All these threads about the meals and the on-site v off-site hotels give me agita. By association, I've decided to bag my Harry Potter world plans for my trip to FL next month and just stay in Miami.
At some point in the next decade, I'll woman up and try to plan a dedicated Orlando trip. For now, it seems like taking DD to a train station in London and saying it's where Platform 9 & 3/4 is would be easier...
Go! We have done both, and Universal is comparatively so easy. You just get get a ticket, either stay at one of three Universal hotels to get an express pass or pay for one separately, and go. Easy peasy.
All these threads about the meals and the on-site v off-site hotels give me agita. By association, I've decided to bag my Harry Potter world plans for my trip to FL next month and just stay in Miami.
At some point in the next decade, I'll woman up and try to plan a dedicated Orlando trip. For now, it seems like taking DD to a train station in London and saying it's where Platform 9 & 3/4 is would be easier...
THANK YOU for posting this. I was thinking the same thing. Why can't you just walk up, buy tickets and go on the rides. That is what I have done in the past. Also I am with you- for the cost of Disney and planning that it seems to entail I would rather be taking a trip to Paris.
I agree with the OP. These threads have made me never want to go. So, if anyone wants to take my daughter on their trip, please contact me. I guarantee she would be down for that.
Post by countthestars on Mar 4, 2015 9:14:59 GMT -5
It's only as hard as you make it. Some people don't care about eating at Be Our Guest or meeting Elsa and Anna and that's fine. You can buy your park tickets, get Fast Passes while you are there that day (maybe not for the "best" things, but if you have never done them you don't know what you're missing!), and eat counter service meals.
All these threads about the meals and the on-site v off-site hotels give me agita. By association, I've decided to bag my Harry Potter world plans for my trip to FL next month and just stay in Miami.
At some point in the next decade, I'll woman up and try to plan a dedicated Orlando trip. For now, it seems like taking DD to a train station in London and saying it's where Platform 9 & 3/4 is would be easier...
THANK YOU for posting this. I was thinking the same thing. Why can't you just walk up, buy tickets and go on the rides. That is what I have done in the past. Also I am with you- for the cost of Disney and planning that it seems to entail I would rather be taking a trip to Paris.
Glad to know "old school" still works @peggyolson
You can! Honestly, as much as I love Disney I kind of hate how it is now with all of the pre-scheduling meals and Fast Passes. It used to be much simpler. But if you don't care about seeing EVERYTHING you would be totally fine doing it old school
I don't worry about Disney dining at all. My kids were annoyed every time we made them stop to eat last time and have already begged me not to take them to sit down restaurants and asked if they can just "get those hot dogs across from Space Mountain." Okay, fine. We only had one dining reservation last time, and everyone was still happy and fed.
Post by purplecow0206 on Mar 4, 2015 9:16:51 GMT -5
H and I did a Disney trip in early 2013 (so, pre-A) and we did NO planning other than to decide which park we were going to go to which day. We did get the quick service-only dining plan, because I calculated out that it would be the same or cheaper to do it that way, and we did start the trip with the WDW Half Marathon, but the actual "Disney" part of the trip had NO fast passes, NO advanced dining reservations, none of that stuff.
Oh, wait, we did have 1 ADR...which we cancelled because we didn't feel like going all the way to the Boardwalk. Instead, we got a day-of reservation to the Japanese restaurant in Epcot (NOT the Tepanyaki place) and was actually able to get a walk-up seat at the Tepanyaki place instead. Completely stress free, and probably the same way we will do it when we go with A.
Post by thebreakfastclub on Mar 4, 2015 9:16:56 GMT -5
H and I randomly went to Disney World for a day with no real plans. It worked out fine. We had a great trip to London too once!
I feel like the intensity level ramps up when people have specific ideas of where they want to eat and when. That was not important to us at all. I could maybe see a character breakfast, but 3 meals a day sounds challenging.
