Touring plan or not....

[Krista72]

Do you use a touring plan or just make a general plan of which attractions you want to do and kind of just do the parks by "lands"? We will be there 11/15-11/21 and the crowds are expected to be about a 5 out of 10 for the fist 4-5 days of the trip. I

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

Me and my family do the more general touring style now. We have been many times and know our likes, dislikes, goals, and the patterns and tendencies of park crowds. There once was a time years ago when we used a strict touring plan, but not in a very long time

 

[alliecat523]

Never use a touring plan. Just go with the flow based on what we want to see that day and the wait times.

 

[rwdavis2]

Nothing detailed. We have always picked the park by projected crowd level, hit rope drop and do popular attractions first. With FP+ we may do just that but then make the FPs for a second park to hop to. But we'll be there 8 days and won't have to do it all in a short period.

 

[CAS239]

We've never used a touring plan and I don't see the need in it. Unless it's your very first time and you really don't know the layout of the parks or what the rides are about, then I wouldn't use it.

We know what rides we want to do, usual wait times and when the parks get busy, and if need be ill occasionally look at a crowd calendar prior if it's a toss up between two parks on which to go to

 

[happymommy]

No need for us either!

 

[Aliceacc]

We've never followed a touring plan. At this point we pretty much know what we want to do and when.

But if this is your first trip, they make a wonderful jumping off place. They let you know which rides to hit at rope drop in order to maximize what you see. You don't have to follow line by line, but they're great for "What looks good next?" situations when you don't really know which lines are likely to be longest.

 

[Klayfish]

We have a very specific plan, and if we're 90 seconds late to a ride, there's a penalty to be paid. Well...someone had to be the contrarian....

No, we don't really have a hard and fast touring plan either. It's more of a loosely organized plan. We plan out the park we want to be in. That part needs to be known so that we can book our FP+ as far in advance as possible. Beyond knowing which park and which FP+ we have (which even that can change over the course of a trip), the rest is pretty much winging it. We try to be organized so that we aren't walking from end to end of the park all day, but nothing specific.

 

[dekraut]

I really wanted to use one. It satisfies my need to be efficient and effective (or as my wife calls it, ridiculous).

Even though it feels good to me to follow a schedule and minimize my time waiting in line, I have to say that other than making fastpasses and a few strategies to hit the busier rides early in the day, I don't use plans because I feel like my vacation shouldn't be full of schedules and bullet points.

With kids, a touring plan feels like a school-planned field trip, rather than a relaxing adventure. I have no doubts that following a TP might save me time in line, but it adds a rigidity that I don't want on vacation.

 

[Day-Day]

It doesn't look like the OP will visit during a very busy time so a general plan should be okay. I wouldn't necessarily stick to do the parks by lands though. It varies by park but if we arrive at the park early, we first visit attractions that will have long wait times later in the day and do the inverse for the afternoon and evening. On our first visit to WDW, I didn't have all the information available now but I did have a chart that showed the best times to visit the attractions based on wait times; pretty obvious that the popular attractions were better to visit early and late and to avoid in the middle of the day.

We have an initial plan for the first few attractions to go to. For example, if we go to Fantasy Land first, we might do Peter Pan first but definitely not Philharmagic. We will switch lands and re-visit later as well; at least in the MK they aren't too far apart.

 

[catfan98]

Our first trip to WDW was in June of 2015. For our day at Magic Kingdom, we used a combination of a pre-park opening breakfast reservation at BOG (yes, we all ate and it was really good), and a touring plan. We stuck to the plan and we rode every ride we wanted with very minimal wait. BUT, my husband and kids ended up hating the restrictiveness of it. Hated. It. We didn't use one for HS or AK, and they were much happier those days. We are going again the first week of April 2017 and they have made me promise NOT to use a touring plan. This will be a bit hard for me as I LIKE a plan, not just Disney but in general, I like to follow a plan. But, I made the promise to them and I will keep it. Rope drop is ok, fast passes are ok, a couple of ADRs are ok, and a general plan of what we want to do is ok, but NO rigid touring plan. They want to relax and explore all the little things we didn't get to see/do in addition to riding some rides. Even without a touring plan, I feel like we will get to do all that we want to do, and if we don't, we will still enjoy ourselves.

Every person is different. I'm an OCD type person and I loved having a touring plan. But I understand that it's not for everyone, especially those that want to relax, look around, and just go with the flow. I hope you enjoy your vacation no matter how you go about it!

 

[starsweeper]

We don't use a touring plan, we've been enough times that we know what we like and how the crowds build. Our general plan is to get there early, hit the headliners first, then slow it down a bit. At MK, we focus on Fantasyland, Circus area, Tomorrowland, and Haunted Mansion before we have lunch, then use FP+ for Jungle Cruise, BTMRR and Pirates for the afternoon and fill in other rides, snacks or shopping as we go.

 

[Nancyg56]

We do not use one either. Other than making FP and then heading in the general direction that we want to start, we just wing it. I will say that if someone is new to WDW, it helps to make plans, even if the only thing they end up good for is helping you to become familiar with the parks.

 

[Moonwolf]

I create a touring plan because I love planning things. My general rule of thumb is 3-4 rides in the first hour and 2-3 rides per hour after that. Half-hour for small shows and 45 mins to hour for longer shows. 1/2 hour for quick service meal and 1 1/2 hours for a ADR meal.

But even though I have everything scheduled once I get to the park my plans become more like suggestions. I used the knowledge of best times for certain rides and standard wait times to help steer my group. But other than ADRs and the first ride in the morning (and getting everyone there at ropedrop) everything else is subject to change. Even FP plans changed slightly where I may have planned to use a FP at the beginning of its window but we get side tracked and use it closer to the end or vice versus.

