how far in advance do you plan

[laben594]

How far out do you plan your trips? 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, or a year out?

 

[LAKid53]

Planning or booking? I've got trips planned through November 2019 as I participate in runDisney events. However, I've only booked through February 2019.

 

[keacc]

Just booked a 6 bedroom rental home for November 2019 for our whole family!

 

[DisDadWoz]

We are always kind of planning, that way when we find a definite break in our schedule we try and book. That can be anywhere from 6 months to 6 days sometimes.

 

[Raegansmommy]

We took advantage of the bounce back offer when we were there in December. Previous year was a last minute trip and planned less than 90 days out. Other years we always started planning around April when any offers and flights opened up.

 

[harryk]

While at the resort, at least two or three days prior to check-out. Non Disney trips - 2 years out.

 

[OG Runner]

I usually plan about 9 months or so. My latest trips have been for the marathon in January, and you sign-up
for the races in April or May. I book my trip reservations at the same time. I have stayed on property and
still have not been able to get dinner reservations for Be Our Guest, the last three times we have gone.
(Yes, I have been on the phone, or the website at 6:00am, 60 days prior to our trip.)

 

[Weather_Lady]

We visit every 2-3 years (or at least, we have so far), and plan ahead for more than a year. If we're renting DVC points, we need to have our hotel plans nailed down before the 11-month mark, anyway. The planning activities intensify at 6-7 months out (booking flights, planning itineraries and making ADRs), 60-70 days out (finalizing itinerary, making FP+, online hotel checkin), and 0-14 days out (adjusting touring plans based on park hours and refurbs, shopping and packing, and other last-minute arrangements). In between vacation planning frenzies, my full-time job, husband and two children function as effective distractions.

 

[Tribal Prophet]

I’ll start about 7-8 months out.

I’ll check airline prices before that to get an idea of when we should go, but nothing more than that.

Once we find a decent flight, it’s time to book a resort and then wait for the 180 days for food and 60 for fast passes.

That said, we had a couple years we weren’t able to plan anything in advance. For those trips, we booked a few weeks in advance and still got most of the fast passes we wanted and all the dining reservations. Just gotta keep checking the app and you’ll find some BoG and CRT openings.

I’d never plan a first time trip with only a few weeks notice, but once we had a few trips under our belt, we knew what to look for when setting up a trip with no notice.

 

[Roakor]

Depending on where were are wanting to stay we will book the room 1 year out. the real planning starts at about 8-7 months out. that way we have all of our ADRs lined up for 180 days out.

next time though we have decided to go with just the QS plan and not get tied down to ADRs. give us more flexibility.

 

[Bocko57]

9 months or more. Right now I am planning a trip for September 2019.

 

[PTPGrad]

LOL, about a year out. I confirm who is traveling with me, then start plotting out what rides and experiences are their must dos, want to dos and please GOD no's. Then, book hotel 9 months out, dining/tours 6 months, etc....it's a process, but I love it.

 

[selbymic]

It seems like a year is the winner. I plan a year out as well. You can't do dinner reservations that early; you have to camp on the website for the more popular places. I usually try to do lunch at the hot places, that seems to work best. Some of them you have to book midnight exactly six months ahead. That's how I got into Cinderella's castle. I still think there are a lot of people making multiple reservations and decide later where they want to go and forfeit the deposit. When I have the patience to try to get into those hot spots, they are rarely full when I get there. I read some threads of a few days or so, you can't do that unless you live in the area. Maybe is you pay $500 a day for a room you can do it later. I usually go for 2 or 3 weeks, so that may complicate things for me.

 

[iPirate]

Right now we plan about a year out. We do dinner and fast passes as soon as available (which reminds me, I have FP to book).
I start watching crowd calendars as soon as they are available for the times I want to travel. They help, a lot!
My husband's Aunt will set an alarm to wake her 15 minutes before midnight on the day she can book her dinners and fast passes to get just what she wants.
I research dining options and locations continuously to find fun new things and foods to try!

I won't lie. We had a few trips running from the 'frozen north' (New England) that were completely last minute and just to get away from the snow and cold.

