When Planning gets frustrating...... About This Page:

[chezp]

I did it once when DH was sick. He told me to go out and, after ages thinking "I can't leave him" and he was just sleeping, I headed to the bus stop and did exactly that. I was so grateful that the first bus that turned up for Epcot, which is my favourite park anyway, so it worked out well. It's nice to do occasionally, but these days I'd say it's also very hard with Fastpass+ and ADRs.

[CinderAbby]

Merely preferring to follow a detailed itinerary and hardly deviating from it just doesn’t to me.

We can deviate from my itinerary - we've changed FP and canceled meals before - but we just don't decide to go to a completely different park. We did do that once when Abby was younger and didn't give input but since she now gives me input on what she likes to do, the parks we decide on and when stay put.

[MikeL]

This trip we actually are planning for more down days than park days and have a few days where while we have only the most general of plans, ie Epcot and food kiosks for dining. Should by the time we get the kids taken care of and settled we find out that option won't work we'll just play it by ear and see where the day takes us.
Lucille is amazed when I talk of how in the 80's we thought we the Bees Knees when as resort guests we could make ADR's 3 then 5 days out. FP's were not a thing then. On our last trip we ended up extending our stay to avoid extreme weather while we drove home. We made some quick ADR's on a daily basis based on where we ended up and hit parks with no FP's and hit attractions we would normally bypass ate at snack spots and/or QS and had a super time.

[suzanne1972]

We’ve, on the last 2 trips, just made ADR for dinner at Downtown and left the day open to do whatever, the first time we done that we stayed at the OKW pool and DH and the girls played the pool games etc and I done some laundry. Last year we went to a water park then on for dinner. I did find it hard not making FP+ for that day as I felt I was wasting them!?!? But both days we did have fun and found it relaxing not having to rush etc so we will most probably do that again for our trip next year.

[Lumieregirl]

On my very first trip, I played Bus Roulette. I couldn't decide what I wanted to do (all the parks seemed equally inviting), and I didn't know what I didn't know. I was on a limited budget, lucky to get to go to WDW at all, so ate no sit-down meals. It was exciting and fun. This was before FP existed, so the lines were what they were and there was no other way.

I haven't done it since. But on my upcoming trip, I do have 1 day left totally open. May spend it at the resort, DS, or at a park. Stay tuned!

[lovewdw2]

Originally Posted by Her Dotness

We book ADRs for nearly every meal since we rarely eat QS, and that’s about it for definite plans.

Once we have our master list of where we want to eat, we figure out a pattern of ADRs so we aren’t eating Italian back to back, for instance. That’s when we decide roughly which park for morning and which later in the day, focused around how we’ve sorted ADRs throughout our stay.

ParkHoppers are essential for us as a result.

Anymore, we rarely schedule more than 1 or 2 FPs per day. Just not that many things we’ve gotta do.

We simply don’t plan a particular park per day, wouldn’t stick with it if we did. Occasionally, we’ve gotten to a park and decided to go to another, so we do.

Neither of us enjoys riding buses much, so we’re unlikely to hop on the next bus. However, we generally go wherever the magic inspires us whether to a park or another resort. We may get on the monorail thinking we’ll head to Epcot and decide to get off to wander through the shops at the CR instead.

How do you leave so much open to whim? You just try it and see if you enjoy that more than detailed planning.

Really, I can’t imagine having single-park tickets. Seems like a terrible bore being stuck in one park for an entire day. It’s just so much fun going wherever you feel like heading when you think of it.

On my solo trips I have bought Park Hoppers and would plan what 2 parks I would go that day. Plan my sit-down dinner around whatever park I was going to be in. However with my last trip with my son, it was nice to have that option. He had never experienced a park hopper, because we had always had one-day park passes, because I just thought it would be TOO much & overwhelming with taking 2 kids. My son with this last trip he wasn't fond of doing 2 parks in one day.... I always feel there is so much to do....it opens up your day & night. I agree with you!

However this trip I am planning for next year I am planning to get one-day park passes- Because I feel like I don't spend enough Quality time in EACH park- I miss the little things in life, which are important to me.

I love to hear how everyone plans their Disney Vacations....

[HeatherD]

It's an intriguing thought. We usually only plan ADR's and which parks around that. Then, we have a game plan of how to tour based on what we know and our must haves (which FP+ messed with last trip). But it interests me to consider just going wherever. But after the first day, what do you do when that's the first bus that keeps showing up?

[NurseLesley]

We haven't done a whole day without planning, but we have done partial days. I only recently started getting park hoppers and when we had one park per day tickets and before AK stayed open later we would have those days to be unplanned. Many times AK would close at around 5-6pm and I remember the first time we went wandering this is how we found The Wave restaurant. And that was a great find! LOL

[HiddenMickey]

We don't really make that many plans. FPs are the only thing that could keep us from changing up planned parks. We do very few ADRs, if any, so that wouldn't make a difference to us. We also don't go for a week anymore, so our time is limited to the 3-4 days we are there, making changing these up difficult.