To plan or not to plan?

[natalielongstaff]

, we are going on the free ddp, after listening to many experienced disers, have decided if you want to get the most out of the plan, planning is a must, i think it depends of the time you are going, and if your staying on site or not.

thats the same for me, I love the planning ...it makes the trip more exciting to me

 

[Shazzie B]

The 1st time we went we planned very little-just took Brit Guide with us to help us decide which park we would go to next day etc.

Now on our 6th visit and I spend all winter planning using unoffical guide & Tour Guide Mike etc. We plan which parks on which days, with the main aim of trying to avoid crowds and pacing ourselves. We even plan a rough route around the park, I find this helps maintain family harmony whilst on holiday We also find it better to do this for ADRs, as we are going during free dining again this year.

Having said that, we're flexible about changing, if we've had enough we leave the park to return to hotel for a swim etc. Last August bad weather in the evenings meant we adjusted our plans etc. Next year we plan to go in Oct so it won't be free dining - it will be nice just to go with the flow for meals again.

 

[Shooby doo]

We always sit down & make a plan,it adds to the build-up but really apart from MK on our first day nothing is set in stone. 2 trips ago Hurricane Jeanne turned up so our plan went for a burton after that! Certain things like MNSSHP,HHN,HOS,La Nouba-which we need tickets for ,we always book in advance as we like to pay for stuff like that beforehand. We have DDP this time around & to be honest unless it blows our socks off we won't do it again.Just too much pre-planning & it does seem to take some of the spontainety away from how we usually work.Some of the guide books have touring plans but for us that's a step too far,I just can't see the fun in charging around the parks just so that I can say I've done it all,but we do have the luxury of going for 3 weeks!
SD

 

[Mrs Hobbes]

Ok I admit it I'm a planningaholic

We got back from WDW on January 1st thisyear and within a week we were planning our next trip. I spend a lot of time researching and then DH and I sit and work out our plans from my findings. We use TGM, Ridemax and the unofficial guide to help with our plans and we take a detailed schedule with us. We are going one step further this time and making planning photobooks for the girls so that they can look through and see what we will be doing each day. DH has started them and they look great, lots of lovely pictures, interesting Disney facts and places to look for Hidden Mickeys and that kind of thing.

As for dining we tend to have one ADR for each day either a breakfast or an dinner and then we plan where we will grab snacks and cs meals according to what we will be near to at meals time.

I am completely obsessed but I don't freak out if we have to deviate from our plans whilst we are there. It is all so magical it is possible to get stressed out in Disney

 

[wicket2005]

I don't know if I'm in the minority here but I notice how many people on here plan their itinerary for every day before they go away. We have a rough idea of what we want to do while we are over there but leave the day to day planning of what we actually do until we are there and just sort of go with the flow depending on what we feel like doing on the day and the weather etc.
What do other people do?

I plan because we usually go in peak times so need to avoid the busy days for each park. We also want to cover each of the 7 parks at least twice and I find that by having a plan it saves any arguments on where we are going each day. However, saying that it isn't written in concrete so can be changed. Last year I found the kids (young adults really) preferred to stay on the Universal site instead of going back down to Disney so we did that for the latter part of the second week.

On occasions my plan let us down when a couple of early morning and evening extra hours for Disney guests were active when I didn't expect them. Early mornings are not too bad to deal with but the late night opening hours the crowds are terrible and the length of the lines are horrendous compared to normal days. As a result we avoid these days like the plague and visit the parks which had the early/late hours the following day instead where the crowd levels are no way as bad. I can never understand why they are classed as a perk because all the lines are so much longer than on normal days.

 

[nibbo]

Thanks for all your responses. It's very interesting how people differ so much in their planning. I suppose we do plan in a way as we know what we want to do when we are over there, we just decide what days we do what once we are there depending on how we feel and what the weather is like. If they forecast a cold day or two, we slot in the shopping day on that day. We always do AK on the first day as it's our favourite and most easy going park.
At the end of the day, everyone has their own way of doing things and however you do it you're going to have a great time.

 

[Dead-metal]

We plan compulsively! We know where we are going on any given day. We have a list of places to eat off-site and a list of place to get snacks in the parks.

We also have our touring plans ready to be printed and laminated.

I use The Unoffical Guide and www.touringplans.com to plan.

I've also started to plan our 2009 Disney cruise.

 

[PudseyChancer]

I'll have a look at the busy park days in the Brits Guide and that's about it, I'm lucky enough that in the times I've visited that's been all I've needed. Never been knocked back at an onsite restaurant either so there's never been any need to go further than that. There's no way I could be able to plan a day down to the nth degree six months in advance, part of the enjoyment of my holidays are that the days are 'ad hoc' - it's probably why I come back so refreshed!

 

[orlando-brit realtor]

There are certain things you simply have to plan ahead. If you want to have a nice meal on site these need to booked ahead. Im a brit living here, and my wife and i have had to book now just to be able to get a reservation for Le Cellier in Epcot for August. The sit down resteraunts get booked and if there is one you want to try you really need to book it in advance. In terms of tickets for the parks, they are pretty flexible so if you want to lounge by the pool instead of hitting the parks one day then dont stress it. Its a vacation, enjoy yourself, you dont need more stress..;-)

 

[Lady Radington]

I like to research a lot before we go, so that when we get there we have good ideas of what we want to do and places we want to eat, but never book or plan anything in advance as we like to be spontaneous. Once we are settled in our hotel we'll go to concierge in reception to make reservations a day or two in advance. We usually get most things accomplished and feel less stressed for not having to rush around with strict time constraints. We are two adults without children, but i can see that if you are a family, especially with young children, it might be a lot easier to plan a bit.