Go with the flow or plan plan plan?!

[prprincess]

I'd consider myself a middle of the road planner. I do plan which parks I'll visit on what days, yes. And I use several crowd calendars to make my decisions. We do not, however, plan which ride we will do in which order. If we have FastPasses, then we take those into consideration and I try to plan those according to my family's park touring styles (for example, we do MK clockwise). And we only plan where we're going to eat when we're on DP because we like to do one TS per day. Because I have two boys who of course are unpredictable, I'm flexible and go with the flow. So if for some reason we miss a FastPass or a particular attraction because someone is hungry or is sick, I don't get all bent out of shape about it.

 

[Babydreamz]

I am a planner. It was my career before becoming a SAHM. So you bet I plan plan plan. With that said, I make sure there are times in my spreadsheet with each of my kids' names on it as well as DH's. They stand for blocks of time where we get to do anything they want at the time. So everyone doesn't feel like they're always on my go go go schedule.

 

[gatorlisa]

Think I might be in the minority. I do little planning. We don't do TS, ever, so no need to work around dining reservations. We eat breakfast in the room or while waiting for a park to open, we don't take afternoon breaks, and we eat quick service lunch and dinner when we feel hungry. With the way the FP+ system works, I do try and decide where I think we'll be in the afternoon for the purposes of selecting FPs. I decide which parks on which days mostly based on operating hours, trying to squeeze the most hours out of any given day. I have never factored crowd calendars into things and I give little consideration to what day of the week it might be (we do long weekends...we are going to be in MK on a Saturday, we set our expectations accordingly and go with it). Most of the time, we have ended up sticking to the plan, but having been before, and knowing we'll be back again, it's not a big deal if we were to change things and give up our scheduled FPs and get what we can at a different park. For the last several years, I have also planned which evening to be in MK for the specific purpose of making sure we get to see the MSEP, but now that that's gone, that will not factor into the plan. Beyond that, there's no plan other than to show up at rope drop and decide where we want to go first and from there we pretty much just work our way around, riding whatever we feel like at the moment. Later in the day we do tend to use the wait times on the app to help figure out what area of the park seems most appealing, or to decide where to hop if where we are is feeling to crowded. As for nighttime entertainment, we've seen most of what's currently available before, so if we are somewhere with a show or fireworks and we feel like watching we will, but we rarely plan around it. Most of the time at MK we are taking advantage of slightly shorter lines while the fireworks are going.

 

[Shunasee]

I am an over planner by nature. I love planning Disney trips.

That said, how much planning do you do?

Do you plan which parks you'll visit which day?

Do you plan which rides you'll do, in which order?

You you plan out where and when you'll eat?

Or... do you go with the flow?!

I mildly plan. The first few trips, I over planned. I tend to decide park days, but we almost always end up in EPCOT for dinner. I do like the FP+, as we are not morning people, so it lets us do the "must do" rides, without having to be up at the crack of dawn (it is vacation, with no dogs to get us up).

 

[DougEMG]

I am an over planner by nature. I love planning Disney trips.

That said, how much planning do you do?

Do you plan which parks you'll visit which day?

Do you plan which rides you'll do, in which order?

You you plan out where and when you'll eat?

Or... do you go with the flow?!

For each day I initially plan which park we will go to, what FP+ to get and if I want a ADR. Once there though we end up just going with the flow. So if we've changed our mind we'll just skip the plan and do something else, that probably happens around half the time.

 

[ArielSRL]

I am an over planner by nature. I love planning Disney trips.

That said, how much planning do you do? Quite a bit, a lot of it because it is fun for me and it helps pass the time until the trip.

Do you plan which parks you'll visit which day? Definitely.

Do you plan which rides you'll do, in which order? Last year I did plan an order using touring plans. But we didn't always stick to it once we arrived.

You you plan out where and when you'll eat? Yes.

Or... do you go with the flow?! Not really, though we do to a certain extent once we arrive.

 

[gorkt]

I plan ADR's, what park on what day, and fastpasses, but then I go with the flow. I am prepared to modify or cancel things if I need to, and I usually end up dropping an ADR or two ahead of time.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

A mild combo, but mostly we try to avoid the preplanning.

The advent of FP+ means you kind of have to pre-book FP if you actually want to go on any real rides (minus a two hour wait).

I hate the idea of touring plans. Ick. But then, my experience dates back decades before it existed.
Most of my planning consists of just reading updates on the DIS.

