Organizing your trip into manageable pieces really helps with planning. I create a spreadsheet in Excel to keep track of everything. It helps me visualize and create cheat sheets for each day. This picture below shows how I organize and color code things. It is quite simple to create and keep up-to-date as the trip nears. I typically make changes up until and including the actual day that we get there. To me, planning is half the fun!
Sample Itinerary – not our real trip. But gives you an idea of how I make our plans.Â
Along the top I put the dates of my vacation, then down the sides I put an hourly listing, and titles for other rows.
I put in all pertinent info. I color code things, and just try to keep it simple and easy to glance at and see the plans. Things I include:
- Flight Info (including confirmation number)
- Hotel Info (including confirmation number)
- Best park of the day (using various websites, I look at crowd calendars, and see what people choose as the best parks each day)
- Hourly list of Fast Passes, and Priority Reservations
- Section containing the Park hours. Check the disney site often, the hours change all the time. I think the hours for our trip have already changed 3 times.
- Then I put a summary at the bottom of the plan for the day – just a few sentences. In this area I say things like, leave the park by 3, and head to the other park. Just so I keep my arms around the plan. Obviously, we dont have to stick to this – its just a framework for the day. I find it makes the days go smoother if there is a loose plan in effect.
- I create cheat sheets for each day containing the days info. to carry with us.
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