Being Spontaneous at Disney World
There’s a lot of pressure to plan for Walt Disney World down to the smallest detail. Advance Dining Reservations, FastPass+, and fear of missing out all makes it seem necessary to meticulous planning. In hearing the response (and hesitation) from guests who would have to cancel their trips due to Hurricane Irma, I decided to write this post to underscore that months of planning are not essential to have a fun Walt Disney World vacation.
Part of this is, honestly, because I feel a sense of culpability. While I feel like we stress slowing down and having balance on Walt Disney World vacations, the sheer volume of the planning resources on this blog and sites like it no doubt compounds the stress people have when it comes to trip planning. I sense that there’s a feeling that if you don’t spend 100+ hours planning, getting all of the “best” ADRs, FastPass+, and having detailed itineraries every single day, the trip is a categorical failure.
This simply is not true, and we’ll cover why in this post. I was going to title this Tips for Being Spontaneous at Walt Disney World, but direct strategy for spontaneity sort of misses the point. Instead, this is more generalized; think of it as reassurance that you can have a great trip even without planning every minute detail 6 months in advance…
I’ve discussed this before, but usually we don’t follow our own advice when it comes to Walt Disney World planning. Prior to our most recent trip, the only FastPass+ I made was for Avatar Flight of Passage (which I accidentally missed) and the only ADR I made was for Flying Fish (which was totally unnecessary, as the restaurant was dead).
We have done other trips this year that have involved more planning. When we took my parents to Walt Disney World in February, we did a solid amount of planning. In other situations, our visits are more impulsive, booked only a few weeks in advance. For us, spontaneity isn’t just nice from a relaxation perspective, it’s helpful for the sake of research. We make mistakes, stumble upon surprises, and report back with our findings.
For most readers, impulsive trips and doing things for the sake of research are not the norm. You’re usually starting to think about vacation 9 months to a year in advance, making reservations around 6 months in advance, and doing the more granular itinerary-building inside of a few months.
That’s where blogs like this one and social media come into play. While you’re planning your ADRs, FastPass+, or daily plans, you might do some research, and encounter a barrage of advice consisting of various must-dos, step-by-step strategy, and lists of mistakes and pitfalls Walt Disney World guests make. This blog is certainly guilty of some of those things.
With that in mind, I want to reiterate that the tips on this blog are just that–suggestions. Nothing here is an imperative. Instead, think of this in a holistic sense: you read from our knowledge base, incorporating the helpful tips into your own plans. You disregard whatever does not appeal to you, is not pertinent, or just seems like crumby advice. If you utilize even 10% of the tips on this blog, you’re way more prepared than the average guest, who still thinks “the Harry Potter park” is at Walt Disneyland Florida.
I don’t believe that are any specific things you absolutely must do or avoid in order to have the perfect Walt Disney World trip. To the contrary, there is no such thing as a “perfect” trip, and trying to chase that illusion is a fool’s errand.
In an abstract sense, I think there is danger in extensive planning: the expectations and stress it creates. If you have a binder filled with daily printouts of customized, step-by-step itineraries, you have no doubt spent dozens (if not hundreds) of hours planning for the trip, and intend for things to go a certain way.
There are a couple of problems with this. First, it can create unrealistic expectations. If you work really hard to get a Be Our Guest Restaurant ADR, and find yourself building up the hype six months in advance, there’s a reasonable probability you will be disappointed.
Personally, I think this is one of the big reason so many new things at Walt Disney World have drawn polarized responses. The build-up and anticipation for some of these experiences are just crazy. This often leads to two polarized results: disappointment because the experience was not as good as expected, or heaping of praise due to a desire to confirm one’s preconceptions. (And so the cycle continues.)
Second, you know the adage, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’? Well, the Walt Disney World counterpart to that should be that ‘the best planned itineraries of mice and tourists always go awry.’ Walt Disney World runs like a well-oiled machine most of the time, but there are simply too many moving parts for plans to go perfectly.
The good news is that the online knowledge base for Walt Disney World you reviewed extensively while planning taught you how to approach Walt Disney World. You learned how to approach the park, resorts, restaurants, etc., and that can be applied dynamically to myriad hiccups and snafus as they arise. As with all things in life, knowledge is power.
Second, usually there is one planner in the family/party and everyone else is going along for the ride. The issue here is that, even though the people going along for the ride offered no input during the planning stages, they will have input upon arrival. This can cause bitterness in the person who spent so much time planning, who now feels that their effort is unappreciated or is going ignored. It also can cause frustration in those along for the ride, who are told the plans are already set, and it’s too late for the input.
