Is it just me??

[familymemories]

My family thanks me for my planning and organizational skills when planning Disneyland and Magic Kingdom trips. Planning for Magic Kingdom is a new ball of wax for me though. Love the app on my phone and placing notes on it for our trip. 5 days out of 9 are all planned out so far.

 

[disnat]

Planning stresses me out in a good way. On one of our trips I over-planned to the point where I had scheduled bathroom breaks! Never again. It becomes frustrating when you eventually do deviate from your touring plan for whatever reason. Nowadays I just plan rides and general times of day. Planning is half the fun, though! I don't think I'd ever want my family to surprise me with a trip because I'm always the planner!

 

[MataHari22]

I have to plan. Not just when I go to WDW, but any trip I take, I have to plan and research. I'm not really a fly by the seat of my pants girl. Maybe if I went to WDW by myself, I could feel ok about just making FP and ADRs and not make a full itinerary. Just do what I wanted in between. It's when I am with someone else or other people, and they do that - "what do you want to do?" "Idk, what do you want to do?" thing that kills me. I'm one of those lead, follow, or get out of my way type people. Lol

When I am planning for WDW, it does stress me out a bit, but I think only because I feel like I'm responsible for my traveling companion's fun. I don't want to let anyone down. Sometimes, I worry too much about making other people happy, and often, it can be at the expense of my own happiness. I think if I were just planning for myself, it wouldn't stress me out as much. Truth is, I must like the planning, because if i am not planning for my next trip, I am wishing I was planning my next trip.

 

[Lucius Best]

I enjoy planning, and my family counts on me for the planning because I'm the family "expert", but my recent trip in April was the first time using FP+ and also the first time I was getting annoyed with the planning. We've always planned parks and ADRs, but loved the flexibility to change things when we felt like it. Sometimes we would go to the resort bus stop and get on whichever park bus showed up first.

On our previous family trip 2 years ago, before FP+, halfway through the week we re-arranged the last 4 park days, changing everything, based on what the young kids had liked so far. Planning this family trip, I knew that would not be possible because of FP+. For example, I knew that we couldn't swap our MK days at the last minute, because we had 7DMT FP and BOG ADR. So there was more stress trying to make sure the plan was perfect months in advance. It worked out fine, but I missed some of the spontaneity.

 

[Lisaloo]

My husband has made it a verb "Disneying". He will come home from work and ask if I Disneyed during the day. I love to plan and plan until we are actually there, but I learned years ago that things will come up and plans can fall apart. We don't sweat it. This is a major part of the vacation fun for me!

 

[constanze]

My entire family loves to tease me for all my planning. But they are always thanking me when we stand in minimal lines and always have a fabulous place to eat in air conditioning that gives us a break from the heat. However, they still laugh at me when I cry at the first MK RD

 

[millerette]

We usually just go with the flow and let our DD5 choose what she wants to do. Of course the wait times also tie into that. This time we are going alone. We decided to try the FP+ for some of the days. We are winging the rest of it. DH will be enjoying photographing everything. The experience will be different since we will be alone. We want to see and try things we haven't done before.

 

[Carrie Gruber]

I have a binder that has every bit of information about my trip. This includes my itineraries for each day, reservation #'s, and even where to look for Hidden Mickeys. I used Touring Plans to create the itineraries but I know from past experience that things will not go in the order I planned them and the times will not work out exactly. With small children, I have to be flexible, but I still like to have an agenda so we know what we want to see and do. It keeps me sane and keeps me occupied while I count down the days.

 

[dreamit]

I planned EVERY little detail; HOWEVER, I went into it with the mindset and set the expectation with my husband and daughter that we really needed to stick to the plan the first two hours of each day and, ideally, up until lunch time. After lunch, we had a detailed plan to stick with or fall back on, but I convinced myself to have the mindset that it was completely okay to go with the flow after the first two hours. I kept most ADRs to breakfast or lunch to allow for changes of plans throughout the days. We had a really great trip not going completely commando-style, but I will say that when we'd hit a wall about what to do, where to eat, etc., it was very helpful to have all the information at my fingertips.

