When does planning become over-planning?

[dkrauss]

I plan 1. Park..........2. ADR (we try to stay at 1 per day)..............3. Must do's (no more than 2 or 3 a day, they can be park or out side park related)............4. FP's

We've found the above approach allows the flexibility to change things up if necessary.

Doug

 

[mi*vida*loca]

When you plan your bathroom breaks you've gone too far.

We plan which park on which day, ADR and our FP+. I mentally plan ride order or land order because I know which rides fill up the quickest. Or we know we will go to RnRC first and then ToT. This is especially important with my kids because we could stand there for 20 minutes while everyone bickers on what the next ride should be. It didn't help much last trip since DS wanted to go against every single plan I had, for no reason other than to just want to do the complete opposite of WHATEVER was planned.

 

[jaysmom4285]

IMHO, it really doesn't matter how anyone else plans. You should do the amount of planning that is comfortable for you and your traveling party. I agree with others that it's generally helpful to have a basic plan for which parks on which days, and which attractions are important to see. Otherwise, you spend a lot of time standing around debating your next move instead of enjoying the parks. If you feel you need to have a plan that maps out every minute of the day so that you accomplish everything you need to accomplish, then that's what you should do, understanding (hopefully) that those plans will probably hit a bump at some point. And if you're comfortable just getting up in the morning and deciding what to do at that point because it isn't so important to you what you get done, then go for it. Just do the amount of planning that feels right for you and that will make the vacation a success for you, whatever that level of planning is.

 

[jollygreen]

To an extent. I'll plan which parks on what days and get FP. Then just a general plan. Like on my upcoming trip, we're going to MK first and I plan on starting in Adventureland and working our way around. Then on our second MK day, I have us starting in Tomorrowland. I don't plan things down to the minute but I get a rough idea and make a list of must-dos. Even though I love planning things, I don't get that detailed. I'll make some touring plans where all rides are planned out but I don't really have any intention of following it all that closely. It's more of a guideline just to see what I want to do. I also only have 2 ADRs planned, everything else will just be whatever we feel like eating. But I do plan on stopping by some of the booths in Epcot for F&G.

 

[ThistleMae]

I do a calendar which includes FP+ and ADR's. Then I choose the rides we don't want to miss (outside of FP+). And...I choose where we are going to hop and think about the best way to get from point A to point B. There's plenty of flexibility in between but I found the last time we went it was too hectic to get from our FP+ to dining without feeling rushed, especially because we chose some resorts to have dinner that weren't on the monorail or boat system. We've decided to stick to dining we can get to on the monorail route and I think it will work out much better. Lots of times the FP+ times for the rides we wanted were at times that made our schedule for dinner too tight. But without any sort of plan...I think folks would just waste so much valuable time just trying to figure it all out.

 

[twinmom2012]

Most people would say my laminated Itinerary cards would be over planning but it works for us so everyone isn't looking at me saying "where do we go now". I have the rides/attractions listed in order with an "estimated" time and our fast passes noted (moms don't go on bigger rides so we get use their bands to maximize the rides for us). On the back I print the map from touring plans so everyone can find their way to the next ride if they get lost.

Traveling with our 2 moms and 5 year old twins, I try to keep walking down to a minimum so we aren't crossing the parks and our plans are made up until our lunch time afternoon break back to the hotel. Our evenings are mostly left free based on everyone's energy level.

2 years ago our biggest wait was 30 minutes during spring break and that was for Haunted mansion and we didn't have Fast Passes for it. Hoping for the same luck this year. Over planning before the trip allows us to not have to stress about what we want to see when we are on vacation.

 

[Trap]

we plan the park and a adr for supper for that day and then we just take are time and have fun

 

[dkrauss]

When you plan your bathroom breaks you've gone too far.

Yup! LMAO

Doug

 

[EdmondD]

When is it overplanning?

