I’m confused. We seemed to be in agreement. You seem to be reiterating my whole entire point. Do you have to do all of these things to go Disney? No. You absolutely do not. And the average Disney guest certainly does not. That is my entire point. When you DO do them, however, it increases the probability of having a magical time at Disney, or—if nothing else—aligns expectations with reality. And that fact might explain why, as the OP observed, such a high number of average guests report a less then stellar trip. Or to put it another way: if you have done all these things (and the many more involved with serious planning) you are a lot less likely to be surprised and let down than if you have not. Which, I think, speaks to the OP’s point...a Disney trip is fairly complicated enough that there is a high percentage chance that the average person—going in with little to no planning—is going to have an unpleasant experience...or at least one that doesn’t meet expectations.
Actually no we're not in agreement. That was my point.
Your comment of "When you DO do them, however, it increases the probability of having a magical time at Disney" which you have now said twice is part of my point. You don't need to do all that indepth crowd calendar, historic wait time, etc etc to have a 'magical' time. If that's what you needed to do to have a magical time great but it's not what everyone needs to do for a good trip. Your perception is if you didn't do all the indepth planning you're doomed to have a bad time.
Some people, I suppose it must be suprising based on the overall comments throughout the Board, manage to do just fine and dandy at WDW without all the ins and outs of indept planning. And some people do all the planning in the world and they don't have a 'magical' time.
As far as high number of average guests report a less than stellar trip..yeah no that's not even close to true. Majority of folks in general rant as the bad. Random example but I belong to a book website called Goodreads. I do not write a review for 99% of the books I read. I rate them yes but I don't review them. To review them they have to be terrible like really bad. Right after the parking charge for overnight guests was announced Disney's FB page got thousands and thousands of 1-stars. Is that indicative of a bad terrible non-magical trip? Nope it was just people complaining loudly about the parking fees-from just principle to cost comparison. Lord I know people who would just complain at having to wait in line to get into the park--realistic much? It's like you'd think the have never had to wait in a line to get into a place.
I do agree planning is needed (more the basics IMO) I don't agree with the level of planning-that is an individual preference and in no way guarantees a great time just by virtue of the level of planning you are talking about.
If someone wants to sift through 1,161,000 reviews on FB or the 21,060 reviews of WDW on TripAdvisor,etc have at otherwise it's just a snapshot. I'm sure if you visited right after the parking fees were announced a large portion of bad reviews were focused on that.
Just as a random very random review from FB:
"We just went at the start of April 2018. The crowds were insane. Wait times from 1 hour up to 4 hours for some rides. You couldn't turn around without bumping into someone. Fast pass system is a joke. Avatar ride was cool although we did have to wait in line for about 4 hours to experience it. Passed on other rides as the wait times were crazy. Very expensive. Friendly staff for the most part. Overall not worth the money. Never again! This is the condensed version."
Ok..so you may read that and say--that must be a new person who just didn't do their research--nope
Here's the conversation that followed--Yellow highlighting mark is to denote the original person:
If all you read was their very first statement I'm sure you'd get newbie, who just smdh didn't plan going on the wrong week probably didn't use FP strategically, etc when in reality it was a person who was going for the 3rd time, knew about FP, was really complaining about Club Level access to FP for $$ but at 90 days in advance vs 60 days in advance--heck even mentioning purchasing in one of the original poster's comments without the context that it was Club Level led to a clarification statement (like how I mentioned before about people thinking FP costs $), and also felt like they may be outgrowing Disney.