Why's it gotta be so hard?

[4luv2cdisney]

I don't like making reservations that I'm not likely to use, but with no official park hours and EMH and things like some dessert parties / CP not being bookable yet....

It's pretty hard not to have a plan B and maybe even a plan C which includes picking up more ADRs than we need.

I prepaid for CRT and Spirit of Aloha and I don't even know what else that I may not be able to keep if other "things" don't go as planned.

Don't even get me started on how the plans will change if Fastpasses don't come through.

Yikes.

Just needed to vent.​

 

[Tonberry]

A Disney vacation can be tough for people who don't like to plan. My Father-in-law decided to tag along for our trip in December and he's just a go with the flow person who will decide what to do and where to eat when he gets there. Unfortunately, he wants to do what we are doing and have some dinners with us. Now I have to plan for both my family and his.
Just do what you can. I don't think that anyone who has a master Disney plan right now has the same plan when they actually go. For me personally I rather like the tweeking and adjusting of my plans as the months go by. It's the last 30 days or so that are worst for me

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

IDK I don't find it hard.
I pick the parks based on the hours available to me at the time and if going during a busy time like between Christmas Eve and NYE I would just expect lots of park hours and EMH to be extended especially at MK.
I pick my ADR's based on what parks I will be in on what days and I stick to it.
I book the FP+'s that I can for the park I'm going to that day and if I don't get exactly what I want or the time I want I keep playing the game until I get it as close to what I wanted as I can and then I let it ride.
I feel like some people stress over these things entirely too much and those are the folks that tend to have the most negative things to say when something doesn't go as planned.
Its good to plan but you also have to be able to roll with the punches.

 

[lovin'fl]

It kinda stinks. I look at park hours right before 180 days out and look at crowd calendars to select which parks for each day. Then we make a list of possible ADRs we want. I try to line it all up and fill in 3 blank 1 hour slots that I will try to get FP+ for. I also consider the location of our resort in regards to dining. Which we are DVC so we have the book home resort at 11 months and try to switch, if we want, at 7 months- planning too. Then wait until 60 days out to make FP. ANd many times we change around some ADRs then too. We never seem to get the premium ADRs because of the difficulty in planning (finally, I have BOG for Dec). And theses days we have lots of family members (college kids and older parents with health issues) who don't know if they can go until last minute so we are always adjusting party size. If the mouse wants us to do all this pre-planning then they too should pre-plan and have park hours and party dates set by 180 days out.

 

[Nancyg56]

I find it tough in some respects. I like to plan at 180 days out, and book our meals then. I used to book a PPO meal in every park one time, but after finalizing our plans would drop at least one. It is especailly difficult when reservations are held back for events such as the CP. If they were released I coudl book dinner in Epcot for all our Epcot nights and be done, however that is now impossible. I Understand why there are so many "back up " ADR's. I don't remember this being necessary a few years ago.

 

[KelNChrisKYDis]

I concur. I enjoy the planning aspect, but I also get frustrated when hours are changed after the fact and other events added. It seems like it would be easier on the guests to have FP+ reservations at 60 days, and dining at 30, or 50, or something. I'm much more likely to change my dining around last minute in order to get a hard to get FP than I am the other way around. We value park time over dining, although we do love the dining experiences.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

I concur. I enjoy the planning aspect, but I also get frustrated when hours are changed after the fact and other events added. It seems like it would be easier on the guests to have FP+ reservations at 60 days, and dining at 30, or 50, or something. I'm much more likely to change my dining around last minute in order to get a hard to get FP than I am the other way around. We value park time over dining, although we do love the dining experiences.

Yes and it's a snowball effect. Start changing one thing and you're likely to need to change 4 more. lol

 

[4luv2cdisney]

IDK I don't find it hard.
I pick the parks based on the hours available to me at the time and if going during a busy time like between Christmas Eve and NYE I would just expect lots of park hours and EMH to be extended especially at MK.
I pick my ADR's based on what parks I will be in on what days and I stick to it.
I book the FP+'s that I can for the park I'm going to that day and if I don't get exactly what I want or the time I want I keep playing the game until I get it as close to what I wanted as I can and then I let it ride.
I feel like some people stress over these things entirely too much and those are the folks that tend to have the most negative things to say when something doesn't go as planned.
Its good to plan but you also have to be able to roll with the punches.

