First trip with almost no planning!

[BabyYoda]

Hey all!

At the end of this month my wife and I will be taking our second ever DVC trip (our first was last year smack dab during Hurricane Ian!), and this time we've decided to do absolutely no pre-booking of restaurants. We're also staying at OKW which we've never stayed at before.

We've taken many trips to WDW in recent years and this time we want to just go with the flow and book whatever restaurants are available the day of. The only things we've pre-booked are MNNSHP (we did it last year and loved it!), and of course we plan to see Boyz II Men at Eat to the Beat!

Maybe this approach is not unique and others do it all the time, but for us it will be the first trip we haven't planned almost down to the minute, so I will be happy to report back afterwards how it went!

P.S. Hoping for no Hurricane this time!

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Hey, you have a plan and you'll be at Disney! Life is good! I'm sure you'll be fine in late Sept and will have some options. We love OKW and hope you have a great experience. If we were doing a 'go-with-the-flow' trip, OKW would be at the top of our list as the place to do it. It's very peaceful and laid back. You'll also have a lot of dining choices you might not have thought of - it's just a relaxing 10-15 minute boat ride from the OKW marina to Disney Springs, where you'll have lots of food and entertainment options, including sit-down or counter service meals. I'd also recommend an option to order food to go from Olivia's and take it back to your room. If the weather is cooperative, it's a really nice evening to dine on the really large decks/balconies at OKW - probably overlooking the golf course and/or a lake. We try to do that at least once each trip! Enjoy your trip - and no hurricanes or trop storms!!!

 

[LoveToDisney]

This is our usual trip style. Before park reservations started, we used to do bus roulette and go to the first park that showed up. We always have a relaxing and fun trip. It will be interesting to see how they change Genie+ next year and how that affects planning.

 

[DeeBee3]

I think it's great! I just got back with 2 young kids and we only had 2 dining reservations. Of course, we did have to pick park reservations, but we hopped for the first time and that we just decided on a whim. We did not do Genie+ or lightning lanes. It all worked out beautifully! We definitely benefited from the slower time of year and the wet weather keeping locals away.

 

[kittylady1972]

GREAT idea! We tend to plan less and less with our trips these days, especially now that park reservations are more relaxed. We just finished up 3 nights at the Polynesian and for the most part we made reservations on the fly. Arrived Saturday afternoon, flight was delayed, moved a Boathouse reservation from 11am to 12pm while on the plane. At the airport, grabbed the rental and went right to Disney Springs and had a nice lunch on the water.

Dinner that night...we headed over to EPCOT and walked up to Spice Road Table and had some food. First timers there...enjoyed it.

Day two we did the F&W booths at EPCOT for the afternoon, and that evening ordered carryout from Kona Cafe at the Polynesian.

Day three we decided on a late lunch/early dinner at Geyser Point at WL. We took the monorail to MK, caught a boat from there to WL, had some food and drinks, then made our way back.

While we visited parks a few times (since we activated our APs) we also made sure to spend some time each day at the Polynesian pool, even if only for an hour or so. Many times we've had better luck doing last minute reservations the day of or a few hours or so before we want to eat, as most of the time there is at least one choice we like and while we checked a few times this trip, and maybe made and dropped a few reservations, in the end we were happy with our choices. We really like this new way of touring for sure.

Oh and we WERE in Disney during the hurricane last week. I will say we visited MK on Tuesday morning, the day of a MNSSHP, and the day the hurricane was coming, and we had the BEST time the few hours we were there and got a TON of stuff done. Even 2-3 hours after park opening, PotC, HM had only 5 minute waits, BTMRR was about 20 minutes, and many other rides were pretty low wait times. We took that as a chance to ride a bunch of stuff before heading out later that afternoon over to the "dark" side to finish out our vacation at those parks.