Do you plan the order you visit the parks in advance?

[mergatroid]

Hi I was just wondering how much you actually plan before your visits to Disney. We usually stay for for 3 weeks when we visit with our AP's but always have in mind which park we're visiting first well in advance. From day 2 it's a bit of a lottery and sometimes we even leave the house heading out for Disney with no idea which park we're visiting and make a decision when we see the signs on I4. However day 1 is always planned and anticipated and I just wondered how organised others are before their trips?

 

[GeekDad]

For my first trip we had it planned out each day which park we would go to and planned our ADRs accordingly. However nothing was set in stone and we made changes to probably at least 1/3 of our days. For our upcoming trip we have it planned pretty much which parks we will at least start at but again none of that is a sure thing and I'm sure we will make at least some changes.

 

[JIMINYCR]

We plan, plan, plan. We know which day we will be at each park and have made ADR in specific restaurants in those parks. But we always get the park hopper with our tickets and are flexible/open to switching to another park depending on the crowd level or our whim to go off to do something we decide to do at the spur of the moment. Day 1 is always, always MK as is the last day.

 

[GeekDad]

We plan, plan, plan. We know which day we will be at each park and have made ADR in specific restaurants in those parks. But we always get the park hopper with our tickets and are flexible/open to switching to another park depending on the crowd level or our whim to go off to do something we decide to do at the spur of the moment. Day 1 is always, always MK as is the last day.

We were going to do MK for our first and last day on our upcoming trip but we have my in-laws coming with us that have never been to AK before so I think we are going to hit AK on our first day and MK on our second.

On a side note I see we will be staying at POFQ around the same time. We will be there from October 4th through October 14th No one in our group has stayed there before so we are all looking forward to it!

 

[2bornot2be]

Yes, I plan as well; Before we leave we know basically which park we will be in almost every day. Especially since I use the DP you almost have to plan it out to make sure you are near your DP Reservations. I try to leave at least one day open to kind of go on the fly. This day is normally used to explore the resorts and maybe take a ride or two at a Park.

 

[rufio]

Yes, I generally plan our entire vacation. That being said, I am not so rigid that I must stick to the plan without room for adjustment. We generally keep an idea of what we want to do, but don't mind switching it up if we decide on something else.

 

[jlsHouston]

are you kidding, I have planned and tweaked our itinerary for months , and 11 days out still planning , but the days at which parks are pretty much set in lead. We have 9d/8n on property which is our longest visit yet so I feel like we can't afford to not have the parks decided ahead of time so we can do our ADR's properly since I do not buy the park hopper option ...yet... waiting for grandkids to get a little older before I spend the money for the park hopper option.

 

[jlsHouston]

Yes, I plan as well; Before we leave we know basically which park we will be in almost every day. Especially since I use the DP you almost have to plan it out to make sure you are near your DP Reservations. I try to leave at least one day open to kind of go on the fly. This day is normally used to explore the resorts and maybe take a ride or two at a Park.

I love exploring the resorts !!

 

[JIMINYCR]

On a side note I see we will be staying at POFQ around the same time. We will be there from October 4th through October 14th No one in our group has stayed there before so we are all looking forward to it!

Hope you and the in laws find the resort to be to your liking. We've found it to be a very relaxing resort. Be sure to take the boat to DTD, walk the path over to PORS to visit that area and enjoy their evening entertainment. POFQ has evening entertainment by Dyson as well.

 

[Bob]

We always get the DDP and like to take advantage of EMH, so that pretty much means that you have to decide which park(s) to visit each day way ahead of time. Not the worst thing in the world as it makes it fun to plan things out while you wait for the vacation to finally arrive.

 

[jlsHouston]

I think if you get the park hopper option on your tickets you could probably do a little less planning and still get decent ADRs last minute...

 

[Jeff3750]

Even though we go every year we still plan out months before the trip the entire itinerary as to what park we will go on what day and also we have a backup plan just incase the park we want to goto maybe more crowded than we like. We even make sure we have all dining reservations make 180 days before the trip.

