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, dessert parties, dining packages, and other upcharge offerings–plus fear of missing out all makes it seem necessary to meticulous planning. This can create stress and sky-high expectations, and we want to underscore that months of planning are not essential to have a fun Walt Disney World vacation.
While we stress the importance of 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, having detailed itineraries every single day and a sound strategy for scoring the top Genie+ Lightning Lane reservations, 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 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. There have been entire trips where we’ve only made one or two Advance Dining Reservations. What we do beyond that is often impulsive, determined the day-of.
Walt Disney World planning obsessives will probably consider this heresy, but I hate spreadsheets. From my perspective, spreadsheets are antithetical to the core concept of vacationing. I understand others vehemently disagree, so to each their own. If you enjoy making spreadsheets, feel free to go nuts at it.
We have done other trips that have involved more planning. Particularly when we take family or go with friends for whom it’s a less frequent experience, we do a solid amount of planning. (We also do a lot of “practice days” that are highly choreographed, but are really for research and not for personal enjoyment.)
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 also helpful for learning and improving our planning resources. 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 a year in advance, booking hotels and airfare around that time, making other reservations a few months in advance, and doing the more granular itinerary-building inside of a few weeks.
That’s where blogs like this one and social media come into play. While you’re planning your ADRs, Genie+ priorities, 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 should 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 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.)
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.
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. One of the things we’ve been stressing lately is that it’s often easier to book Advance Dining Reservations last-minute rather than 60+ days in advance. (See our recent Top 10 Tips for Difficult ADRs at Walt Disney World.)
Obviously, this is a YMMV situation as you won’t always have your ‘must-eat’ restaurants available for last-minute bookings, but you very well might. Since we take more last minute trips, one of our top strategies is regular refreshing of the MDX app for last-minute cancellations or ADR drops, and this strategy has proven quite successful for us.
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 take away 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.
Moreover, you should not buy into planning recommendations (or hype) that has a dire sense of urgency to it. When it comes to trip planning and social media, there’s a pervasive sense of FOMO that drives many people to spend on unnecessary experiences at Walt Disney World. Consider it a form of keeping up with the online Joneses (or Kardashians, these days). This is exacerbated by certain popular experiences booking up quickly, but that’s less a reflection of quality and demand than it is limited supply and the FOMO machine.
In short, 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. The pressure to plan a perfect trip is optional, because there’s no such thing (and paradoxically, every imperfect trip can be perfect in its own way if you let it).
You can have an incredible trip dining booking all of your ADRs same-day and eating exclusively at hidden gem restaurants. You can do attractions on a whim without spreadsheets or even our semi-structured itineraries. You don’t need to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance or Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind to have a memorable 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!
Obsessive planners here and it resulted in three very successful WDW trips. However most people could not keep up with our pace. 12-16hrs in the park every day simply isn’t for everyone.
When planning a larger group we set fast passes to start an hour later for a slower start to the day.
Conversely as a couple getting all 3 fast passes in before noon is essential to be able to get as many as possible booked for the afternoon. Our best ever was 21+ rides in one day between the two of us.
Typically we do one fast pass, then a ride on the way to the next fast pass, making most of time. Sometimes we’d get neighboring fast passes and bounce back and forth several times for an hour or more, just because.
So ours, in spite of much planning still allowed for many spontaneous decisions, typically most of the afternoon.
However food is NOT something to be left to spontaneity, reservations are the only way to get a seat at any sit down and we even went during slow months.
When it comes to Disney I’m a notorious planner. I love everything about it. ..though I must admit my best disney vacation thus far was the time we booked a spontaneous trip just 9 days prior. We had one dining reservation, a fastpass here and there, and that’s about it. Best trip ever. We were only there for 4 days and I felt we saw more in those 4 days than we did during our last 10 day trip. Go figure.
The way I’ve done it for my family has worked well for us. We decided that where we stay was the most important. Then, I’ll ask the kids what they really want to do and if there are any special places they would like to eat. We’ll try and get all that, the binding as someone mentioned, and then we just go from there. That has worked well for us and we’ve gone twice with no future plans at the moment. We know where we’ll be and some of the things we’re doing, but we just “wing” the rest of it.
This was just the post I needed to read, Tom! We have a Christmas trip planned (and it is definitely not our first trip to WDW), and we have reservations and Fast Passes (although I forgot it was my Fast Pass booking day until it was 10:25, so no Flight of Passage FP for us), but I still have found myself stressing about things like, “Which counter service restaurant should we eat at in the Magic Kingdom?” I have been making myself almost sick trying to figure out touring strategies and timing for things. From this point on, I am vowing to be spontaneous except for our already-booked experiences. 🙂
The last three WDW trips I’ve been on were experiments for me. First trip was winging it, second strictly planed, and third somewhere in between.
By far the best was somewhere in between. We were able to fairly strictly plan out the mornings, hit the major attractions with minimal wait times, then relax and do whatever we felt like when crowds grew in the afternoon.
On the other hand, I think crowd levels really dictate the experience more than preparation. Someone who wings it on a low crowd day will still probably hit more attractions than someone who plans out a busy day.