Recently I started making what I call my "Disney Bucket List". It is all the things I have not done yet. Example: a tour, a live taping at Epcot, etc. I try to do one thing each trip. I have years of Magic ahead of me.

I feel like planning can be an "every day" event.

 

[SteamboatJoe]

In some ways, the wife and I are always planning and thinking about the next trip. Lots of people hate the planning but we like it so long as it isn't too rigid. You've got to be flexible and leave enough room for spontaneity and the inevitable curve ball or two. I make a spreadsheet in Google Drive to help plot it all out.

We prefer to not put any of the trip on credit. The family budget is set up to save enough for a 5 - 7 day trip stay at a low cost moderate resort room or high cost value resort room (or a bigger non-Disney vacation(s)) every other year if we want to go. So from a financial planning standpoint, we begin 2 years out.

We used to put any extra or unused funds into that line item as well which added up quickly. That is why we are doing DL this year despite having done WDW last year. Probably won't be the case going forward since we bought our first house last year and it needs some TLC. Excess funds are now going towards those efforts instead.

It's about 7 - 9 months between actually pulling the trigger on the reservation and the trip itself. Enough time to finish saving and to make dining and FP reservations as soon as possible.

We are thinking about starting a family so we aren't sure when we will go again but we have already talked about making our way down in 2021 or 2022 for the 50th Anniversary. That's not to say we wouldn't go back sooner though if the opportunity presented itself.

 

[WDWMPrincess]

Guessing you mean how far in advance do you start planning Disney trips. We don't go to Disney all that often, but I can't say my planning for a Disney trip is much different to planning any other trip. We generally decide where we want to go at least a year out. Typically very easy to get the days we choose off with work that far out, and then we book the airline tickets as soon as they're available to book.

Having a year usually gives me time to seek out things most tourists never know about like joining the locals hanging out at a tiny park in Paris watching college kids practice busking skills and amazing loose rope feats. We seek out unusual experiences in equal measure to the more common. Haven't quite zeroed in on our off day plans for Orlando yet. We love Disney and Harry Potter but 9 days straight in theme parks would do in most folks. The dino digs and other activities at the Orlando Science Center is a maybe, but we may just take the grandkids to a nice park.

 

[spock8113]

6 months tops-anything longer is probably way too much thinking. Resort and plane tickets (if you need them) at 6 months, even then...........
Don't over-plan your trip by bogging yourself down with unattainable schedules and dining.
Free-range park visits, I find are the best, with the least amount of stress.
Have faith in yourself that you'll find and figure out most things when you're there.
There's a lot of stress for people who want to see everything and dine everywhere in their relatively short stay.
No matter how you pre-plan, you'll always miss a few things you wanted to do. Next visit.
It's not life or death, it's a vacation that's supposed to relax you while having some fun.
Leave the phone and watch in your suitcase!

 

[Josh97]

I would book a year ahead of time. This way you know you have the room you want reserved After booking keep an eye out for specials. You can always make modifications to your reservations. If you booking dining make the dining res 180 days prior to your first day of arrival. Trust me you do not ot want to wait to make dining reservations. The most popular restaurants fill up fast.

 

[WDWMPrincess]

If I were able to visit every year for years on end I would free range it. Since this is almost certainly the only trip my grand-children will make during childhood I think it deserves at the very least one person learning all they can about WDW.

 

[Songbird76]

That depends on what you mean by "planning". I'm technically planning a trip for Summer 2019, but as flights aren't open for that time yet, and the deal I want hasn't been announced, I can't really do much beyond planning what time we WANT to shoot for and what things we don't want to miss. The intense planning won't happen until we can actually book, which I expect within the next few months. But I do plan out what days I want to go to which park according to projected crowds, and which fastpasses we want for which days and which ADRs. This trip is a bit trickier as my cousin's family is wanting to coordinate their trip with ours, and we're hoping to get my brother to bring his family as well, and do a sort of family reunion at Disney, which will limit what we can do when. But, I am a planner, so I get really anxious if I don't have some specifics nailed down and know where I'm going to be when.

 

[graphite1326]

We start as soon as the last trip ends. Not really planning but looking up new attractions and changes and dreaming. We usually go in the fall and actually start about April when the special offers come out for fall. Then it is full steam ahead.