Perhaps for you. But your planning that you have spelled out quite clearly seems PAR as in normal. As in--not exceptional to the FP+ experience. Maybe it was something you felt you had to do. But if you acknowledge pre-planning is required, maybe you just did much less planning than other race participants in the past. Between flights and attractions, you felt you had to do more. The challenge is isolating whether this is a direct result of FP+ or a result of your concerns that if you didn't rise to the occasion, that you would miss out.
I never claimed that my experience was exceptional to the FP+ experience. It very well may be normal for the FP+ experience. That doesn't change the fact that
we did
more planning at home (aka pre-planning) than we have had to do in previous years.
So he if he did exactly the same thing this year or similar, how did this require more pre-planning due to FP+? And if you opted to do the same or similar, where is the more pre-planning required?
FP+ has zero impact on any of that.
I've already explained how we felt that there was more
pre planning required on this trip, and how it was related to choosing FP+. To give a further example - lets use our arrival day.
This year on arrival day, MK had a
MVMCP that we did not have tickets to, so we only had a few hours to be in the park in the first place. We wanted to make best use of the time we were there, which required getting an idea of when was a realistic time we'd be able to get there so that we knew when we could start planning FP+ return times in order to book them. We haven't used ME since 2006, so that required some research (aka pre-planning) on our part.
In previous years, when we went into the parks on arrival day, we'd get there whenever we got there. We never thought about or tried to predict when we'd arrive. We'd arrive, check in, and get to the parks when we could. We would choose where we wanted to go in the park and use FP as we could. if a FP was too late, we'd just bypass and move on. No research done, or necessary.
How did FP+ require additional pre-planning than was more than what you did here?
I never said there was any more planning required on race day. You have inferred that I was talking about the race day itself - I am not, nor have i been.
But per your own detailed description--you had zero plans that would have required Fp+ because not a single thing required it one year later. So it sounds like you could have done exactly the same thing with the same amount of pre-planning which was to plan your activity (that day, that week, or whenever you opted for those choices) as a non-park day around an event on the evening .
Not really--race day could be identical with no pre-planning since you did no parks until party time. And it doesn't take rocket science to figure out instantly that a late night more than likely means not an early morning.
(I realize this quote came later in your post, but my answer below addresses both of the above. Rather than restate, I'm just relocating the quote).
We had zero plans *on race day*. We had park plans on every other day of our trip except race day. If you read my posts, my comments about the extra things that needed consideration were not in reference to the race day. You have made that connection where no connection was said or intended.
So you are telling me that it required pre-planning to know that you may be up late and may not make park opening in 2014?
Because again--it would take 5 seconds to realize that FP+ in the morning may not be a wise choice. Be it that night or 60 days prior. Same amount if time spent on that "plan" and your complete free will choice on when to think that thought.
No, it didn't take any effort at all to know we wouldn't make RD. I never said it did.
But again, if you read my earlier posts, I mentioned that we were only to be in DHS for a short time on that Sunday. We've never seen AK at night, and when Disney extended the times for AK that weekend, we knew that was something we wanted to see. So, like arrival day, just choosing nighttime FP+ for DHS wasn't something we were going to do, as we weren't planning on being there at night. Knowing we'd only be there for a short time, we needed to figure out what time was realistic to think we'd be in DHS in order to plan FP+. DHS also requires planning FP+ around show times - which means finding out what show times are. DH really wanted to see LMA (which may not be there on our next trip) and Indy, so we needed to be able to fit those in with the FP+ as well.
Again - it isn't that we didn't think about those things before at all - we did, but not until we were IN the parks. We had a times guide for the week in question in hand. We were seeing the current SB times and FP availability. So saying that this is "more
pre planning is accurate. It isn't that it's more overall planning, but that it's more
preplanning at home, without as much concrete in-the-moment accurate information as you have in the park.
Your choice, but I am having difficulty quantifying this more pre-planning--being fully aware in 2013 that your decide the night before what time to get to the parks would have also meant limited to no FP- on headliners as well as lengthy lines in standby.
As our decision the night before in 2013 was to stay out well past the run and get up late the next day, yes, we would have had limited FP opportunities in DHS the next day. We wouldn't have (and didn't) gone to DHS the day after the run last year. We would have gone to MK specifically because of the more FP availability. We went to DHS this year specifically because FP+ gave us the ability to.