When you wake up and the first thing you do is check the calendar to make sure you know exactly how many days until you make FP reservations.
When you don't pay attention to meetings at work because you are furtively looking at Robo's maps, planning each step through each park and measuring how many feet it is from the bus stop to ride X.
When you look at wait times for rides at exactly the time of day you expect to be on that ride...in about three months.
When you keep having to fish your toothbrush and q-tips out of your toiletry bag because you packed that stuff a week before your trip.
When you feel the need to call your local restaurant six months before a Monday afternoon reservation for two and not only is the woman on the phone confused, but she says they don't even open reservations until maybe four weeks out.
When you realize a delay of five minutes in any given thing is going to knock your entire day's plan down like a house of cards.
When you look, once an hour, to see if the Highway in the Sky Dine Around is back on the calendar.
When you've asked your child to rank order his priority of meeting 26 different characters.
When you email Disney menus out to your family and ask them to "maybe just get an idea of what you'll order" so that you can save a few minutes in each restaurant.
When you've made a chart of the weather the given week that you're going containing data for each of the last 22 years.
When you post a 16-question comment to every Trip Report posted on here, in order to gather as recon info as possible, including questions like, "What percentage of the time did you wait more than 12 minutes for the bus," and, "If you signed up for the Jedi Training Academy, please give me a detailed report of how exactly that went and what the outcomes were."
Have you called the resort at least 8 times yet, with various questions? If not, get going.

 

[Sarahraegraham]

I agree that it's overplanning when it stops being fun.

We had our first trip last year, and I planned thoroughly and fairly aggressively. But there were times I had to cut out a step or where we ended up being stuck in a crowd because we were late. Sometimes things will go perfectly, and other times things will happen.

I am planning our 2nd trip now, and I added days and am spacing things out more. I'm still planning thoroughly, but this time less aggressively.

I love the process of planning and organizing, figuring out ways to make things fit and work seamlessly. I love the planning and the satisfaction that comes from the execution. As long as I'm in tune with the needs of others in my party, they don't have to worry about anything except where I say we are headed next, and I get the satisfaction of feeling I provided for them well. So it's all relative in the end.

If I were to try to take a trip without planning, I'd be a wreck and not enjoy myself at all. To those who can wing it, you do you!

 

[DreamRunner1]

I can't tell you how many FPs we've missed because we got off schedule. We always have a plan before going but part of the benefit of being AP, is that we know we'll be back. So if we miss something, oh well, we'll do it next time. Unfortunately not everyone goes multiple times a year so a solid plan is definitely beneficial.

 

[mshanson3121]

When is it overplanning?

When you wake up and the first thing you do is check the calendar to make sure you know exactly how many days until you make FP reservations.
When you don't pay attention to meetings at work because you are furtively looking at Robo's maps, planning each step through each park and measuring how many feet it is from the bus stop to ride X.
When you look at wait times for rides at exactly the time of day you expect to be on that ride...in about three months.
When you keep having to fish your toothbrush and q-tips out of your toiletry bag because you packed that stuff a week before your trip.
When you feel the need to call your local restaurant six months before a Monday afternoon reservation for two and not only is the woman on the phone confused, but she says they don't even open reservations until maybe four weeks out.
When you realize a delay of five minutes in any given thing is going to knock your entire day's plan down like a house of cards.
When you look, once an hour, to see if the Highway in the Sky Dine Around is back on the calendar.
When you've asked your child to rank order his priority of meeting 26 different characters.
When you email Disney menus out to your family and ask them to "maybe just get an idea of what you'll order" so that you can save a few minutes in each restaurant.
When you've made a chart of the weather the given week that you're going containing data for each of the last 22 years.
When you post a 16-question comment to every Trip Report posted on here, in order to gather as recon info as possible, including questions like, "What percentage of the time did you wait more than 12 minutes for the bus," and, "If you signed up for the Jedi Training Academy, please give me a detailed report of how exactly that went and what the outcomes were."
Have you called the resort at least 8 times yet, with various questions? If not, get going.

