After planning your trip, do you actually follow your plan during the trip?

[#1disneyfan]

Before a trip I spend a ton of time here and in planning. I wait for the park hours to be released, and magic hours, etc. Then I plan which park on which day and which park for EMH, etc. Then I make all our ressies once I know where we will be for the day. I think alot of it is pure excitement and needing something to do that is Disney related prior to my trip. Do we stay on the planned itinerary? I would have to say somewhat. We always do the park and ressies we have previously planned. The EMH and park hopping and late nights are totally up to how we feel while we are there. This year I am vowing to see MK park opening. We have never seen it yet! And we have been there many times!

[yjgirl715]

I had planned my families first trip together. It was a whole lot of fun, but I got a lot of complaints about how much time I spent and how much I read up on our trip. Most of the things I planned for our trip we did. In fact my family was so happy that I did so much planning and had so much knowledge that they have now left me in charge again- wahoo- I was just recovering from last years now they want me to start again! Oh boy. Just kidding I love it- I was not angry or upset when we went off the plan, but I felt geat when things worked out for the good- all depends on what you like to do. At least it keeps you busy! Good luck.

[Bethis26fan]

We plan what park we are going to be at and what TS we are going to have and that's all. So it's easy to stick to that plan. Although I do play around with diffrent ideas for the day but they aren't ever planned out, like you said it just keeps me busy till the trip.

[JenniferS.]

I kind of make plans for some of the week. Like, we are going this Sept. I have made all my breakfast, lunch and dinner ressies that we want for the 10 days. I also have planned which of each of the four parks we will visit for the first four days. The rest of the days we will park hop and end up at the park were our dinner ressie is that night. I like to have things planned, but I also like some spotananity (sp?). We are taking 3 small kids, so we have to have some plans.

[azdisneymom]

I don't plan to that level of detail. Generally, my plans are which park I will be in on which day and where we will dine that day. Also included are any special activities such as tours. Because our plans are so loosely structured, I can say that we mostly follow our plans though there are times when we deviate from plan after we arrive.

Sounds pretty much the way we do it, too.

[Young@Heart]

I'm an obsessed planner. I not only plan which parks and which rest. for each day, but I plan the attractions, the order of the attractions, and our shopping times.

For the most part, we stick w/ our plan. We very rarely CHOOSE to deviate from it, although we go with the flow if other things come up.

[BritCody]

I am an obsessed planner also. I have a few spreadsheets that I do. First I went in and looked up the historic Park Hours and EMH's to give me a rough idea of the park hours for our next trip. Then I made a check list of dates for when I have to get my "to do's" done by. Like When the Actual Hours would be posted, when we could make the ADR's, when we could purchase the MNSSHP Tickets, when to preorder the photo pass and so on. Then I sat down and plugged in a loose itinerary including which parks we would go to on what days and the locations of our ADR's we will be making. When the actual hours were posted I changed them accordingly (which wasn't much of a change). Then once I made our ADR's I put in the times and added more detail to the loose itinerary, to build around the ADR's so we are not wasting time. I made cards with all of our ADR's times and confirm numbers on them in case we are split up this way whoever arrives first can get the ball rolling at the restuarant. I also made spreadsheets for times on all of the events, shows, parades and fireworks and I update it once a month until we will go on our trip. I also print out all of the menus of restuarants we have ADR's at and all of the counter service locations in the parks. With picky eaters it is always a bonus to know what is on the menu nearest to you or do you have to move on towards another area of the park. Before we go this October I will print out the park hours, a copy of my event spreadsheet, a copy of our itinerary and put them in a small binder along with all of the menus. I will take this along with us. As for following the plans we try to for the most part. Basically anytime we sit down for a meal or are waiting in a line we discuss our next plans or strategies towards what we will do next.

[Taja]

I'm a "loose" planner! *LOL*

I have spreadsheets with park hours, EMH, parades, fireworks and events. I also list ADRs & confirmation numbers. I usually visit WDW for 10 nights or so, with two or three ADRs for the entire trip. I discovered with free dining that I don't enjoy planning my visit around dining!