To me--the pre-planning you emphasize did not seem as necessary as you are claiming. Given that people who fly in can and do plan around their ME arrival (we did in 2012).
I know there are people who plan around their ME arrival. It just isn't something we've done since 2006. We haven't had access to ME since then. So while planning for ME may not be "more pre-planning" for anyone else, it was *for us.* And the *only* reason we needed to pre-plan ME was to book our FP+ in MK. If we were getting our FP+ in Epcot (where we went to when MK closed), there would have been no need to plan or think about ME. But because we were getting FP+ in MK, and there was only a small window of time in MK, we needed to have an idea of when we'd realistically arrive.
FTR, we didn't get FP+ for Epcot on arrival day because of the spectator party. We figured (and were right) that we'd do the rides we'd need a FP+ for at Epcot during the spectator party, so we didn't want to waste FP+ for that on arrival day.
for what you describe it was not necessarily required this time given that emphasis that it was "more" with no real description of how much time this took in reality. Moving it up 60 days sooner is not necessarily "more" so much as it is EARLIER.
no, but you responded to a thread on the loss of spontaneity and said that you had to plan more due to FP+. You just planned differently and earlier.
When questioned, I do agree that I question(and I guess invalidate? The magnitude of "more" that you keep sharing on a thread about no more spontenity in Disney and have explained that in more detail above with additional questioned.
It seems you are saying that FP+ created a greater burden aka need
To pre-plan. What I see is maybe 10 minutes of--if we want to do DHS--we might as well get our FP+ booked. Done.
Maybe that is 10 minutes more than in 2013--but that it rises to the occasion of posting (vaguely) that your trip required more pre-planning with me envisioning the complaint threads or folks stalking
MDE at midnight on their to date--I am not so sure.
So I ask -- how much time DID you spend on this "more pre-planning" relative to last year?
(Again putting like thoughts together to respond to all at once)
I have only been saying in this thread that FP+ caused "more
pre-planning." not that it caused more planning. But that it cause more
pre-planning. I did more planning *before* the trip than I have ever done before. That is not the same thing as saying I did "more planning" than ever before. You're interpreting those statements as the same thing, and they aren't.
Perhaps a better way of saying it would be that it moved planning we'd normally do during the trip, with knowledge of all current conditions, to before the trip - without the benefit of the knowledge we'd have if we were in the parks (crowds, weather, how we're feeling, etc). I am not saying this is either good OR bad, just that that is what it was.
Overall, between the conversations had including with my out of state friend, the posts researching information here, reading mesaboy's thread and EasyWDW to figure out how to make the FP+ interface best work and trying it out before my booking window (the whole book 1 person at a time and try to get overlapping times thing didn't make sense to me til I actually walked through doing it before our booking window opened), and then the actual time spent in MDE on booking night (which was 1 hr in and of itself) - it was a few hours of planning at home that we had not done on previous trips. Not arduous (though not fun either), but still more than in the past.
But, again, to be crystal clear - I was never claiming (nor am I now) that it is more *overall* planning - but that doing that planning *at home* without the current in-park experience/knowledge is different, *for us," than planning those same things in the parks in the midst of the experience was.
We always appreciate FP for that ride. On a late arrival due to a late race the night before, you would have been out of luck if not for that planning unless you wanted to stand in a 90+ minute line.
Oh, I'm well aware. that is precisely why we scheduled FP+ for it. As I said, last year we didn't do DHS (or Epcot) the day after the race. Specifically because of the limited ride options that result in longer lines in those parks.
I try hard not to as well. I can only go on by what you post and in what I infer from what you post. I simply called into question your race experience as requiring anything more than normal due to FP+.
By your explanation above, I still don't see the "more" you keep emphasizing.
Two things -
#1 - You keep referring to it as the "race experience" when in reality the race had little to do with the points I brought up here. I mentioned the race to explain why we had the late start on Sunday, nothing more.
#2 - You keep referring to it "requiring anything more than normal" - when that isn't what I've been saying. This was our first trip with FP+. I don't know what "normal" for FP+ is. This trip may well have been it. My point was simply that it caused *us* to do more
pre arrival planning than before.
I have not once extrapolated that to say or even mean that my experience is "normal." You may have interpreted that, but I have not actually said (nor meant) that. I have been very specific that I am only relating what *my* experience was.
