Planning itinerary for 1st trip

[dahrjo]

Hi everyone!
EVeryone is so knowledgeable and helpful here!

I was wondering how necessary it is to plan a daily schedule. I see it is done most often. We usually just go somewhere and do whatever we feel like that day. Should we try to be more specific to what we do each day and when?
It being the first time with our 3 kids (ages 10, 8 and 5) I'm not sure what will be their favorite places. I am not familiar with any of the restaurants to do the dining plan. I would have no idea where to choose to eat or what time we'd be eating for sure!
So, is it just a good recommendation to plan a daily schedule or do you think I'd be sorry if we didn't. We are going for 8 days.
Thanks!

 

[perkinselectric]

Planning is very very important, mostly meals, if you are going to have sit down meals you need to make advanced reservations, we found out the hard on our 1st trip that you cannot just go into the table service resturants and expect to get a table, the self serve is fine but a sit down meal is a pain especially with kids.

Planning can be a lot of fun, figure out which park(s) you want to visit and when and ware to eat and work from there. I am a typical guy... no advanced plan, we will figure it out when needed... this dose not work at Disney, now I feel the better the prep the better the trip.


Good luck and HAPPY PLANNING. Mike P

 

[rdjm]

Since you are leaving so soon I think you should read as much on these boards as possible. If you have a planning book you can ask your kids what would be their favorites in each park and kinda go from there. That way you can get an idea of which park or parks you will want to spend more time in. I would never dream of going without a plan for each park as then we tend to just kinda roam aimlessly and not really get in all we want. Have fun and remember to stop and take in the small things.

 

[mouseketeer_mom]

Hi everyone!
EVeryone is so knowledgeable and helpful here!

I was wondering how necessary it is to plan a daily schedule. I see it is done most often. We usually just go somewhere and do whatever we feel like that day. Should we try to be more specific to what we do each day and when?
It being the first time with our 3 kids (ages 10, 8 and 5) I'm not sure what will be their favorite places. I am not familiar with any of the restaurants to do the dining plan. I would have no idea where to choose to eat or what time we'd be eating for sure!
So, is it just a good recommendation to plan a daily schedule or do you think I'd be sorry if we didn't. We are going for 8 days.
Thanks!

I'm planning my family's first trip. It took me about six months of researching different websites (allearsnet, mousesavers, THE DIS) before I felt like I had a good plan. We only have a few ADRs and that left lots of flexiblity. That said, I have a flexible plan of what parks each day, and special things not to miss at each park. Other than that, we will let our kids be our guides.

 

[pepe of ohio]

We plan some never over the top by the minute. A good guide book to show meals and locations will help you out the most, even a good web site that lists restraunts and meals. We only chose by what we like to eat and pay and make a list of those and our favorites, then we have what parks on what days and match the food stops to correspond so we're not spending our time traversing all across WDW. Thats about the only plannig we do, after 38 some trips its almost a science for us, we're flexible and see and do much while there. We only have a few ADR's, Hoop Dee Do, 50's Prime Time, only the popular places that are hard to get in, the rest are just other resort dinners, counter service, food court etc. We do not like to vacation by the clock, we're of the ,when you're hungary you eat and when you're tired you rest state of mind and if we come across something that catches our eye we do it and pick up where we left off later. Same with the parks, we enter and just travel in one direction or another, no ride schedule, we just take them in order as we pass them and when we return again form our resort we pick up where we left off. Easy, no schedules, no papers and never wear watches on vacations, just go with the flow.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

I'd encourage you to do at least a little planning. I've known too many families who decided they'd just be spontaneous and then came home disappointed with Disney because they spent more time than they wanted waiting in line, had cranky, hungry kids because the restaurants were booked up when they wanted to eat, and completely missed out on some fun activities because they didn't know where to go when.

I'm going in 9 days (Hooray, Hooray!!!) with my son, his wife, and their two children who are 5 and almost 2. We are on the dining plan, and have had ADR's for the table service meals since mid-summer. We've also picked out the counter-service places we want to eat at, and we plan our day around those places - so that we'll end up near the restaurant when it's time to eat. This is important for us as we've learned that the kids need to eat at close to their regular meal times, or they are not very much fun to hang out with!

