Keeping a list/spreadsheet of thing to do in WDW

[FunnyLady1966]

It keeps me excited and happy and feeling in control until our trip. After our trip...I might look at it and cry lol

You nailed it. It helps ME feel like I'm in control as well. However now with Genie+ it's all going to be a "Lets see how much we can actually DO today." Gone are the days of crossing everything off the list as we go and doing everything "As planned." It is what it is...

 

[hes122]

I tend to keep a list of some kind. It's usually organized by must dos and would like to if there's time. I do have a list of restaurants that I'd like to try at some point, so I've been trying to check something off that list each trip (but I don't I'll be able to do that in July because my friend's kids are somewhat picky eaters and it wouldn't be worth it from a financial standpoint).

 

[CapeCodTenor]

Spreadsheets are my jam! I may do one for our next trip but with the Genie+ it's all up in the air. But I like a plan and an itinerary.

I have one and look at it every day! It just our park schedule, when to try for LLs for different attractions, and potential food plans. It might be color coded...

Do you two plan out every minute of the day, or do you use your spreadsheets more as a guideline? The list I'm making is not about planning out our days, but more about finding things that I've not done before that the the whole family can do that aren't necessarily rides. Just curious.

You are my people

Kindred spirits.

It keeps me excited and happy and feeling in control until our trip. After our trip...I might look at it and cry lol

 

[nw6675]

I keep a spreadsheet with days across the top and times across the left. We do this for every trip to organize our planning as a family but we're primarily focused on:
- ADRs and meal planning
- Parks/Park reservations, and general plans to hop, visit resorts, and around when, but nothing's precise except for the ADRs or if there's a night-time show we want to see.

Over the years it's become much more of a general guideline to keep in mind when we might want to head somewhere.

Same here! It makes it so easy to be fluid during the planning process.

I also have a section, just for fun, that calculates tax, tips, and totals on estimated food expenditures. I like to see how close I stay to what I estimate.

 

[JCornell]

Same here! It makes it so easy to be fluid during the planning process.

I also have a section, just for fun, that calculates tax, tips, and totals on estimated food expenditures. I like to see how close I stay to what I estimate.

That's funny because I do the same. I know on average what we spend per meal and even though I don't look at menus and price everything out, my estimate is usually within $50 of what we actually spend for the whole trip on meals.

 

[godfather927]

I have a master spreadsheet with our top picks for rides and shows listed for each of the 4 parks. Then next to those picks I added a table of wait times and average LL return times by time block from thrill data. The same sheet also lists all the showtimes for each show and parade. It helped me figure out the best order of LL times to make sure we could hit the main attractions.

https://imgur.com/RfzZ6k2

For the actual itinerary, I used touring plans and plugged in our picks and return times from the master spreadsheet. This step helped with minimizing (but not eliminating) zigzagging across the parks.

https://imgur.com/fo5rh7W

Obviously you can't follow the itinerary as closely like you could in years past due to the unpredictable nature of genie+ or frequent ride closures, but the TP plans did provide a framework that I referred to often each day to make sure we hit everything we wanted. In fact, planning this way worked well enough that we never had to rope drop once, and still got all we wanted done each day with hours to spare.

 

[Meglen]

I keep a Google sheet with our day to day planned out with park pass info park times for that park, any adrs booked with confirmation numbers. This way if we have issues it's all on my phone and my printout of the Google sheet that gets laminated .

Most days are only a few points of interest not a planned out day to the minute.

 

[JBelle19]

Do you two plan out every minute of the day, or do you use your spreadsheets more as a guideline? The list I'm making is not about planning out our days, but more about finding things that I've not done before that the the whole family can do that aren't necessarily rides. Just curious.



Kindred spirits.

