Tour Plans in September

[glparcher]

DW, DD 9 and I will be visiting WDW for 5 days ( M-F) in mid September, staying at POP and have a general idea as to where we want to be at the close of each day and have made ADRs accordingly. Will the parks be crowded enough that I need to consider a real tour plan for each day or will the crowds be light enough that we can hit the EMH each morning and then relax, hit the resort pools mid day and back to the parks in the late p.m and evening without concern about crowds and lines?

 

[lady_hlh]

We went during the end of September last year, I made ADRs for every day but didn't bother with a touring plan. The crowds weren't that bad except for when I was silly enough to go to MK on Saturday. We are going in September again this year and I'm not going to bother with a touring plan this time either but I do have all the ADRs booked.

 

[akaDaddy]

We also were at WDW September 2005. We stayed 5 days and had a great time.

We followed the touring plans in the "Unofficial Guide" all but one day and visited the parks on the days listed as the least crowded. The plan worked excellent during the morning and after lunch which appears to allow for your plan as well. The evenings were more crowded, but nothing like summer or peak season.

Now back to the one day without the plan. It was terrible, well bad for September, at the AK. Lines much longer than expected and slow service at lunch. Maybe it was just the AK, but now I'm a big believer in having a plan.

I'm certain we would have had a great time plan or no plan, but I think we saw alot more of the kingdom by having everything mapped out.

 

[lyzziesmom]

I was there last year in Sept. (7th - 13th) and there were no, and I mean NO, lines for anything. We saw the Pocahontas show at the AK and we were the only people there, my DD7 got to go on stage with Pocahontas for photos. I think the longest we waited in line for any rides during the entire 7 days was about 20 minutes for Soarin, besides that the longest we waited was maybe 10 minutes, and that was for food! We had no touring plans and were in a group of 8 people for several days, including one toddler, and had no problems whatsoever. Right after Labor Day is the BEST time of year to go! The only thing I would suggest, based on our experience, is to make your ADRs in the parks you plan to visit each day, as we wasted a LOT of time traveling back & forth to different parks & resorts to meet our mealtimes. For example, if we had a 4:45 ADR at the Concourse Steakhouse and we were at Epcot, we had to stop what we were doing at around 3pm to make it to the monorail, head to the TTC, change monorails, head to the Contemporary, were done eating by around 7pm, then head back to Epcot for evening EMH, by that time Epcot had gotten much busier and we felt like we wasted 1/2 the day!

Ok, I got a little longwinded, but I hope I helped!

 

[Lora]

I guess it depends on what kind of tour plan you're talking about. Personally, I am not comfortable without a plan of some sort. I usually have a rough idea what parks we're going to each day and the attractions we want to do. We do basically the same thing you do with a park in the morning, break in the room, and another park in the evening. I would put together a sketch of a plan like that with your ADR's and then at least you have one.

As for Sept. EMH's, we found the most crowded time at WDW in Sept. 2005 to be the evening EMH's. We did them at least 3 times and I'm not sure if we would plan to do them again. In the MK, we did fine. In Epcot, it was not worth it at all. In MGM, the only benefit was the late Fantasmic show. These were new to us this year, so that's why we tried them. Normally, we've done Early Entries and have done well with that plan or arriving early on non-EMH days.