Our approach to WDW must be odd?

[Love Tink]

Sorry, OP, your way is the opposite of odd. You are doing WDW the way the vast majority of people do.

The reason you see alternate types of touring a lot on here is that this is a Theme Parks and Strategies board, so people come here looking for strategies and asking questions about how to be more proactive than you are. And people who are good at maximizing riding answer their questions.

If you aren't looking for a change in strategy, maybe you should try the Community board instead? (And sorry. I know, since your whole post was phrased as a condescending indictment of anyone who doesn't tour like you do, that you were actually seeking some sort of positive reinforcement - from anonymous strangers - about how enlightened and awesome your way of touring is. But really, it's just run of the mill.)

 

[michsig]

We rarely make a rope drop, we tend to get up out of bed late and wander to the bus stop to go to a park. Most days breakfast turns into lunchfast. Maybe make one or two fast passes. We hit every extra magic hour, mainly because the rides are easier to get on and also avoiding the blazing heat of staying in line at Magic Kingdom. We love to take in the "Feel" of WDW and don't get in a hurry for anything if we can help it. Guess we are not park commandos, where we have to conquer every ride in the park. If we make it back to the resort by midnight, we have had an early night. I guess we are odd???

This is exactly my approach, and I love it!

 

[DoleWhipLover]

That is actually what most people do, which is why people advise getting there at ropedrop - to avoid the huge numbers of people who arive late morning through early afternoon.

Exactly Alesia. DH and I always make rope drop and around noon begin to wander out of the parks, look for shows, sit and have a few cocktails, go back to the hotel and lounge poolside, etc as the crowd level becomes noticeably higher. We are child free and this works great for us; but we also visit ONLY during off peak season (Jan, Sept), so I have never felt like I needed to commando in order to get things done.

I think your plan is exactly what MOST people do. The DIS Boards can make you feel all kinds of feelings if you let them.

Enjoy your vacation your way, "weirdo"!

 

[aleksandr]

We rarely make a rope drop, we tend to get up out of bed late and wander to the bus stop to go to a park. Most days breakfast turns into lunchfast. Maybe make one or two fast passes. We hit every extra magic hour, mainly because the rides are easier to get on and also avoiding the blazing heat of staying in line at Magic Kingdom. We love to take in the "Feel" of WDW and don't get in a hurry for anything if we can help it. Guess we are not park commandos, where we have to conquer every ride in the park. If we make it back to the resort by midnight, we have had an early night. I guess we are odd???

Not odd, brilliant. We haven't made rope drop since 1996. We get up at 8 or 9, and wander to a breakfast around 10. Get into the park whenever (probably 2 hours later if breakfast is at O'hana ). We never do fast passes. We ride what we feel like, when we feel like it. We browse shops. We collect crushed pennies. We eat snacks and counter service meals in park. We leave when we get tired and go back to the timeshare for some swimming. We eat dinner off-site. We say we will go back to the parks for fireworks, but rarely ever make it. We'll go play mini-golf instead.

Vacation, to me, is about relaxing and taking it easy.

I enjoy the ambiance of Disney parks. I'd be content to wander, take photographs of scenery, and people watch all-day. I feel bad for the commandos that race through the parks living to a minute-by-minute schedule, dragging their crying kids along because the kids want to do something unscheduled.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

We've kind of tried every approach.

I often go with extended family, so that kind of means compromise on some level. Often it pretty much forces a slower pace. But then, that sometimes drives me a little bonkers...so we go by ourselves, and go at a little bit brisker pace. My pace depends a bit on how energetic I feel, what the crowd levels are, weather, always weather!

We don't beat ourselves up if we don't make rope drop. I understand the value of the early hours, but more appreciate the evening hours, as you say.

Mk after dark is my favorite!

We also like to make a few little sidebars. I am going to miss the art gallery at the Poly. We've never bought anything there, but I do like to browse. Also a trip is not complete without a Mickey bar mickeybar: , or a stop by the Boardwalk area.

When crowd levels are lower, we relax our pace. When crowd levels are up- we either tighter our actions or leave the parks. One visit we had great fun renting a boat and watching the crowds trail into MK from our boat on the lake. Other times, we end up near BTMRR late at night and find there is NO LINE. On those nights, we ride it over and over again.

I like to think of us as opportunistic park touring. There's nothing I haven't been on an WDW (except the new Mine Ride! I'm on the DIS now to see if there have been any updates on when it will open!). So we really try to see nearly everything and make the most of our time, but if we miss something, it is not the end of the world.