Beyond that, there are things I want to do in each park. Some because I haven't done them before (still haven't made it on EE!), others because I have and love them!

[elmjimmlm]

We usually stay with what we have planned...We like to do late night EMH so we stick with our reservations and what park depends on it...

[SAHDad]

Our plans are usually made months in advance, but they are basically ADRs, and that's about it. I try to keep the ADRs in the same park for a given day, or one park for breakfast and one for dinner, but that's about it. We don't do the "Ride X, Y and Z, then catch the parade, then ride A and B before seeing Show C" kind of schedule.

[myhappyplace]

Before a trip I spend a ton of time here and in planning. I wait for the park hours to be released, and magic hours, etc. Then I plan which park on which day and which park for EMH, etc. Then I make all our ressies once I know where we will be for the day. I think alot of it is pure excitement and needing something to do that is Disney related prior to my trip. Do we stay on the planned itinerary? I would have to say somewhat. We always do the park and ressies we have previously planned. The EMH and park hopping and late nights are totally up to how we feel while we are there. This year I am vowing to see MK park opening. We have never seen it yet! And we have been there many times!

This has been exactly what and all we have done each year. THis year however we have made us a little mini booklet with cards with our ADR #s and what park on what day. We still fly by the seat of our pants though it makes it that much more fun. I have also printed a list of just about everything I could find on Intercot info central. I have hole punched and put it in a booklet we'll take. But that will only be for reference before we head out to each park. The opening show is a must in my opinionn. I hope you make it this year, well worth getting up early for if only once. Good luck.

[mdricks]

I plan like a crazy man. Spreadsheets with time of activitys, shows, parades, ADR's, peak waits for faviorite rides (to avoid), which park is busiest which day, when the down time will be......

And then we completely ignore it and play by ear.

[thejens]

I plan in great detail and we follow the Unauthorized Guides plans fairly closely. My family thought I was absolutely nuts and made lots of fun of me until they realized how very smoothly everything goes for us and how much fun we have. I pretend to be very lose and flexible, but they are well trained now to simply ask me what ride we are heading to next and don't even whine when we pass something and I tell them "later." That being said, we do take time to watch the trolley singers and dance with the Toy Story characters and eat Dole Whips while the kids splash etc. This is because I carefully plan "back up" itineraries for times later in the week to catch up on any "must do's" that we may have missed because of some spontaneous moment. This will be my third trip to the World so I am feeling a little more relaxed this time. I realize if I miss something this year...there is always next time. My Mom is sick and I will be just so grateful if she is able to make it at all this year. I know I will be savoring every moment no matter what.

[ltam16]

I'm a planner but try to be flexible when I am there. I list all the park hours and take into account when the busiest days are supposed to be, emh, etc... The I figure out what park we'll go to in the am and pm. We try to go back at lunchtime to rest/swim at hotel. Then I make our ADR's based on where we want to be. I also make a list of all rides we must do and show times for things we really want to see at each park.

When we are on vacation I always have my itinerary and show times in backpack. We always stick to ADR's and we stick to my schedule loosely. This past trip we were able to accomplish AK in one day because we did not rest at hotel. So the other morning I had planned on being there we slept in or some of us slept in I should say... ds and I went to epcot.

The first time we went though I stuck to my schedule. I wanted to see as much as possible. But each time we go back I try to be more relaxed. I struggle with it though. When I am paying that much money I want to do it all!! Plus I just love it all.

[tys_mommy]

I’ve created a spreadsheet type thing for our trip 4 years ago that worked well then and also for last week. On one side are all parks hours with parade/night time shows. The other side has our reservation information and then in table format the date, morning EMH park, evening EMH park, destination park (s), dining location, time, reservation number. I don’t make ADR for every day but if we have one that’s usually the park we try to hit that day, if we don’t then I’ll look at the EMH and plan around them. This past trip we followed the plan for 5 out of 7 days – the other 2 days we only hit 1 of the 2 parks I had planned. I don’t think there is anyway for us to stick to anything more than that and still have a good time while on vacation – this method allows for flexibility yet at the same time I have all information at hand that I can use to make a wise alternative decision if we change the plans.