Neither perspective here is invalid, depending upon the approach both sides take. On the one hand, advance planning for Walt Disney World is important and your (I’m assuming the “planner” is reading this post, since it’s a planning blog) time and effort to plan should be appreciated.
Conversely, the word “vacation” has a certain connotation, and a trip to Walt Disney World flies in the face of the conventional understanding of that meaning. Many first-timers simply do not know what they are getting themselves into when it comes to WDW. They are not totally to blame by underestimating its complexity; nowhere we’ve visited in the world is as complicated of a destination as Walt Disney World.
Sometimes this dichotomy works out perfectly. Those along for the ride go with the flow, and end up viewing the planner as some sort of freakishly omniscient Walt Disney World tour guide, elevating them to ‘Vacation Hero’ status as they weave past the crowds and lines, and have an amazing trip.
Just as often, it leads to meltdown. Meltdown of a parent who put so much effort into planning the perfect trip, and has found their plans derailed or their efforts under-appreciated. Meltdown of a child who cannot do what they want, or has been forced to tour at a whirlwind pace, when really, they’d be perfectly happy to just play in a splash pad for an hour.
This is something to consider before even starting to plan a trip, and is a good conversation to have before throwing away dozens upon dozens of hours doing potentially-unnecessary planning. This is also why we recommend a balanced approach as the ideal, with pre-planning as well as room to wander and do things on a whim. (Or “planned spontaneity” as we call it.)
In all situations, it’s still important to remember that hyper-planning is not a strict necessity. To illustrate, let’s take a look at some FastPass+ and ADRs that are available tomorrow.
In Magic Kingdom, I could get FastPass for every single attraction except for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. In Epcot, only Frozen Ever After and (oddly enough) Mission: SPACE are unavailable. It’s similar for the headliners in Animal Kingdom and DHS.
As far as dining goes, I could do 50’s Prime Time Cafe or Akershus Royal Banquet Hall if I wanted something fun or family-friendly. Tiffins, Artist Point, Boma, and even ‘Ohana (to my surprise–don’t expect to find this on a normal last minute day) are available–along with many others–on the higher end. I could also opt for Planet Hollywood if I really wanted to punish my stomach.
Obviously, this is a YMMV situation as you won’t always have these restaurants and attractions available for last-minute bookings, but you very well might. I think ‘Ohana being available really underscores the great last minute finds that can be snagged. Since we take more last minute trips, one of our top strategies is regular refreshing of the MDX app for last-minute cancellations, and this strategy has proven quite successful for us (we’ve done Frozen Ever After many times this way).
As far as the quality of these restaurants goes, I’d say Tiffins is superior to Be Our Guest Restaurant and Peter Pan’s Flight is better than Frozen Ever After. Moreover, all is not lost if you don’t score that elusive FastPass+ for the most popular rides. In addition to the refresh strategy mentioned above, rope drop and 1 minute before park closing are still viable options. I cannot remember the last time I was able to get a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train FastPass+, but we ride it at least once per trip–waiting in line ~30 minutes or less–by getting in line at the very end of the night.
This is the type of strategy that we cover in our 1-Day Disney Parks Itineraries and our Last-Minute Walt Disney World Vacation Tips, so I won’t further rehash them here.
Rather than offering comprehensive strategy for being spontaneous at Walt Disney World (since that’s a contradiction-in-terms), the salient point we hope you takeaway from this post is that you can be spontaneous at Walt Disney World. Planning is great. We recommend it. But your entire trip does not need to be planned down to the minute, and you should not buy into planning recommendations (or hype) that has a dire sense of urgency to it. Walt Disney World is a big place with a ton to offer. Even on a “highly successful” trip, you’re barely scratching the surface of the great things to do. Absolutely no single thing at WDW is make or break in the grand scheme of a trip. This is important to remember, and we hope this post has helped you take a step back and potentially re-evaluate the way you think about a Walt Disney World vacation.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
Do you agree or disagree with our advice about being spontaneous at Walt Disney World? Do you have any hacks for making last minute trips go better? Any tips of your own about balancing pre-planning with spontaneity? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Another fantastic article Tom. I just read this on the heels of the article suggesting 180 day ADRS are not essential for a good trip. Thanks for your voice of reason. Last week I was whining about the early opening of SW:GE and how I might cancel my trip, and realized just how silly that is…..will my plans change, of course; will it ruin my trip – only if I let it! Now I realize, folks for whom this is a first trip or for those who don’t visit often are in a different boat. Finally, after saying all this and convincing myself to be more spontaneous, I sheepishly ask, where is this MDX app you speak of 😀
Oh NVM – MDX is My Disney Experience (I call it MDE)
I have been the planner for all our Disney trips. I have been taking my grandchildren since the late 1990’s. They are adults now and we still go. My 4 granddaugters and my daughter-in-law went in December for our 5 day Disney World Christmas vacation and had an absolute blast. I plan what is necessary and the rest is spontaneous. We go on as many rides as we can and that includes me at 76 years young. Lookimg forward to planning another trip around the time of the 50th anniversary in 2021. We used a fitbit and found out we all walked 36 miles. Great fun!!!
