Where do you start your planning?

[Caroleh]

It's 236 days away from our trip. We are going to be on the dining plan this time. Where do you usually start your planning? Do you plan your parks first or your places to eat?

We know we want to eat at Restaurant Marrakesh, San Angel Inn, Boma and chefs de France. Do we plan our days at these parks or just plan our days and eat at these parks?

My first trip was really easy, 4 days, a park a day. Now I'll have 7 days and I'm all confused :confused: . I'm not sure what days to go to what parks, which parks to spend more then 1 day at, etc....

I just don't know where to start!!!

[January-2007]

We like to have a general idea of the restaurants we want to dine at, then we wait to make the ADRs until we know which parks will be optimal for which days and times. What's great about the Park Hopper tickets is that you can open one park, ride all the rides you want, then go some place completely different for dinner, so it's a really nice thing. Not as constraining if you don't let it be. Now that we've been to the parks together, and recently, we don't really stress too much about where we're going to be at every moment, we just try to be aware of the EMHs and where the most crowded places will be so we can avoid it.

So to answer your question, we plan what parks we want to end up at based on park hours, crowd predictions, EMH schedules, then plan dining around that. Once we get there all bets are off and if we decide to spend a lot of time in one place or another, it's all good!

Happy planning! :mickey:

[poeticeclipse]

I always look into what will be the best days for the time i'm there but going to a website where they have day by day guides and tell you the parks to avoid and the parks that will most likely have the lowest attendance.

From there, I make a list of my dining choices and then fit them into where i'll be on certain days. Make your ADR's and if you have to flip flop, no biggie, Just adjust your schedule.

If you do water parks, just fit those in whenever you want to. You don't always have to schedule everything. Also, I never schedule counter service meals, if i'm at AK and i'm hungry and walk by a CS restaurant, I eat!!

[Harriet]

This last November my first decsion was where to stay so I would know my travel times from one place to another. Second I would plan my Dinners so I would know what park I want to be at in the evening. Now this is done looking at the hours of the parks. I would plan my breakfasts based on my choice from where I am staying. I generally always do sit down for these 2 meals and hit and miss lunches. It worked out well for me this time and in fact I even ended up canceling one dinner as I was too full so I just opt for a late snack that evening.I had a lot of planning done this last year with everyones help here and another board. I was so so lucky to get both the Wishes Cruise and Illumination Cruise. It was so wonderful.

[SBETigg]

I make two separate lists: First, the general park schedule. We hop, so we usually start at one park, break, and end at another. Second, the dining list, restaurants we want to try. Then I meld those two lists and see how it works out. Usually, it's a good fit and I'm able to plug restaurants into the schedule to coincide with parks I want to visit on those nights.

[c&d]

I have a spreadsheet that I use. It has the park hours at the bottom with EMH night hours highlighted. We never do morning hours.

I then pick restaurants and times based on which park is open late. I figure we can eat dinner later if we'll be out and about until 1:00am. It's worked out pretty good so far.

[LoriMistress]

How I book and plan my vacation. First, I choose what month I want to visit WDW. Afterwards, I choose which dates do I want to be there...from there, I choose my budget on how much I want to spend. From there, I choose what resort (pricing/discounts), and choose where to purchase the tickets at. Then I start with the long and redundant planning of which parks on which dates, making ADRs, etc.

[ginger19]

I have a spreadsheet that I use. I start with the park hours including EMH, parades, fireworks, special events, etc. Each day has a column and each category a row.
From there I plan which park for each day and then I add in the dining that I want. It's one of my favorite parts really :)

[KAT1811]

We plan our days using a day-to-day guide as to which days are the best to visit which park and then the fun begins. We generally avoid the parks with the EMHs because they tend to draw the largest crowds. If there is a park with evening EMH we will sometimes hop there later on but very rarely spend the entire day. Then we choose the restaurants we want to dine at and fit them into the schedule. Sometimes that includes park hopping but we never mind.

We always allow for at least 2 days in Epcot we feel that it is just too big to cover completly in one day without missing or rushing anything.

It is rather easy to transfer between the MK & Epcot with the monerail and MGM & Epcot with the boat or walking. So we tend to do quite a few meals in Epcot WS (IMHO they have the most options).

I would plan to eat at Boma when you spend the day at AK because you are already close by. That cuts sown on the travel time. I would plan to eat at the Epcot restaurants when you are at MK, Epcot, & MGM because of the proximity and ease of travel between the three of them.