I'm pretty roll with it when things don't work out, but I like to have a plan. We are bringing D's boyfriend for the first time, too. So, I'm trying to squeeze more things into this trip than I normally do - because we've told him about all these wonderful things! As for us, we've just bought DVC and know there will always be next time....or the next time....

We've never gone in December and I've never had to "work around" MVMCP nights. We will be doing a lot of park hopping this trip and I'm pretty sure FP+s will be a little more complicated because of it.

I find a Disney trip a bit like a puzzle and all the pieces do tend to fall into place eventually, but it certainly could be easier.

 

[pd1138]

This year’s trip has been the hardest. I made my ADRs at 180+10 with much thought for fast passes, AK day on day four which I thought would be good to score a FOP rather then risking earlier in my trip. Just had my fast pass window and couldn’t get a FOP until day five or later, and on the fly switched my HS and AK day. That now meant changing a Tusker breakfast and sci fi lunch......for six! Took me four days of constant checking but did it! Whew....shouldn’t be that hard. I’m one who only made reservations for exactly what we need, but now I’m thinking the system almost forces you to make mulitiple reservations.

 

[LilyWDW]

I don't find it hard either. In fact, it's pretty easy in my opinion. Then again, I am not going to change up my whole schedule just for a single ride. If I don't get to do it, oh well. It's not going to make or break the trip.

 

[Nancyg56]

This year’s trip has been the hardest. I made my ADRs at 180+10 with much thought for fast passes, AK day on day four which I thought would be good to score a FOP rather then risking earlier in my trip. Just had my fast pass window and couldn’t get a FOP until day five or later, and on the fly switched my HS and AK day. That now meant changing a Tusker breakfast and sci fi lunch......for six! Took me four days of constant checking but did it! Whew....shouldn’t be that hard. I’m one who only made reservations for exactly what we need, but now I’m thinking the system almost forces you to make mulitiple reservations.

I think that is one reason the "back up" ADR's happen. Between the special events that are not released at the same time dining opens, to the FP at 60 days out, it can be stressful trying to make a plan work. I am not a FP fanatic, so I make them work around dining, or at least until this next trip that is the case, however I I hope that does not bite me this time.
The CP nights though have been problematic for us. My niece really wanted NPH, and I am going to try to book if he is a narrator. But booking dinners in Epcot has been a problem, so who knows what my plan will be when they finally get released.

I don't find it hard either. In fact, it's pretty easy in my opinion. Then again, I am not going to change up my whole schedule just for a single ride. If I don't get to do it, oh well. It's not going to make or break the trip.

SO far we have never done so either, however with the new Toy Story lans opened when we go, and with a Newbie who has never been at all, we may find ourselves trying to manage her wish list. I don't know, we shall see.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

I've had a hard time this trip because we decided to go after our 180 days was up (party of 6). Getting what I want has been very hard. I have 3 dining reservations that splits the party up (as well as 5- 10 minutes apart). I still have 3 I am either trying to get or trying to get a better time.
Trattoria al Forno is very elusive - I have a split reservation for that but not on the day I want. I check several times a day, searching for a party of 2, 4 and 6. Have not been able to get either a ROL dining package or Yak and Yeti for our AK day. I can find it for others, but not the day we plan to go. I did get a split ROL Tusker House (15 minutes apart) but not the day and time we need.
I have not been able to secure a Skippers after 4:05 on out MK day.
Got a split Garden Grill.
I did manage to get a BOG for our Halloween party at the time we wanted, but not without a wrestling match with the "Sorry for the Paws" message that sent the reservation into the nether regions for around 10 minutes.
Ah well...

 

[lovin'fl]

I've had a hard time this trip because we decided to go after our 180 days was up (party of 6). Getting what I want has been very hard. I have 3 dining reservations that splits the party up (as well as 5- 10 minutes apart). I still have 3 I am either trying to get or trying to get a better time.
Trattoria al Forno is very elusive - I have a split reservation for that but not on the day I want. I check several times a day, searching for a party of 2, 4 and 6. Have not been able to get either a ROL dining package or Yak and Yeti for our AK day. I can find it for others, but not the day we plan to go. I did get a split ROL Tusker House (15 minutes apart) but not the day and time we need.
I have not been able to secure a Skippers after 4:05 on out MK day.
Got a split Garden Grill.
I did manage to get a BOG for our Halloween party at the time we wanted, but not without a wrestling match with the "Sorry for the Paws" message that sent the reservation into the nether regions for around 10 minutes.
Ah well...

