Minimal Planning!

[Momto2minniemice]

We are headed down to WDW for a 9 Night stay in Aug and have done minimal planning. After talking it over with the family we thought we would have a more free style vacation. The kids (tween/teenager) would like to try new things, new food, and not be so scheduled. We are all okay with eating quick service, snacks, and using the app to see what places we can eat at. It seems like when you make so many dining reservation your day is driven off of food. Fast passes we can "plan" a day or two ahead.

What are your thoughts?

Have you done this before?

 

[JARNJ3]

Agree with this - but I'd book the fast passes at the 60/30 day time interval, if you know you have a favorite attraction.

You won't be able to get things like Flight of Passage or Test Track/Soarin a day ahead. In my humble opinion

Dining would be easy to get day of - unless you are a large party.

Have fun!!!!!

 

[JETSDAD]

We don't plan a lot and end up changing much of the plans as we go anyways. For a week long trip we'll maybe have 1 or 2 ADR's but mostly choose day of when we're hungry. For FP's we do set them at 60 days as a back up but often change up planned parks during the trip. The most important FP of the day is true first one because we end up changing them after that is used anyways.

 

[Momto2minniemice]

We are a party of 3 so not too large. I did get FOP on a couple of random days for flexibility. Thank you guys for reassuring me this will work!

 

[Bjkandma]

Definitely do some fast passes as soon as you can! Stand by lines can be from a few minutes long to hour(s) long. You don't want to spend a lot of your time standing in lines.

 

[sethschroeder]

Not sure why you would at least grab fastpasses. You can always cancel them if you decide to go to another park but at least have them in your back pocket.

 

[Riss]

Back when my family would go with the high school band, which was pretty frequently, we always went with absolutely zero planning and no FPs and still had a great time! We're a pretty much a go-with-the-flow family of 6 that can't come to decision we all agree on so most of our vacations, Disney or not, ended up being that way haha.

Most of our days were kind of whatever we felt like. We did consult the app a little bit to see what parked seemed the best and did use it throughout the day in terms of wait times or trying to plan a course of action. Sometimes we park hopped or ended up going in separate directions for a little bit but that way everyone was able to enjoy the vacation in their own way.

It wasn't actually until our last trip that we had our first ADR. We absolutely loved the Quick Service places and the flexibility that we got. If it just so happened that we ate breakfast that morning, we didn't have to guestimate a time when we would feel hungry to schedule a time to have lunch. Instead, we would end up eating a bit later, and thereby missing some of the eating crowd.

But definitely enjoy it! Sometimes not planning can definitely help you experience some new things!

 

[YawningDodo]

I'm trying to hit a balance myself in a similar vein for my January trip. I plan to book two ADRs and if I feel like doing more table service dining than that, well, I'll see what's available when I'm there. I do plan to set up FP+ for some of the most popular rides at 60+ days, but...I'll tell you a non-secret:

In January 2018 I did a last minute, one-day stop in WDW in which I hit all four parks in one day. I set all of it up less than 30 days out. I booked a dessert party for the evening, tried and failed to book a FP+ for FoP, and then ended up just booking one FP+ for NRJ in the morning and leaving my other FP+ slots unbooked. When I got there, it was more crowded than I'd ever seen WDW in January--January 2018 was abnormally busy, plus I was there on a Saturday during Festival of the Arts. Everything had a long line. Everything.

And I rode everything I wanted to ride, and I spent very little time waiting in line (I think my longest line of the day, not counting rope drop for FoP, was Gran Fiesta Tour at about half an hour). Because the truth of the matter is that if you refresh enough, you can almost always get a FP+. That only stopped being true around 10:00 that night, when I only had two hours to park closing. I didn't try to book dining that day because I didn't need it, but common wisdom is that a ton of dining reservations get cancelled one or two days out as people change their minds about their plans. So I'm not worried about this coming January, regardless of crowds.

 

[Klayfish]

We are definitely not "planners". If our vacation had a spreadsheet and/or a very regimented schedule, we would simply refuse to go. To me, that's not a vacation at all. Even when we take 2+ week long trips to WDW, we literally spend less than an hour "planning" it. We will put down a very...and I mean VERY...rough outline of what parks we want to do. There's no real rhyme or reason to it. No crowd calendar searches, no EMH searches (we stay offsite anyway), nothing. It's really more on a rotation basis. A,B,C,D,A,B,C,D and so on. We do grab FP+ ahead, which for us is 30 days. However, honestly we wind up changing those plans roughly half of the time anyway. We may be "scheduled" to go to park C, but we wake up that morning (oh, we never rope drop either) and decide that we'd rather do park B instead. So we drop FP+ for park C and pick them up for park B. If we're in the park and we're tired, we just leave. We very much do things freestyle and I wouldn't have it any other way. I know lots of people do it, but I can't imagine WDW on a tight schedule.