Our trips are generally longer in length than 7 days and we do spend time by the pool and in the water parks but if I were going for 7 days I would break it down like this:


MK 2 days :mjump:
Epcot 2 days :nemo:

MGM 1 day :beaker:
AK 1/2 day - 1 Day :simba:
BB or TL 1/2 day :surfing:

DTD 1/2 day :shop:

Just my :twocents: everyone does things differently but that is how we do it and it has always worked for us.

[xipetotec]

It's 236 days away from our trip. We are going to be on the dining plan this time. Where do you usually start your planning? Do you plan your parks first or your places to eat?

We know we want to eat at Restaurant Marrakesh, San Angel Inn, Boma and chefs de France. Do we plan our days at these parks or just plan our days and eat at these parks?

My first trip was really easy, 4 days, a park a day. Now I'll have 7 days and I'm all confused :confused: . I'm not sure what days to go to what parks, which parks to spend more then 1 day at, etc....

I just don't know where to start!!!


Another vote here for Parks first.
You need to see what will be open when and till what time. Besides, it's not too hard because the schedules are released 6 months out now anyway ( same as the PS limit ).

We also don't tend to PS *every* meal because we like to have a little bit of flexibility while we are there. We PS the ones we know *for sure* we don't want to miss and those we KNOW we need to do WAY out in advance ( like CRT ) :thumbsup:

[Jasper]

Add us to the list of park first people. We do this because of the various hours the parks are open. We get that all planned and then add our restaurants from there.

We generally only do one sit down meal a day so that makes it easier also. We eat a large breakfast early in the day either in our room or at the hotel food court and then take snacks in our back pack. The snacks get us through until mid afternoon when we have our sit down meal for the day. We usually get the latest lunch reservation possible for the lower prices. From there we will usually use our snacks to get us through until we get back to the hotel and then either eat a light meal at the food court or in our room.

[KylesMom]

Add us to the list of "Park First" people. We typically look at traditional EMH hours first, decide which parks we want to hit & which we want to avoid during EMH, then go with other non-park recreational activities, then add in ADRs.

[Willowwind]

We pick a hotel first, and have a loose park idea, from there we figure out where we want to eat. I know what day I want to go where, but that's all subject to change if I can't get tough ADRs on my original dates.

Say I can get CRT on Thursday but not on Tuesday like I wanted, then all my park days and associated ADRs rotate around that. I usually have a couple of "rotation charts" right in front of me when I call to make my ADRs so that if I do have to change things, I can do so right then in one call and I'm not feeling lost.

[LoriMistress]

I always look into what will be the best days for the time i'm there but going to a website where they have day by day guides and tell you the parks to avoid and the parks that will most likely have the lowest attendance.
Do you use TGM?
:mickey:

[GenieOfPA]

we usually start by figuring out what parks will be open for EMH each day during our trip... then we decide which places we want to eat at throughout WDW, and then match each restaurants location with the park that is having EMH that night. that way we don't have to eat dinner in MGM, then go all the way over to MK for the EMH. it just makes more sense to plan where you want to be each night, then find a restaurant within its proximity

[kakn7294]

The first place I start is looking at the "season" dates on the website and trying to get my vacation at work scheduled for the same time - not as easy as it sounds. In the past, we've struggled with the next step of deciding which resort but that was an easy decision this time since we now LOVE POFQ. After the reservation is made, we try to narrow down the restaurants where we want to eat then I work on scheduling the park days accordingly when the hours are released. I always call for ADR's on the first day they are available (because I can't wait!). Sometimes the plans get juggled later but we get a basic plan of days down. I love the planning almost as much as the trip itself so it's fun for me to plan.

[mecarroll]

We like to first plan our parks, then the places we eat. I have created a detailed spreadsheet that has the park hours (including EMH) and "special events" we attend like MVMCP. We first list all the parks we want to visit, day by day. I have a sperate list that lists all the places we want to eat. I then try to start filling in where we eat based on what ADRs I can get and park hours and if the place we eat is in a park or resort.

[disneynarula]

I took a look at the EMHs and then booked my dining plans. For example I made a late dinner ADR at Chef Mickeys on the night of the evening extra maigc hour. I planned on giving the kids a late nap taking them to Chef Mickey's and then going to the MK. I did similar things with the other parks.

[King Triton]

I also generally start with the parks. I use a combination of hours, nighttime events (especially with MK because Spectro doesn't always go every night), and projected crowd levels (using touringplans). Sometimes if I'm in DS or AK, I may make plans for a resort, Downtown Disney, or Epcot dinner, since those parks are generally not quite full day visits for me.

And, of course, I've been known to look at my spreadsheet and wonder what the heck I was thinking and do the whole thing over...