We went to WDW for the first time in May…I’m the planner (in all things in life!) and with my husband’s help we planned out our days, ADRs, and FP+. I’m sure I spent 100 hours reading blogs, understanding layouts, and planning. But we also had a 4 year old and 5 year old and knew things wouldn’t go exactly as planned. Case in point, the day we arrived we had FP+ for Frozen Ever After and it was down when we went to get in line. We went to ride Mission: Space instead and then did our dinner at Akershus…we skipped dessert to jump in line for Frozen and it was one of our best decisions on our trip as those two rides were deemed the favorites by my two littles. The next night they road their first roller coaster and fell in love…so I went through and pretty much changed at least one FP+ every day to make sure we covered all the roller coasters we could. My favorite night was one where we had no FP+ pre-planned (we’d used them that morning) and after pool time and a nap we headed back to Magic Kingdom at 6pm…and ended up staying until they closed because we were having a blast just choosing the next ride based on FP+ availability and location so we weren’t running across the park. Best 5 hours of our trip by far!!!
Once someone has visited WDW a couple times, I am a huge advocate for not planning and just winging it! It kills me when I hear people claim that their upcoming trip is now ruined because their top 2 resorts weren’t available or their very specific room request didn’t come through or they missed the 8am reservation for a pre park breakfast and had to take an 830am one instead. Many of our best memories or experiences have come out of a lack of planning and spontaneity. Some of our favorite TS meals have happened when we booked them mere hours ahead of time or simply walked up to a restaurant and asked for a table. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading blogs and “planning” trips but I do that more for the sake of general knowledge then putting anything I have learned into practice.
I am the planner in my family and as much as I enjoy it, it does add a level of pressure. Ive been on 2 short trips with with just a party of 2 adults and they were definitely the most fun experiences I had in WDW. We didn’t make fast pass or dining reservations ahead of time but just walked up and got sat in different restaraunts and Lounges. We rode plenty but skipped the rides that were just too long a line ( frozen ever after ). As fun and relaxing as the lack of structure is, I would never leave that much up in the air with a big party. Fast passes and ADRs are harder to score with a group over 4. We are headed on our second extended family trip in a few weeks ( 4 adults, 2 kids) and the strategy I have come up with us to plan out our mornings in a pretty detailed way to knock out the big attractions / uses fast passes etc and then take an afternoon break and head back into the parks for a totally unstructured evening. Hopefully we can just enjoy the ambiance /shop/ snack etc during the evening hours which will allow us some of that spontaneity that can be so elusive to WDW.
Great post! We are first timers, and I have planned extensively with your blog and Touring Plans. I view it as wedding planning. Do all the work at home, follow the plan, and be ok with whatever happens!
I like to have a basic outline and then leave room for spontaneity! We usually make fast pass selections and dining reservations and then work around that. We’ve been to WDW many times and I worked there for awhile, so there’s nothing we will be devastated to miss on any given trip. Usually we’ll rope drop a park/do extra magic hours to get some favorite rides done, then decide what’s next around lunch time – do we want to eat in the park? Go back to the hotel and eat by the pool? Hop to another park/resort? I also try to make it a goal to do something I’ve never done (or haven’t done right) on every trip. On my next trip, I’m hoping to go see more of Disney Springs and also go back to the Wilderness Lodge since they have made several updates since my last visit. What I’ll do there? I don’t know. Probably walk around and eat mostly lol. For people who have never gone before, DO YOUR RESEARCH. Know what you can skip. Get a list of the absolute must-do’s together and be content if you can get at least those done. And don’t forget to relax! Disney World is supposed to be fun!
We are up to 3-4 trips per year to WDW and it’s a lot easier to be spontaneous when you know you will be back. We had a FP for mine train but the kids were hot and tired and wanted to go back to the pool, so pool it was. Not a big deal, everyone was happy and enjoying themseves as a family and that is my main goal these days.
I just feel bad for the families where it is their first and probably only trip. They have saved up for several years to even be able to afford this trip (I can think of 2 specific families like this that I know personally) . It’s just too much pressure for a vacation! They didn’t even have the knowledge base for being spontaneous. Because who of the average population has the time to put into not only plan in advance but also understand enough about WDW to make changes on the fly. I don’t mind the time because I enjoy it and frankly it’s a hobby. But it’s unreasonable to expect most people to want to spend that kind of time to know enough to be successfully spontaneous
Great post!
My family and I visit Disney every year. I feel with the modern advancements of the my Disney experience app, ADR, and Fast Pass+, that the ability to be spontaneous at WDW is almost impossible (for people like me).
I rely on the app as a strict schedule, and I can feel the anxiety creeping up if we aren’t at a restaurant 15 minutes before our reservation or our fast pass is at the other side of the park.
I would love to be more spontaneous and am making it a priority at our next Disney trip (although since I said that, I’m sure any spontaneity is doomed).
Thanks for this post. We are planning a trip for two adults and no kids September 2019. We learnt about buying DVC points from this blog and plan to use that. I still need to find out more about dining plans as it seems complicated, but as to the day to day, we already planned to make our way to the parks every day and enjoy. It will be a once in a lifetime 5-7 day trip but we will go with the flow because anything other than that is not a vacation.