 

[WDWNooby]

On our first trip I had the parks planned each day. This trip I'm planning parks a little bit based on ADR's and things we don't want to miss (we have six full days, one 1/2 day). For instance, our first day is at Epcot because we have tickets for Candlelight Procession. Third day planned because we have tickets to the Christmas Party, fourth day because we have tickets for Fantasmic. All of the other days are currently up for grabs unless we do the Wild Africa Trek in there somewhere. We'll just go to whichever park we feel like going to on a particular day that is not planned. It's just my 18 year old son and I so makes things pretty simple this time around.

 

[Magical Dreamer]

I plan the parks, then the ADR's.....I stopped getting the Park Hoppers because when we had them we didn't really hop much. Everone voted they would rather have the extra spending $$ than the Hoppers.

 

[spacemt354]

We usually plan ahead with our trips and base which parks we go to on where our ADR's are located for that day. Other than that we like to go with the flow. We have a list of things we would like to see, but we always factor in variable change like weather and crowds. So even if we don't hit everything on the list for the day, we don't worry about it because we can always come back later in the trip. And sometimes we just like to step back and enjoy the moment, and realize that we are in Disney World! And we always like to be able to enjoy that moment while it lasts, rather than always having to think ahead to where we have to be next.

 

[jlsHouston]

I plan the parks, then the ADR's.....I stopped getting the Park Hoppers because when we had them we didn't really hop much. Everone voted they would rather have the extra spending $$ than the Hoppers.

I have wondered whether this option was worth it for us and have postponed buying it since the kids are still pretty young and I don't think the hopping part is of much interest to them yet. I do think the benefit is being able to eat at Epcot every day with a Park Hopper option ... but so far I haven't laid out the bucks for this feature

 

[copcarguyp71]

Nope...mostly we just know where we need to end up as our ADR's are mostly for dinner but other than that we are freestylers more than the usual planners. One day we will do a sit down for b-fast at CP in MK but other than that our mornings/days are all up to a whim and or mood of our DD. It never really matters to me...It's WDW no matter where we are headed!!!!

 

[JohnLocke]

I have wondered whether this option was worth it for us and have postponed buying it since the kids are still pretty young and I don't think the hopping part is of much interest to them yet. I do think the benefit is being able to eat at Epcot every day with a Park Hopper option ... but so far I haven't laid out the bucks for this feature

I prefer the Hopper because I'm pretty much a park warrior and like to stay out most of the day, but if you have young kids it may not be as big of a deal, especially if you need to return for naps and such.

That said, I do like having the option of escaping a park as it possibly gets crowded or I get kind of bored with it for the day. While we take advantage of EMH and use the DDP so we get ADRs, I find it beneficial to try to go to the parks in the morning that don't appear to be getting much bus traffic, and so far that usually pays off. But this strategy doesn't work quite as well with rigid scheduling.

I can also finish up AK and DHS, at least what I want to do in under 5-6 hours most of the time, and even that's pushing it, so the ability to travel over to MK or EPCOT is a must for me.

 

[Magical Dreamer]

I have wondered whether this option was worth it for us and have postponed buying it since the kids are still pretty young and I don't think the hopping part is of much interest to them yet. I do think the benefit is being able to eat at Epcot every day with a Park Hopper option ... but so far I haven't laid out the bucks for this feature

If I stayed at a Epcot Resort I would definitely do the hoppers for the dining aspect...but on our last stay with the hoppers we only used it twice during a 10 night stay at a +$300 cost.

 

[Gabe1]

Not really, though this trip, the day I arrived I knew I'd high tail it late afternoon onto Test Track since it was the last day it was open. I made reservations at Kona for dinner and the MK was open late so it seemed to be a no brainer instead of planning for the first day. The balance of the 6 trip we went by the seat of our pants and hopped all over each day often to catch an ADR. That ADR thing is a pain in my tushie. Miss the good ole days when my WDW vacations didn't require multiple ADRS.