Just How Much "PLANNING" Do You Do?

[mjmoon]

I'm curious what kind of planning goes into your trips. Do you plan out every second of every day? Plan exactly what and when you are going to see the different attractions at each park? Have every meal planned when and where each day?

I'm not a big scheduler and have made reservations for three table service/character meals for our trip. I'm planning on doing one meal at camp (per day) and the rest out since we have the meal plan. I don't want to plan, plan, plan because with small children you can't keep a strict itinerary. We have 10 days in the parks other than planning what parks we may go to (and still may hop daily) each morning and knowing what we want to ride and see in each park.. I'm not doing a whole lot of planning/scheduling. Does this sound like an OK approach? Should I be planning better?

What does "planning" your trip mean to you? Entail?

 

[DaveInTN]

I'm like you, in that I plan for our meals out only because without ADR's you are likely out of luck. Accordingly, I will plan restaurant meals inside the parks based upon what days I want to do a park. For instance, if I want to do the MK on a certain day due to extra magic hours, I'll plan our Crystal Palace dinner for that day.

Other than that, I like to keep things flexible. I used to plan every single meal even those in the RV, but found that often our plans would change and we'd decide we wanted to eat out rather than eat what I had brought from home. Now I just plan for a number of meals in the RV, but leave the actual decisions on when we will eat them to the last minute. Makes the vacation less stressful, and the planning less cumbersome for me.

 

[LONE-STAR]

In the past we planned everything now we have been enough that we just wing it. About the only thing we plan is what day we want to go to which park. We never do more then about 3 ADR's on the trip just because they take so much time.

 

[We4mickey]

Fly by the seat of our pants. We know what we want to do and we do it when we feel like it while we are there. We don't want to have to leave something we are doing and having fun at to go to something because we have to.

 

[Judy Judy Judy]

We always go and just do what we want whenever we want and have alway had a great time.

BUT the last time we went was the first time we took our sil and I wanted everything to be perfect, we got the dining plan and I planned out ever detail of the trip, what a mess, we went from rushing from one meal to basically riding one ride to rushing for another meal, the dining plan actually took away from the fun of it all for us, to much rushing here and there.

I now go back to the original plan of just doing what we want when we want. Don't get me wrong I love to eat and the dining plan was worth the money but that was just plain nerve racking to make reservations and run ,run, run.

 

[JavaJackie]

I plan our meals and what park we want to go to in the am and the pm. We keep in mind weather and cranky kids may change the plans, but that seems to work best for us.

 

[LarryJ]

Since we stay so long we only plan the meals that require ressies and just go with the flow for the rest. However, doing 40+ days at WDW with an annual passport gives us a lot more flexibility than most on a fixed schedule.

Larry

 

[Shan-man]

I usually do a pretty exhaustive plan because dining is a big part of our vacation, and we have to figure in the logistics of doggie-breaks as well. That creates a constellation of fixed points in our vacation that everything else needs to work around. I then set about deciding what are the must-do's, the like-ta-do's, and the if-there-are-time'rs. Is there a way to maximize the to-do's en route to dining or doggies? Without running us ragged. The most important part, I must be prepared to abandon the schedule at the drop of a hat!

 

[paxetbonum]

Wow, you guys sure plan a lot. On our last trip we were particularly lax and didn't even know what park we were going to until after we left the RV. For dining we only had one ADR and that was for Christmas day. I found that even with the Christmas crowds we didn't have any trouble finding a good place to eat whenever we wanted. I would just call Disney Dine about an hour before we wanted to eat and went to whatever was available. Had a great meal at Marrakesh that I would have not planned for the middle of the day with four kids (3,6,15,17) but everyone had a great time. Also, ate Turkey Legs and Cream Cheese Pretzels at times.

I think the key to enjoying Disney is taking the opportunities that come up when you aren't under pressure to do something in particular. Zig when everyone else Zags.

One of my most enjoyable moments was on our last trip, it was Christmas night and MK was packed. Just my wife and I went over at around 10pm. I was hungry because I didn't have dinner (pulled nap duty with the younger kids earlier) so we went to the lunching pad and sat down and had a turkey leg and pretzel. It was crazy all around us but it was like we were the only two people in the park, we were in our own world. We left there and just strolled around, still in our own world.

