Something to be said about not having a plan...

[Planogirl]

There's something wonderful to be said about having been so many times that the plan is more or less in your head... I always feel comfortable not looking at a touring plan because I know the exact order of the rides that I want to go in

I agree. We never actually make a plan but just know what we need to do early and what we can save for later and so on. It's relaxing not having to think about it.

 

[Tinkerbellie16]

It must be so different to be a 'new' visitor to WDW now or in the last decade then when I was a 'new' visitor. My parents took us in the late 70s when I was a kid and I remember those ticket books and JUST MK! I have fond memories of all my visits but I do like it better now. But I'm one of those people that get bored really easily so WDW is my cup of tea!

 

[cmpdw4me]

More power to you. I'm a researcher and want the MOST out of my trips to DW. Besides, to me, planning is half the fun!

 

[chanty]

More power to you. I'm a researcher and want the MOST out of my trips to DW. Besides, to me, planning is half the fun!

Oh don't get me wrong - I do plan now and I now research cause I wanna know...I'm very curious! And also, we make a couple of ADRs to our favorite places and new places every time...but, I was simply saying that - I miss the let's go feeling of not really knowing what you'll see & do...

You see everything down to the food here! hahaha! Which is nice too...gets you salivating...hahaha!

 

[Disney93]

More power to you. I'm a researcher and want the MOST out of my trips to DW. Besides, to me, planning is half the fun!

I am not a researcher and I also want the MOST out of our WDW trips but to me that means taking it easy. We have a 10 day trip coming in 2 months and we have a basic outline but nothing close to planning each and everyday. The day we go to MNSSHP, I have made ADR's for lunch. There are a total of 10 people in our group so planning is hard but having fun isn't.

For the 10 days, we have a total of 4 ADR's and that's it. Having freedom to do as we please is what makes US happy. Others might favor planning each day but that's not us. Sometimes just staying at the resort is as much fun as going to a park. We have 10 day PH tickets so doing as much as we like or as little is wide open.

We have made about a dozen trips and we know the must do things. There have been trips where we went commando and then needed another vacation when we got home to rest from our WDW VACATION.

So for us the best plans are NO PLANS.

 

[Disneywedding2010]

I've been to Disney 4 times in the last 2 years. This trip coming up in December is the first trip I've ever really sat down and planned out because I've learned so much from this website. I have realized that I've missed out on a lot of things on all of the previous trips. We have the ADRs booked for the days that we are going to certain parks but that's about it. We are there long enough that we also have a few days where we are just going to lounge at the resort and take it easy.

 

[livie1205]

I do not think it is the end of the world if you dont plan your vacation out down to the minute...we went for 2 days last week, no plans,no adr just called on the way down to get a room at ALL STAR SPORTS got a room for 52.00 with a AP discount..we decided when we got there which park to go to and just went...we only had 2 sets of clothes and toothbrushes.I have to say it was one of the best trips we ever took to wdw! no stress no plans just going with the flow..it was great!we ate at boma,caseys and the food court.The best part about it was even though free ddp was going on the park was not crowded at all..we did not wait longer then 10 minutes for anything. We norm go for about a week and at least have ADRs but we went just out of the blue....I loved it!! I cant tell you how much fun it was and even though we only had one day at the parks we did not feel rushed at all...we stopped and sat on a bench and ate mickey bars and even drove to AKL (where we will be in dec) and got some butternut squash soup! We got to ride just about everything and did not miss out on anything because we didnt plan...LOVED IT
__________________

 

[bigAWL]

I do a lot of planning, typically, or a variety of reasons. We've been visiting about once a year, but for less than week at a time, and I was never sure each time when we would be back. So I wanted to have a plan that would accomplish allow us to see a large variety of things, including some new things we hadn't seen before. I also want to have enough time to rest and relax (plan a late night for fireworks followed by a morning to sleep in, for example - and always planning afternoon nap/pool time).

For me, hitting long lines is not going to make for a relaxing trip, so I do my best to plan my use of FP and for riding the most popular rides first thing in the morning. I'd rather spend time walking around the parks than standing in a line.

Also, I love planning, and spending the months leading up to the trip in anticipation of all the fun. I actually feel like I'm already going on a bunch mini vacations before hand.

But one of my biggest reasons for planning as much as possible is to avoid the Jungle Book vulture scenario. Know what I'm talking about???

"So, what we gonna do?"
"I dunno. What you wanna do?"
"I dunno. What you wanna do?"
"I dunno. Wha... NOW DON'T START THAT AGAIN!!!"

 

[snowy76]

I agree. We never actually make a plan but just know what we need to do early and what we can save for later and so on. It's relaxing not having to think about it.

I think we probably take this approach (at least day to day). We might look at the EMH schedule and use that to help us decide where we're going... but we actually have a very short list of must-dos on a given day. We get to the park early, hit the first two or three things we had to see, then we just see where the day takes us.

 

[Donut23]

DH and I gave up our Commando Tennis Shoes a few years ago now. We will make a few ADR's ahead.....Candelight Processional and Fantastmic Dinner packages for example.

Sometimes we don't even go into the parks - shocking!

On our MANY past trips we have seen and experienced just about everything we want. Now we visit "old friend (rides)" and savor the experience more. We stop and watch the characters, listen to the barbershop quartet, sleep in if we had a long night the night before.

DH's job has become so extremely stressful the last couple of years, it's important to me that he can unwind and relax.

I could NEVER go back to commando trips.

 

[leebee]

We visit the World once every two years, so I need to do a little planning! Basically I follow the boards to see what's new, what's closed, what I might not know about. We don't buy hoppers, so I look at the park hours to see which park on what day we will want to visit. We often stay offsite and don't do the ddp, so I make an adr for a couple of must-do restaurants (Boma, Kona) on the days I know we will be going to those parks, but as they are resort restaurants, that's not really necessary, just convenient. This past trip we stayed onsite specifically for free dining, so we were a little more "tied down" than usual, as we had to make sure our park days and ADR's coincided. However, this trip was all about trying out the WDW restaurants, so hey, it wasn't an issue. We did several unplanned things, including take a DVC tour (they were giving super fast passes and free ice cream- how could I say no?) which was a lot of fun and really, really makes me want to buy in! On a rest day (planned 5:30 adr at Kona, then to MK for EMH until 3am, WAHOO), we ended up taking a bus to Epcot, monorail to TTC, ferry to MK, water shuttle to WL (we'd never seen WL before), motor sailboat back to MK, rode the resort monorail, then back to POP (DD was hoping we'd get to take the tram to the parking lot and back... we miss the monorail and trams wehn staying onsite).

Mostly we just took each day as it came, and twice we changed our adr's during the day, so we could do what we wanted (yes, during free dining, and we got our seatings!). I think from now on, I will only plan to the extent of park days and ADR's (which used to be PS for priority seating, but they are one in the same), and just go with the flow! Of course, that's easy to do when you know there will ALWAYS be another visit!!

 

[d1gitman]

our last trip to WDW was planned to allow for no plan. We had a few days as pre-planned (blue) but the rest of the days were lunch ADR's and then we were free to choose (yellow) whatever park we wanted. We like late starts anyway, so this let us sleep in, swim, hang out, etc...then have a nice TS lunch and head over to the park of our choice and stay until closing. It was by far our most favorite itinerary. Also, we got to skip the heat of hte late morning-early afternoon sun. For us, being in the park from 3pm till close is more than enough hours. we don't enjoy open to close marathons (we've tried them in the past).

This was our way of having free-choice each day while being on the free DDP and having ADR's. It was the closest we've come to recreating that feel of no-itinerary but actually fitting in everything.