Time required to plan a WDW trip

[KEVD]

Total random question. About how much time (let's say in hours) do you all think it takes for the average person to plan a succussful 7 day trip to WDW?

 

[JZCubed]

6

 

[Corndog88]

I don't know about total hours, but I spend a lot of time researching lots of options/choices over a years time frame. Yes, I'm a long distance planner and w/ an active family, we have to for cast out big vacations like this

 

[minnie mum]

Totally depends on how familiar you are with WDW and how many times you've gone before. Do you know how many hours it takes to read the Unofficial Guide??? Now I can do it in about 3 or 4 hours, tops. But I don't think many of us Disers are your average visitor.

 

[ammag]

Um....me? About 40. Avg person? Maybe 10?

 

[NickEslick]

It all depends on what you are planning. If you know where you want to stay, know your ADRs, know your fastpasses. Maybe 6 hours?

If you have no idea what you want to do then could be like 30 hours.

Then there is the easiest option which is find a hotel, get park tickets, and let everything else fall into place on your trip. In that case 30 minutes and you are done, but you are risking not doing a lot of the stuff you want to do.

 

[SwimChicSQ]

At this point probably 10 or 12 including sewing and packing; I usually know where I'm staying my ADR's and FP+, heck ADR's took me 14 minutes to book for my October trip

 

[kaetra]

A lot more if you really enjoy the process. For me it's impossible to determine. There's research, planning, preparation, tweaking, daydreaming, menu browsing, pre-ordering meals, virtual park map touring, shopping, spreadsheets, information assembly, documentation organization, writing a pre-trip report, ordering special supplies online, countdown calendars to craft, too much too much to count up all those hours!

 

[Minnie121]

A lot more if you really enjoy the process. For me it's impossible to determine. There's research, planning, preparation, tweaking, daydreaming, menu browsing, pre-ordering meals, virtual park map touring, shopping, spreadsheets, information assembly, documentation organization, writing a pre-trip report, ordering special supplies online, countdown calendars to craft, too much too much to count up all those hours!

This is totally me!! I enjoy all the planning. I have a trip planned for this August. Can't wait!!

 

[marchingstar]

I'm with kaetra--I don't think it would take very long if I needed to just get it done. But I love the thinking, planning, anticipating, everything. It fills many of my hours, but it really wouldn't need to.

 

[kmoore7]

A lot more if you really enjoy the process. For me it's impossible to determine. There's research, planning, preparation, tweaking, daydreaming, menu browsing, pre-ordering meals, virtual park map touring, shopping, spreadsheets, information assembly, documentation organization, writing a pre-trip report, ordering special supplies online, countdown calendars to craft, too much too much to count up all those hours!

Totally agree. Countless hours involved for me. We are a family of seven, so a lot goes into it. Debate on where to stay, how long to stay, to hop or not, on and on it goes

 

[PoohsFan1]

Totally depends on how familiar you are with WDW and how many times you've gone before. Do you know how many hours it takes to read the Unofficial Guide??? Now I can do it in about 3 or 4 hours, tops. But I don't think many of us Disers are your average visitor.

Totally agree with this . It really depends on if you are a first timer or someone who goes every year, I would also throw in that it depends how often you go...if you go every couple of years and don't keep up on all the new happenings, then you may want to spend a little bit more time on catching up to par. We are DVC members so we go every year (usually multiple times a year), therefore we know what rides and restaurants that we like and ones that we stay away from. The only real planning I do these days is deciding which days we are going to which parks and deciding on which new restaurant or restaurants we are going to try. I do spend a lot of time on the DIS, but I do that whether I am planning a trip or not .

 

[jec6613]

Any major vacation for me is an easy ~100 hours. I spent 2 hours just on flights for my next WDW trip.

 

[Hootch]

We probably spend less than 10 hours of planning. The resort is set so the dates are the big thing. We do a couple of table service locations so that does not take long. We usually drive and the stops are known. Most of the time is me looking at other opportunities.

We have done two west coast driving trips over the last three years. Those took much longer for me to plan.

 

[Tomh]

Probably not more than 10 hours to plan out park days, ADR's, and FP+. Now, if we are including the time it takes me to do various other things like decorate out magic bands, make awesome custom Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom Spell Books for DS11 and I, gather up the list of everything we need to remember to pack for the four days of driving, and two weeks of vacation, etc. etc., get everything packed, and so on, then it is probably more like a 40 to 60 hour process.

 

[greeneave]

aside from researching, for a 4-day onsite (i picked the poly) stay i had to:

purchase plane tickets
purchase resort reservations
(i had complimentary park hopper tickets but most people would have to buy tickets)
make adr's
pre-purchase our spirit of aloha reservations
set up our my disney experience account
register our park tickets online
order our magic bands
select our fp+ choices
place a delivery order on gardengrocer.com
place an order on freshdirect.com for food we're bringing with us
place an order on amazon.com for a portable iphone charger

fortunately my husband has zero interest in anything to do with vacation planning, so i was able to freely book as i see fit. i couldn't imagine having to plan this trip by committee!

we're also spending 4 days at universal, but that part of the trip took 1/4 of the time to plan. we're staying onsite, so all i had to do was make the hotel reservation, buy "3-days-for-the-price-of two" tickets and book one dinner at universal walk (that we probably will wind up canceling).

all told, the above took me a total of 6 hours to execute. i've spent probbly almost 10x that surfing disney-related sites and watching videos online. my friends are tired of me, already!

 

[mickeyfanachey1999]

Including nailing down dates with everyone's work schedule and time spend on the phone with Disney booking an OKW grand villa and time spent on FP+ and (2) ADRs I would figure I spent about an hour.

 

[Pappa Bear]

Thanks to a WONDERFUL DDIL, only as much time as it takes for me to write the check covering our share of the expenses. Well, it's actually a little more than that as Momma Bear and I requested that she add a fireworks cruise for the family and a steam train behind the scenes tour this trip for our older son and me. I had to look up those things so that she could add them to this trip's itinerary. So I guess an hour or less of my time would be my total.

My DDIL is a "Disneyaholic" and would need at least a 15 step recovery program as 12 would never be enough. The only things we are ever responsible for planning for are extras like the train and the fireworks cruise. She is a wonderful wife, excellent mother and a Disney planner supreme.

 

[tscrapper]

Love the 15 step recovery program, Pappa Bear