Here's a way to plan that worked for us on our recent trip. Let me say up front that we share a similarity. When our family went to WDW last April, it was the first time for my wife and I since honeymooning 13 1/2 years prior (we were last there before Disney Studios, Norway and Wonders of Life opened). We found that a lot has changed over that time in dramatic fashion.
Do know that this recent trip was a 10 person family vacation, more kid oriented/kid friendly than what you guys will probably be doing. In other words, we weren't going for romance.
But here's my two cents for what it's worth:
For day-to-day planning, we somehow eventually went meal oriented rather than ride or park oriented. For some reason almost everyone in our party went as nutzo over all the neat Disneyesque places that you can get a decent meal at as much as we went nutzo over the rides and shows. What can I say? We're into food.
So first, we decided on what parks to do on what day. Parades and firework shows played a part in this, especially since we all wanted to see Spectromagic (excellent parade!) and it was only playing once during our stay. Thus that day became a MK day.
Then we broke our scheduling down to figuring out where we'd be during mornings, afternoons, and evenings (although when you go on 9/7 parks might not be open late). So we knew before arrival where we'd be park-wise at what times (even incorporating pool/hotel rest time into the planning).
Once we knew the order of parks, we made Priority Seating reservations--for us it was mainly restaurants of decent repute with some kind of built-in entertainment. And let me say that every place we decided to dine at was gleaned from positive reviews on this site, the Unnoffical Guide, and WDWIG.com. We didn't have a bad dining experience all week. The food was awesome!
But back to itenerary. Once we knew the order of parks and knew where we'd be for our meals, all we did from there was make sure that we'd be hovering in an area around our intended PS reservation restaurant by the desired meal time. So if we were doing lunch at San Angel Inn at 12:00, we'd be taking in sites around Future World East and hovering around Mexico, Norway and China pavilions during the 11:00 hour. Does that make sense? Our goal was to keep excess walking to a minimum.
Oh yeah, almost forgot!
Once we were at WDW and at parks, we used the hell out of Fast Pass. In fact, our rule at MK became "always have a Fast Pass for something." It helped that we figured out the system--you can get a Fast Pass as soon as your current "return time" for the pass you're holding begins, and if the "return time" is hours away, then you can get one after two hours has elapsed.
All of the above created a certain structure to how we toured. In other words, it forced us to look at our watches. But it was really nice being able to get into Chef Mickeys or Cinderella's Royal Table by just showing up at a certain pre-arranged time. And we all loved being able to bypass a 75 minute Splash Mountain line with only a 5 minute wait via Fast Pass.
Hope this helps. If not, ask more questions. It's what I did when planning, and I received so much great info from all the people logging onto this site that it made what little planning we did a snap.
but not everybody is like that. Tell us a little more and we can help you better.