I think you can get away with less beforehand planning if you go at the right time of the year. Being able to snag FP and ADR short term really depends on the season. That’s why I love February before Prez Day and early November. Weather works well and crowrds moderate. We’ve often just walked into many restaurants during these seasons. So if you’re not a planner, maybe avoid peak season & holidays.
This is an excellent article! In fact, all of the responses have been spot on, as well. My family is used to the “Planner” making all of the reservations and scheduling fast passes and we have always done the parks Commando Style. We just got home from one of our more magical trips ever. Just me, my husband and the granddaughters, ages 5 & 7. I wasn’t going to waste money on food they didn’t eat, so we had 2 reservations – one for breakfast with the Princesses and one for Whispering Canyon, as I knew they’d love the ketchup gag. The rest of the time they had PBJs or we at at walk ups. We had 3 or 4 fast passes per day and that was fine. In Epcot, they discovered the Splash Pad and my husband and I sat and chatted while they played for an hour and a half. We didn’t leave the splash pad until they were ready. It was great! We were rested and they were happy – and WDW made money because I had to run into Mouse Gear to buy towels. Win/win/win!
Your article mimics the way my wife and I handle WDW. We just did 10 days at WDW. We had our FPs and ADRs in order. I set it up so that our mornings were free to take our time to get into the parks. I always find the EMH not worth the time in the mornings. I have great luck making sure we are in the parks around closing When setting up the trip we made sure to prioritize things we don’t have here in Disneyland. So anything in Pandora was a must for us, Frozen, Seven Dwarfs Mine train etc. As for Dinners we wanted Be Our Guest, Dine with an Imagineer, and CA grill for Fireworks viewing. Once I built out those items i left the rest blank and filled in FPs once we got to the trip. We even cancelled one of our Drawfs FP as we just waited in line for it at night when the park was closing. We did this for FOP as well since we love Avatar a lot and FOP is amazing to us. We ended up riding it 2 times with FPs and 3 times waiting LOL! Thanks Tom for your articles I read them all the time and with my experience I feel I really have a leg up on navigating the parks.
Love this post! “Planned spontaneity,” I think it’s purple on my colored coded itinerary! 🙂 Seriously though, this is a good perspective. We recently turned down the change for a last minute Disney trip because I couldn’t see going without all of the planning, getting the best deal, etc but some of the best memories are made in the unplanned moments and I’m sure we would have had a wonderful trip! Sometimes I look at our days in Disney as a challenge to try and get through my laundry list of attractions in every most efficient way possible. This is a great reminder to look up from that colored coded itinerary and just enjoy the experience with my family, because that’s truly what it’s all about!
Thank you for this article. My sister sent it to me after I had a meltdown today because everyone hasn’t bought their Park Hoppers yet…which means we can’t set up Fastpass. We are arriving in Disney on November 18th.
Incidentally, we have been to Disney in the neighborhood of 20+ times. We are all adults traveling and we’re very Disney-savvy.
The youngest of us is 36, the oldest 69. We are used to doing Disney a certain way. Planning 60 days ahead for what attraction we want to visit at 9:20am on November 19th, is foreign and counterintuitive to our vacationing sensibilities.
We have our dining reservations and a rough plan for where we want to be on any given day.
This article helped me remember that I don’t need to fix what isn’t broken. We’ll get Fastpass as we go along if we can, and if not…we’ll wait online, laughing and chatting as we have done for the past 40 years.
We WILL have a magical vacation….with or without every planning tool known to Disney.
Thank you.
Just got back from 7 days at WDW, which I planned out to exact detail. The key was being able to communicate “Code Green” for we have to be moving and “Code Blue” for when we could take our time. That keep expectations and pressure managed. We never waited more than 30 minutes for anything except to meet Woody and Buzz in Hollywood Studios. (And that’s because they spent about 2 minutes with each group ahead of us)
But you have to know when to cut bait. Frozen was down…and I was standing at the front of the line. Cast members would give us no updates on whether it would be down two minutes or two hours. It was down from park opening until 4pm that day. I waited two hours and fifteen minutes before I finally bailed. I should have “Let It Go” much sooner, as it wouldn’t have crapped all over our Epcot day like it did.