I have found that you can't make special moments happen. You just need to try to create an environment that will allow them to happen. And be open to them when they do.

pax

 

[Tigger1966]

We are prety much plan as we go but sometimes we will decide on the park the day before but even that is flexable. Never have done the dining plan we just find something to eat when we get hungry.

 

[Tnbob]

The only thing we plan is leaving, we make our ress about 3 weeks ahead of time and go. We walk into resturants and ask if there is room, most time there is without a big wait. We don't go at peak times so that might figure in. We don't even know what park on the first day until the bus stop then we decide and get on that bus. Pressure isn't part of what I call a vacation.

 

[Cdash]

We'll make a couple ressies for CRT, and other character experiences, but mainly fly by the seat of our pants. We hit the Extra morning hours since you usually get more done in that hour than the whole rest of the day. Otherwise, we go where we want, park hopping included. Sometimes we leave a park to go elsewhere, say Animal Kingdom to go have a Margarita at the Dawa bar (ask to look through the photo album and you can watch my wife and I grow up through it) and eat at the Flame Tree. Our almost 6 year old and 3.5 year old, don't have much patience to sit through long sit down dinners and we don't either. We are there to have fun and do as much as we can do.

Usually, we go into a park, get the daily schedule for parades and shows and spend 5 minutes discussing what we want to do so we can make sure we head in the right direction at the right times to hit shows and parades. This seems to be a little more important in DHS and AK where there are more show type attractions.

We have friends that plan every minute. It's what they do. Are they happy with it?? Not sure, but they are doing what they want, just on a schedule. Sure looks like a lot of stress leading up to the trip to me. A lot of worrying!!

Our biggest planning dilemia is deciding whether to get the quick service dining plan, or not.

Don't worry, we'll have fun!!

 

[Shan-man]

Wow, you guys sure plan a lot ... Had a great meal at Marrakesh that I would have not planned for the middle of the day with four kids (3,6,15,17) but everyone had a great time. Also, ate Turkey Legs and Cream Cheese Pretzels at times.

I hate to sound catty, but yeah, if you are happy with Marrakesh (always wide open) and turkey legs, then yeah, fly by the seat of your pants. We have done Marrakesh and it was passable, and yes, I like snacking on turkey legs, but that is not the kind of thing that we travel to Disney for. We love the hallmark dining experiences like Chefs De France, or Narcoosee's, or Le Cellier, and you are not (generally) going to walk in to these on a whim. And planning is not just for hoity-toity restaurants: one of my favorite experiences at WDW is the Hoop-Dee-Doo, and you better be planning if you want to do that show! That said, I don't do the dining plan because it is too much planning for me, LOL!

 

[Tnbob]

And planning is not just for hoity-toity restaurants: one of my favorite experiences at WDW is the Hoop-Dee-Doo, and you better be planning if you want to do that show! That said, I don't do the dining plan because it is too much planning for me, LOL!

The last couple of times I've attended the Hoop-Dee-Doo I made ress that day and got a table that is sometimes too close to the stage. One disclaimer is that we always want the 9:30 show anyway and that show is usually only half full.

 

[Shan-man]

We must travel at different times of the year, because I have never seen Hoop-Dee-Doo less than full, and I mean FULL. This last visit I made our ressies 7 months in advance and could only get the 9:30 show. I called back dozens of times trying to get an earlier show, no dice. Glad it has worked for you, but I wouldn't want to stake my vacation on the chance.

 

[mdoc]

I'm a planner, but definitely not a down to the minute one. I generally know before we arrive at WDW which parks we're going to on which days. I have a general idea (based on many prior visits) of the order in which we'll do the attractions and the approximate time we'll eat to avoid crowds (we always travel at crowded times). We don't do a lot of table service meals, but I'll have ADRs for a few. However, we're flexible (and WDW experienced) enough to change plans if there's a good reason to do so. A blip in the plan will not affect our fun.

 

[mjmoon]

The Hoop dee doo is one of our ressies. We also made ADR for dinner at Ohana and Crystal Palace. Those are the extent of our advanced reservations.

