unblieveable!

[ohanaMAMA]

soooo. I have a friend who just decided YESTERDAY to take her family to WDW in TWO WEEKS!!!! I told her that if she insisted on going so soon that I would help her try to get an itinerary hammered out. her response?

"nah.. its a vacation. we'll just wing it"



then she was like " there's what 3 parks. Disneyland, that zoo thing and some california adventure?"



I just walked off muttering.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

She obviously doesn't know where she's going. I sure hope she doesn't want to eat TS.

Good luck to her. She's going to need it.

 

[khertz]

Yikes!

I think sometimes, people just need to make their own mistakes when it comes to a WDW vacation. Either she goes in with no planning and has a horrible time and vows never to go back, or she realizes how much she missed out on by not planning and vows to do it better next time.

We were in the second group after our honeymoon there in '07. We bought our tickets, reserved our room at POFQ, and set up Magical Express, and that was about all we did planning wise. When we got there, we realized that MNSSHP was going on, and had we planned our Universal days first and Disney days last, we could have attended the party. I didn't even know such a thing as Halloween parties existed! Lesson learned. And we also went down to the concierge one night to see about getting a reservation for Le Cellier that night. I bet that CM had a nice laugh at our expense over that one! But we came home, found the DIS, realized how much had changed since we had last been there, and realized our next trip needed a lot more planning!

 

[comicguy]

Got to love people like that

It really makes things easier for the rest of us, when we are there

 

[MHSweb79]

Some people are perfectly fine to get up late, hit the parks at noon, ride a couple of things and see a couple of shows. I know, those people aren't here on the DIS, but I'm pretty sure they exist in nature.

There's plenty of info on all the parks once she gets there.

 

[bellemeeko1]

Kudos for trying to help her out......we have family and friends like that...feel we over plan, then come home and complain that they didnt get to do the things we do or see the things we see.......sometimes people have to learn things the hard way....

 

[ohanaMAMA]

I know.. I get constantly teased about my "overplanning" but honestly. we NEVER have a bad vacation. we always have plans, alternate plans and I have thought out little details. we went to DC and had a GREAT time. saw TONS of stuff and really enjoyed ourselves. friends who went weeks later saw very little. spent tons more money and were miserable. just goes to show. You CANT overthink or overplan a trip.

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

I feel your pain, my parents did the same thing to me and it was thier first trip. I was anxious the whole time they were gone b/c I knew they were walking around doing nothing but waiting in lines (and was 100% right) so halfway thru they called and I texted plans step by step and they had a much better day. They didn't do any TS and missed lots of 'must do' stuff but still had an excellent time!

We are leaving Saturday, booked last friday tentatively and for sure last night (got plane tix), but we are vets and are ok going with the flow, have been 4 times in the past 12 months so its no biggie if we miss something or don't get into a TS place (probably diong QS only or will take our chances). I guess it just depends on what you expect out of your trip, if your friend is expecing relaxing go with the flow stuff they will still have a great trip.

 

[Pakey]

We've done over 20 WDW vacations, have never made a rope drop, wouldn't dream of a touring plan, make very few ADR's ahead of time. We've always had a great time.

 

[d1gitman]

"nah.. its a vacation. we'll just wing it"



then she was like " there's what 3 parks. Disneyland, that zoo thing and some california adventure?"



I just walked off muttering.why?

for all of us who like to plan and have to 'know it all', there are those who like to wing it. nothing wrong with it. it's how we did our first coupld of trips and while we were rookies, we still had tons of fun and felt the magic.

now if they are the type that are more likely to come back complaining because they missed out on so much, then they should look into things a bit further.

there is something to be said for nothing but pure discovery and i can't think of a better place to go into blindly than WDW.

 

[Petraman]

I know.. I get constantly teased about my "overplanning" but honestly. we NEVER have a bad vacation. we always have plans, alternate plans and I have thought out little details. we went to DC and had a GREAT time. saw TONS of stuff and really enjoyed ourselves. friends who went weeks later saw very little. spent tons more money and were miserable. just goes to show. You CANT overthink or overplan a trip.

I fell your pain! My DW is concerned I may need professional help with my Disney addiction

One thing about it for your friends. If they go with really no sense of what there is there to do, then maybe they will enjoy their trip just like that, because they will have no idea what they missed out on. As for me, when I pay the kind of $$ to take my family, I want to make sure we get all we can out of that trip. PLUS, I don't know about you, but people seem to think we Disneyaholics do so much planning because we are kamikaze, but honestly I plan so much so that we don't have to be! Planning ahead to get the best out of the least time and stress... sounds like a great WDW adventure!

 

[ols386]

When we go to Disney World, we really don't have much of an itinerary. The only actual planning we do in advance is dining reservations, and that is usually just for one reservation per day. If we have reservations in a specific park, then we definitely will be in that park, at least part of that day.

We don't get up at a specific time, just when we wake-up and get going (we usually don't even leave the room until around 10am, then we eat breakfast and then we go to a park). We come back to the room at whatever time of day or evening we feel like it, and we go to bed for the night whenever we get tired. If we are not tired, then we might go to a park or DTD in the evening.

