My DLR choices are very different from my WDW choices

[Kindermouse]

I am in the middle of my October and (most likely) January DLR trip planning but I have also just started planning our very first WDW trip and I realized that I plan these trips as different as night and day.

For instance at DLR my lodging choices are based on distance to the turnstiles, convenience and budget. 90% of my trip I stay at what would be considered value lodging. for WDW I didn't even consider the values (for money savings), or the deluxes (for proximity to the parks) and I only looked at moderates.

I also usually only do a couple of TS meals at DLR and one of them I do is for the WOC FPs. I like to plan a nice meal here or there but it is by no means the focus of my day. At WDW I only thought about doing the QS meal plan for about 5 minutes and then I looked forward to planning all my TS meals. I realized pretty quickly that I was planning the parks I would visit each day partially around my TS meals. That is so different for me.

At DLR we never take whole days off from the parks, but since getting back to the hotels is such a pain at WDW we likely wont be taking breaks each mid day so I am planning 1 1/2 (1 MNSSHP day) days off from the park during our WDW trip.

I would never think of doing 1 park per day at DLR but I have no intention of even try to park hop at WDW.

I think maybe what I enjoy and hope to get out of these trips is totally different so that is why my approach is as well but for those of you that swap coasts frequently how does your approach to each place differ.

 

[Elk Grove Chris]

We have been to WDW only once, this past December. We stayed at two deluxe hotels, to get a real feel of a resort stay. Let me say Animal Kingdom Lodge did not disappoint, and we had some of our best meals at the onsite restaurants. I think most of the advice I saw pointed at not park hopping at WDW, but we did for 5 out of the 7 days we were there. We had a rental car the whole time, so that helped, but there is still quite a bit of distance between each park.

We knew that there were substantially fewer attractions per park when compared to DL/CA and their proximity to one another. We are terrible at waiting in lines, so we opted to either have our FPs for one park and then a sit down meal for another park on most days, or made a change to a park to coincide with a special event (Xmas party, Candlelight Processional, etc.). It worked for us, mostly. We did 10 total park days between WDW and US and had really only one full off day-that was not enough time off to rest.

We only did one mid-day break, day we landed after red-eye and room was not ready at 10am (long shot I know). Note to self-never ever take a red eye across the country again and assume you will be able to do anything like walk around the Magic Kingdom all day. Take a day to adjust.

Now the good thing at WDW is all of the different transportation options. My Mom was with us, neither her nor my Daughter our morning people. So several times they slept in and met us at a park later via Disney transportation.

Way more planning than a DL trip. I spent 2-3 months looking into renting DVC points (wow-that turned out to be a great way to go!) and a good 3-4 months looking into all of the dining options. For DL, we probably make one reservation per trip at either BB or Carthay, occasionally for Napa Rose for special occasions. Everything else is on the fly, even breakfast at SH 55, we just walk up.

We never take off whole days from DL either, but we have not done more than 3 days in the last 5 years since we are fairly frequent visitors. We do the same thinking with lodging, what is close, what is cheaper amongst the 3-4 choices at hand, then we choose. Rarely do we stay onsite, I think maybe 3 times in the last 25-30 visits (last 10 years). We have never done one park tickets-too close to one another.

 

[Indiana Scott]

We've kind of come to the oposite oopinion about PH's and WDW but that may be because we go during the slowest times.
While the parks are incredible, none of them are whole day places to us so hoppers are a must. We also like dropping by EPCOT for the dining choices even when we've spent the day at other locations.
As far as transportation goes, WDW does a good job with thier busses but it does eat up a lot of time. The Monorail would be a good resource but after getting stuck on it in tripple digit temps (AC doesn't work when it stops..) we will never take a chance on it again.

 

[Rubygoose]

I think maybe what I enjoy and hope to get out of these trips is totally different so that is why my approach is as well but for those of you that swap coasts frequently how does your approach to each place differ.

I think you have a very good mindset going into your WDW trip. We have been to WDW only once and to DLR several times, and you're right, it's a different style of planning. We only had 4 days at WDW, so we did one park per day, and this worked very well with their FP+ system. We also scheduled a lot of table service meals because I was worried about crowds and not being able to find somewhere to eat - also DD has food allergies, so CS meals aren't as easy for us. We really like character meals and there are tonnes of different ones to choose from in WDW, and I think we did a Character Meal each day of our trip!

I think it's a good idea to try your best not to compare the East to the West. Even though they are very similar, you'll enjoy yourself more if you approach it as a completely different park.

 

[GatorChris]

Yeah, it's taking me years to adjust to the DL way of thinking for trips. I really do miss the days where a restaurant dictated what park I would be at. The food experience at WDW is just so much greater than DL - with maybe the exception of Blue Bayou (only if you're on the water).

And even with APs, I still mostly stick to the one park/day philosophy that I had to learn at WDW. The bus system, while part of the Disney experience, was something I didn't want to overindulge in. That said, our last trip we did a bit more park hopping, but not as much as some people do.

Of course, now you have to plan for rides. I really hate that. It's kept me away from WDW for nearly 4 years now. Hoping DL never goes that route.