Planning Sheets

[barbnbrian]

This is kind of a late thought, but hopefully someone here can help. In the past I've used planning sheets for my Disney park days and dining reservations. Does anyone have some US/IOA trip planning templates they'd be willing to share? TIA

 

[macraven]

i'm not much help as all i plan are the basics.
travel and hotel

i do check the weather in advance and up to the time i leave if i need specifics to take with due to weather conditions.

i do look at www.universalorlando.com for any updates on ride closures.

once i am situated in the hotel, i checkout the schedule for the shows i want to hit and plan time around going to them.

as for which ride to start with, i just wing it.

the parks are small and easily able to backtrack to places i want to see or do.

on some of the other threads, there are peeps that talk about the way they hit the parks on their trips.
some of the threads in the trip forums have great details and pictures.

 

[barbnbrian]

Thanks, but I'm actually looking for templates I can print and fill out with my information and notes. Anyone have something like this they can share?

 

[johde]

Hopefully someone can help you with a planning sheet. But, like Macraven said, I think most people here are more loose with their Universal schedule and don't need a planning sheet. In general, dining reservations don't need to be made more than a day in advance (if that). On my last 3 trips I walked into all of the table service restaurants I went to. But, if it's a busier period reserving a day or 2 ahead or even that morning is plenty of time. About the only times that's not true is Christmas at some of the more popular places and Finnegans during HHN change over (the rest of the day is fairly easy to get)

 

[hermie]

My family went to Universal for the first time last year. I was also use to spreadsheets from many Disney years. I only brought copies of our email reservations to table service restaurants just in case (none of which were needed!). If you are staying on property where you will be utilizing EP and EE and have park to park tickets, you really do not need to do much planning except around shows you may want to see like mentioned above. The park map helped us to learn the lay out before we arrived. We are going again this summer as we loved not having to do as much planning as Disney and had more down time at the resort. We missed the DA by 1 week and cannot wait to see it!!

 

[Bluer101]

Planning sheets????


All you need is your dates, clothes, and family.

 

[RMulieri]

We never use any ..You don't really need them at Universal..

 

[sharona]

This is kind of a late thought, but hopefully someone here can help. In the past I've used planning sheets for my Disney park days and dining reservations. Does anyone have some US/IOA trip planning templates they'd be willing to share? TIA

I'm an uber planner and even I don't plan much for Universal. It's actually one of my favorite things about the darkside. However, if you're offsite and won't have express pass, I can definitely see wanting to have some type of park plan so you get to see/do everything that you want. I'm sure you could easily make up your own in Excel. I remember having to do that to keep our WDW plans straight. If you're on site at Universal w/ EP this is totally unnecessary. Just have a rough plan as to which park you'll head to first and which area you want to start with then work your way around. I like to let DD12 lead the way and she loves that - it's so different from our WDW touring plans. Of course this means that each day must start and end with The Mummy!

What I use now, for every vacation, is Tripit - it's an app and there is a free version that is great. You forward your flight, hotel, car rental, dining and show confirmation emails and it builds your itinerary for you. You can manually build in anything else (like FP+ reservations) You can then view your confirmation numbers and reservations on your phone, link to directions and maps for the area etc. I usually also print a copy since it's nice to have something in hand, especially directions - should my phone die on me.

 

[damo]

Another non-planner here. We don't plan anything for Universal.