What I don't like to do at WDw is sit around doing nothing. I don't like doing things I can do at home. I don't want to see a movie in DTD, watch tv in the room, or really nap (unless I'm really tired).

Oh, and we really love looking at all the flowers!

 

[mlkunka]

Not odd. I think that the new FP+ actually helps those of us who really don't want to get up at the crack of dawn just for a chance to ride one of the headliner rides. In the old days if you did not get in the park early, there could be a chance that you would not be able to pull a fast pass at all.

We are on our trip now. So tired yesterday. I rolled over, grabbed my phone and changed the reservation for the safari. We slept in and rode it by 10:45 am. The new system has made this trip (during SPRING BREAK) so much calmer. We know we are going to ride certain rides - no more running allover getting a paper fast pass and then adjusting the day based on the time you pulled. I felt like we were walking slower than ever and just taking it all in.

Resting at the hotel now. Will hit the MK later for dinner (winging this too - no ADR). Watch the fireworks and will just enjoy it all!

 

[Zobie]

Not odd. I think that the new FP+ actually helps those of us who really don't want to get up at the crack of dawn just for a chance to ride one of the headliner rides. In the old days if you did not get in the park early, there could be a chance that you would not be able to pull a fast pass at all.

We are on our trip now. So tired yesterday. I rolled over, grabbed my phone and changed the reservation for the safari. We slept in and rode it by 10:45 am. The new system has made this trip (during SPRING BREAK) so much calmer. We know we are going to ride certain rides - no more running allover getting a paper fast pass and then adjusting the day based on the time you pulled. I felt like we were walking slower than ever and just taking it all in.

Resting at the hotel now. Will hit the MK later for dinner (winging this too - no ADR). Watch the fireworks and will just enjoy it all!

Wow that is the most reassuring post on the new FP system I have seen yet. I think maybe I will try not being a commando (very guilty of this in the past) this fall when we go again, and just know that we have 3 rides booked when we want them. Thanks!

 

[ilovebassets]

ur not odd at all my good friends who's kid is out of the house now and my parents r the same way. We used to be like that too when we didn't have kids. Now that we do have 2 young ones we get in early but are out by noonish and then back in after a nice long dinner. Deff not out of the norm. Other friends of our that we usually meet up with are lucky if they get to the park by 1 anymore.

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Before we had children, I based our decision on what park to go to solely based on which park had evening EMHs. The idea of making a morning EMH or rope drop was completely laughable. We showed up between 11 and noon. And we basically always managed to see whatever we wanted.

But with kids, it's definitely a bit harder. They're up early anyway and are going to crash in the evening. We go pretty commando touring style even with our young children in Magic Kingdom, but even then, you can only do that for a couple of days before everyone needs a bit of a break. For our upcoming 9 night/8 day trip, I'm planning to be at rope drop for a major park for four of those days and rope drop at a water park for the othe four. (Given that the water parks don't open until 10, I don't think we'll have a problem with that!)

 

[Luv2Run]

We're the same. DINKs who stay up late and wake up late. I think the earliest we've gotten to the parks is 10am for a 1015 FP return time at HS.

I think, even if we had kids, the only park we'd actually make an effort to be there for rope drop would be MK, but that would be a stretch for us.

 

[lovin'fl]

We rarely make a rope drop, we tend to get up out of bed late and wander to the bus stop to go to a park. Most days breakfast turns into lunchfast. Maybe make one or two fast passes. We hit every extra magic hour, mainly because the rides are easier to get on and also avoiding the blazing heat of staying in line at Magic Kingdom. We love to take in the "Feel" of WDW and don't get in a hurry for anything if we can help it. Guess we are not park commandos, where we have to conquer every ride in the park. If we make it back to the resort by midnight, we have had an early night. I guess we are odd???

Sounds like my SIL's family. That's exactly how they do Disney (and by hitting every EMH, you mean PM EMH as that's what SIL does...never AM EMH). My family is AM EMH goers. We like to go close to rope drop and get tons done, then go to a second park in the early evening (frequently Epcot for dinner) and we are usually back at the resort (ready for bed) from 10-11pm. We have a tough time doing Disney with the inlaws. My teens are now leaning towards your/my inlaws style as well...getting them up for RD is a thing of the past (so DH and I go and they meet us around lunchtime). Though my mother daughter trip this Aug, I think I'll be able to get my DDs moving early without DS and cousins to hang with late at night. We shall see.

