As I put the final details in place for our forthcoming trip to the World I realise that this visit could yet again be full of magical first time Disney experiences.
It’s clear to see that by simply changing the time of year for our visit it has opened up a number of new experiences and events which I will see for the first time. By visiting Walt Disney World in October I will see Magic Kingdom decorated for Halloween and get to attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.
This also means that I will be visiting Epcot during the Food and Wine Festival; I’m looking forward to not only sampling some of the dishes on offer but seeing how World Showcase looks with the addition of the international marketplace booths.
Due to a special promotion I was able to include the Disney Dining Plan for free on my vacation booking which means I’ll be experiencing Disney dining on a whole new level. I’ll be visiting Signature restaurants for the first time and some of our advanced dining reservations will take us into resorts that we’ve never really had the chance to explore before.
After attending the Key To The Kingdom tour on our last visit I knew that I wanted to book at least one tour or special experience on this trip….well, I decided to fit three in! We will FINALLY get to Dine With An Imagineer, we will be taking a unique look at Animal Kingdom on the Wild By Design tour and last but by no means least we will be taking in the detail of Magic Kingdom during a park tour with Lou Mongello.
Something else which will make this trip so unique is the number of friends that we hope to be meeting up with during our two week vacation. A few years ago, before I started blogging and talking to fellow Disney fans across the social networks, I had no idea that I would make friends with so many people who lived close to or worked at my favourite vacation destination.
And lastly…now this could well make or break a vacation….we have unplanned days on our WDW daily schedule!!!! That’s right, I threw out the original daily plan which I had spent so long researching and planning! So the new schedule includes the booked tours, ADR’s and a couple of planned meet ups but that’s it! We are going to decide that morning or the night before which park we feel like going to each day….if we wake up and feel like stuffing our faces at the Food and Wine Festival we’ll head on over to Epcot, if we feel like spending a morning people watching in a busy Magic Kingdom then we’ll head on over there!!! For a mega planner like me this is pretty scary stuff but there’s a first time for everything!! 
So what about you? Do you like to visit at the same time of year or stay at the same resort because you like to know every detail of your vacation? Do you make sure that you experience at least one new thing during each trip or do you throw caution to the wind and never plan your trips, hoping that magic and surprises come along to make memories that you’ll cherish forever???
You must be so excited now that your holiday is so close! I’m a planner, as well, so it would be hard for me to “wing it” for an entire vacation, but I do try to leave at least a day or two unscheduled for each trip to WDW. With three kids, I pretty much have to plan everything around what they’d like to do…. which means rides, rides, rides, and the occasional Miickey ice cream! Some day, when the boys are grown, my husband and I will get to do some of the tours, etc, that have always appealed to me. Until then, we’ll just keep experiencing the World through their eyes.
I love reading about your adventures with your big family
Such a great vacay coming. Hope to meet you while here!
~Mark.
We MUST Mark!!
Wow two whole weeks in WDW how exciting!! Any restaurants you are particularly excited about trying?
So many!! Jiko, Ohana, The Wave, Cali Grill….. Etc etc!!
Ohana oh wow I want to eat there so bad! Can’t wait to hear what you thought of it!!
Not long until your trip now Emma!
I used to plan our trips day-by-day, but now my husband and I tend to just decide each day where to go (I do have Touring Plans and park hours to hand though!) – it’s easier to be flexible when there’s just the two of us and we’re staying during a quieter time.
I’m really looking forward to returning to WDW in the autumn again (our last few trips have been in the summer months or December) – the last time we went in October was 2008. I’m excited for the Food & Wine Festival, our first MNSSHP, trying new restaurants (Via Napoli, Blue Zoo, Jiko & Boatwrights) and doing the Wild Africa Trek tour! It’s nice to be able to visit Disney at various times of the year as there’s always something different going on depending on the season
Yes, I checked my Touring Plans app was still working correctly today…for those spontaneous park decisions!!
I love those spontaneous days at WDW. We always plan, to a certain extent. We plan at least one “down” day per visit. We just go with the flow. We like to visit the monorail resorts those days. And take the boat to the Wilderness Lodge. We almost always experience something new each trip. Lately we’ve scheduled our trips around my daughters school year. We love May but decided the beginning of August this year. Looking like August for next year too. Have never gone for 2 weeks in a row but that would be fantastic.Enjoy your upcoming trip! Hope you find some surprises!
Those relaxing non park days can lead to really fun and unexpected adventures
Hmmm, looking forward to surprises 
As a tradition, we always do Magic on our first day.
We don’t normally plan, we decide what we feel like and the westher etc, the last trip was the first one I had planned and had few ADRs.
Would loved to have done more tours, but only 9ish days there, made things pretty tight!
Lou has promised to make it up to me, if I go back again (he had migraine and cancelled tour), but I met him for breakfast and went to a meet of the month. So last trip was defintely new experiences.