I do a resie search on Touring Plans and they find me resies all the time. You can put in 2 resies you want and it will continually search for you and e-mail and/or text you when they find it and you can go to WDW site and book. I used it for our NYE trip and we got like 3 that way. I recommend!!!

 

[Mambo Junkie]

I do a resie search on Touring Plans and they find me resies all the time. You can put in 2 resies you want and it will continually search for you and e-mail and/or text you when they find it and you can go to WDW site and book. I used it for our NYE trip and we got like 3 that way. I recommend!!!

I am using Touring Plans. I have both searches for Trattoria for 4 and 6 people . The one for 4 people has come up 1 time, but it was gone by the time I signed in and tried to get it. i'll keep trying, though. Last time I got a few using TP's reservation finder, but Trattoria is tough.

 

[Jadyreen1282]

Hours change in August on us almost every year right before the vacation. I learned to plan as I hope, accept what I get, or change what I can.

 

[cmwade77]

I still say that these should switch to same day reservations and for restaurants in the parks you need to be scanned into one of the parks first, if you have a park hopper you could book at any park, otherwise only at the park you want.

This would dramatically reduce the number of extra reservations people make because they don't know park hours, etc.

 

[cmwade77]

A Disney vacation can be tough for people who don't like to plan. My Father-in-law decided to tag along for our trip in December and he's just a go with the flow person who will decide what to do and where to eat when he gets there. Unfortunately, he wants to do what we are doing and have some dinners with us. Now I have to plan for both my family and his.
Just do what you can. I don't think that anyone who has a master Disney plan right now has the same plan when they actually go. For me personally I rather like the tweeking and adjusting of my plans as the months go by. It's the last 30 days or so that are worst for me

Which is why day of only makes the most sense. But at bare minimum park hours should be released at least 20 days before booking windows open.

 

[Shanti]

I don't like making reservations that I'm not likely to use, but with no official park hours and EMH and things like some dessert parties / CP not being bookable yet....

It's pretty hard not to have a plan B and maybe even a plan C which includes picking up more ADRs than we need.

I prepaid for CRT and Spirit of Aloha and I don't even know what else that I may not be able to keep if other "things" don't go as planned.

Don't even get me started on how the plans will change if Fastpasses don't come through.

Yikes.

Just needed to vent.​

Agreed. It definitely shouldn't be this complicated to plan a theme park trip. With all the detailed planning a WDW vacation requires, the decent thing to their customers would be to release park hours well in advance, and stick to them.

 

[Shanti]

I still say that these should switch to same day reservations and for restaurants in the parks you need to be scanned into one of the parks first, if you have a park hopper you could book at any park, otherwise only at the park you want.

That would force people to give up some of their valuable park time planning meals, though. It would also keep people from being able to make dinner reservations at the best restaurants if they weren't rope droppers.

You'd still have plenty of people who'd reserve & then ditch, as everyone would feel the need to reserve in the morning, and then lots of families would hit a wall before dinner time & leave...

 

[Mambo Junkie]

Other variables go into it, such as fastpasses, etc. For instance, if I score that elusive FOP fp at the same time I have Yak and Yeti, then Yak and Yeti is gone.
I'm with you on the lack of reservations available. In fact, I've had 2 active searches in and have not had a hit on either, until I finally decided to drop the one I had yesterday. It just wouldn't work for me. A minute later, I got a message from TP informing me of a reservation available at the restaurant, lol.
I have been driving myself crazy, checking over and over, all day long for what I need. I really only have 3 reservations out of our whole trip that work for me. So, I spent last night and this morning "pretending" I was at Disney World, and where did I want to eat tonight, tomorrow, I went 3 days out, then a week, then 10 days. Every single reservation I've been looking for is available as people drop at the last minute. Try 60 days out, too. You will get what you're looking for, it'll just take time. So, I went in and dropped every reservation I have been holding on to "in case" I didn't get another. Most of my reservations were split - party of 2 and 4 respectively (we are a party of 6), 5 to 10 minutes apart. I had one an hour and a half later than I wanted. All gone. I feel so much better now, and I've only checked once today. I might just wait until closer in and keep checking for next day and 2 days out to see what pops up. Even 8 am BOG. It will all work out so I'm not stressing over it any more.