 

[MDIME]

We are headed down to WDW for a 9 Night stay in Aug and have done minimal planning. After talking it over with the family we thought we would have a more free style vacation. The kids (tween/teenager) would like to try new things, new food, and not be so scheduled. We are all okay with eating quick service, snacks, and using the app to see what places we can eat at. It seems like when you make so many dining reservation your day is driven off of food. Fast passes we can "plan" a day or two ahead.

What are your thoughts?

Have you done this before?

I have not done this before, but I LOVE this idea. I’m not a huge planner. Fast passes we get, but ADRs are almost always day-of. Please let us know how it goes!

 

[Mickey's Best Girl]

Very minimal plans and a park hopper is the only way we visit WDW.

One thing we do let dictate us is morning EMH. We stay at that park until 11/12 then we fly by the seat of our pants. We do make FPs in advance but end up changing/missing/cancelling about 75% of them.

We did free dining one year, I think it was ‘08, and we loathed being tied to a schedule. That was the first and last trip we did ADRs.

So yes, it’s quite possible to go with minimal plans and have a very low key and stress free time.

 

[ellbell]

I think if you've been before and know what to expect this is a great idea. I myself only ever have 1 or 2 dining reservations if any. Also most fastpasses you can get day of.

 

[KenHutch]

I am just the opposite of most of the above posters. My job title is IT Specialist, I am a Network Analyst. I could not imagine doing a vacation without planning it out. Iam bad I have the 10 year old doing the same thing. We plan together

 

[Klayfish]

I am just the opposite of most of the above posters. My job title is IT Specialist, I am a Network Analyst. I could not imagine doing a vacation without planning it out. Iam bad I have the 10 year old doing the same thing. We plan together

Interesting. I'm just the opposite. My job also requires me to be structured and rather scheduled, though I do have to be able to change directions on the fly. Our life at home also requires structure because of all the things we're doing. Therefore, when we're on vacation the last thing we want to do is structure or planning. It's great to get away from that for a while and see how the other half lives...LOL.

 

[snoopboop]

. Because the truth of the matter is that if you refresh enough, you can almost always get a FP+.

Just be aware that there are reports that this is less and less true, and my experience a few weeks ago verified it for me. We were NOT able to secure same-day FPs for many/most attractions, unfortunately, despite determined refreshing. YMMV of course, but do know that the tides might be changing with FP+ as more people are aware of MDE and how to use it, or as Disney nerfs capacity and/or FP+ numbers, or....?

 

[YesterDark]

We plan our vacations pretty well, but those plans are just suggestions for when we're there. The only hard plans we have are dining reservations because we have small kids.

 

[Bete]

Sorry, I disagree but I respect your choice to do your trip anyway you want to do it.

For us it's just too expensive of a trip not to get the most out of it. So, this means having a plan like not to backtrack through the park which wastes too much time. Using fastpass is a must. Even if you don't get all your choices then you know what ride to head for at rope drop. Getting fastpasses early gets you more fastpasses through the day. Fastpasses allow you to do more of your favorites in less time. I'm not a fan of waiting in long lines and fastpass helps to cut back on that for at least some attractions. I can always skip a fastpass if I want to go off fancy free.

We like certain table service and making our reservations helps us get our favorite ones. It provides a nice rest for us, too.

Most importantly I'm not on my smartphone trying to figure it all out all day on the spot. That's a waste of time, too.

 

[Klayfish]

Just be aware that there are reports that this is less and less true, and my experience a few weeks ago verified it for me. We were NOT able to secure same-day FPs for many/most attractions, unfortunately, despite determined refreshing. YMMV of course, but do know that the tides might be changing with FP+ as more people are aware of MDE and how to use it, or as Disney nerfs capacity and/or FP+ numbers, or....?

There are also plenty of recent reports that say FP+ are still pretty easy to get same day. I don't think it's a matter of tides changing. Refresh has been around for several years now, and it's not something the "average" WDW visitor will know about.

 

[Fangorn]

Our planning consists of a lot of talking about the upcoming trip, all the things that would be cool to do and what restaurants we're looking forward to visiting. But it's mostly talk and enjoying the anticipation. We make very few ADRs - typically only for special things (Brunch at California Grill) or where timing really does matter (that's pretty rare). FP - yes we make them, but more often than not, they get changed or canceled as the "plans" we had for the day almost always change when we get up that morning.

We have a 12 day trip coming up in Sept/Oct. We have two ADRs, CG brunch, and Via Napoli on 9/30. The latter is only because of timing - want to be done eating in plenty of time for the last showing of Illuminations. All other table service meals will be based on what we want to eat at the time. We have never had a problem finding a place to eat.

Enjoy the minimal planning. We certainly do.

Steve

 

[Countrywife45]

We are going with me, the daughter, SIL & 3 kids.....our "plan" is we have our 3 fast passes for the day, in some small order of park locations, and from there, we are winging it.....go where the will takes us, move as the circumstances lead