Plan Not to Plan???

[WishnDisney]

After a few trips under my belt, I knew the key to success was plan, plan, plan. Out last trip was in 2014. Now I'm totally lost.

With Disney releasing changes last minute, all of the construction, etc, I feel like a deer in headlights. It's so confusing when they have created a system of making ADRs so far in advance and FP+ in advance, but their announced changes seem to be coming as quickly as 2 weeks out.

So what are the new strategies? Our trip is 5 days beginning June 18. Just throw a dart and hope it hits the mark?

Thanks.

 

[Disneylover99]

Rope drop is still your friend for riding rides.

Fp's are easy to change even day of, for the most part.

Having park hoppers are helpful (though not necessary) to get to ADR's that are hard to change if you want to avoid/add parks when park hours change.

 

[yulilin3]

I think it's important to set priorities. I usually tell people to pick only 3 things per park that are priorities , and the rest would be bonus. Having a flexible plan and being open to change is key

 

[Mome Rath]

There isn't really any new strategies, and you'll be fine having gone as recently as 2014 IMO. Your main thing so far out is ADR's, so if there is somewhere you really want to eat, that's what I'd concentrate on first. Then, if there are "must do" rides, planning your FP's are next. Changing of hours, maintenance on monorails, renovations, etc... have been around a long time now. It hasn't really been in my experience that any of those things changed any of my plans, and I've gone several times in the last 3 years.

 

[caroline1851]

Rope drop plus have your 3 fp+ during the day. Make any adr that you MUST have as soon as you can. Wing it for the rest.

 

[dkrauss]

Just throw a dart and hope it hits the mark

I don't believe you should just throw a dart...... There's basic planning that you can do.......@180 days you do ADR's..............@60 days you do FP's. I believe you need to consider things that can change. If you're doing an early ADR to get to 7DMT you need to take into consideration that Disney could change the opening time. If you schedule your trip to WDW during the first 3 weeks of November you need to consider that the Christmas special tapings could impact your trip. You schedule your trip from Sept thru Oct hurricane's are a possibility....as happened this fall.

What Disney has done with all the time changes, isn't out of character. They do it all the time. A plan should be flexible enough to handle these changes. That's not say you'll be happy. The change to an 8am opening on Nov 7th impacts our plan.......we have to get 2 younglings up earlier than expected What do ya do........you get the younglings up 1 hour early!

Don't NOT plan.

Doug

 

[rwdavis2]

our next trip

Rope drop plus have your 3 fp+ during the day. Make any adr that you MUST have as soon as you can. Wing it for the rest.

This is pretty much what we are doing in 2 weeks. Although fewer rope drops. With 8 days we are doing everything we wanted.

 

[Accident]

Rope drop plus have your 3 fp+ during the day. Make any adr that you MUST have as soon as you can. Wing it for the rest.

our next trip

This is pretty much what we are doing in 2 weeks. Although fewer rope drops. With 8 days we are doing everything we wanted.

I basically do the same thing but I'm not unresearched. I know what's changed, what's opened, what's about to refurb, what's rumored to close that I may not get another chance to ride or experience. I also have a list of things I picked up from various bloggers, vlogers, youtubers and podcasts that interest me.. I also usually get an adr in a resort I've never been to just to check the place out and try a new place to eat..

Other than that, we basically do everything we care about in the first 48 hours and the rest, we just decide where we are going to head. the only planned days aren't really planned as we'll just hop for that adr if needed. We don't waste time in a park when we're daydreaming about doing somethign else or really hate the crowd.

 

[WishnDisney]

Thanks for all your replies. Since we go at a busy time, we have always consulted the crowd calendars. We rope drop the least busy park, where we ride standby and FP+. We go back to our rooms in the afternoon to refresh and head out at night to our ADR and whatever park we want (usually not one with EMH).

My first step in planning has always been to pick our parks based on crowd calendars. I just feel kind of at a loss.

I'm also hoping that Pandora will be open by June and know that is something we will want to do, but not if they are having evening EMH.

