Disney DIY - How to Craft a Magical Last-Minute Disney Vacation
This guide assumes that you’ve already booked your flights, tickets and hotel and you’re just looking to plan your itinerary.
Obviously, if you have not already, click the link below to check and see if I have availability to assist you with your itinerary.
If you have already checked and I am not available, this guide will give you a good head start towards creating your dream itinerary and I am usually available for a quick consult if you have some questions or want a professional to look over your plans before you go. Send me an email and we can chat.
Things to Consider
There are three main considerations when planning a Disney Itinerary: Dining, Magical Extras and Attractions. When you’re working on a last minute trip, it is important to be flexible with your selections and timing for dining and attractions so that you can do as many of your “must do” items as possible. Even if it’s the eleventh hour, starting now will yield better results than trying to wing it when you arrive.
☝🏼 For those not familiar with “Disney Speak” Magical Extras is the name for special experiences booked in advance such as Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, Fireworks Dessert Parties and Tours. There are hundreds of options for Magical Extras throughout the Disney Resorts.
Planning Steps
Information Gathering
The first thing you’ll want to do is gather as much information about your trip as you can and have it with you. The list below is what I would have at my fingertips before I take on next steps.
Travel Dates
Hotel
Number of Ticketed Park Days
Park Ticket Type
Theme Park Reservation Dates (if Applicable)
Park Hours for Your Travel Dates
Dining and Magical Extras Budget
Whether or Not You Are Using Genie+ or Individual Lightning Lanes
List of Restaurants, Magical Extras and Attractions That Your Group is Interested In
A Park Map for Every Park You’re Visiting
Dining and Magical Extras
If you are truly planning a last minute trip, your options for activities that require reservations may be limited due to availability. Since those reservations would be your pinch point(s), you will want to start with activities that require reservations such as dining and Magical Extras and move on from there. Both dining and Magical Extras are available to book up to 60 days in advance, so if you have more than 60 days before your trip, you will have more options available to you, but you will need to plan to book those experiences when the window opens.
Start with your most desired restaurant or Magical Extras reservation and check the Disney website for availability for the day that you think you will be visiting that location. Hopefully, a reservation will be waiting for you, but if not, think about your timeline for that day or even days surrounding and see if you can find reservations for that location that might fit at a different time or a different day and repeat this process for each reservation in order of priority. This is why we do the reservation step before the itinerary step, they will determine our timeline. As you get further down your list, you may find it more and more difficult to squeeze everything in because you are being hemmed in by existing reservations. Remember, it might be logistically impossible to eat breakfast at 10am at a resort hotel and also make a 1pm tour at a theme park across campus. When in doubt, leave yourself plenty of travel time and space between reservations.
☝🏼 If you cannot find a reservation that is important for you, I recommend using a service called Mouse Dining. People often drop reservations in the days (or even hours) leading up to an event, this service will text you if reservations become available for you to book. If you do receive a text from them, it is really important to click through and book right away before another person grabs that reservation.
Daily Itinerary
After you have booked all of your reservations, you can now start to make your itinerary. Most attractions are open from park opening to park closing, so the next potential pinch points would be scheduled entertainment, such as parades, shows and nighttime spectaculars. Disney posts their entertainment schedules on the website with times for each day of your trip, so you’ll want to start there. Also, be sure to double check that your restaurant reservations don’t cross over with entertainment offerings. If they do, you may need to prioritize which is most important to you. Once you’ve identified which entertainment offerings you’d like to participate in, fill those into your schedule and you can move on to attractions.
Scheduling attractions can be a tricky process because wait times can be a bit of a gamble. The best place to start is to take out your trusty map and the Disney app and look at each land based on the attractions you’d like to accomplish in that land. Once you’ve identified the key attractions in an area, you can make a list of those attractions in the order you’d like to experience them before you move on to the next area of the park. For some folks, having a general list of attractions to experience as they work their way through the park to avoid doubling back is as far as they need to go to fill in their attractions between shows, parades and reservations. If you’re the type that would like more detail, read on for some additional steps that can help you dial in the information more succinctly.
Within the “maps” section of the Disney app, when you click on the name of an attraction on the map, there is a handy page that really helps when making an itinerary.
As you can see, it shows the Current Standby Wait for that attraction as well as Forecasted Wait times (for the Forecasted Wait Times, each line on the graph is 1 hour). It also shows you if there is a Lightning Lane for the attraction, if you need that information for Genie+ strategy. You would then look at your list of attractions for each area and cross reference them one at a time to estimate the potential wait time for that attraction at the general time frame of your arrival, the app should give you pretty accurate times since you are likely close to leaving for your trip. This will give you a good idea of how long you’re likely to wait for each attraction and help you dial in how many attractions you can fit between other activities.
Transportation and Logistics
Once you’ve got your itinerary ready to go, it is time to flesh out your plans for transportation and logistics between the resorts, parks and restaurants that you’re planning to visit. Best rule of thumb is to allow yourself 2 hours to travel anywhere on Disney property at Walt Disney World if you’re using Disney transportation or 1 Hour at Disneyland. Be sure to research all of the potential options for travel, some are more expedient than others, but if you have extra time, it can be fun to take the train or monorail to your next destination instead of walking or taking a bus. Pro tip- there are lots of alleys and walkways in the parks and they may not all lead where you think they will lead. If you need to get somewhere in a hurry and are not sure of a route to walk, consult the map in the Disney app or ask a cast member for directions.
Now You’re Ready to Go!
Once you’ve got your plan in place, you are ready to take off on your adventure and have the magical vacation of a lifetime… bon voyage!