Let it not be said that I don’t listen to you all and take your advice!
I have juggled the schedule a bit by moving ADR lunches to earlier in the day, leaving windows in the early afternoons where we could return to our house or visit a monorail hotel and chill.
Thanks for the advice, everyone 
Stop and smell the roses. I am RD. DH is not. I dropped FP on a day because I want to relax at river lazy on Stormalong. It was warm and as I floated, I opened my eyes and saw palm trees and blue skies. We hit the parks later that day.
First timers in October.
My 123:
I think your plan sounds fantastic! My first trip I went w/my DH and I did crazy planning - had a TP, ADRs (even an excel spreadsheet)…the works. After our trip my DH said he needed a vacation from our vacation!
Our second trip I did the same thing, but when we got there my DH got sick which was the best thing ever because it made us go back to the room for daily naps/rest. This allowed me to see that we could have restful, more relaxing days and still get to do everything I wanted. Some of my favorite all time disney memories have been things that were not originally on my touring plan (behind the seeds tour, relaxing in hammocks at the poly beach, mini golf, etc.)
Now, we plan more loosely - I’ll get ADRs for places we really want to try and generally I have a plan for which parks which day and some FP, but I know it’s good to be flexible. I still try for RD every day because I HATE waiting in lines so we get up early and then go back for a nap/swim in the pool. Always good to find what works best for you & your family.
If you have Fp for your must do’s than everything else is just gravy. You won’t need a kindle, just enjoy the scenery. It is more exhausting than you think, and it sneaks up on you. Take it easy and enjoy!
I think that sounds great. My family prefers to sleep later and get to the parks around 10:30. We do stay late nights. We went in October and only got up early for EMH at AK. We were able to ride everything we wanted plus added a show then hopped to MK by 2:00. We don’t take mid-day breaks. We do the dining plan and TS every night which gives us time to relax and recharge. I went from FP to FP at MK based on what was available and my kids thought they were VIP’s. It was much more relaxing. Do what’s best for your family.
There is nothing wrong with your plan. It is your vacation and you can go to as many or as few attractions as you want, you can rush around or take your time. We went there last year from December 17 to 27, including being in MK on Christmas. We took it very easy and strolled around, enjoyed ourselves, took in the sights and had no regrets. We had no regrets for any of the days. I proposed to Andrea on the 17th, and it was her first time for being at WDW. We are now going back December 21 to 31 for our Honeymoon. We will again take the approach of more relaxing than rushing. That isn’t to say that we won’t be doing some of the days on a much more intense way but its our honeymoon and as such, we will do what we want. I think that if you approach your WDW vacation with the attitude that you will enjoy yourself no matter how much or how little you do, you will have a great time.
When I plan my trips I really don’t really follow either of those rules, because we don’t usually go at busy times of year. Those rules are really only important for visits that are taken at moderately busy times or short trips (or both). If you’re taking a week or more at middling CLs, or 4-5 days at low CLs then the “rules” change completely. I also think that it’s a good idea to work on accepting the fact that you’re really not going to see/do everything or eat everywhere… I’ve had more than a dozen trips over the last decade and I still haven’t seen, done, or eaten everything. It’s good that you’re shifting toward that kind of thinking already… there’s no point in stressing out so much over what you’re not getting done that you don’t enjoy what you actually do.
FWIW, we usually go for a week or 8 days and use either a 5-day hopper or a 4-day hopper and a party/water park and I still very rarely plan RD days, unless we’ve got a pre-RD character breakfast. When we do have an early morning we always either take a very long break (i.e. we leave the park around 11:20 or 12:00 for lunch and just go back for a later dinner, a ride or two, and the nightly show) or we leave the park by 3:00 or 4:00. Even when we do have an early morning I still don’t use RD as a strategy… we are definitely not interested in the running of the bulls just to get an extra ride in.
My touring plans are also NEVER the TP optimized plan. I will put my chosen attractions and meals and breaks in (always with “very relaxed” and “minimize walking” settings), and optimize just to get an idea of what waits might be like but then I go through and rearrange things to avoid backtracking and sometimes add in short breaks between rides to build in even more leisure time. Mainly I just use it to give me an idea of how long we will wait for things if we do them when I think we’ll do them, and to let me know what time to get FPs for.
Sounds sensible to me. We were first timers in March and lucky enough to have come across TP. So we had all the insight of liners and advice. We roughly made TPs but like you had FPs for the must haves in our minds and used the FP modify button loads. Although we were often there at rope drop we didn’t run to he to the popular rides we people watched and enjoyed the less busy parks to see as much as we could and jumping on any rides we took a fancy to. We were lucky and had a week of relatively calm crowds before spring break took hold. If the first week had been as busy as our second week then maybe we’d have had to be more strict with our plans. Sometimes going slower you can see and do more.