Take it easy. Slow down. Breathe.

[Master Yoda]

Ok have to say that the Dinning Plan seems to be one of the biggest "must plan every minute" helpers there has ever been! I have done the dinning plan and not done it...while it might help a little in the pocket book before hand, when you look at it after between planning where to eat and trying to make ADR's it really didn't work out that well. I guess I will always be more of a grab and go rather then a sit for 3 meals and loose 3 to 6 hours with meals at times.

Quite true. Having the DDP forces you to plan a little or risk loosing money.

 

[Jerm]

Quite true. Having the DDP forces you to plan a little or risk loosing money.

HA HA HA A LITTLE!!!!!!! I have gone with groups of people that are planning ADR's months in advance and if they can't get in one place will redo the whole thing! I think DDP is great for people who have either been there a few times or are the planners! My last trip I saw cm's getting yelled at because people had the DDP but didn't plan anything out and could not get in anywhere.... I guess the key is to at least know what you are getting yourself in for and do some research!

 

[muse1983]

Quite true. Having the DDP forces you to plan a little or risk loosing money.

My Itinirary is usually planned so that we know what park we are visiting on which day and when we would like to park hop. Of course we also include DR in the plan.

 

[Tomi-Rocket]

reminded me....

The title of your post made me laugh because it reminded me after we had been to WDW on our first vacation and I started to talk to my DH about another one why he didn't seem all that excited. He said he'd enjoy it more if it wasn't rush! rush! rush! and we took our time and relaxed. I realized he was completely right and with each vacation after that we've made more and more time to go to the pool, he golfs while we go to DTD (he hates shopping!) and we try not to get caught up in the hustle & bustle during our trips. I've also tried to spread out days in the parks like 2 days for Epcot and the last day is open for anything we missed or want to go back to.

 

[stratman50th]

Quite true. Having the DDP forces you to plan a little or risk loosing money.

This is true, and we have never used the meal plan because of it. Like someone else said, we were always grab and go, as well as deciding what park to hit on the fly. That being said, we always enjoyed a couple of nice sit down meals. This year was the first time we were forced to make ADR's. Not because we have the meal plan, but because we learned last year that walk UPS are almost non existent these days. We'll see if it messes up our timing, or I guess the lack there of.

 

[Scuttle]

Wizard I agree with you. My planning is of the following.

day 1, arrive, check-in, run around MK blindly from the excitement because we are here. This is the only day that is crazy, and that is only because of the excitement of finally arriving (did I already mention that?).
day 2. DHS, with backup park DAK.
day 3. DAK, with backup park DHS. After DAK closes, maybe eat somewhere at DD, or "rest" at the resort.
day 4. Morning at DQ, and then MNSSHP at MK.
day 5. Epcot.
days 6 thru 9 do whatever.

We never go to the parks at opening, done it in the past, not a big deal to miss it. We normally arrive at the park of the day around noon. We do try to do MK, DHS, DAK at least 2 times in the 9 days. Epcot is a one timer for us. DQ is a one or maybe two visit. Other than that we hang at the resort and swim, drink, and do relaxing things.

It really just depends where your staying. Were staying at yacht and beach in September. When you stay there park hopping between epcot, studios and magic kingdom are very easy. Same goes for staying at the Poly. I think the extra 100 a night to stay at the Poly is the best advice I can give. You pay for the location to MK and TTC. Plus when you are leaving AK or Studios by bus you can have the option of the TTC bus or the Poly bus. This comes in very handy when leaving at park closing. And oh ya the theming isn't to bad at the Poly either. lol.

 

[ShookieJones]

It's a matter of taste really - there's the commandos and there are the take it as it comes.

I have to say we've been doing the last 5 years every year without fail.
I'm commando by nature when it comes to this type of vacation. My wife has asked me to chill and then when I did she complained that we we'rent seeing anything...LOL..
With that being said we've calmed down a little bit as the years have gone on, but that's only because we've seen everything more than once.

In the end though over all attitude is this:

In Disney - Time is way too short I need to - want to - see it all!!!
Cape Cod (and such places) - Take my time, Swim in the ocean,relax on the beach, sleep in the sun, get a buzz on.

 

[habe20]

I usually plan my days according to what park has the early extra magic hours that day and then when I feel I've done everything I wanted to do I head back to my room, take a rest, grab a bite to eat, and then go the park that has the late extra magic hours and when I'm too tired to walk and can barely keep my eyes open :dazzle:, I go to sleep :snore: and then repeat the same process the next day. If I went to every park and did all the main things I wanted to do and I have an extra day or two I'll go back to some parks and go do some of the little things.

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

If its OK with you I will holiday in the manner of my choosing.

 

[PirateFrank]

If people wanna 'go go go' let em.

We vacation somewhere in the middle. We don't plan in break time and our itineraries are rather aggressive. But we always expect to dial it back if we feel we can't handle it.

