How far in Advance to Plan?

[JB17]

Hi all.

How far in advance is it recommended to plan for trips in 2024?

Our last trip to WDW was in 2015. We had a trip all set for March 2020 and then... life. So I am now trying to catch up with all the changes in the last little while. We are looking at a possible trip for mid-February 2024.

I am used to having to plan for 180+ days out. We are a family of 5 coming from Canada. The kids are not really kids anymore (Gr. 10, 12, and 4th year University), which makes it harder to coordinate schedules. I am wondering if it is possible to plan a trip 2-3 months in advance or would I be missing out on something? I think we might look at renting a DVC to have the extra room. Any other tips or ideas to assist with planning would be greatly appreciated.

 

[The Foolish Mortal]

2-3 months in advance can work. I sometimes plan trips with more time. I have also planned trips to take place in less than ten days. As a general rule, I like to have a trip planned far enough in advance to make any ADRs I might be interested in. So you should be good

 

[loves to dive]

Depends on what you mean by plan. If you want to rent DVC points you are better off doing that any where from 7 to 9 months in advance.

If by planning you mean research, start now. If you don't know about Genie+ read the threads here about it and watch some of the countless videos on Utube about it. It can be complicated and up to you as to even if you want to use it.

Park reservations are not going to be necessary in 2024 unless you have an AP or US military ticket so that won't be an issue. No one knows what park hopping will look like then but as of right now, you can't hop until 2 pm. Thus you need to decide if you want or need park hopper tickets.

If you are going to want some of those "must have" ADRs then you will need to make those at what ever time frame out is the earliest. Sorry, we don't make ADRs in advance so I don't even know.

Are you going to want to do the dining plan? If so you need to know it's different now (or will be when it comes back out) and you will need to bundle your tickets and resort from Disney. Again, we have never done it so you will need to research that.

Yes, it's possible to plan 2 or 3 months out, again depending on what plan means to you. Tickets should be no problem, renting DVC points would probably be close to impossible that close but hotel rooms should be available. That, again, depends on where you want to stay. ADRs should be possible.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

It's always possible to plan a trip on short notice but there may be some "penalties" being that you're coming from out of the country and would have to fly so airline tix could be priced higher later than if you booked earlier and of course same for lodging. We usually only book a month or so out for WDW but we drive so not much to really plan. It's hard when your kids get older to try to make dates work when everyone has jobs and schooling. I get it. But yes, it's 100% doable.

And as far as renting points via a third party DVC agency, at 2-3 months out, you won't have much of a selection. You can certainly find something, but you will have to be really date flexible and it may not be your top resort choice or room preference. This is one of the reasons renting DVC points has never worked for us. I don't plan trips really far out and when I do look to see about availability, there's not much that works for our dates/budget and location preference. And of course, if you rent points, you need to be very familiar with the agencies cancellation/change policy as this is another reason I'm not a fan or renting points. You can book cash DVC villas direct through disney but they're of course, expensive, but we've done that to avoid some of these issues.

 

[RoseGold]

DVC is on an 11 month (home) or 7 month (away) schedule.

There are a lot of DVC confirmed reservations for rent now, but larger units are tougher. Most people don't have that many points, or don't want to keep that big of a booking for a risky "last minute" booking. DVC might not work with this timetable, but there are plenty of hotels in Orlando.

The actual Disney or parks part can be done with that notice, for sure.

 

[JB17]

Thanks all.

I appreciate all of the advice. It sounds like if I rent DVC points I will need to do that as soon as possible along with booking flights. Any ADR's I cannot book any until 60 days out. Unless I bundle park tickets with accommodations I do not have to worry about booking those until closer to the trip.

The one thing I will need to do is get my head wrapped around the Genie+ system. We were all used to the FastPass way of doing things. Will everyone in the party need their smartphone to use Genie+? I was hoping to limit the need for out-of-country roaming to 1 or 2 phones.

No more Disney Express??? I guess things have changed.

 

[The Foolish Mortal]

he one thing I will need to do is get my head wrapped around the Genie+ system. We were all used to the FastPass way of doing things. Will everyone in the party need their smartphone to use Genie+? I was hoping to limit the need for out-of-country roaming to 1 or 2 phones.

No more Disney Express??? I guess things have changed.

You can read up on Genie+ in the numerous threads on that subject, but generally speaking, not everyone needs a phone. You can link all your accounts to one person who has the phone and then they can make the selections for the entire group.

Also, something I do when i travel internationally (so I assume it would work stateside also) is just leave your phones on airplane mode (so no roaming or phone calls), but connect to the disney wifi. Through that, you can access MDE in the parks on your phones and not have to worry about running up charges

 

[loves to dive]

Thanks all.

I appreciate all of the advice. It sounds like if I rent DVC points I will need to do that as soon as possible along with booking flights. Any ADR's I cannot book any until 60 days out. Unless I bundle park tickets with accommodations I do not have to worry about booking those until closer to the trip.

The one thing I will need to do is get my head wrapped around the Genie+ system. We were all used to the FastPass way of doing things. Will everyone in the party need their smartphone to use Genie+? I was hoping to limit the need for out-of-country roaming to 1 or 2 phones.

No more Disney Express??? I guess things have changed.

There are many videos out there about it just search UTube for Genie+. Make sure watch the most recent ones because it has changed a lot since it's beginning.