Has anyone's trip ever gone exactly as planned? - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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We are planning our 17th trip to WDW! I am big time into making an itinerary for every trip. How else can you dine at your favorite restaurants and have FPs all not overrun each other? Have anyone's plans ever gone exactly how they planned? We've tried 16 times and there's always some hiccup, so we have to go back to WDW and try again!
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I'm not a big planner, so unplanned events aren't generally problems (at least, not problems to my timelines). I like having the freedom to do what I feel like, when I feel like it. For special occasions and certain visitors, I will plan a TS meal once per visit, but that's about it.
With the FP+, we have to plan so much farther out, and that's a pain.
That said, my mom was briefly ill Tuesday and we had to visit the first aid center...but she was fine after a brief nap.
But, like you say, any excuse for a re-visit is a good one!
I honestly don't think any of us can say that, although I'll happily be proved wrong. I love my planning and will plan our days a lot, but something always comes in from left field to change those plans. Then again, isn't that what makes life fun/a challenge?
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I think it depends on how people define "exactly as planned". For our family, I think every trip has gone "exactly as planned". But we don't make super-detailed, highly organized plans. We know which park we're going to start at every day and schedule our FPs accordingly. We only do one or two table service meals over a 7 day visit. We usually only make definite plans for 2 or 3 evenings during the week and the other nights are left "open" so we can decide that day what we want to do -- sometimes we return to a park; sometimes we just hang out at the resort. Every trip we have a list of things we've never done before and we try to do one of those things every day (sometimes it's a ride, sometimes a show; sometimes eating at a new restaurant.) Because we keep our plans very flexible, we don't ever find we have to skip something or get behind in a touring plan. So, yes, for our family our "plans" work out exactly as expected every trip -- probably because for us, we use our 3 FPs and try something new and that's about all we *plan* to do each day. Everything else is icing on the cake.
yes. i have been to WDW dozens of times (lucky me!) and i have had everything go exactly as planned....one time. and i was there for 12 hours total that time. ha! so yes, it is possible. just...unlikely.
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Oh, no, never. We are not commando planners; I do a few FPs for my son's musts and the one or two TS meals we have to reserve, then everything else is based on how we feel when we wake up. If we don't have FPs for a particular day, we can choose which park to visit. Twice we've had illness (once severe, once a few hours) and we've had scooter breakdowns too. But we mostly just muddle through and enjoy what we can without worrying about what we're missing.
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My first trip, I think. We didn't have that many dining plans and FP were a thing of the future. We had an idea of what we were going to do each day and we did those things. Even with a sick DH, we did our first night dinner at Chef Mickeys and then up to the roof for fireworks (back when they only had them on Saturdays). And at the end of the trip, the next Saturday, a tropical storm went by and we got ponchos and visited all our favorites in three parks and the gods looked down on us and stopped the rain so we had the parade and fireworks at MK that night. We were very lucky.
It was so good that within the month we were planning our return for the next year....which had not been a plan of ours.
DD and I love planning. Since her first trip, we plan out a "perfect" day as Disney every night when I'm tucking her into bed. So when it comes to planning there are spreadsheets involved. But once we get there we don't let it rule our days. If we feel like doing something different we go where the mood takes us. Some days go exactly as planned and are great, some days we cancel all out plans and go somewhere completely different and those days are equally great.
I am a huge planner, it's the analytical chemist in me. I've had trips go mostly according to plan. But most trips have had children involved and by the very nature of children, things hiccup. We have always managed all of our ADRs, but we miss FPs or rope drops, or have to stop more frequently for breaks than anticipated, you get the idea. As long as we all have fun and make memories, I don't sweat it much if it deviates from my plans. And if we miss something, well that's just more reason to go back!!
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I'm pretty sure I've never been on a trip, no matter what the destination, that's 100% gone as planned. Life just doesn't work that way. Thankfully, I'm not much of a planner. However, I do like to research trips just about to death and I have ten trips to DW, no idea of how many trips to DL and plenty of other travel experience behind me. The result is that I expect things to not go as planned and am able dodge, weave, duck and jump as needed.
I've lost count how many times we've been there, but I can't think of a single trip that went exactly as planned. However, all of them except for one were always really great ones!
There was one trip that everything went as planned. And honestly it wasn’t a great trip. We didn’t allow for spontaneity, or unplanned opportunities. So now we have what we call a framework. The framework is our three fast passes and our dining reservations if we have any. After that it is whatever we choose to do. And we are much happier this way and seem to get more done.
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Has anyone's trip ever gone exactly as planned?
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I love my planning and will plan our days a lot, but something always comes in from left field to change those plans. Then again, isn't that what makes life fun/a challenge? 
Our last WDW trip as a family 
Ms Lydia
As long as we all have fun and make memories, I don't sweat it much if it deviates from my plans. And if we miss something, well that's just more reason to go back!!
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