While exhausting, going in with a plan and executing really meant that we don’t have to go back for another five years because we absolutely did it all. Except Frozen. More like Frozen Never After.
Could you please identify what the “MDX app” is and where to find it? Thanks.
My Disney Experience. Can be found on either app store.
Currently sitting outside of the Poly stuffed from dinner at Ohana. I did all of the planning for our trip. I think the hubs and the daughter enjoyed getting to do so many things, but I’d be lying if I said we were stress free. We went HARD the first couple of days, starting our first day with an early morning flight all the way through MVMCP, and there was little time for stopping to smell the roses, so to speak. Bonus: got to ride TONS of things with virtually no wait including 7DMT so we saved a fastpass there. I think a nice, loosely planned trip before Star Wars land opens would be perfect. Our final couple of days are, purposely, a little more relaxed and I look at them as catch up days, or a chance to do the thing you really wanted to do but missed. We also had a random fastpass to Flght of Passage (only time available) that was totally worth it. Our last day is at Magic Kingdom. We have one fastpass, lunch at BOG and dinner at CRT (princess day). That’s it. Planning to stroll and shop and soak in as much Disney Magic as possible to hold us over until we return.
I know that what I have going for me is basically a at a glance schedule of things happening at the park at a certain, time, more than it is a plan. It’ll contain when our original 3 a day fast passes are, shows, parades and our dining reservations, but everything else is just information, so we can look at it and go “well this is happening at (time), do we wanna do that, or?”
I come from going to comic cons and such events like that, so I like maps and time schedules, even if just to look at and think about it. Lol
This is such a great article! We just got back from our first trip and I was the big planner (Up at 6am 180 days out for ADRs ..etc) I didn’t have an hour for hour itinerary, thankfully, for the parks, but I sure did plan a lot and felt some sense of responsibility to make sure the trip is great. My significant other was the go with the flow who refused to do research beforehand but suddenly got very interested in what we were doing on the trip! haha! Luckily, it was fine and there’s no way I could’ve predicted certain aspects of the trip. For example I budgeted $200 for the Epcot Food and Wine festival and didn’t make any ADRs because I assumed we’d just be eating and drinking at the booths, but around 5pm we had eaten all the food that appealed to us and instead wanted to enjoy a sit down meal for the night. We were able to snag a table at Spice Road in Morocco and had a lovely sunset meal by the water. It was one of my favorite nights. Another is that we were ready to leave Animal Kingdom at 3;30pm but had a fast pass at 6:30 for Kilimanjaro Safaris ( per Tom’s sunset recommendations) but we decided to do the safaris with a 30 minute wait at 3:30pm so we could leave right after instead, and it was the right choice. I would’ve been much more miserable kicking around for a few hours being tired and anxious to leave just for one ride fast pass. I’m so glad this article was written because it’s so true and so important to remember. It ended up being a wonderful trip, bumps in the road and all.
I do a good bit of planning for our WDW and DL trips. I have all of our fast passes and ADR’s scheduled as soon as they are available to us. We also know which parks we are going to start in each day. We get there at rope drop. Once we get into the parks, we pretty much go with the flow of the day. Outside of our fast passes, we work with what is going on in the park for the day. We always have a wonderful time, and never stress about long lines. If a line is too long we move onto another ride or attraction. We also soak up the atmosphere going on in the park at the time. At the end of the day we are tired, but happy that we have been blessed with another day of Disney magic.
I see people dragging their families through the parks with their planning books and checklists in hand. Usually, they look very stressed and are not having much fun. Feel bad for them, hopefully they will learn to relax and enjoy by the time their next trip rolls around.
Absolutely agree with the premise of not over-planning to the point of evaporating the fun out of the Disney Experience. However, NO planning is disastrous most of the time!
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower. I think the issues here depend on several factors:
1) Is this you 1st trip, or 50th? Without experience, planning details is more crucial, as the alternative are not naturally presenting themselves for Disney neophytes. Maybe most important the 2nd or even third tip. But seasoned vets can wing it more easily without messing up the trip. For example: if we don’t have a DHS ADR, we can talk the boat and go to Boardwalk Bakery and Ample Hills for desert. But my 1st time, wouldn’t have a clue.
2) How many in your group? My wife and I move fast, are decisive, and are willing to do rope drop. A touring plan helps us get through the main attractions early, then we can relax. Or we can take a whole day to stroll World Showcase, sampling and sipping our way – it makes no difference, we have been here before. But a family of 4 or 5 may need to do more planning to make everyone have an equitable amount of choices and activities. It gets worse the more you have, too.
