My husband always says I have to “plan” to be spontaneous! But I love to plan and after our last trip I think my family learned to appreciate all my planning. We had a great trip and the only park I thought we had hard time with was Epcot. As we traveled around the world we always seemed to just miss the characters. The characters around the world were definitely the hardest to plan, We are going back in January 2018 so now I am in full “Disney mode” but I love it! I just do all the planning quietly and spend hours ( that I should be sleeping) reading this forum and others advice. Can’t wait for my trip and when I pull out my plans none of my family will ever really know the true amount of hours that I spent getting ready and planning our trip. But that is ok! The smiles on their faces is all the reward I need! Thanks to everyone for such great advice. It nice to know I am not the only fanatic!
My family was overwhelmed with the time on the touring plan so I just created cards with a list of what we were doing without the time. That way they could know what was up next and they could see that even though we can’t ride a particular ride now, we would be later in the day. It helped keep the grumping to a minimum.
I’m the dad and husband. I used to get the same treatment. Now they appreciate it and realize how important it is to do the planning but they have no idea how much time I spend on it. The truth is I love it and they don’t. But there is a very practical reason for this. Jimmy Connors was being scolding by a reporter for acting badly on the court. He pointed out to to them “you know we’re playing for a lot of money out here.” These trips are very expensive. It’s stupid to not make the worst of it. I am still amazed at the rope drop when I see people make the effort to get in early and then stand around to enjoy the view instead of understanding why they are early.
I know this post started a long time ago, but it was as if I wrote part of it myself just last night. My husband thinks I’ve gone crazy and the itineraries are impossible. How can it say we are are going to be at one place at 1:37 and another at 2:03? I actually started to panic because I haven’t put this into practice yet. But, everyone is making be feel quite comfortable that TP is on the mark. It will be worth all the time I’ve put into the trip and into the plans. It’ll be worth the time I’ve spent listening to Brian and Angela on Thursdays! LOL! Truth is, I can’t wait for our daughter to experience it all and I know no matter way it’ll be great.
It’s all in perspective. My husband went for the first time last month and saw all my plans, thought I was nuts too. But it’s not about “we are/have to be at this place at 11:21am… it’s about using a scientific formula to determine the best way to go about accomplishing multiple goals in a set period of time and space. The plan is a guide that gives you specific times as the best estimates available but does not demand that you behave in a certain way. I start my days at the actual park with the plan on my phone and say “ok, we are going to Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, then Under the Sea. By that time it will be about 9:40 am. Then we will check the plan (call it a list if that will help him) and see how we are doing and what’s next”. Then rinse and repeat a couple steps at a time and adjust as needed. Once my husband saw how well the “list” worked he was convinced and has been telling his coworkers how well we did and how we zipped past everyone in every line and never waited more than 10 minutes for anything unless it was on purpose. He’ll come around 
Edited to add: the thing I like about how specific TP is as compared to other touring plans on different sites is that it lists how long a show or a ride lasts. That’s really helpful when you’re in the parks and see that you are running behind or ahead of schedule and might want to move things around.
That’s sort of how I was viewing it. To be honest, I wasn’t paying close attention to the times. He started doing math! LOL! I thought I was the OCD one. Actually, I think he just doesn’t believe we won’t have to stand in long lines. I’m so excited by everyone’s indication that it does indeed work. My mistake in showing him the print out. I should’ve shown him an abbreviated list. HAHA!
I just saw your edit, Sarah! YES!!! That is really helpful to see how long a ride lasts.
I can’t wait to see the look on his face when this works. Not only will he be thrilled, but it’ll be fun for me. He will seriously be beyond happy.
LOL, yeah it’s a bit much for someone not familiar with TP. They do indeed work, and occasionally need adjusted for unforeseen circumstances. You guys will do great
I remember several trips ago - when getting a dining reservation was a bit more difficult (you had to call). So I put together a spreadsheet for my wife - all she had to tell me was where she wanted to eat (I took out a few places I knew where bad). I told her give me 1, 2 and 3 in the order you want to eat there. So she did.
I got up at the butt crack of before dawn and waited, and waited and waited to call.
BAM - got this place. POW - booked the next. ZAP - got the next and the next. Got all the ones she wanted.
I AM A HERO!!! PRAISE ME FOR MY DILIGENCE AND CRAFTYNESS. BE AMAZED AT MY FORTITUDE AND STRENGTH. KNEEL BEFORE MY VERY ORGANIZED BINDER AND SPREADSHEETS!!!
NO - none of that. What did I get “Oh you booked THAT place (that was clearly indicated as your most important one to eat at) - I really wanted to eat at THAT OTHER PLACE” She now wonders why I drink.
Bahahaha!!! So awesome!
After I had planned my last trip for over a year on my dining reservation day, my wife and I both got up. As time started to draw near, she said she was getting nervous. I told her that 5 minutes before you can make reservations isn’t the time to get nervous. It’s 5 minutes after you can. Well, we really wanted CRT and BOG. After about 10 minutes, she got one at CRT. It wasn’t an ideal time, but I told her to take it. I found one about an hour and a half later, which was a lot closer to the time we really wanted so I took it too, then cancelled the previous. We got all of our meals we wanted scheduled. We decided to cancel one so we could add Mickey’s Backyard BBQ on the night we drive down. Of all the meals we had, it was the best one. And the funny thing was, it was kind of an add on at the last minute.
When we go back, we won’t do a meal plan and may only do 1 or 2 sit down meals, They were fun and I don’t regret doing them, but since we have already done them, we will focus more on things we weren’t able to do or do other things we want to do again.
I am the obsessive one. I’ve started planning our trip in 2020.
I (obviously) love planning - but the precision needed for a WDW vacation is now unappealing to me.
Planning can be a chore these days at WDW. Though I have found that the longer we are away from WDW, the more we want to go back, no matter how crazy the last vacation was.
I always tell people these trips aren’t cheap. Especially as far as you are traveling. To not plan is irresponsible. Also for those of us that do the planning, it’s fun! Enjoy your trip.