With respect to the planning itself, I thoroughly enjoyed the planning, spreadsheets and all, up until the last few weeks before the trip. Disney made a couple of big changes that impacted my plans, and I mentally shut down. I swear the planning was almost a second full-time job for a few months, which was a bit much for me. But, I have to say that the end result was a trip that was even better than I could have hoped.

 

[JimmyBean42]

I can go either way. While I love that we have a plan setup, I don't necessarily love getting up at 5:30 in the morning to make coffee so we can be ready for 6 am ADR's (especially when the system is down and you get stressed you won't get a key dining spot for someone). But I do like it when it's all done and I can sit back and look at the schedule. I figure it this way: our meals and FP+ our scheduled (and ultimately the park for the meal) but after that we just go with the flow. Park hop if we want, go back to swim, find a ride / show with a low wait we might not have went on. So I'm a little bit of both. Probably more planner since no one else in my family really wants to plan it.

 

[Catvondita]

I'm like the least organized person you could meet but when it comes to planning trips (especially Disney) I get super anal and have to write a detailed itinerary of everything. I have a little journal known as my Disney Planning Journal that I bring with me to Florida and the Parks. But even though I write everything down and have a plan from what time we'll wake up, to how long it will take to eat breakfast, get to the parks etc...I always end up not following it exactly. I have to keep in mind I'm traveling with other people who may want to see different things at different times. So my itinerary becomes more of a guideline but I think in some ways that's best. You can still have some structure without ruining the spontaneity of things and keep a little of the magic.

 

[ChimCher-ee]

We plan and talk about the trip incessantly. At the very least we know where we're going to be and where we're going to eat on a given day and plan and make reservations accordingly. With FP+ we just got even *more* obsessive about it, but we love discussing it.

Sometimes I think I enjoy the planning and talking more than the actual trip. As the old saying goes, the best part of any trip is the anticipation and then the remembrance.

My 11yo and I play a game: "[however many days out from this moment], we'll be in [park] on [ride], heading for [favorite snack] right after." We discuss it endlessly!

 

[fairy oma]

I tend to be the control freak in our family and I am planning a trip for 9 this December. I made the reservations for this Dec. 2015 on the first day they were available last July and have been busily researching and planning since. Once the ADRs were made I relaxed and started to work on the spreadsheet to give to everyone so they have an idea of where the others are during the day. I make up a doc with all the important phone #s and confirmations that can be downloaded onto out phones.

We all go to the same park each day but only meet up intentionally for 1 meal a day (sometimes we accidently bump into each other and decide to eat CS but it is definitely set in stone. If one set of DGs go a different way DH will go with them for some cool photos and trade-outs of rides and will go with the other ones. Mommies and daddies then get to ride the things they want to also.

My goal for a big trip like this is to have all of the difficult things out of the way (ADRs & FP+s) so everyone can go with the flow and enjoy a magical trip.

 

[disneyjes]

While we have never been to WDW before, I do plan a lot of trips for our family. I like to go full out prep-mode and have as much info as I can. Then I make a loose plan and try to stick to that. I like to have some structure but then room to be adventurous without plan as well. So I say make the plans and then just use them as a guideline and remember to have fun!

 

[disneywarriorprincess]

The last 2 trips i researched all the restaurants that looked cool to me, i looked into all the must do attractions and how to wisely select fastpasses. I scheduled in what time to do character greets so they wouldn't conflict with meals and fastpasses. I typed and printed out a full itinerary of all this. But i made suggestions on other things so we wouldn't run from point a to b and get tired. And the plan changed a bit while we were there which i was fine with.

 

[georgia_kat20]

i honestly just go with the flow because when i plan things out and im walking around the park i tend to forget to put things into my plans and when i dont plan things out i always fell more free than when im on a plan and stressing out on the next thing i have to do

 

[Accident]

We don't even need 1 hand to count our must do things and that's all we plan. From there it's whatever we feel like doing that day usually centered around where we want to end up for dinner. somethign I do recommend is the month leading up to your trip and while there to pay attention to a couple blogs. We've run into brand new tours, closing "one day we'll do that" tours and ride closing/openings. We tend to visit WDW on the edge of season changes so it's not uncommon for minimum warning on things happening.