3) The temperament, ages, and habits of the party. Going with grandparents and the young children vs. high school chums means a different level of planning and preparation. Little kids in the heat of summer? I would want to plan and avoid too much sun. Have a child that is disabled? Or a girl that will cry if she doesn’t see a certain Princess? Then planning makes you a rockstar and avoids tears.
4) Time of year and/or length of stay. We go for at least 10 days. At least 10. And we don’t go anywhere else. So we take long breaks for siestas, swimming, water parks, and sipping fru-fru drinks (our kids are just over 21 now!). We can miss a FP+ and catch something later. Or change a well-laid plan if we want. Even paying the cancellation fee for an ADR is worth it if plans change. And we try to go on relatively slow times (not that they really exist anymore).
The point is that planning CAN be fun, anticipatory, and may save heartache. As long as the planner is prepared to be flexible, and listens to the other members of the party and are not too prideful about their hard-earned ADRs and FP+. Freedom to change or deviate from a well-structured plan is the mark of an adult really enjoying WDW. My mom’s mantra reverberates in my family – “Making a memory”.
(By the way, as a confession, I am only on step 3 of the 12-step WDW Overplanners Anonymous!)
“However, NO planning is disastrous most of the time! ‘In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.’ – Dwight D. Eisenhower.”
This ‘Eisenhower’ fella seems like a smart guy! 😉
I want to underscore that I’m not advocating no planning whatsoever. This blog wouldn’t exist if I felt that way–this post is more about reassuring people who don’t go totally crazy planning every little detail, and also reminding those who do go crazy that sometimes it’s worth taking a step back and evaluating what’s necessary, and the unintended consequences it might have. 🙂
Totally agree with all of your thoughts here, though. Thanks for sharing!
I SO appreciate this post! I’m in the boat of Hurricane Irma reschedulers who moved my trip to January and therefore missed the rush to get all the great dining reservations I scored for the original trip. It’s so daunting that I threw my whole binder on a shelf and have struggled to get it back out to begin the planning over again. So this perspective is what I need to remember going into round two. If we don’t get what we originally had, we’ll just have a slightly different experience that will be equally awesome in the grand scheme of things. (But I’ll still be up at 7:00 a.m. 60 days out to fight for those Fast Passes…) Thanks for the post!
Aww come on, what’s wrong with color coded highlighted itineraries?! Seriously I’m that sort of planner, and in the first trip or 2 my family was not happy and giving me push back. That was until 2 events occurred the first time we went over Thanksgiving. We were sitting on a Disney bus chatting with a lady who told my daughter and I that she was worried because she didn’t have anywhere for her family to eat that night, and I looked at my daughter and said, “uh huh, you’re going to be eating tonight aren’t you”! And, on Thanksgiving day when we were walking up the fast pass line at space mountain passing people in a 120 min wait line (I told my family in a quiet voice) “don’t make eye contact”! They gave me a short little bow acknowledging my wonderfulness.
But, what really caused future trip planning to go more smoothly is after the first 2 years I had each person picking a day/park/ food etc. that they wanted and that worked for awhile. And several years later we have morphed to (I txt- because heaven forbid my family would talk), that it is trip planning time, and I ask for every ones choice of rides and dinning and I make every attempt to get everyone something on their request list and that seems to do the trick.
And, one comment regarding lines I would make is, the occasional long line is great. For us I have found we actually talk in line, or if decompression is needed we pull out our phones and ignore each other for a few minutes.
Totally agree with your last line about lines being a good spot to decompress or chat with your group.
I don’t disagree with the rest, either. It’s all about finding the right balance that works for you and your family!
We just returned from a trip Oct 31 – Nov 7. We had 4 park days planned and I mean planned! I had touring plans set for each day. Well most of those plans didn’t keep. We even added an extra day at HS that I hadn’t planned on doing. We were able to get FP+ for everything we wanted less than 24 hours in advance. I will say having some sort of strategy helped. We rope dropped and stayed about 4 hours, spent 3 hours at the resort then returned at night. We got much more done this way and all seemed much happier than we tried to stay at the parks the entire time. I also wish I had schedule one full day to wander around World Showcase! That section of the park was amazing. Thanks Tom and Sarah for all the hard work on the blog, keep up the good work!
Every trip to WDW I’ve gone in with my kids (4 now? I’m losing track I think…) we build in “quiet time”–it used to be naps, but now it’s the hotel pool or just chilling in the room. We prepped them for it so they know and dont get upset that we’re leaving for a while. It’s helped keep us from major breakdowns–I don’t think we could do a trip there without planned breaks anymore. We typicallly plan “non-park days” between the heavy park days too—so it can still feel like a vacation haha.