Planning 180 days out....how do you decide where you'll be on each day?

[JadeDarkstar]

I am planing 5 or 6 days and two half day (partys)
First day will be MK last day eathier party or MK day
I plan one day to get AK and HS out the way morning ak five rides, then rest/ hop to hs do the few i want there and then F at night. I plan to make this a late night HS openin
I hope to use a late night MK opening on a day before a party day if I can plan it so we dont have to get up early after a 3am mk opening.
Epcot and M will be the two parks I want to spend more time at and hop between each day I can.
I will be rearanging this all so that it is on a less crouded day acording to touring sites.

 

[Laketravis]

Starting to plan a trip for the end of July and my 180 day mark will be here in a few days. I have used easywdw.com in the past to try and decide which days we'll be in each park. That's how I would plan to make my ADRs.

How does everyone else do it? Open to amy suggestions that might make things easier!

We tend to make our ADR's based on what we want and what is available regardless of the location, since that is the first thing we can schedule so far in advance. Typically, those ADR's will be at a resort or Epcot. Seldom do we eat dinner at AK, MK, or HS.

And since we tend to make just one ADR a day (dinner), park hop a lot, and make efficient use of WDW transportation or use a cab (or even Uber like we did last month to get from CSR to YC in about 10 minutes for $5), I'll wait until it's time for FP+ reservations to determine which parks we will be in both AM and PM.

 

[JZCubed]

Starting to plan a trip for the end of July and my 180 day mark will be here in a few days. I have used easywdw.com in the past to try and decide which days we'll be in each park. That's how I would plan to make my ADRs.

How does everyone else do it? Open to amy suggestions that might make things easier!

I also use easywdw.com.

We tend to avoid Extra Magic Hours, by zigging while others are zagging. But a reasonable strategy includes going to Extra Magic Hours and Park Hopping. Of course, late-night/park closing is another strategy that optimizes ability to experience many attraction with shorter standby lines. There are many ways to enjoy a Disney vacation.

Personally, I place information from easywdw onto a spreadsheet with Best Parks/AvoidParks/Extra Magic Hours/Firework & Fantasmic Start Times/Likely ADR's/Other Notes like meeting family. Once I've made my ADR's, I move to another spreadsheet with time-slots.

ADR selections are very personal, and my 'Signature' gives may recommendations. We typically minimize our travel, but have come to be fine with a taxi going from resort to resort. Best overall advice is mix-n-match Qwik Service, Casual, & Signatures restaurants that fit your budget and tastes and also will make your vacation an enjoyable one..

 

[CableKC]

Like everyone else, I start laboring over which park to go over on which days for about 2 weeks....going over different scenarios and options from day to day until I finally ran out of time

J/K...sort of.

I initially was planning which days to go based off of the Extra Magic Hours......then someone reminded me about the EasyWDW schedule and I started to fit my schedule based of which days to go. I had some requirements that I wanted to fulfill in planning....like going to MK on the last day of my trip, trying to take advantage of some of the Late Night Extra Magic Hours at MK and HS and then going to each of the Parks on the 1st 4 days of the trip.

After figuring that out....it left me with a Plan A, B and C when it came to which days to go to which Parks that best fit the "Recommended" Days for the Parks. I tried to avoid the "Not Recommended" Parks on whichever days I had some flexibility to choose. Once I was able to set the dates....I then started to fill in the blanks when it came to the restaurants that I wanted to go to and tried to make reservations there ( like for BOG, Cinderella's Castle, Chef Mickey, etc. ).

I was able to setup a plan for my 8 day trip where I was able to go to certain parks on certain dates ( like a full day at MK for a "Last Hurrah" on the last day at DW and taking advantage of a few extra EMH at HS ), while going to most of the parks on the "Recommended" Dates that EasyWDW.

 

[CableKC]

Quick question about FP+.

