Please allow me to share with you a recent conversation I had:

Dan - Hi Joe! How was your vacation to Walt Disney World?

Joe- It was great! By Thursday morning we had turbo-toured 4 parks, two times each! It was a blast!

Dan - How did the family like it?

Joe - Oh they loved it! Well, until Friday when we started fighting. On Friday my wife stole the plane tickets and went to live with her mother after calling me a control freak. The kids, after saying they hated me, ran away with their friends. Two of them have come back at least. My wife says I’m going to have to send all of them to therapy for the next 4 years, but I can pay for that easily with the money I saved by booking a week-long vacation. I think they will realize they had a great time when the therapy is over. Besides! I spent the last few days doing the touring plans another 4 times through! And I rode Star Tours 47 times! I met Mickey Mouse 24 times! …. And on… and on.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard different versions of this story. We had a great time, until we wore ourselves out and it wasn’t fun anymore. Sometimes we want too much out of our vacation to Walt Disney World, and our expectations for the vacation are much more than we can actually manage.

Before we talk about what to do right, sometimes it’s helpful to look at what a lot of people do wrong. Joe did A LOT wrong. He may not have needed to pace himself , but he certainly didn’t take into account the pace his children could, or couldn’t do. He hit some of the highlights of WDW, but what if his wife gets sick on Star Tours? That’s no fun, and maybe that’s why she’s calling him a control freak. He’s also worried about money and wants to get his money’s worth. Anyone who has gotten a vacation quote knows that WDW is an expensive place to visit, but it is still worthwhile destination for many families. However, is the vacation really worth it if you’re doing too much and don’t like each other by the end of the trip?

It’s easy to try to do too much at WDW. There is simply too much to do. I have been there 4 times, the longest for a week during my honeymoon. My wife and I, with the use of our touring plans, moved quickly and purposefully from attraction to attraction. We were exhausted by the end of the week, and we had a great time. But, we still missed large sections of the Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, and this was long before Animal Kingdom was opened. It is simply impossible to do everything at Walt Disney World. You shouldn’t try, and will probably have a better experience if you don’t.

So why do we try so hard? I think there are many reasons, but the first is the most important. WDW is simply fabulous. No other theme park can touch Disney. When I visit, I hate the thought of missing something, even though I logically know I’m going to miss a lot. I think it is also important to recognize that my generation (I’m 39 years old) visited the parks as kids. Because we had a wonderful time there, now we‘re bringing our kids to the parks. This means, we may have different agendas than our children. When we were kids, the parks were too small and too new for our parents really to have an agenda at all!. Going to WDW today is altogether different than it used to be.For me, being aware of these powerful forces in your family is essential to understanding why it is important to pace yourself at WDW.

I make it a point to ask myself, “who’s vacation is this?” This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Am I going to try to relive my youth? Am I trying to capture some sort of ideal vacation experience with my family? Am I thinking about what other people want to get out of their vacations? Am I keeping in mind that my wife and children aren’t sherpas that have to run 30 miles a day from park to park so I can find the merchandise I want?

Personally, I think touring plans are essential. You wouldn’t be reading this article if you weren’t a planner of some sort, and having a plan means you are going to be able to do a lot more than the person without a plan.. But, I’ve never been able to complete a touring plan . Let me say that again, I’ve never actually successfully finished a touring plan . I’ve always had to eliminate a few things in the interest of time. Unless I’m flying solo on a “research trip” with Lou, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen for me.

The person reading this article is probably the resident Disney geek, and the rest of the family likely considers you more than a little obsessed, at least this is the case in my family. Your Disney knowledge and your role in helping the family plan is pivotal in that you have the power to be an asset to your family and your family‘s vacation.. Here is my suggestion for doing everything you can while keeping everyone happy. What I do, is I purchase a touring plan. Then my family and I choose what items on the touring plan we want to do, and what we can do without. This means picking what you want to do, but also removing a few things and leaving holes in the touring plan for down time. This requires us to communicate with one another, and to spend some time researching attractions.

The benefit of this approach is that everyone gets to choose what is most important to them, but that everyone also is invested in the process. I find that this makes us more excited about the trip, not less. It also makes a family vacation, a family experience. I find this to be an interesting process.

In my family at least, I find that I know more about the parks than my wife and kids. If I take the time to show them what they can do there BEFORE we go, they have a chance to pick and choose what sounds good to them. I’m the guy that keeps up on Disney news. I can use this power for good, and they are often grateful when they learn about a new attraction, restaurant, or refurbishment that they didn’t know about. When they figure out what they want, they feel invested and that it is their vacation. For me, this also means that they are less likely to resent it if I encourage them to move quickly to a hot-ticket attraction. It also means that decisions about whether your family moves as a group, or in sets of 2s or 3s, are made ahead of time.

I have to stress, unless your entire family are triathletes and die-hard Disney fanatics, take a break in the middle of the day. This is sage advice, and is written into just about every touring plan ever written. Ignore this at your own peril.

Lastly, I think it is important to stress that a vacation to Disney is about spending time being with your family. The moments where you lost track of your plan because you were having a good time together are the moments that you will remember about your vacation. In fact, they are the REASON for your vacation. It’s important to keep this thought in mind, because doing this can help make your vacation everything you want it to be.

Walt Disney talked about his inspiration for Disneyland, which was to have a place where families could spend time with each other. Now that Walt Disney World is as massive as it is, there is something there for every family to do that they will enjoy. The cost of having all of these wonderful things to do is that it is important to spend some time planning your vacation, together, in order to manage your expectations for your trip. In doing this, the chances for your family having the wonderful vacation you all want is greatly improved.