The extent of your day/hour/minute planning...

[mybestieismickey]

LOL Personally, I would do it and just not tell him I kept mine printed off daily and in my back pack using it as my guide as I would string them along lol

Ha ha! I wish I could get away with this. But he "knows too much!" He will either slow us down or get cranky, so we just go with the flow and it works. But it doesn't story me from obsessively planning at home!

 

[dkrauss]

Curious how many other uber-planners are out there that try to strategize out every day/hour etc. I enjoy the planning for our group's trips and trying to maximize every day. My tinkering with our schedule has become an obsession, and we are still 7 months out from our next trip!

The attached is just an example:




View attachment 82893

I love it!!! While I'm not as detailed in my planning sheets I appreciate your effort

One question for ya..............do ya LAMINATE your sheets!!!! I do........

Doug

 

[MrInfinity]

TP is a complex computer programme that uses algorithms based on tonnes of data to work out which rides to go on in which order to minimise your wait times. With FPP it advises when to best use them for what. It's not a glorified spread sheet. I personally don't like standing in lines I can't see anything particularly spontaneous about that approach.

TP fan are you? If you get value out of it, great. I just said one can make a perfectly good plan w/o needing to start with a site that will do it for you. The info you need is available, mostly out here. TP may save some time and do it quicker, but I enjoy the planning part and am not trying to get it done quick.

 

[clambert1273]

Ha ha! I wish I could get away with this. But he "knows too much!" He will either slow us down or get cranky, so we just go with the flow and it works. But it doesn't story me from obsessively planning at home!

then you are nicer than me LOL cuz if mine gets cranky I tell him to go to the room and take a time out until he can act like a big boy

 

[starsweeper]

I have 4 young kids so I don't plan much, relatively. I pick which park for morning and/or afternoon, plan 1-2 ADRs a day, make FP+ ressies for favorite/popular rides and "let it go." We always do rope drop pr pre-park ADR breakfast, so we get jump on the crowds and don't have to plan much.

The most difficult park to plan is MK but since we spend 2 full days there, and often 1-2 partial day, we can focus on tackling one area at a time and revisit our favorites with ease.

 

[HoliPoli]

If possible, remember to seek out the seats closest to the exit so you save time fighting the crowds and can get to your next destination quicker. I had a friend who did this and it drove me nuts! I can only handle so much planning. I like to be efficient, but I also like taking the time to look around.

 

[sunshine girl]

These tight touring plans leave no room for error. What if someone wanted to stop and get an ice cream and there was a line. What if little Johnny stomach could not handle the greasy burger and fries he has for lunch which resulted in diarrhea. I think these touring plans are meant for adults who go to the parks without kids. Kids can change their mind from one moment to the next. They don't want schedules.

For me, plans are guidelines. Not military operations that must be executed to the letter! There's plenty of room for changes and for stopping to smell the roses, eat the ice cream, collect the Wilderness Explorer badges, get another margarita, stop and people watch, scrap the plan, whatever.

I just got back from a trip with extended family and three young kids and the plan made a huge difference in how smoothly each day proceeded. Without getting into details, we had plenty of "surprises" along the way, including a trip to urgent care... but the fact that we had made a plan to use as a starting point helped tremendously. We had zero child meltdowns, zero adult disagreements, never waited longer than 15 minutes for any ride, re-rode things multiple times when the kids wanted to, and had a great time. It was the first Disney trip for the kids.

That being said, certainly no one HAS to plan, but it works well for us!

 

[Kalyjess]

I just joined touring plans for our up coming trip in May! I love planning. I do it with the purpose of having an idea of how to walk around the park so we are not jumping from one side to the other. I do a plan for my entire family and if, for example, MK has EMH at night I make a plan for DH and me. We are the power through it kind of people and my family is not. When they are resting we can still enjoy other attractions and then we'll know when to meet up with them later on the day.

When we went two years ago, they were always asking me what to do next and everyone had a different opinion. I hope this plan can give them an idea of how to manage the parks without any meltdowns!!

 

[Ava]

Personally, having a plan made the trip easier with our young kids. I would never yell at my child over wanting to ride a ride that's not on the plan, like a PP mentioned seeing, but having a plan last trip let us do more with less waiting in lines, less running around, and less standing there going, "Well, what should we do next?" There were definitely times when we changed the plan on the fly - like on our first MK day when the baby fell asleep in the carrier so DW couldn't go on any rides until she woke - or scrapped it altogether if it wasn't working out. But having the plan in the first place definitely made the trip go more smoothly. If it was just DW and myself, we'd be fine just making some ADRs and FP+ and then winging it, but it's not as big a deal for us to criss-cross the park or wait in longer lines than it is to do that with young kids.

Also, re: Touring Plans - I love that it tells me the duration of each attraction! I never would've thought that Small World is 14 minutes long, or Splash Mountain 18 minutes. Knowing that is helpful, especially since we have to Baby Swap the bigger rides.