Travelling without a plan. Does it work?

[TiggerBouncy]

My wife and I needed a break after the in laws have cleared out from visiting for the holidays. Just scheduled a DVD visit for feb 6th. Never planned a visit with such short notice but we are real excited!

Usually I plan to death on what park we are going to go to based on crowd, emh, fireworks, etc. I plan meals and make reservations, and what rides are on our must do.

We are trying to leave this open. Just show up and go where we go. Don't really have must do's because we have done them. Only thing that is really new is the fantasyland area.

Does this strategy work? Or an I going to regret not planning? Has anyone actually just gone and done whatever, whenever with no plan or strategy for the parks?

 

[Turbanator]

It varies with us. Sometimes being spontanious and not planning turns out great and other times we will plan and things will not go to plan.

 

[AmberHeartsDisney]

We planned the first two trips, after that I said the heck with it. We do what we want when we want. It seems funnier that way.

 

[Son of Gadsden]

I guess it depends.

DW and I hardly ever plan. The times we have tried detailed plans have been some of our worst trips. Last trip, for example, we wrote a full day by day plan out, went over it a bunch of times, made ADRs (which we never do), reserved all our FP+s (we never use FP), did all the planning stuff. By day 2, we were exhausted, and didn't feel like we were on vacation at all. When we got to the room that day we both said we weren't having a good time and decided to cancel all of the rest of our ADRs and decided not to use FPs anymore. The remaining 6 days of our trip were fantastic. We normally make ADRs and just cancel them all when we get to the trip. We just don't like having a plan. We still ride everything we want more than enough times. If you already know your way around WDW pretty well, I don't think a plan is necessary. If you don't know what the heck you're doing, maybe it is.

 

[dholmes1950]

It varies -- sometimes we plan, but often we just show up. If there is a particular restaurant where we want to have dinner, I'll make a dinner reservation but otherwise we don't worry about it.

 

[wiigirl]

It varies with us. Sometimes being spontanious and not planning turns out great and other times we will plan and things will not go to plan.

 

[Duck77]

Most of my friends do not plan a thing, and they seem to really enjoy their vacations.
Planning is half the fun for me, it gives me something to look forward to. I think one could still expect to have an enjoyable time, as long as you're not expecting to ride all the headliners with 5 mins or less wait.

 

[JillianMarie]

Does this strategy work? Or an I going to regret not planning? Has anyone actually just gone and done whatever, whenever with no plan or strategy for the parks?

Yes. I've never done anything different. If you're going during a low crowd time (which it sounds like you are) I personally feel there's absolutely no reason to spend a bunch of time obsessing over the exact time that you're going to be on Space Mountain. I will generally have a rough idea of which day I'm going to be in which park and I'll maybe have an ADR or two for fun but that's about it.

 

[Canooknic]

If you're not desperate to get on every ride very time you want to then I would definitely take a more relaxed attitude.

DH and I never made plans when we went (before having children) and didn't make any last year with the kids either. It was so nice having supper and letting the boys decide here to go the following day. We did everyone they wanted to, it took a while to finally get on Peter Pan but other than that we did it all.

For this trip we have 'planned' 3 days out of 9 - and by planned I mean FP+ and one ADR each day - the rest of the time we will go with the flow and have an amazing time.

Enjoy your trip xx

 

[xie]

It works fine, up to a point. If you go without a plan, just remember that depending on the season, you may not be able to access certain restaurants. That IMHO is the biggest thing. If you don't care about table service, or are willing to eat at less popular ones, or are willing to hop out to a resort table to eat, you're golden.

Otherwise, you can make FP+ reservations after entering a park, you can eat at counter service places just as well as the next guy, and standby is standby.

 

[JillianLeigh]

As long you have a general idea of how things work at Disney you should be fine. Like don't expect to jump on Soarin at 3:00 in July. I never go with a plan more than a room reservation, and an idea of when extra magic hours are.

I would do some ADRs if you plan on table service meals though.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Thank you all for the reassurance and advice! We are really looking forward to going to Disney without running from ride to dinner reservation to show!

 

[Art 1]

Thank you all for the reassurance and advice! We are really looking forward to going to Disney without running from ride to dinner reservation to show!

I'll bet you have much more fun.

 

[manosa0429]

We have always made ADR and done everything else spontaneously. My kids are teenagers and we go during not busy times.

 

[PeterPanic]

I have been to WDW 43 times since 1983. I have never planned anything. I always go with how my mood hits me when I get up. I don't ever rely on things like restaurants. I always have my own transportation so if counter service doesn't handle my needs I simply drive offsite and dine to my little hearts content.

I must have enjoyed myself or I wouldn't have gone that many times. I have had the good fortune of going so often that there is actually nothing that I haven't experienced at least once. So if I go and the line is too long, I will just skip it this trip and move on. There are so many things there to see and do that it seems to me that planning is more restricting then not planning. I know that many really enjoy the planning process. I have a daughter that has multi-spreadsheets and a military like approach to storm the parks. To each his own, but, to think that one cannot have a good time without planning the thing to death just isn't true. It's all attitude.