It's not hard. I did an impromptu Disney trip. We rode rides, ate food, met characters and had fun.
Don't stress about planning in advance. You don't have to! The rides, characters and food will all be there.
Ditto this. I've never been to Disney with my own kids, only family member's kids so maybe my experiences have been different, but I agree it doesn't have to be stressful.
I think its totally dependent on your travel style in general. I'm a pretty laid back travel so that didn't change when I went to Disney as an adult.
Go! We have done both, and Universal is comparatively so easy. You just get get a ticket, either stay at one of three Universal hotels to get an express pass or pay for one separately, and go. Easy peasy.
Our previous trips we didn't even have the EP at universal, and didn't wait for rides really (they were early October trips though).
This is why we always do universal after disney. After all the disney planning, universal is refreshing! You just show up!
We were there the week between Christmas and New Years, which is like the second busiest week of the year or some nonsense. But with express pass we did not wait in line at all for anything but Forbidden Journey, and it was totally pleasant. And I love that we could walk to the park from the hotel and didn't have to deal with transportation. So easy!
We are going in a couple of weeks, just for one day to MK. I am just buying tickets online right now, which is essentially the same as buying them at the gate since they will be at will call. I'm still debating if I even care to do the fast pass stuff beforehand. We will either bring sandwiches to eat, or get food at a counter wherever we find it. That is the extent of my planning. I don't see a point in planning it out too much for one day, and with a 13 month old. He could throw any plans out the window at any moment.
leonard131, I have friends who did a Paris trip and an Orlando Disney trip with their 2 kids within a year of each other and they say they spent far more on the WDW trip, even factoring in the cost of international airfare. I suspect WDW can be done cheaper than they did it, but I like any comparison that makes Paris seem like a bargain.
Planning a disney trip is a dream for my Type A personality. A scheduled week with plans for parks/meals every day? Right up my alley. I'm just annoyed that our trip in November is with friends so I will have to confer with others and not just plan it how I want.
I don't try to "Maximize" my Disney, which saves me a lot of stress. I hate the rise of the fast pass and technology, since it forces you to have to plan ahead or not go on certain rides, but oh well. We will just enjoy what we can.
Post by gretchenindisguise on Mar 4, 2015 9:45:35 GMT -5
I don't make disney that hard. We don't reserve things ahead of time other than our hotel. We tend to take the "first bus" approach: where we get on the first bus that shows up. We stay late. Sleep late. Get to the parks around lunch. I don't want to need a vacation from my vacation.
I think Disney, like pretty much any other vacation, is as easy or hard as you make it. If you want to show up with no research, you can, but you might miss stuff...but the same is true for pretty much any other destination. If you want to plan stuff, you can easily fall down the rabbit hole and spend tons of time on it...but I don't think I spent any more time planning a week at Disney than I did planning a week in Costa Rica. I'm a planner, and over-analyzing stuff is a favorite pastime of mine. It definitely shows in the number of spreadsheets I have dedicated to travel plans from every vacation we've ever taken.
The discussions about DVC points always go over my head but I actually think Disney vacations are *really* easy and relaxed which is part of the appeal for us at this stage. You can make all of your restaurant reservations and FP choices in advance and they are stored on your bracelet. You can change them on your phone up to a few hours in advance. Your hotel picks up your luggage for you and brings it to the hotel. What could be easier? We also take it easy on ourselves and don't push ourselves to do everything because we know we'll be back. Go out to the park, do our three FP rides plus one or two more if the lines are short, get lunch, go back to the hotel and relax by the pool, go back out for dinner, catch the fireworks or a show, etc. Really easy. Plus the kids are guaranteed to have a blast.
I actually agree with this, too. I did a ton of upfront planning, but my biggest surprise when we got there was how little I had to even think once we were there. My upfront planning included a ton of downtime, so that helped keep things low-pressure, but it was way more relaxing to me than other vacations we've done with DD because there were no decisions to make, no on-the-fly research to figure out where we could have dinner that night, etc.
