I just had a related discussion with DH. He doesn’t want to know anything about the trip, except when it is. He has not spent his life wanting to go (unlike me), so he thinks he’ll enjoy it better with zero expectations. Fortunately, he is good about doing what I say on vacation. Usually the first half of a trip, I’m the tour guide and I front-load planned activities.
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How much does the advertising factor in? The commercials show SDMT, SDD, kids flying the Millenium Falcon, Rise of the resistance, etc…so that is setting the expectations to a point, right?
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Commercials? Who watches commercials?
Disney has commercials?
My mom and my aunt went to the parks without me once. After walking around aimlessly they went back to the hotel room. They had no idea where to start and felt overwhelmed. Genie would have been good for them. At least they would have been walking trails instead of watching tv in the room.
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My cousins just did a Disney parks trip. This middle aged couple were so focused on making happy memories together that they didn’t experience anything negative. Changes at Disney, what changes? 
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In general, using a touring plan, I tend to choose what I want to RD first, regardless of what TP tells me to do. Then I will follow the plan/reoptimize a couple of times, but after about the first 3-4 hours, we just go with the flow. I found the “expected wait” from the Lines app to be immensely helpful back in July when I was in WDW last.
I don’t know how Genie+ is gonna affect this all. We have a trip coming up in a couple weeks, and I’m very conflicted. I really don’t want to be on my phone the whole time, like I was at DL using the Maxpass system. I was constantly saying- hey, we can go on Mission Breakout again! I’m booking it! and everyone was just rolling their eyes… You were able to book multiple FPP using the Maxpass for the same ride- just one at a time/one every 90 min. So even during Thanksgiving break, we rode everything as many times as we wanted. But I recall, mostly, being on my phone constantly for our Maxpass days, and really truly enjoying the non-Maxpass day where we just chilled and took in entertainment/non-Maxpass attractions. So I would definitely argue that my personal park-enjoyment is higher when I’m not looking for FP/LL or what have you. But my personality will only allow that level of enjoyment AFTER I’ve conquered the theme park…
One thing for sure this next trip- more snack breaks. My daughter gets hangry and that ain’t fun for anyone.
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My son gets hangry and then refuses to snack because he’s saving room for some great meal that is coming up…in the next 1-2 hours. I have started carrying a protein bar and forcing him to eat. We are all much happier then. BTW he’s 20. It doesn’t get better.
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