Planning / Itinary Tools your thoughts and ideas

[ccarcher]

Hi

I know that there are touring plan options availble which I may well look into

However what I am trying to do is put to gether my own fairly simple summary starting point, and wondering if anyone has any tools or ideas available to achieve this

Looking at calender options / excel visio etc

just want to pre schedule in propsed ADR's pak days, rest days, travel days etc

where does everyone else start and what do you doplanning tolls

[Albert the Frog]

I used Excel and the first thing we did was brainstorm to find out what everybody (incl kids) wanted from the holiday. That gave us a list of too many things.
We then categorised into "absolute musts","would like to do","desirable", and "could leave for another year". We found we had to be brutal.
We still had too many so the "desirables" went, and so on. Doing it on Excel enabled me to move the detail about as when we had finalised what we wanted to do we then had to get it in some sort of order. we went for a "long day","medium day","rest day" rota.
When we had done that we compared our results with what we were told were the busiest days in each park and if required tweaked it a bit.
Enjoy!![msnwink]

[mizzy]

i found that a simple word document worked well for us, also found it very useful to copy and paste any artices that interested me from the forum onto it for future reference, saved a lot of time looking back for something you read a month ago

there's also quite a nice simple one for the kids on wdw website, if the kids have never been before you could start by ordering a holiday planner dvd from the same website, this will give them an idea of the rides and what to expect[msnsmile]
dm me for link if you need it

Mizzy

[ShirleyD]

I just use word too. I list all the paces we want to go, then split into full days and short days, then make sure we have rest/shopping days in between!!

Just remember, the best holidays don't have to follow the schedule to the letter........there is always the next trip [msnwink]

[CERICROWLEY]

Its a fab idea to plan and find out what you want to do this day and that day, and the absolute must do's.

But also don't forget this is a holiday, and to be enjoyed by everyone and have a happy family together.
I
All great plans will need a backup idea for those days that you planned to do something on, but for some reason, you can't do. It's a good idea to have some flexibility in your plans to swap days around, if someone happens to be ill etc.

And if you can't fit everything in, Then PLAN your next trip[msncool]

[another]

We also used excell to set up our own calendar of 'planned activities' and 'day trips'. It worked very well and when we got there with our duly printed out itinerary we found it very helpfull. We did not stick to it like glue, allowing changes to be made as and when necessary - but it made it so much easier to change as we were able to see what we still wanted to do and so we were able to swap things around!!

Have a fun holiday and happy planning - its all part of the fun!

[ccarcher]

No I dont want it to be a 100% regimented plan that we have to stick do

But really we just want to get an idea of what we want to or must do, in order to allow us to book ADR's etc and just get an outline schedule of stuff we can look forward to

Then try to incorporate this all within our length of stay, the number of days our passes will cover etc to give us a little bit of flexability

And to ensure we get maximum enjoyment for all the family

[Cruella DeVilla]

When I have anything major going on I too produce a spreadsheet, formatted into cells and list the days and dates in columns and populate what I need to do or where I am going to be on that particular day. I am traveling excesively for the next 6 months so I find it handy to refer to.

AS you know from expeience it can get tiring and you need flexibility and rest planned too.

[Homer]

Normally I have an Excell Spread sheet and toll for hours moving things in and out and up and down for weeks and weeks prior to the trip.

Then we arrive in Orlando and on day one and all the weeks of planning go out the window

Great fun all the planning but I think you sometimes just have to go with the flow on the day.