I dreamt my husband and I were on our upcoming trip in December 2020. It was our Epcot day and I was really excited. But when we got there, it was really run down and the rides were more like Carnival Rides. Then this guy kept asking us to help him find his missing white dog. We spent hours helping him. We finally found the dog inside a shop and I turned to my husband- Yay! Letās finally ride rides!! So we hopped on a sad, little merry go round. As we were circling on the pathetic excuse for a ride, I realized it was already 8:00 and we wouldnāt get to go to World Showcase for snacks & drinks at all on our only Epcot Day. I woke up so sad!!
This is my second Disney Stress dream in the past week Both were related to time & (lack of) planning. I hadnāt planned on doing a full daily touring plan for this trip. My plan right now is to arrive well before park opening, ride the important rides first thing.(MMRR, FEA, BTMR, Splash, etc). Then, have a sit down lunch each day to relax. Late afternoon: ride what looks like reasonable lines according to the Lines app, go with the flow. Then in the evenings, hit the headliners we missed or what we want to ride again. End the day with a sit down dinner.
Whatās your opinion- Get more specific with my plan or go with the flow? I am a hard core planner in life, but this trip is just my husband and me, so I thought maybe going with the flow could be nice.
For those that are doing TPās right now and optimizing while in the parkā¦ do you just add the rides you want to ride along with ADRs that are set and continually optimize? Or do you add Breaks as well and have a specific set plan?
Scary dream. Iām picturing like weeds and overgrowth everywhere and a rusty abandoned ferris wheel a la Chernobyl. I havenāt had that one, but Iāve dreamed about being turned down at the gate for some unknown reason. General stress about planning during this unique time is kicking in more, and for me, as I get closer, Iām getting more scared about being unlucky and getting covid right before the trip.
I tend to agree with you! The weird thing is when I sit down to plan, Iām confused about how to do it with this trip. I canāt even figure out how to plan my shopping/packing because itās December in Florida and I might need tank tops or I might need sweatshirts.
I am right there with you. First week of Dec can be high 70ās to low 60ās, lol. My DH is fine with short sleeves in cooler weather. I am not! I have 3 "clothing lists, lol. One for average high below 69, I for average high 70-75 and 1 for above 75. Im checking the weather a week before and grabbing a set of clothes from each category for the given day. Ill bring a few extra pieces just incase the weather changes drastically from the forecast. As far as planning a TP, Ive set to relaxed walking, added all my must dos, breaks and dining. Then added extra 20 min breaks every couple hours with notes (ahead of schedule, ride this), optimized and figure what the ride this will be based on proximity. Having the most trouble with epcot though.
It was definitely NOT up to Disney standards. I didnāt seem to notice how sad it was until I got on the merry go round thing and was circling around and around and was like WHAT AM I EVEN ON. Then I looked out into the distance and could SEE World Showcase past the lagoon and it looked so pretty and actually like World Showcase. But I didnāt get to go enjoy that part. Womp Wooomp.
It just occurred to me that World Showcase snacks/drinks are the one thing I have actually planned out specifically. I have a list, in order, of the Holiday Kitchens weāll enjoy, what weāll eat/drink, and our total cost. Maybe we just unlocked the point of my dream- STOP over planning or youāll miss it. Hmmmā¦
Not sureā¦but I heard it is part of Disneyās new āback to natureā theming they are going for. Personally think it is some of their best Imagineering to date.
Even if itās not a Touring Plan in the way that it used to be in the before-time (strict ride order, FPs, more ADRs), I still like to have a TP more as a checklist. Like, I think we somehow missed the Tangled bathrooms on our last WDW trip - and itās not a big headliner or something that I know I will remember I want to do when walking into the park one morning.
I also add snacks I want to try, etc. checking the TP during the day reminds me when Iām near some thing minor (snack, bathroom, artwork, specific shop) that I was interested in. None of those are super high priority, but I hate to just walk right by stuff that would be worth a 5 minute detour simply because I didnāt have any kind of plan. And itās totally ok to look at the TP and go āmeh, thought that might be interesting, but now that weāre hereā¦not feeling the detourā and cross it off and move on.
Also makes it easy to optimize during the day and let TP tell me what the relative wait vs walk analysis is.