And we can be flexible. We have moved ADRs around while we are on our trip.

Just seems like our last trip was planned during the FP+ angst. I love the process of planning. Just feel a little uncertain.

 

[Tomh]

My way of tackling the parks is this: I plan which park for which day before my 180 day mark.

At 180 days, I make my ADR's. At that point, I *may* change park days around if necessary to get the ADR's I want at the times I want. Once that is done, there isn't a whole lot of anything that will make me change my mind about what park I am going to on what day.

At 60 days I make my FP+, generally setting my first one for either 9:30 to 10:30, or 10:00 to 11:00, giving me the flexibility to enjoy the first hour or hour and a half in the park before using that first FP. This will give me time for taking advantage of short lines, or to just enjoy the atmosphere (like Main Street in the MK). My mornings are loosely planned to fit in stuff I want in between the FP+. FP+ are selected to put me in the area of my chosen lunch location, so I don't criss cross the park too much. That kind of is it. I don't really plan out the afternoons, I just let them happen as they will.

 

[beck00]

My way of tackling the parks is this: I plan which park for which day before my 180 day mark.

At 180 days, I make my ADR's. At that point, I *may* change park days around if necessary to get the ADR's I want at the times I want. Once that is done, there isn't a whole lot of anything that will make me change my mind about what park I am going to on what day.

At 60 days I make my FP+, generally setting my first one for either 9:30 to 10:30, or 10:00 to 11:00, giving me the flexibility to enjoy the first hour or hour and a half in the park before using that first FP. This will give me time for taking advantage of short lines, or to just enjoy the atmosphere (like Main Street in the MK). My mornings are loosely planned to fit in stuff I want in between the FP+. FP+ are selected to put me in the area of my chosen lunch location, so I don't criss cross the park too much. That kind of is it. I don't really plan out the afternoons, I just let them happen as they will.

Our strategy is extremely similar. I do consult crowd calendars before 180 days, and know where I'm going come ADR-making time. We rope drop, FPs start around 10:30, we lunch, then sometimes hop to another park. We also fit dinner at Disney Springs in at least one night. Our last trip was with 8-day PH, and we found that to be the perfect amount of days for our fam of 4. Our next trip is with extended family of 15 so we have 5-day PHs.

 

[Tomh]

Our strategy is extremely similar. I do consult crowd calendars before 180 days, and know where I'm going come ADR-making time. We rope drop, FPs start around 10:30, we lunch, then sometimes hop to another park. We also fit dinner at Disney Springs in at least one night. Our last trip was with 8-day PH, and we found that to be the perfect amount of days for our fam of 4. Our next trip is with extended family of 15 so we have 5-day PHs.

Actually, it is kind of scary how close that is to what we do. We don't park hop, however the rest of it . . . . we've always gone with 10 day park tickets, but are actually considering only getting 9 day tickets for this coming summer, and giving ourselves an extra day out of the parks. Generally, we spend a couple of hours on our arrival evening at Disney Springs, grab supper, do a quick bit of shopping, and then we will spend more time there later in the trip, also getting supper there that night.

Crowd calendar and EMH schedules help guide me through picking parks. We always rope drop, or come very close to it. And gosh, we are also a family of 4 (unless my mother comes along, then it is a family of 5).

 

[WishnDisney]

Our strategy is extremely similar. I do consult crowd calendars before 180 days, and know where I'm going come ADR-making time.

This is kind of the crux of my issue though. From reading these boards it seems like the people creating these crowd calendars, are pretty much in the dark as far as changes. Or I'm ill informed at this point.

 

[dkrauss]

This is kind of the crux of my issue though. From reading these boards it seems like the people creating these crowd calendars, are pretty much in the dark as far as changes. Or I'm ill informed at this point.

I'm confused why you say their in the dark about changes. As far as crowd predictions they usually base their numbers on historical information but we need to remember they are predictions....there are variables that can affect them.....the Brazilian economy is an example of variablility. If you mean park opening times....unless they have and inside source they know what we know at the time..or they'll make a prediction. Until Disney puts out the change that's the best we get.