 

[Angel Ariel]

We rarely make a rope drop, we tend to get up out of bed late and wander to the bus stop to go to a park. Most days breakfast turns into lunchfast. Maybe make one or two fast passes. We hit every extra magic hour, mainly because the rides are easier to get on and also avoiding the blazing heat of staying in line at Magic Kingdom. We love to take in the "Feel" of WDW and don't get in a hurry for anything if we can help it. Guess we are not park commandos, where we have to conquer every ride in the park. If we make it back to the resort by midnight, we have had an early night. I guess we are odd???

How do you rarely make rope drop, yet hit every emh? Unless you are only talking about evening emh?

 

[Disney_Princess83]

You sound very similar to us. We have never made rope drop at any park. We usually hit PM EMH. We stay in the parks as late as possible (last trip, we had a 3am MK close - it was amazing!) We don't like the heat so we prefer it when the parks start to cool down. We do use Fastpass (and now FP+) as we like to ride the headliners but we tend to ride them during evening EMH. We don't like to feel really scheduled which is why we're not big fans of FP+ because we do have to schedule somethings (like character meets) to end up in really long lines.

We do make one reservation on most days. We go for 3-5 weeks at a time so we like to make sure we have one decent meal each day. Otherwise I think we might live in cupcakes, popcorn and Goofys Candy for a month during our stay.

We rarely make a rope drop, we tend to get up out of bed late and wander to the bus stop to go to a park. Most days breakfast turns into lunchfast. Maybe make one or two fast passes. We hit every extra magic hour, mainly because the rides are easier to get on and also avoiding the blazing heat of staying in line at Magic Kingdom. We love to take in the "Feel" of WDW and don't get in a hurry for anything if we can help it. Guess we are not park commandos, where we have to conquer every ride in the park. If we make it back to the resort by midnight, we have had an early night. I guess we are odd???

 

[csmith041177]

I am an early morning commando, but I agree with what everyone else is saying in that we are the exceptions. I think far more people take the more laid back approach.

 

[Mousemommy1]

Not odd at all to us! That's how we roll as well.

 

[jcemom]

I don't think you are odd at all. You are the opposite of us, but there are lots of different ways to tour the parks. We hit rope drop almost every day and seldom stay until park closing (unless we take a swim break midday and come back for fireworks). I can tell you that far more people are pouring into the park just before lunch than are there when we get there. So if anything there are more of "you" than there are "us."

 

[ttintagel]

Your way of touring is what the majority of guests do. And that's what the planners here at the DIS are counting on - making plans AROUND what the majority of people do, in order to avoid the crowds.

 

[Disney_Princess83]

Your way of touring is what the majority of guests do. And that's what the planners here at the DIS are counting on - making plans AROUND what the majority of people do, in order to avoid the crowds.

I agree, although with our touring plans, we have never waited in a ride line longer then 20-30 minutes. And we ride the headliners multiple times too.

 

[ariel326]

We travel somewhere in the middle. We get there early=ish, as close to rope drop as we can but usually not before the gates open. We choose our fast passes, and keep an eye on wait times, but don't mind standing in line if we need to

We take time in the afternoon to wander the shops, have lunch, people watch and just chill.

Then we do more rides until about 10-11. If the ride is too long, we come back, and don't fret if we don't get to do everything.

it makes for a nice trip where we see lots but don't feel too stressed over it.
we also don't go over "big" crowd level weeks. We would rather go in January and have lower crowds and cooler weather then go over spring break. So we are able to be a bit more leisure about things.

 

[disneyworldluvr349]

It probably depends on who you are traveling with. I love sleeping in going swimming at the hotel pool, showering, eating, and heading out to the parks. People with small children who wake up very early will probably get to the park for rope drop, and I also feel like first timers will want to do the same. Those of us who have been Disney World 10+ times, know that just enjoying the atmosphere is magical and there is no need to rush!

 

[Kristina4109]

I was raised a rope drop gal and I'll probably die a rope drop gal. But I KNOW that I am not in majority. It's just what works for me and my family. My parents were always early risers. My poor husband isn't but our exuberant 8 year old is, so he puts up with us.

Growing up, I don't think I ever stood in line to meet a character nor saw a parade or fireworks. I think IllumiNations was the first fireworks show I saw at WDW and I was already a teenager. For my parents, parades were the perfect time to go on rides!

My park touring strategy with my family is different now that we have our daughter. She is very timid of any ride that even remotely resembles a thrill ride. So for us, rope drop attractions are hardly ever headliner coasters but almost always character greetings and dark rides. (The big exceptions are Toy Story Mania and Soarin' which she LOVES.) And maybe because of my parade-deprived childhood, seeing those are a big deal for us. And we won't see fireworks every night, since my kid gets tired early, but we'll make sure to stay up late and see them a few times during our trip.