I think if families want to have a specific itinerary, that's great, if it works for them, but it's not for us.

 

[d1gitman]

You CANT overthink or overplan a trip.

sure you can. if planned out a ride itinerary, it would be miserable to me. as soon as it started getting off track, i would be frustrated. also, not feeling like i have freedom with my day would make me feel like i am just going thru the motions.

my belief is those who decide not to look into some planning and come back dissapointed merely did not match their pre trip efforts wsith their expectations. it is fact that some people go with no planning at all and love it. others go with no planning and are dissappointed. ditto on the planners.

 

[luckyprincess]

We've done over 20 WDW vacations, have never made a rope drop, wouldn't dream of a touring plan, make very few ADR's ahead of time. We've always had a great time.

I'm the same way. We never want to interrupt our day to do dining reservations. Just not our style to 'have to be somewhere' on vacation. Remember too, that a lot of people, me included, don't care about a ton of the attractions at some of the parks. Some people don't need the constant entertainment of 'stuff' and can enjoy people watching, scenery and all of the performers out and about. We know we want to do a couple of rides that we don't want to miss. So we'll get fp's for them or just get on them. I don't really care if I ride soarin' or TSM and have 0 interest in the kids rides since I don't have them.....makes it easier to take it slow and 'wing it'.

Now granted, I'm planning the DME, have my hotel category that I want and am checking out what's open for EMH. But if we're at a park and are bored or lines are long we'll just jump to another one. I don't want to ride every ride nor do I want to keep a timetable on vacay. I'll go on what I want when it's available, check stuff out with low lines, soak in the atmosphere, eat when I'm hungry and enjoy the meandering with the most amazing man in the world.

I will say that at IoA we saw a family with an Excel spreadsheet tearing through the park and the kids were crying because they wanted to stay in Suess land. They wouldn't let them stay because they 'had a lot of park to cover', the Dad said. The parents planted behind us with the crying kids at the big log flume and one of the kids was saying he didn't want to ride it - wanted to go back to the other stuff - and the dad told him 'we have to ride everything - don't you want to ride everything?' and the kid said no and kept crying. I felt soooooo bad for him!

 

[KellyNY]

I go without the plan but I can afford it, I've been enough times to go with my intuition and do the right thing. I would definitely suggest some sort of plan for newbie but you know how many people don't on a first trip, including me and still have a wonderful time. All I would suggest is to point her to Disney.com just to see how many parks there and learn their names. The rest is up to her.

 

[jbrnhrt]

this will be our first wdw trip, we're going with make a wish, and staying at give kids the world. maw books our flights, rental car, accomidations and park tickets. the only planning i'm gonna do is to check out touringplans once we know our dates, make one or 2 adr (cs is fine with us), read lots of dis boards for tips, then go and have a good time. we want to be able to come and go as we please, and not worry if we don't get to do.everything we want to do. that gives us an excuse to start planning our next trip!

 

[tawasdave]

I did type up on a WORD document with some easy to read things a newbie needs to know about WDW...you or anyone else who would like to see these are more then welcome to PM me and give me your email address and I will send you the info...

 

[Thumperr]

Yikes!

I think sometimes, people just need to make their own mistakes when it comes to a WDW vacation. Either she goes in with no planning and has a horrible time and vows never to go back, or she realizes how much she missed out on by not planning and vows to do it better next time.

We've been 3 times now, and the first 2 times we didn't plan anything, not even ADR's and still got in where we wanted. First time we had no idea what to expect, sure we knew there were 4 parks, but that was it. Last time and our upcoming trip we planned ADR because we'll be on the diningplan, but other than that nothing is planned. Not even which park for the day, we gladly hop over to another park for dinner, lunch is always CS for us.
We always had a wonderful time and I'd think I would never enjoy myself when everything is planned out.. I've seen people yell at their kids because they have to hurry up to be on time for that ride otherwise the line is too long. I want my kids to enjoy themselves, and if they want to stare at the castle for an hour first thing in the morning, so be it.

 

[cglaura]

We very rarely do a plan, some days we just take the bus that has the shortest line. Haven't had a bad trip yet.

Sometimes we look at the schedule and go to the park that had late hours the day before.

We don't do many adr's, so that might be trouble if they are going to try to just walk up.

I'd just let her tell you when she gets back how it was. If she says it was fantastic, just leave it be. She may have missed a bunch of stuff, but it will be one of those, if you live in the middle of nowhere and never seen tv, can't really miss it, can you...you are just happy with what you know.

If she says it was bad, THEN you can help her if she wants to try to plan a better one. But don't go asking did you do this, did you do that, trying to pry a bad experience or missed experienc out of her. Just let her be happy with the vacation memories she has.

 

[keelhauled]

At least they are going at a good time (unless they want to eat TS ). Much better than if they went during a holiday or summer. I bet they'll be OK. They won't realize what they are missing until they come home and you ask them how they liked BTMRR or EE and they say "what is that?".