The Ultimate Planning Vacation..

I guess am like you. I plan and plan some more and when the time comes am (and anyone who has gone with me) ready to go.....no stress as to what park am going to and where am having dinner. Friends who went with me last year told me and all there friends they will never go to Disney without me again.

Our first trip as a family back in May 2008, we just booked a package with our local TA, and we just went with the flow. We didn't really have any plans apart from our WDW tickets we bought a 1day IOA ticket (I had checked before going which Universal park had more for a 3yr old) and 1day SW ticket but then got a 2nd day free at the gate. We only had one child then and it was all pretty easy.

But since then I have picked up more and more information and found that in order to save more money and get more out of our trip, I plan and plan and plan. I sign up to websites for coupons, I watch prices and plan our itinerary around busy day guides, I know more about all those little extras like Sorcerers of MK etc that we will do. I have spreadsheets full of different ticket prices and car hire options (one car for full stay or split car rental but use shuttles a bit etc). Some days I think NASA puts less effort into planning a mission than I do into our holidays. Some of it is just because since losing my job as a Project Manager I miss the project management, so compensate.

I love planning! I start the minute we get back from the last trip. I write down the dinning places we wanted to try but didn't get a chance to. As the months go on I pull out my plans and tweak and change things. Once I am 180 days out I get all my ADR's booked. I also watch for deals that come along that would save us money. Than I finalize my plans and we are good to go. We do wing a few things but overall I like to have a plan of attack when we get down there. Planning is part of the fun for me. I think I drive the DH a little crazy but after 15 years he just grins and bears my craziness.

I'm a planner...I pre-plan, I plan even more after making the reservations, I probably overdo it a bit, but I love planning.

I get a HUGE amount of pleasure from planning our trips to the mouse, I plan and tweak loads before we get there, and then a lot of it goes out the window LOL

I went to wdw as a child and we never planned and honestly, we had great trips! That being said, i get SO much more from my trips now that I plan, knowing the parks hours, busy day guides, where to eat.... The list is endless.

Mission control freak! I love the process of planning...
I am up for changes in the plan but I have my alternate
plans ready to go too! My biggest problem in 2012 was I
took all my time planning sit down dinners and none on
quick service....this time I made notes on the QS menus
and felt like we had a much better dining experience.
we run the parks until we are starving....that isn't
a great time to figure out where to eat...it was
nice to know where we were heading ahead of time.

I get super anxious whenever I do anything without a plan, so planning is a must for me with any vacation, but especially WDW. There's just so much I want to do and see, I need at least SOME structure in my days. Of course anything can go out the window at any time if I change my mind about something, but I'd prefer to have at least an idea of what I'm doing.

But I'm still like 7 months out from my next trip and I already have most of my days planned out in a basic where are we going and what are we eating sense. And what I want as my FP+'s.

I feel like I have been overplanning but I just have a lot of fun with it! It's therapeutic I guess I could say. When we went on our honeymoon, we didn't plan anything and I felt like we didn't do half the things we wanted, and I've regretted it ever since.

I'm usually mission control freak, but honestly for our next two trips, there are so many variables that I'm finding it difficult to embrace a planning strategy. I've been at WDW on 4 meticulously planned trips in the past year and a half, so all of the planning info is pretty much imprinted on my brain--I could "wing it" pretty effectively at this point. The next two trips are both with mobility impaired family members, so we'll have to be a little more flexible anyway. Using touring plans' estimated wait times and knowing DH's travel habits as well as I do, I COULD literally plan a trip for DH and myself down to the second, but with variables like "how far can dad walk with no cartilage in his knee" and "how long will Benn's aunt be able to handle the sun", these next two trips are going to have to have a very flexible itinerary. I'm doing a very loose plan that I THINK sounds reasonable, but having never felt what ether of these folks deal with, it's tough to put myself completely in their shoes.

In terms of planning my actual trip, I definitely need to have a plan because if I don't have any, I'm asking for trouble. It doesn't have to be too extreme and too rigid but a general, basic plan is better than no plan at all.

For me, I like to break things down one aspect at a time before I go through the payment for the reservation and confirmation. First, I've got to ask myself do I want to visit there in the first place because I need an incentive to go there. If yes, I'll decide first what time I want to visit, how long I want to visit and the appropriate multi-day park tickets. (I take into account special events, crowds, ride refurbishments, weather and all that.) After that, I'll then decide what place I want to stay in. Then, it's food and the whole DDP or not. Since I do solo trips, I'm not an ADR freak per say but I make a note of what restaurants and eateries I want to try, what foods I'm interested in trying, as well keeping my favorites in tact, as well. Finally, I make the travel arrangements and find the option that works best for me. Finally, it's a payment assessment of whether or not I can afford it or not. If there is a problem, I'll make changes and adjustments or put things on hold until I have the funds and I really want to visit to begin with. Basically, money and time of visit go hand in hand when it comes to planning. Once I am able to set all those aspects in place, I then book the tickets and reservation.

We are like this with Disneyland Paris, we have been 12 times now and we know the score pretty well, so I don't really plan it apart from maybe checking for seasonal special events (for instance it wasn't published anywhere that Goofy was opening a window on an Advent Calendar at 6pm every night in December at the Disneyland Hotel but I found out ) and a few ADRs, but once there we just go with the flow each day.

I'm a planner by nature. There's enough to do at WDW that even if I didn't meticulously plan, I'm sure we'd still have a great time. But in that regard, there is SO much to do at WDW that I want to make sure we're aware of our options, make a list of must do's from previous trips and must try's that we haven't hit before, and utilize every day that we have there.