 

[LoodlesNoodles]

I tend to plan loads and by the time the day comes around it all goes out of the window.
This next visit will be mt first time staying on site so theres more that actually requires planning. It'll be my bf's first visit and he's annoyingly indecisive. Whenever i suggest any of the plans he shrugs and tells me whatever i want to do.
Its quite frustrating but hopefully he'll want to get more involved as we get closer to the trip. It can get quite lonely being the planner, thank heavens for all the disney groups to share excitement!

 

[peg110]

Whenever i suggest any of the plans he shrugs and tells me whatever i want to do.

Ok, I have to interject a "Guys" perspective here. First, since it's his first visit, so he really has no concept of what to expect and certainly not what he does or doesn't like at WDW.

Next, if he is like me (and a LOT of guys) we don't really care about a lot of things (at least in these types of things like amusement parks). When we do have a really strong feeling FOR or AGAINST something you will know (and I mean STRONG feelings). Anything in between is usually an "I don't care, whatever you want." response. It's not meant to be annoying, it's meant to be accommodating. Why? Because when a guy says, he doesn't care, HE DOESN'T CARE! When a girl says she doesn't care, SHE DOES CARE, and wants you to try and figure out exactly what she wants.

As an example of this, I often get this at dinner time (I am the cook). It will go something like this:

Me: Honey, what do you want for dinner?
DW: I don't care.
Me: How about some Pork Chops?
DW: I am not really in the mood for pork chops.
Me: How about some Chicken?
DW: No, I had Chicken for Lunch?
Me: How about Some burgers on the Grill?
DW: We just had burgers 2 days ago, I don't want them again.
Me: Spaghetti?
DW: Oh no, I can't do pasta today.
Me: ..... (A dozen other choices) ....
DW: ..... (A dozen other rejections) ....
Me: Well what do you want?
DW: I don't care?
Me: (sigh) Do you want to go out and eat?
DW: Sure, if that's what you want!
Me: UGH! (Silently of course)​

When "She Is Cooking"

DW: Honey, What do you want for dinner?
Me: I don't care.
DW: How about week old leftover lasagna? We just have to pick off the mold on the edges.
Me: OK. Sounds good.​

When a guy says he doesn't care, he doesn't care. Trust me that when he DOES care, you will know it.

 

[LoodlesNoodles]

Ok, I have to interject a "Guys" perspective here. First, since it's his first visit, so he really has no concept of what to expect and certainly not what he does or doesn't like at WDW.

Next, if he is like me (and a LOT of guys) we don't really care about a lot of things (at least in these types of things like amusement parks). When we do have a really strong feeling FOR or AGAINST something you will know (and I mean STRONG feelings). Anything in between is usually an "I don't care, whatever you want." response. It's not meant to be annoying, it's meant to be accommodating. Why? Because when a guy says, he doesn't care, HE DOESN'T CARE! When a girl says she doesn't care, SHE DOES CARE, and wants you to try and figure out exactly what she wants.

As an example of this, I often get this at dinner time (I am the cook). It will go something like this:

Me: Honey, what do you want for dinner?
DW: I don't care.
Me: How about some Pork Chops?
DW: I am not really in the mood for pork chops.
Me: How about some Chicken?
DW: No, I had Chicken for Lunch?
Me: How about Some burgers on the Grill?
DW: We just had burgers 2 days ago, I don't want them again.
Me: Spaghetti?
DW: Oh no, I can't do pasta today.
Me: ..... (A dozen other choices) ....
DW: ..... (A dozen other rejections) ....
Me: Well what do you want?
DW: I don't care?
Me: (sigh) Do you want to go out and eat?
DW: Sure, if that's what you want!
Me: UGH! (Silently of course)​

When "She Is Cooking"

DW: Honey, What do you want for dinner?
Me: I don't care.
DW: How about week old leftover lasagna? We just have to pick off the mold on the edges.
Me: OK. Sounds good.​

When a guy says he doesn't care, he doesn't care. Trust me that when he DOES care, you will know it.

And that would be fine if he wasn'tthe fussiest eater I've ever known... he won't bother even looking at menus to ensure there'll be something he'll eat there. Even if I'm showing them to him; instead its an 'mm'. Not so helpful when planning adr's

He's the same when visiting other places too, even when he knows the location better than I. It's just the way he is and that's fine. It's just irksome to always be the planner.