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In recent years, Walt Disney World has become a very plan-oriented vacation. Don’t get me wrong – you can still definitely visit and just go wherever the wind takes you; but if this is a once in a lifetime trip, or you just have to make sure you do as much as you can on your next vacation, a thought-out plan will come in handy and can save you a heck of a lot of time if you already put some thought into it.
This is the method we use to plan out our trips, and I have explained everything below on how you should be mapping out your week with these worksheets. They will be very helpful to stay visually organized before you go.
Before you can plan anything in advance, you need to know all of the different operating hours of the parks to decide which one would be best to visit on which day. Use the park hours worksheet to fill in each of your dates and find the hours of each park listed on the Disney website. The site will list the hours of their parks 180 days in advance. These hours CAN change after they have been posted, so I would encourage you to check back closer to your trip to make sure nothing needs to be rearranged at that time.
The one problem you may come across is trying to get the hours for the parks for your entire trip when only each day is posted at a time. This is especially important when you are able to book dining reservations, for all of the days you are there, 180 days from the FIRST day you arrive.
**No Worries!! If you call Disney, you will be able to find an automated system that will tell you the hours of each park further out than the 180 days listed on their site. Again, these can always change later on, but you will at least be able to go off of a good draft to book your dining reservations!
Make sure to write in if any of the parks have Extra Magic Hours each day. These would be available for guests staying on site (in a Disney hotel) to arrive an hour earlier than the posted park opening, or 2-3 hours later than park closing. These will change by each day and by each park. It will be listed along with the park hours.
Early Morning Magic (EMM) is something totally different! Guests will sometimes get this confused with EMH (extra magic hours). EMM is a PAID event that takes place in the early morning before the park opens to all other guests. It is only offered on select dates, and you will have to look them up separately on the Disney site. Two of the parks offer this under the DINING category (because it includes breakfast along with a list of attractions). You can find this event for Magic Kingdom – Fantasyland, and for Hollywood Studios – Toy Story Land.
- *Reserving this event requires payment ahead of time.*
- To reserve EMM, you will have to be attending THAT certain park on that same day in order to be admitted. If you have a park hopper ticket, this should not be a problem. But if you are using single-park per day tickets, take that into consideration when planning your schedule.
Some of the parks also offer a PAID “After Hours” event, when the parks close to the rest of the guests. You do not need to have been in that park during the day, as the after-hours event is your admission to that park for the evening.
The last thing to consider when choosing your park days, is whether Magic Kingdom has a Party Night or not. Right now, this is only during the Halloween and Christmas seasons. The parties are also a PAID event which occurs in the evenings after the park closes to the rest of the guests. What this means, though, is that those days at Magic Kingdom, the park will close at 6:00pm! If you would like to maximize your park time, you may want to have a park hopper ticket, or choose a different park to visit on these nights in August – December.
Fill out this worksheet. Highlight the box for each day that will give you the best amount of time in the parks for your family. This should give you a really great outline to decide which days you should make your dining and FastPass reservations for on the next worksheet.
Use the FastPass+ and Dining worksheet to plan out any reservations you are going to book for your trip.
Write in all of the days/dates and then write in which park you chose for each day of your trip. (from park hours worksheet)
You will be able to make dining reservations 180 days in advance by either using your My Disney Experience APP, or on the My Disney Experience website, and also by phone if you choose to do so.
For most guests, Fast Passes can be booked 30-60 days in advance. You can book 60 days in advance if you are staying ON Disney property, and 30 days in advance if you are staying OFF property (in a non-Disney location).
- You will get to book 3 FastPasses (FPs) per day for everyone in your party.
- All of the FPs will need to be made in the same park ahead of time.
- FPs are FREE to book – they do not cost anything and you can book them right on your APP or on the website!
You will be able to make more FPs, one at a time, after you use the initial 3 each day in the parks. And at that time, it can be in a different park if you choose to hop.
You can add in any other reservations you choose to each day if you need to. There are so many things that you can book at Disney World, but a few of those would include things like: The Early Morning Magic, or After Hours events, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, or a haircut at Harmony Barbershop.
Download and use the worksheets – and you should have a very organized and easy plan for your upcoming trip to Walt Disney World. These are the first things we use when making our itinerary and we hope that they will be valuable for you as well!
Are you a die-hard planner also? Like organization? Or did these help you to get organized if you are not?? Let us know in the comments below! Thank you for reading!
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