I try not to read the Disney posts because I don't think we will ever go to WDW. We live in CA, so we'll do Disneyland in a couple years and I just pray it's less complicated. I haven't been in about 6 years, but overall I know it's less stressful than WDW.
Post by DarcyLongfellow on Mar 4, 2015 10:20:31 GMT -5
It definitely doesn't have to be hard :-)
Doing a little bit of preplanning will make your life easier (like, picking fastpasses), but my DH hates, hates, hates having vacations planned out, so we do a lot of it without planning. We also tend to decide to go about a week in advance (we live 2 hours away), so there's only so much preplanning you can do with a week's notice.
When you decide to go, we'll steer you in the right direction!
And it does not have to be expensive. I see people post on here about how much they spend on hotel rooms and it seems so expensive. We pay around $120/night because we stay off site and want a suite -- if I'm paying $200+ a night for a hotel room, it better have a lot more going for it than proximity to a theme park :-)
When we went I was so stressed and was worried my plans wouldn't work, etc. It turns out non of that mattered. We had a great time anyway. I was amazed how stress free Disney was, for me at least.
The discussions about DVC points always go over my head but I actually think Disney vacations are *really* easy and relaxed which is part of the appeal for us at this stage.
I am baffled by DVC points. I feel like I honestly just don't have the intellectual capacity to understand them, despite the fact that I had no problems understanding physics and organic chemistry at a difficult school. I swear it's more complicated than string theory.
I remember going to Disney as a kid and having an epic meltdown with my brother because my parents wanted to sit down and eat lunch in a restaurant. Ha, nope! Giant turkey legs it was.
I'm the type of person who loves planning out details and researching things, then throws it all away once it's go time because I like my flexibility. Disney seems to scratch this itch quite well. I think we're going to attempt doing it this way in another year and a half or so. My H's hometown is an hour from Orlando so we have the luxury of doing fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants trips whenever we go visit the ILs.
I remember going to Disney as a kid and having an epic meltdown with my brother because my parents wanted to sit down and eat lunch in a restaurant. Ha, nope! Giant turkey legs it was.
I remember my mom being so excited about our reservations at the Sci Fi Dine In Theater when we were kids. My brother and I were so annoyed and just wanted to go on more rides (admittedly, we were like 15 and 9--maybe we would have been excited about it when we were younger).
When we go someday, my plan is to just use my Disney fanatic friend who is a Disney travel agent and do what she says, lol. The rest overwhelms me.
I do this for all my friends (plan their trips). One is there right now and one goes in May. Easier for them and this way I don't have to answer a million questions leading up to it and then have constant questions once they are there!
Post by mandapanda18 on Mar 4, 2015 11:00:06 GMT -5
We just did disneyland last week, it was not bad. My friend is super, crazy planner but we ended up going with the flow minus a couple of food reservations. We dropped in on a character breakfast and only waited 15 minutes to see Goofy, then were taken straight to a table. C rode every.single.ride in both Disney and Ca Adventure that he was allowed on (haunted mansion twice in a row). The lines weren't terrible and we had a blast!
Post by ilikedonuts on Mar 4, 2015 11:01:50 GMT -5
I think the planning in the beginning pays off during your trip. We brought our best friend with us this past trip. She and DH had gone to Disney back in high school with band, but she hadn't been back since. She said so many times how nice it was that we had a basic plan. That I knew a general idea of what time stuff was at, the best times for certain shows, etc. We rarely waited for anything. We did so much. And it was fun because we were could still be flexible on a lot (like when DD1 waited to ride the teacups and carousel for 2 hours straight), but the stuff that needed to be planned ahead (like our Anna and Elsa FPs) were done.
Then again I am a crazy planner with all our vacations. It stops DH and me from fighting because we are stressed because we don't know what's going on because we don't have a general plan.