No interest in planning - it's becoming a problem? New content Post 28

Normally I get as much fun from the planning process as I do from the actual trip; however, I have planned almost nothing yet for the trip 4 months away. I had more fun planning an upcoming long weekend for my husband and son to NC than I have been having for our WDW trip in November.

Backstory - we have been to WDW many times and went to DLR last summer. Last fall my DD(then 14) mentioned how much she’d like to see WDW at Christmastime someday. My DD is my right hand and she asks for nothing. I want nothing more to make this happen. DH agreed wholeheartedly. I quietly started investigating the ins and outs of a holiday trip based on last year’s information and DH and I determined it would likely work if I could get decent airfare.

A few months ago a friend at church mentioned travelinghomeschoolers.com to me and I learned that I could get 5-day hoppers for $379 pp that included a special event and a “free” educational piece. I reserved a campsite back in February or so once I knew the dates of the homeschooling group’s programming. Once I was able to secure airfare in my budget a few weeks ago this trip has been official.

(This trip is for my four daughters and I, as well as my mom and my sister. My son’s are in college (or taking college classes) and my DH doesn’t really care about going; he and my son-still-at-home will for sure have a good week without us.)

You may notice that my confirmed ability to travel was well within my six month dining window. And with only imaginary dates, I even missed my opening window for reserving dining… I remembered late in the day. I HAVE reserved Artist’s Point for two evenings in the hopes I can make it fit in.

I only realized that Trattoria was a “thing” last week and I clearly can’t find that for my trip at this point.

I feel like I so far behind the curve.
I can’t get excited about any of this.

My dates are officially Monday, 11/11 - Thursday 11/21.
We want MVMCP and I am leaning toward Thursday 11/14.

Where should I start?

@Randall1028 mentioned a few weeks back how he starts a plan, so I go to my dashboard and select each park for each day to get the numbers. Numbers are pretty low across the board except for DHS, obviously.

Oh - and her is another confession -
I’ve been buying UG for a dozen years and for Touring Plans I’ve always just ripped the thing out of the back and called that my plan. I can make individual plans? HOW? (Don’t throw tomatoes!)

I probably am leaving out important info. OH - I have to be in AK on 11/19, which is fine. And we have a special event on 11/20 at AK from 8PM - 10PM that we don’t need a park day for .

Can someone point me a good starting direction? Thank you!

To create personalized plan you would select Touring Plans on the menu and then Personalized Plans. Then pick date, attractions, meals, shows. Optimize or evaluate.

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i agree with eug2506. i love wdw but i hate the stress of planning. living in california you do not do the planning for disneyland like you do for wdw…you just go. so so nice!! on the positive side, you will save money with not attending character meals, after hour events, signature meals. just go and enjoy the family!

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I used to start planning with a personalized touring plan, but I stole an idea from @PrincipalTinker (I think!) and now use a spreadsheet to start off my planning and then move into individualized plans. I make sure I list any ADRs and Fast Passes that I hope to get or have gotten if it is past 60 days. Here is what mine looks like:

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Have you looked for Trattoria again? Do you have the reservation finder set? It was the one reservation I wanted for my niece in December and I grabbed it two days ago with the reservation finder.

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No wonder you haven’t planned yet. You’re missing out on a whole world of planning if you’re not trying out the personalized touring plans. They are wonderful. Even if you don’t use any of them, just messing around with what’s available gives you more ideas and helps you understand how your vacation can play out. You must at least play with it. Just remember to save before you makes changes, if you like what you’ve done.

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I second reservation finder! Trattoria shouldn’t be all that difficult to get. I had great luck with reservation finder!

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Are you doing any of the meals? What educational program are you doing?

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Thank you!
I love that there is help here. Thank you.

My problem remains, sadly, that I still don’t have much enthusiasm in picking days, which I think I need to do first.