Mine is just a general guideline. Which morning and then evening in which park. Order of LLs I want to try for. Food plans, which will be penciled in on a more concrete basis after my ADR booking day. I know it might not go exactly as I have it or even close, but it helps ease my mind to have a general plan in place

 

[CapeCodTenor]

I have a master spreadsheet with our top picks for rides and shows listed for each of the 4 parks. Then next to those picks I added a table of wait times and average LL return times by time block from thrill data. The same sheet also lists all the showtimes for each show and parade. It helped me figure out the best order of LL times to make sure we could hit the main attractions.

https://imgur.com/RfzZ6k2

For the actual itinerary, I used touring plans and plugged in our picks and return times from the master spreadsheet. This step helped with minimizing (but not eliminating) zigzagging across the parks.

https://imgur.com/fo5rh7W

Obviously you can't follow the itinerary as closely like you could in years past due to the unpredictable nature of genie+ or frequent ride closures, but the TP plans did provide a framework that I referred to often each day to make sure we hit everything we wanted. In fact, planning this way worked well enough that we never had to rope drop once, and still got all we wanted done each day with hours to spare.

The top one is quite the spreadsheet. How close have you been able to follow your spreadsheet? I'd be interested to know.

I keep a Google sheet with our day to day planned out with park pass info park times for that park, any adrs booked with confirmation numbers. This way if we have issues it's all on my phone and my printout of the Google sheet that gets laminated .

Most days are only a few points of interest not a planned out day to the minute.

Mine is just a general guideline. Which morning and then evening in which park. Order of LLs I want to try for. Food plans, which will be penciled in on a more concrete basis after my ADR booking day. I know it might not go exactly as I have it or even close, but it helps ease my mind to have a general plan in place

 

[Jrb1979]

I'm amazed so many people plan so much for vacation. My family's planning basically consists of our hotel, flight and rental car. I do enough scheduling in my day to day life.

 

[CapeCodTenor]

I'm amazed so many people plan so much for vacation. My family's planning basically consists of our hotel, flight and rental car. I do enough scheduling in my day to day life.

I with you on that one. I've said before that my spreadsheet is about finding things to do that I might not have known about before, like the former Sorcerer's of Magic Kingdom game, I think my DD would have loved to play that game. Things like that. But when it comes to planning out a trip to the World, I think for a lot of people planning is a away to get, and keep, excited about a trip. I, for instance, love planning, but when it comes down to the actual trip, I have an outline of what I want to do on each day and what I want to try and accomplish and that's it. Sometimes the plan for the day is tossed up into the air, and when that happens? I find something else to do. But I love planning, so it keeps me excited.

 

[isabellea]

I have a spreadsheet of things I want to do and just made a list of things to do in June with my 87-year-old dad. I also have an app on my phone called AnyList that I was using for grocery shopping, so it was easy to set up a WDW list. It's nice because you can set up categories which I use for parks and add pictures of the treats I plan or eating.

I also use the AnyList app for all my lists! Love that my family can add to some and I can password-protect others! I will definitely create one for snacks to try during our July trip!

 

[Uncle Coaster]

I prepare a spreadsheet that compares all of the potential places I could visit when I’m deciding where to go on a trip. It has a general listing of everything I can do on that trip and the associated costs.

Once I decide I use that sheet as a guide for my a trip but my final experience usually looks quite different than the guide.

 

[godfather927]

The top one is quite the spreadsheet. How close have you been able to follow your spreadsheet? I'd be interested to know.

The top one is just a data sheet, which I used to help prioritize LL reservations and plan out our days using custom TP plans. As for our TP plans, for all 4 parks we did fairly well hitting all of our stops with the exception of Animal Kingdom, where we missed a few of the things we had planned to do. Time got away from us once my little one started to feel sick and I had to return to our hotel with her, while my wife stayed at the park with my oldest to finish out the day.

A couple things I failed to plan for there aside my youngest getting sick: brutal heat (Real Feel of 96 degrees and full sun) draining all of us, amount of time spent tending to my youngest who needed to be carried on my shoulders everywhere, the petting zoo and animal hospital closing at Planet Watch as soon as the final animation class ended, my oldest being more interested in riding Kali and Everest a second time rather than doing Wilderness Explorers, Lion King, or Maharajah Jungle Trek.

