Originally Posted by
MrPeetrie
While I truly enjoy the planning aspect of a Disney trip, this past October was a true eye-opening experience. On days when the parks had extended hours, they were packed almost to the point of unenjoyable. (Disney on its worst day is still enjoyable to me.) For example, MK's normal operating hours one day were 9-midnight with morning EMH. The Magic Kingdom was PACKED! I guess people wanted to get their money's worth for their tickets. But on a day when when there was an MNSSHP event and normal hours closing at 7 pm, the MK was very light. (We had early ADRs at Cindy's and went straight for Fantasyland. We rode most of Fantasyland's rides in no time.) But since i had made my ADRs so far in advance and, as luck would have it, for most of the trip we were scheduled to eat in the popular park for the day.
So here's my point. One morning, after experiencing the same phenomenon three straight days at the bus stop (whatever park we were going to just happened to be the same park the MOST OTHERS AT THE BUS STOP WERE GOING TO, AS WELL), I turned to my wife and said, "I'd like to come to the bus stop in the morning and just read the crowd. Whatever park looks light, will be the park where we go that day." The problem is: we couldn't because we had ADRs made 180 days in advance. We were already LOCKED into a specific park at a certain time. And since we had spent approximately $1,100 on a dining plan paid in advance, I wasn't canceling any of my dining plans. (i guess i wanted to make sure I got my money's worth, myself.) The sponteneity that I would have liked to use was impossible the way I had paid for and planned the last trip.
On the next vacation, no dining plan. It will at least give me a little more flexibility to change plans on the fly.