Luckily there are more resources to help plan a visit to Disney World than there are for any other vacation destination. These resources include guide books, Disney specific travel agents. websites, and podcasts.
The most valuable book I found was the "Unofficial Guide To Walt Disney World." But it was just one of the many resources I used for help coordinate my days at Disney. The reason you need a plan for visiting Disney World is to maximum the quality of your experience.
You see the expense involved in taking a Disney World vacation is high. With such a high price point, to be considered a worth the price, a visit to see Mickey & his friends needs to be a vacation experience unlike any other. One that makes the financial investment worth it. The word for this is is "value."
Now the management and operators of Walt Disney World do their best to set things up to make your experience a true value. Cast Members are given the mission to make a daily effort to make the guest experience as exceptional as possible. But there's only so much they can do in a general way to help the guest have a good time. It's up to the individual to make their own personal effort and plan to do what maximizes their fun and accomplish what they want to do while in "The World."
I did this for my trip last summer. I made a spreadsheet of the attractions and shows I wanted to see as well as things I wanted to do in each park. I used the website, Touring Plans.com, to prioritize which attractions to go to first to keep my waiting time and walking distance to a minimum. I also noted and organized the restaurants and snack places I wanted go to as well.
Now the fact that I have an obsessive compulsive personality and "have" to be overly organized helped me in planning my 50th birthday Disney trip. But also having all the resources available gave me an education on just exactly how to plan and organize a trip. This made the 5 days we were in Orlando the memorable experience that I wanted it to be.
Now I've written all of that to write about this. This past week my wife, Paula, and I went to Chattanooga, Tennessee for a 4 day vacation. This was the first part of Paula's 50th birthday trip. (yes, her birthday trip gets to be a 2-parter. I mean she gave me a trip to Disney World for my 50th birthday. She deserves any type of trip she wants this year.)
For a few years now she has been saying that she wanted to go to Chattanooga to visit the aquarium and see Rock City. She did some research on the tourist attractions and things to do in the city. She discovered that there was enough to do there to keep us busy for 4 or 5 days.
Once we agreed that the last week in May was the when we would take our vacation we began to plan what we were going to do. We found one website that listed all the trip planning resources for Chattanooga:www.chattanoogafun.com. This was convenient but it was just one website. Although we did get some planning guides from AAA the resources for information about Chattanooga were not as readily available those for Walt Disney World. I had to really search for information.
I realized that I had been a bit spoiled because of the saturation of trip planning help available for Disney World compared to other destinations. Luckily the Disney trip planning I've done in the past has honed my skills for looking for information on the Internet and taught how to plan a vacation.
I gathered as much information about the Chattanooga area as I could. I then composed a couple of spread sheets with information about the tourist attractions and places to eat. I set up a daily calendar listing what we wanted to do each day. I prioritized the attractions and historic sites into "must see" and "just interested" rankings. I also scouted the locations, prices, and menus of the area restaurants. All of these were things I learned to do while planning for my two Walt Disney World trips.
So thanks to my love, passion, and obsession for Disney World I've gained a general education in trip planning. I'm no travel agent or money saving travel genius by any means. However the plans and information I gathered for my 2004 & 2010 Disney vacations helped me know what to do to make the 5 days of our Chattanooga vacation enjoyable ones.
Thanks Disney World.