 

[MomOTwins]

I have a spreadsheet I make for ADRs planning that shows the days if the trips, park reservations, and restaurants to try for each day. Restaurants I use color coding to prioritize hardest reservations to try for first and list backups for the ones that are hard to get. That helps me when it is early morning at the 60 day mark and I am tired and groggy to keep focused and book ADRs efficiently. This year I will also do a list of initial 7am G+ selections with backups for each day for the same reason.

 

[MomOTwins]

The top one is just a data sheet, which I used to help prioritize LL reservations and plan out our days using custom TP plans. As for our TP plans, for all 4 parks we did fairly well hitting all of our stops with the exception of Animal Kingdom, where we missed a few of the things we had planned to do. Time got away from us once my little one started to feel sick and I had to return to our hotel with her, while my wife stayed at the park with my oldest to finish out the day.

A couple things I failed to plan for there aside my youngest getting sick: brutal heat (Real Feel of 96 degrees and full sun) draining all of us, amount of time spent tending to my youngest who needed to be carried on my shoulders everywhere, the petting zoo and animal hospital closing at Planet Watch as soon as the final animation class ended, my oldest being more interested in riding Kali and Everest a second time rather than doing Wilderness Explorers, Lion King, or Maharajah Jungle Trek.

Definitely bring a stroller! We used one at Disney for years after our kids outgrew them at home.

 

[godfather927]

I with you on that one. I've said before that my spreadsheet is about finding things to do that I might not have known about before, like the former Sorcerer's of Magic Kingdom game, I think my DD would have loved to play that game. Things like that. But when it comes to planning out a trip to the World, I think for a lot of people planning is a away to get, and keep, excited about a trip. I, for instance, love planning, but when it comes down to the actual trip, I have an outline of what I want to do on each day and what I want to try and accomplish and that's it. Sometimes the plan for the day is tossed up into the air, and when that happens? I find something else to do. But I love planning, so it keeps me excited.

For me, the first couple hours of planning is fun and exciting but then after that, it slowly starts to feel like a bit of a chore, but I soldier on for primarily one reason:

Efficiency

When I'm on vacation, the last thing I want to do is wait in long lines or have to rush out the door every morning trying to rope drop this ride or that ride at each park. So with the smaller amount of time that I am in the park when we finally do get there, I want to be efficient and not spend it waiting in long lines or on zigzagging across the park (some amount is unavoidable now).

All of us in our family seem to agree that every hour that was wasted at the parks would be better spent back at the hotel lounging at the pool. So we go in with a plan to hit all the big rides, then the smaller ones and shows in between, and then when we've had enough, we go back to the hotel to rest and enjoy the pool. That doesn't mean we're running around the parks trying to rush through everything (our plans usually build in enough spare time with plenty of breaks since we're slow walkers), but without the planning, we would've had to wait in more standby lines and would've missed more rides.

 

[godfather927]

Definitely bring a stroller! We used one at Disney for years after our kids outgrew them at home.

Yeah my wife and I just talked about this again last night, this was probably our biggest mistake. I couldn't have predicted illness that struck, but I at least should've known the heat was gonna be a factor in their energy levels.

 

[FunnyLady1966]

Do you two plan out every minute of the day, or do you use your spreadsheets more as a guideline? The list I'm making is not about planning out our days, but more about finding things that I've not done before that the the whole family can do that aren't necessarily rides. Just curious.



Kindred spirits.

I tend to OVER plan but like you, I want to make sure we do things we haven't before or eat at new places.

 

[JBelle19]

I have a plan for anywhere we go, unless we've been there multiple times. I might not have a spreadsheet, but I'll definitely have a list in my phone of places we want to hit and have dining reservations if needed. If I don't, we'll wander around for 2 or 3 days and then get back and ask ourselves why we didn't get to the best things in the town we were in. Also, some things aren't always accessible at the last minute. When we went to DC between Christmas and New Year's, my number one priority was the National Archives. You had to reserve a time. When I went to look at it two months before our trip a lot of the times for our dates were already gone. If I hadn't planned, we wouldn't have gotten to see the Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc., and I'd have been upset. We might not get to go back there, at least not any time soon. There are other places we want to take our kids before we are empty nesters, which, sadly, is closer than we would like it to be.