The thing is, especially with ADRs, is that if you don't plan for each and every meal (assuming you're doing a healthy amount of table service meals), you can't add them when you get there. You really have to plan everything out in advance and expect to cancel a few if you get tired (or bloated lol )

 

[plaz10]

Our mornings are definitely "commando" style. We are there at park opening and "go go go" until we've hit/grabbed fastpasses for the big attractions at the park. We slow down in the afternoon, possibly going back to the resort for a nap - always having a sit down dinner each night. It's a great way to get off your feet for an hour or so, in the air conditioning and fill our bellies. Then we are charged to hit up late night hours! We usually don't last super late...not past 1am. We are more about morning hours than later ones.

The commando style also tends to die down as we go on. Our 2nd mornings at MK and EPCOT are not so "go go go" because we've already hit Soarin', Space Mountain, etc...so we still head over to grab Fastpasses but don't sprint to get there and get in an extra ride. I'm afraid I will be more commando than usual since we are taking my boyfriends sister and her boyfriend who haven't been in years. I'll want them to see everything many times, I have a feeling I'm going to drag them all over, all day! :lookaroun

 

[ThinkTink721]

I always have the problem of over planning my WDW trips.
This year, I am trying to break that habit.
I have an itinerary, but it is less detailed than usual.
I have included the parks that we will visit on which days, our ADRs, & a few extra options for things that we want to do.
:wave:

 

[forevermickey]

To Each Their Own.

Tis true... "to each their own".......
So many factors:
Do you have children
are you a morning person
are you a night owl
to you have endless amounts of energy
to you love lots of sit down meals

all of this dictates your Disney schedule

That's why Disney is so great... there is something for everyone:sohappy:

 

[Disneygal1]

I never do itineraries. I usually just 'go with the flow'. I feel like nothing works out the way you want it to when you have everything planned out, but for some people it's different...

 

[Clever Name]

Some people are just not good at time management so they really are unable to create or adhere to a realistic vacation plan. :wave:

 

[Raven66]

[/u]
But my wife is pretty much opposite of that. My style drives her nuts. One night here at home, we were watching National Lampoon's Vacation (the one where the went to "Wally World") and she kept telling me that Clark Griswold reminded her so much of me. LOL

I call my husband Clark Griswold too only because one year at Christmas he bought a HUGE tree and it totally filled up the whole space we had for it. We couldn't even sit by it to open gifts.



The very first year we went as a family, my husband was a total nut job. He kept tapping his watch and telling us we were off schedule. I started looking for the judge's tent to see if Mickey could grant me a divorce. When we started planning another trip for the next year our daughter and myself told him that if he tapped his watch one time he would be the 1000th ghost in the Haunted Mansion. He left the watch at home and it was a much better trip. We do plan and go from opening to closing but we enjoy it. Even when our daughter was 5 during our first trip she wanted to go go go. Now she is 14 and I'm sure we will have the teenage whine to deal with but she will still want to go all day as long as her dad isn't wearing the watch.

 

[v_misses_epcot]

Even before we turned cast members, I remember "winging" our trips. I love to people watch (no matter how creepy that sounds,) it makes the day a little more peaceful then running around like a chicken without a head. If the line is 40 minutes to an hour, depending on our mood, we'll wait. We always get to meet interesting people in line. It all depends if it's someones first visit, 20th or are cms.

 

[Mikester71]

We wing it almost every day of our 10 day trips. We wake up when we wake up (usually to the sound of my wife telling us to get up) and decide that day which park we are going to hit up. We don't usually follow the EMHs and that. In fact, most times we will avoid the park having them that day so as to try and avoid the crowds. Second last day of our trip, just last week here, we were planning on hitting up Typhoon Lagoon again for the day. We woke up, ate, went off property for a bit to do some shopping, then came back and decided we would just lounge around the Pop pool for most of the day.

Like my 14 year old son said to my wife every morning as she would fight to try to get him out of bed before housekeeping came-a-knocking (which they did more than once this trip) to clean our room, "Chill out...I thought we were on vacation!!!"

 

[Disneydreamer23]

The last time we were in WDW we went for 2 weeks and literally every single day we were up at 7:30am and at the parks until closing (counting Universal) I never once felt exhausted..it was to much fun!

agreed

 

[Susan Savia]

We are always at the gate upon opening no matter how many days we are there. We usually stay 10 days. What we consider a break is going to Downtown Disney to look around. Our latest trip (January 2011) we finished everything we wanted to do on our 5th day and decided to go back to our offsite room for the rest of the day and take it easy. We rested a few minutes, ate lunch and in an hours time, decided 'let's go!'' Up and out the door to another park and stayed til closing.

We plan and talk about our Disney World trip a year out and when we are there we want to be going, seeing, doing and enjoying. We can relax and take naps, etc., when we are home. When we are at Disney we GO. We love it!