Congratulations,
jaci-h! Little ones are natural Desperados, and you've got that down already, so you're good to go!
I admit that I will do commando first thing in the morning. That usually entails two rides and a couple of fastpasses and then I'm done. If I dislike anything worse than too much planning, it's waiting in long lines.
Ditto. And I make rope drop, because I *like* to. I like that it's cool and quiet and uncrowded, and often get up early on vacations even when I'm not doing Disney to see the sunrise or whatever. But at the parks I hold back and let the mob up against the ropes move off and then drift in after them. By the time I wander down to my first ride, it's a walk on because the commandos have been and gone.
Hubby does
not like getting up and going, so I'm looking forward to staying at Bonnet Creek, where I will simply abandon him in the mornings and let him take the bus in later.
But I have an "addiction" - to PLANNING - somehow planning makes the trip seem closer
IMHO it isn't the planning that makes you commando or desperado. I define myself as desperado, but I also plan like crazy. The difference is, my plans have quiet time built in ("Get to the MK for rope drop. Watch the show. Wait until the crowd disperses, then go looking for Lady and the Tramp's foot prints in front of Tony's..." ), and if we bail on them (which usually happens eventually, if not sooner), I don't care. It isn't the planning that makes the commando; it's the "We
will follow the plan!" mentality.
Desperados may plan like crazy, but it's more of a very focused day dream on possibilities than a To Do list.
That doesn't happen to Desperado's, no reason to jump from a leisure ship, and if the kids misbehave you can say:
"WE WILL LEAVE THIS PARK RIGHT NOW AND NOT COME BACK IF YOU KEEP THIS UP."
My dad used to try that threat, however he was a commando and I always knew full well he'd never follow through, because he wouldn't abandon the plan!
Besides which, I usually
wanted to go home by that point, because I wasn't having fun anyway. You'd think my, "Yes, please, let's go home" response would have cured him of that whole routine early on, but he was still trying it when I was well into my teens.
He's mellowed out now, I'm happy to say -- or at least, he goes at our pace when they vacation with us.
Suffice it to say I felt it better [for larger groups] to stay offsite, buy groceries, rent a car, and pick 2 or 3 parks to visit, and the kids would be just as happy.
I don't know how some people do it. I have five kids, and I can't imagine staying onsite with them being a vacation. I gotta have a condo, and I gotta have a condo bigger than the average DVC 2 BR (trading into DVC via RCI isn't too outrageous, although for most it's a lot more expensive than any other Orlando option, but the DVC villa kitchens are small and the DR tables don't always seat even four in units that sleep six or eight!). And most of the DVC units are kind of afterthoughts, meaning the view isn't too nifty (the big exceptions being Bay Lake Towers and Animal Kingdom Lodge). But I expect if you're in the parks all day, dawn to dusk, and hanging out in the room or whatever isn't really on the agenda, the DVC units work just fine.
OTOH, some of the resorts are destinations in themselves, IMHO. The Animal Kingdom Lodge in particular has enough going on most of us would happily spend a couple of days there without hitting the parks, and when the kids were younger a week there would have been fine for all! But I'm waiting until I'm traveling with fewer people (or some of the kids are old enough to get their own unit) before giving DVC a shot.
DHS (MGM) is a commando dream since it's a lot of scheduled shows.
This explains so much!
I missed this back when you first posted it.
any special desperado trips happen in the last year?
How about our May 2011 trip. Only planned one Disney park day, and spent that in Marietta, Atlanta, wandering the parking lot, talking with the kids, and admiring white tussock caterpillars while they worked on our van. Or did you not mean that kind of "special"?
I could have worked Epcot in later in the week of course, but what with one thing and another (the, or one of the, last shuttle launch[es] was delayed to our week!), didn't happen.
We did get to all the resorts but two, at least to check them out, rode the boat through the bridge by the Contemporary, sampled tie-dyed cheesecake, four different cupcakes, Dole Whip, and numerous other confections, watched some magicians and jugglers on the Boardwalk, etc. Did lots of little fun stuff but never had a full day to devote to a Disney park. Devoted our only completely clear day to SeaWorld. Sacrilege, I know, but I knew our next trip would be devoted to Disney so I figured we might as well.
. He did pretty well though.