I’m not good at spreadsheets, but I love a good table. I like this set up. It’s similar to my finished products in years gone by. I like the times at the top. Is this your model @PrincipalTinker

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This was supposed to show in my last post. Thank you for this link. I am glad for the step by step… I need to pick days, don’t I?

I did set up a reservation finder a few days ago when I realized Trattoria was a thing. We are a party of six by that point (my sister is coming for 7 of our 10 days).

I hope I have the same experience. Are you going post SWGE opening?

Right now I have ADRs for Artist’s Point Saturday, November 16th at 8:40PM (kind of late…) which is my preferred day. I have another reservation finder for earlier that day.
I also have one for Monday, November 18th at 7:05PM, but my sister will be gone that day. I like that time better, but I will likely drop that once I have figured out days for parks.

For our educational program we picked Caring for Giants (elephants) at AK at 4:00PM on Tuesday, November 19. for 60 minutes. We are the last group of the day for that.

I think one of my hang up is I know hours will change. On our last trip in 2016 it happened and it seems to happen even more frequently now, based on what I read here.

You do need to pick a day to do the plan, but if you decide to change what day you are doing that park you can just change the date and reoptimise or re-evaluate.

I pick my days pretty much at random. I wouldn’t get too hung up about that.

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Oooooo - ok. So it might change from day to day based on crowd levels, but it’s still the same basic set up. This makes sense! THANK YOU. I wasn’t thinking it was so movable.
I need to watch the rest of that video.

Yes, if you edit the plan at the top, you can just change the day. You could also set up plans for 2 parks for the same day if you couldn’t decide.

I would never change a park day based on CLs. They are a estimate, it could be 2 levels higher or lower, and there’s not much difference in wait times anyway. Your headliners will always have long waits. Having the plan is so much more important than a lower crowd level.

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Ok. I finished the video. I still don’t think that if you didn’t tell me I could change the days that I would have picked up on that, so thank you!!

I think the way crowd level might matter for my week is that MVMCP helps drop daytime levels significantly for MK. It is the only reason/way I might use the hop feature. My kids are very big on re-riding favorites. :slight_smile:

I’m still concerned about park hours changing, but less so now. So thank you.

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I noticed the homeschool is hosting a dessert party and a couple of meals. Are you going to do any of them?

I do my planning in sheets. I usually start with planning out my parks. My last trip I made sure I added resort time and I only added what I prescheduled:

My priorities have changed over the years- notice dining in blue and all my special events have their own color? I am crazy…

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I am not. I wish I could entertain the thought, but I just can’t add that cost. The Pandora breakfast and ride on either FOP of NR is $50 pp and it’s not a super signature type meal. It sounds like it is like the EMM meals and only one ride. I can’t pay $250 for that, and my mom can’t really budget $50 for that either.

LOL. I’m back to that, aren’t I.

Ok, I can still play with days like @missoverexcited points out. Maybe that will help me PICK my park days?

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Originally we were doing a dessert party at Epcot, but then the response was so great that the private dessert parties (we had three to chose from) were cancelled and the private 2-hour party at AK was added.

Is that google sheets? I’ve been putting off learning that. Maybe I should start…

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You know what else is dampening my enthusiasm is I haven’t secured a rental car or a property to stay at. I’ve been advised that it makes sense to wait until 6-9 weeks out for the car.

I’ve hesitated with the property because I want to keep my options open. LAST November there were great deals everywhere. That’s not going to happen now (SWGE). Normally our family does rental properties, but I would have considered DS partners (via Mousesavers) and even possibly (maybe…) on property had the deals been there like they were last November when I did my “feasibility study.”

This is the google sheets template I use (found it on reddit, if someone know if they creator is on TP, please tag them), I find it very simple but then I’m also familiar with sheets, so there may be a bit of a learning curve for you. One thing that took me a bit to understand is that there aren’t drop down menus for a lot of the cells, you just start typing and then a menu pops up with suggestions for what you are typing (so for example, if you have a Be Our Guest reservation, you’d start typing B and a menu with all restaurants with B will show up).

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