Planning VS Commando?

[Aliceacc]

I remember when DD was 7. She looked forward to swimming in the hotel pool more than most anything

Obviously a soul-mate to my 3 water rats!!

 

[SassyNShae]

I cant plan like I like to this go around. My husband hated our trip to Disney because "there is just to much to do and see in too little amount of time". I had everything planned out and my dd and I were loving it but he hated it so we ended up not enjoying it as much. Sooo this time we are going to play it by ear with the exception of a few character meals for my girls. Lord knows that if he is not happy, we will certainly not be happy either.

 

[Sawyer]

I've been enough times that I don't need a detailed iteniary for what to do and when in each park - we do that by memory now. I do plan the ADRs cause I like to eat (not super easy to do w/out ressies unless you don't mind a CS Mickey-burger for every meal) and I use TGM to help plan which day to hit which park.

I am commando, though, in that I march everyone to the park by rope-drop and I'm not good at leaving a day "open" for whatever...

I hate to admit it, but the planning is almost half the fun for me!

 

[lntsmom]

Our most recent trip was 7 days. 4 of those days were pure commando mode. if by that you mean I had the day planned, ride-by-ride and show-by-show, long before we left home. When we wanted water breaks, we took water breaks. When we were hungry, we stopped to eat. There was never a time when I had to make my kids skip something they wanted to do in order to get to our next ride "on time".

Then, there's the Studios. If anyone knows a way to do that place commando, I need to hear from them. The schedule there is way wonky. All the character interactions and shows end around 5. That means you have to get the day's schedule and plan like crazy to see what you want to see...keeping in mind that you can't plan TSM until you get there and see what the FP time is. We loved everything we did that day, but just yesterday my older son said that he wished we could have organized the day ahead of time (between TSM and a rained out Lights! show, we had a lot of wasted time that day) because it felt like we didn't get to do as much as we did at the other parks.

Our last two days I left open until we were done with the first 5. That gave us one full day to play with. I let my boys choose which park(s) they wanted to go to and what they wanted to do there. On our last day we only had about 3 hours, and we didn't decide what to do that day until the night before.

I think this plan worked very well for us. No, even with 7 days we didn't get to see and do everything, but we were able to do everything that we really wanted to. If we had the luxury of being able to go to Disney every year, or multiple times a year, I wouldn't plan other than which day in which park and ADRs. For my family, Disney is something that happens about every 4 years. When you wait that long for a big trip, you don't want to leave things to chance!

 

[mjcarrier]

I like to plan, but not in detail. I plan what park we are going to, but not specific rides. I do plan out the bigs things like parades and fireworks, where we like to sit where we are going to eat to fit around those events. So maybe a little commando and a little planning.

 

[rainwatter]

I am probably a real oddball... on the last trip, DD and I would get up for rope drop and go super-commando. I had a list in the back of my clear pouch of my lanyard with the list of attractions with shorthand park directions. I would list out aprox. 2-2.5 hours worth of commando. Then we would have a snack.

By this time, DH would have woken up and joined us somewhere in the parks and we would go into plan-free mode. I had a second list with rides that typically don't have long wait and rides with fp, which we would work off of, but we pretty much went where the wind took us. I thought DH would work alot better if I wasn't constantly bossing him around.

 

[rainwatter]

oops.

 

[FormerH8er]

oops.

 

[sjcmi]

I think it all really depends on when you are going, and what your own personal comfort level is. Also I think it depends on how many times you have been to the parks. We have been there enough that if we miss something we are not too dissapointed. We are going in Sept, and have the dining plan, so we have dinner res. throughout the parks. We are just planning on being in the park where our res. is. I have loose plans to be in certain parks on certain days, but am very open to change depending on weather, or maybe just a whim will get me to change our plans. Our dining res. are all in the 4:00 to 6:00 time frame, so this gives us lots of time to do any park during the day, then we go back to our room and get cleaned up for the evening, we usually spend the evening in whichever park our res. is in.

 

[kldmom2000]

DH and I used to go commando 100% before kids..... then our first 3 trips with them I had planned out to a "T". We always ended up with a little one in tears because we had to drag them out of the pool to get to a dinner ADR...

This time the only planning I did was TS's because of the DDP (next year-NO DDP for us!!! We're just finding that even 7 TS's in 1 week is too much for us) Other than that, we'll just go with the flow-decide the night before which park we'll go to that morning... then take our usual mid-day break (esp in August when it's most needed!) and then choose a different park at night

I'm really so excited to be doing it this way again!!!

 

[yanners]

I have to plan! I plan for everything. I have everything colour coded.

I love doing it!

Then when I get there, we pretty much go with the flow........

My family prefers a plan. We decided to plan mornings only and have the rest of the day to do whatever.

That way we make sure we see what we want and then have time to do whatever else we want.

 

[labattblue]

Don't you need a plan to do commando? We always plan our commando trips.

I thought the same thing. I never associated commando with "winging it".

 

[choirchic]

Gave that up many trips ago. We just go to WDW to enjoy. No dining plan, no ADR's no schedule and after 40 trips, no regrets. We actually come home, relaxed and not pooped anymore, secret is length of stay, the longer the more relaxed the better.

I like your style!

 

[Dressedinlovex]

The only planning we have is ADR's because we're going to be down there during free dining and we didn't sign up for that nor do we have a DDP. Along with that we know which parks we're going to on which days. I like 'winging' it! Oh may I add that that we also know which park we're going to and when because of EMH's we wanna do.

 

[jctwizzer]

The question was " planning or commando?"

Based on our observaton and experience "planning is commando"

 

[rentayenta]

I am a planner by nature but I am flexible too. Going commando is uncomfortable.

 

[vcgirl925]

We are going to do our best at loosely planning this year. We have our ADR's and are basing which parks we go to on that. We also have been there a lot so we have "our thing" that we do every time (which direction we head to first, which rides are musts, etc). But no hour by hour, ride by ride planning. I'm going to let my kids guide us this time and not rush.

 

[CindiF]

We have some ADR's only because it seems necessary. I'd rather not plan ahead. We'll avoid the EMHs and take the UG advice when it comes to best/worst days for parks. But that's it -- I'm not doing the rope drop or following an exact plan for the order of rides. We go on vacation to relax and that's what we'll do.

We'll spend mornings at the parks ... some of the afternoon at the pool ... and then go back to a park after dinner. It'll be well-paced and hopefully not too exhausting.

We're leaving Saturday ... I'm so excited!!

 

[Sleeping Becca]

Don't you need a plan to do commando? We always plan our commando trips.

ITA!

I plan to hit the parks hard and fast with military precision (that is my definition of commando).

GO GO GO !!!! MOVE IT MOVE IT!!!!!!Left Left Left Right Left! About face! Splash Mountain at 12:00!

 

[srwarden1928]

We do sort of commando. We use a touring plan from touringplans.com. But we dont race from one attraction to another. We enjoy just being in the park and enjoy seeing everything. I have never done ADRs before the morning of. But I might make one or two ahead of time next trip.