I found that I could be somewhat more spontaneous, but without planning ahead I could not have done a lot of the things I did. When I was there, most FastPass where given out by noon. Also if I had not made dinner reservations at two of the places we eat we would not gotten without extremely long waits. I stayed at the Disney Vacation Club so rooms had to be booked seven months in advance. The only big difference for me was most planning for Disneyland started at 60 days out instead of 180 days out for Walt Disney World.