use to determine which rides he won't be able to ride.

Take your list of rides and get a park map when you get to your resort (if you are on-site) and map out your day. We have been so many times now that we know what the kids like best and we avoid everything else. Buzz lightyear gets backed up as well as dumbo and I think peter pan(?).

I would suggest staying out of the souvenier shops until last so you don't have to carry all that loot around with you. You will also get the priviledge of going through souvie shops at the end of most rides.
Have fun!!