Within those guidelines, we also all have our favourite rides and we make a point of hitting them first thing (and/or getting fast-passes). At MK, for example, we start by hopping on the train and riding around to the back and walking through to Fantasyland, where we can usually do some of the kid's favourites before it gets too busy. At AK, we do the Safari ride first and usually try to do it as our last ride of the day as well (because the animals are more active early and late in the day).

But we definitely don't have every minute planned or a ride-by-ride route, and it is very important to be relaxed and flexible when you have kids with you. We have a video of my grandson on our last visit, when he was four, spending about 20 minutes jumping in puddles at MGM. He was just having a wonderful time splashing around, and watching that video always brings a smile to my face. Were we wasting time that we could have spent rushing to the next ride? Not in my opinion! The whole point is to have fun, and he was definitely having fun.

Teresa

 

[ThreeAngels]

Congratulations on taking your first family trip to WDW!! Have you and your wife ever been there before or is this a totally new experience for all of you?

I would definitely suggest getting a guide/planning book to help you make your plans. You would miss so much if you didn't have some sort of plan. The Passporter is my favorite book, but there are many good ones to choose from. We stayed for 7 nights and had six-day tickets. My husband has a huge aversion to public water (because of a nasty experience as a child), so we don't do water parks. We just stick to the 4 parks. Epcot was always our favorite, so we knew we wanted 2 days there, definitely 2 days at Magic Kingdom and 1 day each at the Studios and Animal Kingdom. I planned which park we wanted to be at each day, trying to go on the park's typically slower days. Save MK for the last of the parks and also for the last day. Planned our meals from there.

I think you should read up about the restaurants and decide where you might like to eat. If you want to do any TS meals, you'll need reservations. We did the dining plan last month and we'd definitely do it again.

My husband thought I was crazy and obsessed about the planning, but he quickly realized that all my planning made for a terrific vacation and he said so numerous times. Already looking for to and planning for the next trip!

When are you leaving? Where are you staying? I hope you have a FABULOUS time!!!!!

 

[LegoMom3]

I like guide books. There's a ton of info right here on the DIS, as you've seen, but I'm just a gal who likes to hold a book and pour over that.

My favorite for nitty-gritty info and reviews is the Unofficial Guide. You need a bit of a sense of humor to read it, though. It's an unbiased approach (some feel it's too critical). What I like is that it has reviews of all the hotels and restaurants. If you take it with a grain of salt, you can get a lot out of it.

My other favorite book for really getting down to the actual planning-out-the-day phase is the PassPorter. It has great maps, room lay-outs, restaurant decriptions/locations, and neat little pockets for a day-by-day itinerary.

Just remember you'll never see it all in one trip, so just try to get a feel for what the parks have to offer, make a list of "must-see" stuff and then "would be nice" stuff. Also remember to allow for afternoon breaks, preferably out of the parks. We just got back from our trip and my kids are the same ages as yours, and they ALL got tired!

Have a great time!

 

[mm6mm6]

I think planning is a must.

Overplanning should be avoided.

With the ages of your kids, you should find out what parks have Early Entry or Extra Magic Hours.

Then sit down with a Sun-Sat calendar of the days you'll be at WDW (I blow up a regular calendar on a copy machine so I have the dates and plenty of space to write in).

Then write in which parks you'll go to.

As an example, we figured Magic Kingdom almost always has to be our first day. If it happens to be an EE day, terrific! If it happens to be an EMH day, then we will plan Day 2 without an early breakfast so we can stay late for the previous EMH and not worry about getting up the next morning too early.

As another example, if we plan Animal Kingdom on an EE day, then I will schedule Donald's Breakfastasaurus at 9:30am. Enought time for EE at 8am till 9am and then since we'll already be there, we'll have this excellent character breakfast. Don't forget to schedule a water park or DownTown Disney for a dinner and shopping.

We usually do those together. After a day with EMH, we'll go to Typhoon Lagoon at 10am and stay there until 3-4pm. Then shower and clean up at our resort and have dinner at DTD and do some shopping.

With 8 days, you should have some leeway since there are four parks. Most everyone wants two days at MK. Your kids may decidge that MGM Studios was their favorite (Tower of Terror and Rockn' Roller Coaster will do that!) and they may feel there was more to see there than they got to see so a second day at MGM might be necessary or at one of the other parks.

It took us two 7 day vacations to see everything we wanted to see and the third 7 day vacation filled in all the holes to where we can now say we've seen it all. Don't try to see it all in just 8 days for your first trip, take in the little things!

And enjoy!

-Steve