 

[Tnbob]

We must travel at different times of the year, because I have never seen Hoop-Dee-Doo less than full, and I mean FULL. This last visit I made our ressies 7 months in advance and could only get the 9:30 show. I called back dozens of times trying to get an earlier show, no dice. Glad it has worked for you, but I wouldn't want to stake my vacation on the chance.

Actully, I was there the same time you were in December 6-15th but didn't try the Hoop-Dee-Doo. It doesn't ruin my vacation when we don't get into a dinner or not but for people who don't like to plan I was giving my past experience. We went past your site in December but no one was ever there or we would have stopped.

 

[BradyBz12]

This is the first of our last 4 trips where I haven't planned like a lunatic. Interestingly, this was also our longest trip to date (almost 3 weeks). We dropped the DDP this year to save some $ (which is how we managed a 3rd week). This actually helped take off some of the planning pressure, as I didn't have to map out weeks' worth of ADRs in advance or plan our park days so strictly to work around where we needed to be for dinner.

The extent of my planning this year was to research park hours, EMH and any special events that were going on while we were there (Pop Warner, Mouse Fest...) and whip up a little "at a glance" calendar. This just gave us a "Plan A" for what parks to be in when to avoid the crowds. Also gave us the info to quickly come up with a Plan B when needed. We travel with 2 dogs, and have to work our schedule around them too, so it was good to have that guide to follow.

The results were that we did everything we wanted to (many several times) and waited less than 20 minutes for everything except TSM. I also noted on our calendar when certain shows/parades were being held (didn't want to miss Spectro Magic this year!)

When it came to meals, we were winging it by WDW standards . Our only ADR was for Cal. Grille. We ate more meals at the camper this year (mostly breakfast/lunch), but still managed a good meal out each day. We're not big on fast food/burgers all the time, and like to eat well on vacation. We managed many TS meals without ADRs this time by going to DTD more (much easier to get in there without ADRs) and discovering the Kona Sushi bar! That was the real find, as you can pretty much walk up and grab a seat. Service is great and you can not only order some darned good sushi, but anything else off the Kona menu as well. Since there are only 2 of us, and we're very flexible, it's also much easier to call in the a.m. and see what might be available later in the day.

The only other thing (more research than planning) was that we reviewed the menus for all the dining locations so we had a good idea of what we could expect where - especially when it came to CS, since we did more of that this year but still wanted good food.

I've gotta say that this was definitely the most relaxed vacation we've had at WDW. Not sure if that was due to being fortunate enough to have so much time this trip to take things at a leisurely pace, or that we just were more content to "wing it" this time. Either way, I think I'm running with this same methodology for our trip later this year too.

 

[Shan-man]

Monique, you bring up a good point, the longer the trip, and the more time in the parks, the less planning needed to get in all you want to do. We have never had APs or length-of-stay tickets, so I have to use my park days very efficiently. I would love to drop over to MK for a couple of hours and spend the rest of the day at the Fort if I felt like unwinding. This last trip I only had 3 full days in the parks, and one evening (MVMCP), which equated to one day each for AK, DHS, and EPCOT, and an evening for MK. Even for a veteran Disney visitor with a relatively small number of must-do's, one day per park is a tall order, especially when there is a 2 hour doggie break in the middle of it.

Also, my wife is not one for the rides, so the dinning and shows are the highlights of our vacations. If we went without a plan and were only able to do counter service and eat in the motorhome, well, it may be our last trip for quite a while! And, as Monique mentioned, you can do some good TS without planning 6 months in advance. We did Citricos, Fultons Crab House, and Tuto Italia without ADRs. But, we had to settle for a 9:30pm seating to get into Citricos, and Fultons and Tuto were for lunch. I have tried on previous trips to do walk-ups for Chefs de France and Le Cellier, checking throughout the day, and never gotten in. And we travel during low attendance times of year. I'm not saying you can't get lucky, but if these experiences are important to you (like they are to me) I wouldn't leave it up to luck.

Tnbob, that's amazing... our dates were almost the exact same! Hate that we missed meeting you. It's amazing that we spent so little time in the parks and were still on-the-go the whole trip! Even when we were at the Fort we were usually out walking, or doing the campfire, or looping, or... well, you get the idea. We returned home ready for a break! LOL