For guests staying at a DisneyWorld Resort.....the ADR allowed us to make Dining Reservations on the 180 day mark for the entire duration of our stay.

Does FP+ allow us to do the same?

For example, my 60 day mark is on April 15th for our 8 day stay at the resorts in June 15 to the 23rd . Once I hit that 60 day mark...am I able to make FP+ reservations for rides even if it's towards the end of our 8 day stay ( like on the 22nd or 23rd of June )?

I wasn't sure if the FP+ worked like the ADR for guests staying at a Disney resort.

 

[Cyrano]

We use touring plans.com as a base for planning 180 days out.
With a subscription you can get updates as the crowd predictions and/or park hours change.

As other half does not like to over plan; unlike moi, I always have a thought about an alternative park.
Then closer to the trip we tweak any arrangements

 

[kangaroodle]

OK....looks like most everyone is on the same page as me. Good to know! I have 5 days to figure it out before my 180 day mark on Saturday!!

 

[JZCubed]

Quick question about FP+.

For guests staying at a DisneyWorld Resort.....the ADR allowed us to make Dining Reservations on the 180 day mark for the entire duration of our stay.

Does FP+ allow us to do the same?

For example, my 60 day mark is on April 15th for our 8 day stay at the resorts in June 15 to the 23rd . Once I hit that 60 day mark...am I able to make FP+ reservations for rides even if it's towards the end of our 8 day stay ( like on the 22nd or 23rd of June )?

I wasn't sure if the FP+ worked like the ADR for guests staying at a Disney resort.

Yes, once your 60-day window for an on-site stay opens, you will be able to make all FP+ selections.

Matter of fact, it may be the only way you can get FP+ for 7dwarfs.

 

[OurLaughingPlace]

We use easywdw calender.
Mk is our first park day and last park day, its become a tradition for us.

This is what we try to do. This year we have 3 days @ MK, 2 @ DHS, 2 @ Epcot and 1 @ AK. We try to do MK on Wednesdays (often a most recommended day by Josh). We are lucky enough to be going for 2 weeks this year (longest stay ever for us) so it makes the planning of park days/ resort days easier with less pressure to 'see it all'.

 

[GatorMama]

We go in Sept during MNSSHP so my first priority is deciding which party we will attend. Then I block out the day of the party (no reason to use a park day if I am already paying for the party at 4). And then I block out the following day because after being out at the park until midnight, we have zero energy the day after. Sometimes negative energy. Those will be pool days and days for resort ADRs, maybe DTD. Then I use crowd calendars to fill in my parks. We have four day hoppers every time. So we try to open at RD at all four parks once each. In the past it's always been the most recommended park but this time we may do the EMH parks instead since we will be onsite and can do so much more that first hour. If we arrive earlier then maybe we can leave earlier and rest more! Then dinner at a different park probably (the most recommended of the day in most cases)

 

[FlightlessDuck]

First we determine what days Fantasmic! is playing (not sure if it's back to every day... that was a few years ago) and make sure we are in Hollywood Studios that day.

Then, everything else is based on what ADRs we get.

We usually don't pay attention to crowd calendars. Everything's busy when we go (late June, early July).

 

[PSUGuy]

Since 2005 our strategy is to avoid early EMH parks, arriving at a non-EMH at rope drop. I have a calendar in Word that I start filling in as soon as we book our resort, usually 11 months out as we get a BoardWalk studio via rented DVC points. Our ADRs are few and we schedule them regardless of what park we hit that day. Since we go during Food&Wine we avoid WS on Saturday so that's our Raglan Road night and we regularly hit Cape May.

On a daily basis we hit a non-EMH park in the morning then we hop to Epcot every day except Sat. FP+ works well for us since we can make them for early afternoon in Epcot where in the past by the time we would get there the FP- times were either gone or too late for us. This year we're going to use a FP+ for Illiuminatios. At the 60 day mark we review park hours before making FP+ selections.

Bill From PA