I'll try not to rehash a tired subject, but we liked WDW much better when WDW was more flexible. WDW was better when we could do walk-up table service dining at almost any location, and pull FP whenever we happened to arrive in the parks. We generally used our FP in the prescribed time windows, but it was oh-so-relaxing to know that it was okay to be late.

In years past, we did DDP with ADR's, but FP+ put an end to all that. I don't enjoy the stress of attempting to arrive on time 4+ times each day, only to discover that we have to wait in a line(half an hour for our table). Adding FP+ kiosk lines and no-show fees to the mix put it way over the top. Waiting in a (kiosk) line to get a FP is just super insulting.

I'm still vastly disappointed that WDW thought so little of us, their loyal customers.

We've always been masters of dodging the worst of the WDW crowds. I know all kinds of ways to zig when the crowd zags. We don't use a hard plan, just tried and true strategies we've perfected over the years. We know opportunities when we see them.

these days, the best strategy we see is to spend less time at WDW. Universal still offers the kind of unstructured vacation time we prefer. We get far more bang for our buck going to places like Tampa, where we pay 1/4 the price for a better hotel and better quality food.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I think more important than planning is being informed about WDW so I read the DIS faithfully before an upcoming trip. Doing your research. Knowing what's new, if anything is closed, which rides back up the quickest, which ride is important to hit at RD, knowing the apps to check for ride times, which park has EMH that way you can avoid or take advantage of, where QS places are, knowing how transportation works, etc.

We did a last minute trip in 2011. I made a few ADR's and kind of planned which park which day but it wasn't concrete. We had an AWESOME time mostly because I knew how the system worked. Had I just shown up and walked into the MK not knowing jack it would have been a miserable trip.

I do plan which park which day, especially now because of FP+ and I do book ADRs. I don't plan ride order or QS meals. We decide as we go but I have some knowledge.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Guess we don't fit in neither! Never plan best park, minimum FP's only because you have to choose three - mostly only use the mainliner and only three ADR's for our 10 day trip. Totally relax and never stand in long lines. So, nothing missed with us.

We like EMH so we never pick the "best park" and we never wait in a line longer than 20 minutes. Last year we rode ToT, RnRC and TSM about 5-10 times each over 1 1/2 days. We used our 3 FP each day (some days letting one lapse) and never got additional ones. We also did Fantasmic! and Frozen fireworks. One of those 1/2 days was completely spur of the moment. It was a "rest" day but we hit up DHS anyway.

 

[niffer5150]

we plan, but i'm not into over planning. i'll pick TS restaurants, i'll get fp's... but i'll be darned if i'm going to put down potty breaks, snack times, or ride stuff in a specific order.

 

[YawningDodo]

I did a moderate amount of planning for last year's trip and was pretty happy with it. We had only two ADRs made before we got down there (ended up adding two more during the trip), though I did make our fastpass selections the full sixty days in advance. We're diehard parkhoppers in a very spontaneous way, so all of our FP+ were scheduled for morning through midday in order to give us the freedom to go to a different park later in the day without planning it in advance. I don't think I've ever been on a Disney vacation day with my family in which we didn't decide halfway through the day that we wanted to switch to another park, and we never know in advance which one it's going to be. I also ended up changing our FP+ selections for two of our park days when we rearranged our schedule halfway through the trip, and it was fine. We generally did not get more FP+ after the first three because using the kiosks was a pain; if I'd been able to do it on my phone it might have been different. I did insist on wrangling the schedule so we would be at DHS for Fantasmic!, but that was the only night show we saw outside of the Halloween party.

I absolutely, categorically refuse to plan the order in which I'll ride things beyond picking a ride or two to do immediately following rope drop. I think if I traveled with larger groups or with young children (the above scenario was just my mother and me) and/or went during busier times, planning our days more thoroughly might be valuable. I deliberately choose to visit Disney in small groups and in off-peak seasons, though, because the very idea of having a schedule of exactly when I'm going to ride each attraction gives me the chills. It's bad enough scheduling three rides in advance; scheduling the whole day would ruin it for me because half the fun for me is the spontaneity.

It's all based on educated guesses, though. I have a general sense of when certain things are more crowded, and avoid those times (hit the headliners at RD, eat lunch outside of the noon hour, avoid MK on Mondays, etc.).

 

[HPS3]

Which crowd calendar sites are people using these days?

 

[jvz82]

Plan plan plan!

