Do you plan?

[Britt]

I keep hearing about making a list of "MUST DO's/rides" and "want to do/ride" at the parks. Do you do these?

We didn't last time and I DO think we wasted a lot of time wandering around, trying to find things and as we'd see something we'd be like "OH, Lets do this". Cost us a lot though...we went on maybe 10 rides over our ENTIRE 4 day trip! The rest of it was waiting in lines or finding things or trying to make it to our dinner reservations!

 

[Cmdr_Crimson]

I only plan one thing...Epcot the first day..When I'm inside it's all Gung Ho for 2 weeks after that..

 

[disney1077]

I plan what rides I want to do before my vacation starts. Then I plan the night before what park we are going to and then once at the park we figure out which ride to do first and so forth.

 

[Redsky89]

I live by a schedule while I'm at home. On vacation I get up with no plans and do what I want whenever.

 

[whitney37354]

I planned our first family WDW trip for two years!

1. I ranked character meals & made ADR's at 180 days in the order of rank.
2. I chose which parks for the days by where the ADR's were on those days.
3. I made a laminated list of CS restaurants (lunch), all rides DD could ride, ride seating, shows & their times, for each day.

Once we got there, the only rule was to get to the ADRs. Otherwise, we entered the park & just took rides & shows as we came to them. We did fastpass if it was convenient. We stood in line for Space Mountain for an hour because we had time to. One evening, we went to MK with just my lanyard & our KTTW. We rode each of our favorite rides, even standing in line for a long time for Peter Pan, which is DD's favorite.

We didn't go commando through the parks with a five-year-old. We went back to the room every day after lunch to rest until our dinner ADRs. We never took naps then, but we did rest. We did watch the MK fireworks in the park one night, but we never saw the nighttime parade. Maybe we'll do that on our second trip! I am a planner for everything in my life, but I didn't plan the trip down to the order & times of the rides. For me that is a bit much.

 

[ctosh]

I start planning the next trip on last day we are there..lol..To me it's almost as much as being there.. Almost!!

 

[Lori Nicklas]

I keep hearing about making a list of "MUST DO's/rides" and "want to do/ride" at the parks. Do you do these?

We didn't last time and I DO think we wasted a lot of time wandering around, trying to find things and as we'd see something we'd be like "OH, Lets do this". Cost us a lot though...we went on maybe 10 rides over our ENTIRE 4 day trip! The rest of it was waiting in lines or finding things or trying to make it to our dinner reservations!

I live for planning but make sure that youenjoy yourself and have good time. I make reservations for sit down meals, any tours and just anything unique. the rest of the day is off the cuff....The most important thing is to get reservations for your meals. I hate going up there and seeing a line that is 25-50 people deep and hearing thst it will take 45 minutes to get a table if that is possible.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

We discuss our "musts" - "would likes" - "if there's time" - "no need to do it at all." We don't go with an etched in stone plan, but we do at least try and decide where we're going to start off and how we're going to manage early fast passes. We don't stick to a hard core plan, but we work to get in all of our musts as well as the nearby likes and if there's time.

 

[luv]

If I'm just going to go, no, no plan.

If I'm going with peeps who want to see and do as much as possible, don't want to stand in long lines, heck, yeah! We have a detailed plan!

Some people don't like to plan. They don't care about doing all they can do. They just want to chill and have a little fun. Nothing wrong with that!

But if you don't want to stand in line and want to do a lot of fun stuff, pony up the $12 (less if you have a UG) for the touringplans.com site and either use one of theirs or have a custom plan made. That's MHO.

 

[RonAnnArbor]

The first few times I went, I planned everything -- and I would strongly advise any first time visitor to plan the heck out of your visit if you want to experience everything. I no longer plan. Because I have now done all the e-ticket attractions so many times and know all the parks literally by heart, I just do whatever I want to do and don't worry about the lines. I do always go to the parks right at opening and do all the major attractions I want to do in the morning....but otherwise, no. I am now more into the shows, the people watching, dining, and I have always enjoyed the classic attractions more that usually don't have lines anyway...
But again, if this were my first or second trip - plan, plan plan, or you will NOT get to do everything you want to do; you will end up backtracking to do things you forgot; and you will end up in lines rather than using the touring plan system and avoiding lines and getting everything done - enjoying attractions, not standing in lines.

 

[ImagineerDude]

I keep hearing about making a list of "MUST DO's/rides" and "want to do/ride" at the parks. Do you do these?

We didn't last time and I DO think we wasted a lot of time wandering around, trying to find things and as we'd see something we'd be like "OH, Lets do this". Cost us a lot though...we went on maybe 10 rides over our ENTIRE 4 day trip! The rest of it was waiting in lines or finding things or trying to make it to our dinner reservations!

We did this on our first Disneyland trip this past March...it didn't help it was so freaking busy. We don't like to plan on our vacations...we like to be spontaneous and especially at MK, I know how to get around that park better than my hometown!

 

[Mikester71]

No planning here. We've never even tried the dining plan yet because it requires planning your meals beforehand in most cases. We are more a "wake up and see what the day holds" type of family. We may talk about what park we want to visit the next day while in our room at night, but we literally wake up and decide which one it is going to be over breakfast. Vacation for us means spontaneity - no schedules, no timetables, no planning! In other words, leave the hectic life back home and just enjoy!

 

[lovetheears]

We plan, mostly I plan then go over it with my husband to ensure the ride he wants are all on the list. I schedual all my dining on a spread sheet with when I have to be at what ADR and when we need to be at a bus stop waiting for a bus for meals and parks. I also have a ride must do list (for all 5 members of my family), a try to do list if there is time. I do plan using my WPW passes for 2 full days on my trip (for the 1st time) and for those days I do have anything planned I am thinking the kids can take the lead of where to go...

 

[acishere]

I have an idea of what attractions we need to hit early before the lines become unbearable and where we need to get Fastpasses for. Beyond that we just do what we what. The only other thing we plan around the rest of the day is any Fastpasses we get and dinner reservations.

 

[YoungNY]

I love to plan. If I could have a spreadsheet with times to ride each thing, bus times, waits in lines, eating, sleeping, etc, I would totally plan every second. But in reality you just never know, so I have a basic outline. My last trip I planned hourly and of course we were always behind. I still plan wake up time, what time breakfast should be, when to leave for the parks and when to leave the parks, meals and whatnot. My problem is my idea of a vacation is doing things I don't usually do, so wandering around, sleeping, and laying out by the pool feels like a waste of time for me. I like to go go go on vacation. But I'm trying not to go overboard and I scheduled time to relax.