Alll hail the King!

 

[mommy_to_C]

It becomes over-planning when you don't enjoy your trip.

Personally, I plan down to the minute. We enjoy our trips more when we do. I don't treat it like a death march though - if we go off the plan, we just pick it back up when we're ready. For us, standing around trying to figure out what we're going to do next is pure misery. Also, planning keeps us from standing in 30+ minute lines.

This is us, too. We just return from our 4th (and busiest) trip, and found our plans to be more helpful than ever. Like Alesia, we feel free to modify them prior to our park day, or "on the fly" - but find it much less stressful having direction, helping us avoid "milling around" in the crowds.

 

[halssister]

I LOVE planning. We aren't going until July, and I'm already playing around on touring plans to figure out my exact schedule for each park, each day! For all the parks except MK, we like to see most of the shows, so I tweak and tweak to come up with the best way to maximize our time, see the shows, not zigzag all over, and still get in a decent mid day pool break. My son has a disability, and minimizing waiting, standing around, and the General aura of not knowing what we are doing next, is crucial to help reduce his anxiety!
At the same time, we don't book ADRs (we only eat QS, for many reasons), because DH says he hates being tied down to having to eat at a certain place at a certain time! I don't think he realizes that I've already got that covered and just steer us along to the place he'd already said he wants to eat at, months beforehand when we looked at menus!
So, I do all this planning, but when it comes to the park day, we may not follow it exactly. I make sure the touring plan has extra time built in (like saying we are leaving for break at 1 when really it's 2, or figuring and hour for lunch when it's 30 minutes), and we never feel rushed about anything. It just alleviates our stress to know what is next in our list when we have it all written down! Just waking up and doing it all on the fly sounds horrifying to me haha! We are the type of people who have a daily and weekly routine at home, and having one on vacation makes things go more smoothly for us all.

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

It becomes over-planning when you don't enjoy your trip.

Personally, I plan down to the minute. We enjoy our trips more when we do. I don't treat it like a death march though - if we go off the plan, we just pick it back up when we're ready. For us, standing around trying to figure out what we're going to do next is pure misery. Also, planning keeps us from standing in 30+ minute lines.

Yep.

I've done trips both ways. Planned down to the minute. And planned just the park and fast passes.

Both trips were enjoyable. But the goals of the trips were different.

And like you, I don't treat it like a death march. Even when I plan down to the minute, it is a guideline.

My family HATES standing around trying to decide what to do next.

 

[LSUfan4444]

When does planning become over-planning?

When you have no room for variables, flexibility and the unforeseen.

 

[Praying Colonel]

I remember seeing posts where people are planning their restroom breaks. If you're doing that, I think it's safe to say you're overplanning.

 

[Alesia]

I remember seeing posts where people are planning their restroom breaks. If you're doing that, I think it's safe to say you're overplanning.

I put restroom breaks into our plans. It's not that I expect us to actually go to the restroom during that time, though. It's really just putting a 15 minute cushion in every couple of hours. Everyone is still free to pee when they need to pee.

 

[SaintsManiac]

So currently we have a plan in regards to which parks we're visiting on which days, but do we go as far as to plan the days themselves? For example on the day/s we're visiting MK do we plan an order for visiting areas and attractions?

I know FP+ comes into play when planning but I'm talking about everything else.

Who prefers to wing it?
Who prefers to know when they're getting into Tomorrow Land, when they'll be doing lunch and what time they'll be hitting Fantasy Land etc?

We have a list of must do attractions/restaurants for the trip and we just make sure to hit those. We wing it within the chosen park depending on wait times and where we happen to be standing and what we want to eat

 

[Praying Colonel]

I put restroom breaks into our plans. It's not that I expect us to actually go to the restroom during that time, though. It's really just putting a 15 minute cushion in every couple of hours. Everyone is still free to pee when they need to pee.

Yes, I can see that. That's not what this person was doing. It was a regimented pit stop where thou shalt go now and not before or after.