Doug

 

[miamimi]

I think the key to having a successful trip is lowering your expectations. Realize that just because you made your ADR's at 6 months out and booked your FP+'s ahead of time, Disney can still switch things out at the last minute.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I look at crowd calendars when the calendars are released and decide which park on which day. I decide if we want to do AM EMH, PM EMH, what day will be rest day, how many days to sleep in, etc. Then we pick where we want to eat and then make the ADRs at 180 days out. Then I decide our FP+ and book those at 60 days out.

We rope drop one park, stay until lunch time, go back to the resort for pool time, go back to another park with FP+ in that park.

 

[loves to dive]

We have the advantage of going often but even when we went only every other year, we were more of the seat of the pants type people. It's just more relaxing for us to go with the flow. With FP, if we book any in advance (which we rarely do since we don't normally know until the night before what park we want to go to the next day) we will book them starting around 10. I'm an early riser so I might get up, go for my morning walk, eat breakfast then head to the park we decided on and get in stand by for a few rides. My son is not an early riser, so he tends to sleep until around 9, get up, eat breakfast and make that 10 FP. We have been known to be walking by a ride we have FPs for later in the day and the line be short enough that we can do standby, rearrange our FPs while in line and still make whatever FP we had next. We are not the type of family that worries if we have to stand in a line, if we want to ride the ride bad enough, we'll stand in a line. We don't book ADRs in advance. We've always had fun going to guest services and asking them to find us something in x park that night or at x time in any place that night. We've really found some good restaurants that way. Or we will just be walking around a park and decide we want a sit down meal that night and hop on MDE and find something. We always have PHs so if we find it too crowded in one park, we just head over to another one. Our vacations are very stress free, we pretty much know what we want to ride but if we miss it, it's no big deal. There is so much to see and do at the parks and resorts that frankly, even after going for over 33 years, we still find new things.

 

[Klayfish]

Rope drop is still your friend for riding rides.

Fp's are easy to change even day of, for the most part.

Having park hoppers are helpful (though not necessary) to get to ADR's that are hard to change if you want to avoid/add parks when park hours change.

I agree with this. We don't do any ADRs, so I can't really speak to that. However, with limited exceptions, FP+ is relatively easy to change, even on the fly. Park Hoppers are fantastic if you can get them. Outside of that, as I've mentioned in other similar threads, I'm not a believer that extensive planning is a key to success. We don't plan much. I do make sure I'm aware of what's open, what's new, what's under refurb, but beyond that, our plans are extraordinarily loosely crafted and subject to change on a whim, and we always have a wonderful time.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Park Hoppers probably make things easiest. Or have a plan B if you know something could change and then know your priorities. In May Disney went from having had Star Wars fireworks every night to suddenly only 4 nights a week with only 2 weeks notice. We don't do park hoppers and of course our DHS day suddenly had no fireworks. Switching would have meant losing CRT and BBB which was our priority so no fireworks. We also try not to talk up things that could change to the kids so they aren't disappointed. For our next trip I'm going to assume that last years schedule holds. If not, I've arranged to have an Epcot day without a tough to get ADR and will try not to put a FEA FP that day so we can pull a last minute switcheroo if need be. Annoying but what're ya gonna do. You go to Disney, you're stuck with their rules.

 

[mom2rtk]

with limited exceptions, FP+ is relatively easy to change, even on the fly

Really? Even for the top tier rides in Epcot and DHS?

My friend is going later this week and she couldn't even find the times she wanted 30 days out. She lucked into 7DMT one of her MK days, but had to make due with late at night, which blocks her from scheduling any additional FPs all day. Thankfully she didn't have hopes up for FEA, as that was definitely a no go.

I think you need to be careful telling people things are easy to move around. I'm sure some are, but if they are looking for any of the top tier rides, it's very much hit or miss.