The most important things about planning is pinpointing the 2-4 must do things so once you get to the park you can prioritize. And in your initial plans have some "free time" scheduled. This will ease some pressure of having to do things exactly when you plan because there is that buffer period.

 

[EmmyKay]

I took my kids in 2014 for the first time and had the same question. Touring plan...no touring plan...I ended up creating my own touring plan based on the way I think my family would like to tour. I found that the "real" touring plans have you bouncing around the park from one end to the other a lot. The goal of those plans seems to be to jam in as many rides as possible, which I knew wasn't for us.
So I make my own, putting the highest wait attractions first thing (or with FastPass), and I schedule extra time for each attraction. That allows us time to look in the gift shop, get a snack, and basically just "take it all in".
But...I also know I need to be flexible in case things don't work out for whatever reason. It's really just a guideline.
Now we are on our 3rd trip (10 days!) Whoo!Hoo!
Happy Planning!

 

[gatorlisa]

Never used a touring plan. Didn't even know such a thing existed until maybe a year or two ago, and I've been going to Disney off and on for 30+ years, since I was a kid. We don't do table service, so dining reservations are not a factor in our Disney days. Prior to FP+ we did almost no planning. It was quite literally a matter of waking up and saying "where do we want to go today?" Now with FP+ and since we have switched to staying on-site, we do a little bit of planning. Basically our first park of the day tends to be determined by who has the morning EMH that day, our last park of the day tends to be determined by who has evening EMH/is open the latest that day. We usually ride standby in the mornings, with FP+ scheduled for early to mid afternoon, often in whichever park we hop to in the afternoon. We pretty much always have hoppers. That's the extent of our planning. We don't work by lands really, just ride whatever we happen upon that strikes our fancy at that moment, or whatever is showing a short wait online. We criss-cross the park a lot, but we are good with that. Efficiency is not really something I care too much about at Disney, short of maximizing the number of hours I can spend in a park each day. We went to Disneyland for about a week earlier this year and loved being able to return to our no-planning methods. The old FP system really did allow for a lot more spontaneity and we really enjoyed a return to that.

 

[W.E.D.]

We have a really general plan. We go land by land, or pavilion by pavilion, etc. I keep track of our ADRs, but otherwise pretty laid back.
Of course I've been 10 times, we typically go off-season, and stay for 8 - 10 days. First time guests on a short visit who want to see everything will need to keep a tighter schedule.

 

[ksinniger]

We use one, that I create. I do it for 2 reasons. First, so the kids can see that "Yes, Dumbo is on the plan, but it's not the best use of our time at rope drop". Second, to help minimize walking. That said, we've been quite a few times and I know what the family likes and doesn't like, what they will absolutely want to ride as many times as possible and what they will want to skip. The first time we visited, we didn't have a plan, just a loose idea of what we wanted to do, and I distinctly remember being at DHS and thinking, "how is it already 11:30 and we've only been on 2 rides?" The problem was in trying to get everyone to come to consensus on what was next each time you finished something. It just takes too much time in our family of 5.

 

[loves to dive]

Never used a touring plan. Didn't even know such a thing existed until maybe a year or two ago, and I've been going to Disney off and on for 30+ years, since I was a kid. We don't do table service, so dining reservations are not a factor in our Disney days. Prior to FP+ we did almost no planning. It was quite literally a matter of waking up and saying "where do we want to go today?" Now with FP+ and since we have switched to staying on-site, we do a little bit of planning. Basically our first park of the day tends to be determined by who has the morning EMH that day, our last park of the day tends to be determined by who has evening EMH/is open the latest that day. We usually ride standby in the mornings, with FP+ scheduled for early to mid afternoon, often in whichever park we hop to in the afternoon. We pretty much always have hoppers. That's the extent of our planning. We don't work by lands really, just ride whatever we happen upon that strikes our fancy at that moment, or whatever is showing a short wait online. We criss-cross the park a lot, but we are good with that. Efficiency is not really something I care too much about at Disney, short of maximizing the number of hours I can spend in a park each day. We went to Disneyland for about a week earlier this year and loved being able to return to our no-planning methods. The old FP system really did allow for a lot more spontaneity and we really enjoyed a return to that.

This is sort of us as well except we rarely even look at the EMH for mornings or nights, if we happen to notice there will be late hours when we get up and going we might stay late, we might not. We schedule or FPs mid-morning and we rarely schedule them any earlier than the night before since we rarely know what park we are going to be in the mood for. We hop, we see a ride we want to ride and look at the line and decide if we want to ride or not. We also tend to criss-cross the park a lot, we are are constantly on one side and remember we might want to ride or see something on the other side. We do eat at TS, usually about 4 out of 6 days in a 5 night trip but we don't book them in advance just while we are walking around. We rarely used the old FP system, the advantage or might be disadvantage of going for so many years is you remember when there was no such thing so if you wanted to ride a ride you stood in line. So standing in line is no big deal. We are not real ride centric either, but my son is 35 so through the years that has changed. Now we enjoy going slow and just enjoying the place, we ride a ride if we are in the mood, if it's too crowded we go to another park, if we are tired we go back to the resort and hang out at the pool (or the pool bar), it's all pretty spur of the moment. We have always stayed on site since our very first visit, which I think was 1982 or 1983.

 

[HookedOnDCL1]

We use a touring plan, but as someone else mentioned, it's more of a suggested plan. It really helps with making Fastpasses and ADR's and making sure we hit our must do's. Other than that, it's not too rigid. But it also really helps with the "now what do we do next" scenario and not wasting time figuringing out where to go next. I make a custom plan that hits our must do's without too much zigzagging across the park, factoring in wait times and then schedule our fast passes accordingly. Really helps with that.