I’m the planner. I’ve always been the planner. Not just for Disney, but for every trip my kids and my friends and I have taken (this may be related to control issues). Anyway, they’re happy to let me do it, mostly because they don’t want to.
Disney World requires more intense planning than other resort locations, or even cruises. The key is to know what to plan and what to leave to spontaneity. That’s why it’s good to know the travel habits of your fellow travelers.
Our next trip is in a few weeks, and this time we only made reservations for one meal/day. No fast passes either because I have a disability pass (which does basically the same thing, only difference is you make fast passes on the day you’ll be using them).
You always need to leave room for the unexpected, as the unexpected happens more often than you think. I have seen complete meltdowns in guests whose unattainable expectations have not been met. And I’m talking about adults, not children.
So, appreciate your planner. Sometimes they’re on the phone with a cast member for two and a half hours (I actually was on the phone that long) trying to sort things out. They have to make sure Magic Bands go to the correct addresses. its a lot of work. (And I love it).
I plan extensively (mainly because I enjoy doing it), but remain open to changes once the WDW vacation starts.
I always leave my planning “sheet” at home when leaving for the airport, then get a kick out of looking at it once I get back from the World 10-14 days later. I’d say 70-80% of the plan stays intact. It’s very easy to change ADRs without penalty as long as you do it the previous night before midnight, and Fastpass+ changes are extremely easy to modify.
For me, having a game plan along with a willingness to change is important to having fun.
We often visit tropical locales (Hawaii, Caribbean, Mexico, etc) in addition to Walt Disney World. And while those trips are fantastic, I really miss the planning & accompanied buildup that comes with a WDW vacation.
We are planning a trip for about 13 months from now, the first two weeks of December 2018, and THIS is why we are planning a two week trip. I know a two week trip isn’t an option for many people but for us it’s going to be perfect. 1) We’re going with grandparents (different sets each week since they’re divorced and all want the WDW experience with the kids but don’t want to be there together) and our kids will be 4, 6, and 8. 2) We’re staying at a timeshare right up the road. 3) We’re getting 8 or 9 day passes. And we are doing this because I don’t want to run all the grandparents and our little kids into the ground. I don’t want to feel like we have to stay all day to get our money’s worth. I want to let them look at the flowers, watch the fountain, play in the splash pad, explore the treehouse, and generally “stop and smell the roses” that are in abundance at WDW. A 2-week trip is really only going to cost us about an extra $500 (plus food costs, but you have to eat everywhere) versus a 1-week trip. And we’re going to have FUN, have off days, and be able to be spontaneous if we want to.
Yup, I’m with you! We did two weeks at WDW in April 2016, with only a 13 year old boy. lol. We did the waterparks, mini golf, had a couple of pool days, and 11 days in the parks. It was great. I was thinking it would be a once in a lifetime trip, and wanted to see/do everything, so figured I’d allow lots of time for it. We did do pretty much everything (one or two exceptions), but we want to go back! So we’re planning another trip for 2018! It won’t be 2 weeks this time though, as we feel 5 or 6 days in the parks will be plenty now that we’ve done it. I understand not everyone can do such a long trip, but if you can manage it, it’s worth it. The extra days on the park tickets makes almost no impact, and we used points for hotels. Budget where you can. Hope you enjoy the trip with the grandparents! Cheers.
How do you plan down to the minute when you can only get 3 FP+ per day? No one has to reserve every available sit down table restaurant. Spontaneity can also mean you’re willing to wait 2 hours for a tablet at Be Our Guest restaurant because following better advice is ignored. If a parent hates the meltdown of a perfect plan, it means it isn’t perfect and it’s perfectly alright to skip a few reserved rides or forgo a restaurant reservation. That’s the spontaneity that’s not appreciated. Go ahead and plan and let others help choose the plan.
My two cents: plan as much as you are able to, knowing that you cannot control everything like bad weather or unexplained ride closures, and your plans are bound to change along the way. When they do, the most important thing is *knowing your options.* If DINOSAUR breaks down, can you switch your FP to Expedition Everest? What indoor experience are you closest to if a thunderstorm pops up? Our family of 6 visited this summer and although it was a whirlwind, we did pretty much everything on our wishlist by being aware of park layouts, staying late for EMH and being obsessive about the MDE app. It’s easier to make changes on the fly if you know where you are in the park and how much time you have, and can use the app to your advantage. My husband’s memories of going to Disney as a kid are mostly of waiting in line, and he was amazed that we waited for almost nothing on this trip. I did plan pretty thoroughly but we had lots of rain and thunderstorms and days when the kids needed to sleep in or leave early and we were able to change things up along the way and still cover what we wanted to cover.
Great post Tom! I usually like to plan the backbone of our trip in advance and let the rest fill out as we go. Too much planning just leads to stress and frustration IMO. Hope you and Sarah are having fin in Tokyo!
“fun” in Tokyo!
Who showed you my binder? LOL. Great post as usual. If left to my own devices I would plan down to the minute. But lately I’ve been more successful (measured in units of enjoyment) in getting a couple of “must do” reservations and going with the flow the rest of the day. Balance is the key.