Last time we went, we didn't plan enough. We made out ok but we did way more standing around deciding what to do than we should have done. This time I have a spread sheet, like others have mentioned, with approximate times (like between 8 and 9 am these are the 3-5 rides we hope to hit depending on lines and everything, 10:30-11:30 FP for whatever ride, lunch at this restaurant at 11:30, etc). As others stated, it's planned out in a very detailed way but meant to be flexible. If we end up taking 18 bathroom breaks in the morning and can't hit all the rides we have planned, then fine. Or if we notice a character we really want to meet and end up waiting in line there instead of a different ride, not a big deal. But I need to have a plan in place, especially with 4 young kids and a husband who is mostly indifferent!

 

[Anal Annie]

I didn't get to be "Anal Annie" without being a compulsive over-planner. I try to plan FP's with a gap here & there for meals and I book ADR's here & there. But to please my DH & DS who hate all the planning I try to leave a couple of days as "flex" days (or I leave at least one morning and one evening open). Right now for our January trip I have absolutely NO FP's scheduled for 1 of our days AND IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! But I don't know if we'll want to try AK at night (in case RoL is finally up & running) or if they may start the Star Wars fireworks back up at HS and we usually book our FP's at our evening park so I booked nothing... And goodness knows it would be so UN-Disney-like and just too darned helpful of them to actually announce their intentions ahead of time so we could plan accurately. I used to use Josh's crowd calendar but since he's stopped making them I'm on my own to figure it out...

 

[jillyh]

Which crowd calendar sites are people using these days?

I look at every crowd calendar I can. Touring plans, Easywdw (although he hasn't been doing them, but I think he is going to start doing basic ones again), Kenny the Pirate and Underground Tourist.

 

[Disney_Princess83]

We plan more now that we have to use FP+. We plan some days with which park and some days we keep free so we can wake up and see which park we feel like visiting. We hop so sometimes start the day in one park and then hop to another (and sometimes a third depending on park close times. We make ADR's but usually for breakfast or dinner so we can start the day in one park and comfortably hop somewhere else if we want. Aside from FP+, the only days we plan rides are first and last days (but more along the lines on "We want to do these 5 rides sometime today") Some days we make sure we have no ADR's and we can just go with the flow. Those are usually the best days.

I am an over planner by nature. I love planning Disney trips.

That said, how much planning do you do?

Do you plan which parks you'll visit which day?

Do you plan which rides you'll do, in which order?

You you plan out where and when you'll eat?

Or... do you go with the flow?!

 

[miamimi]

Prior to FP+, we chose a park based on what sounded lie the most fun for the day. Spontaneity was a big part of out visits.

Now with FP+, I feel that I am forced to plan if I want to avoid long standby lines on our favorite attractions, at acceptable times. We stopped making TS reservations when the cancellation fees were instituted. Once that happened we felt locked in, unless we were willing to lose money.

I don't think it's possible to optimize your time at WDW without choosing a park and making ride reservations in advance. Maybe I would feel differently if I visited the parks 3-4 times a year.

 

[fla4fun]

I guess it depends. If I am going for a short trip, or am going with friends/family, I tend to plan more than if I'm going for my usual 10-11 day solo trips. If the trip is short, it's usually for a particular reason (like when I booked three days at BWI to go see the new Soarin and Frozen last summer, or spent a couple nights at YC for Christmas Day) so I book my FP+ for each day. If I'm going with friends/family, I try to plan around what they like or what they haven't seen to maximize their enjoyment, since I visit a lot more often than they do. But when I go on my solo trips, I tend to book FP+ for the first 3-4 days, and then leave the rest of the trip kind of open. I will usually decide the day before what park I might want to visit (based on weather and other factors) and I may or may not book some FP+ depending on the park. I'm not a big thrill ride fan, so I usually don't have too much trouble booking last minute FP+ for one. I don't eat a lot of TS (unless friends/family request it) so I don't usually book ADRs.

I can't say I have a better trip when I plan or when I don't. I find both methods enjoyable, but for different reasons.

 

[Koz]

We had a great plan in place each day thanks to Touring Plans, but then upon arrival and after requesting our SDFP through the kiosks (which worked perfectly) we had to make some accommodations on the fly. That being said, SDFP meant that for the rides you really wanted to go on, like Space Mountain or EE for example, you could rope drop in the morning, have your original FP tied to your vacation account already in place, and the grab a later SDFP towards closing, giving you 3 rides if not more. A true godsend.