Excerpt: Vacationing Disneyland the Sane Way: Begin with the end in mind

The best way to get started with your Disney vacation is to visualize how you want the trip to end, what is your ultimate goal? It is to enjoy time with your family? Get away from the office? Relax? Spoil the grandchildren? What is it that you want remember at the end of the trip, what are those objectives?

Why ask this question? The reason is that many people have bought into the great marketing that the Walt Disney Company kicks out. The beautiful commercials with happy families, so they save all year, work overtime, and then spend what amounts of a life’s savings on a weeklong trip; spend even more then they had saved so they can enjoy all of their hard work; and then have their child have a melt-down at 3pm on the first day! But, you say, “we’ve spend all this money, worked so hard, traveled so far”, we drag out family militaristically through the park – because we’re at Disneyland, we have to have fun!

Or here is another scenario… half way through the day your child just rode Autopia for this very first time, and they loved it… they ask to go again. You just waited in a 45 minute line and this was your second ride so far. The reality is that if you tell them, “if we have time later” – it typically doesn’t happen. Why? Because Disneyland is so expansive, with over 100+ acres that even with 5 days in Disneyland, you still will not have experienced everything. So typically, there is no “later”… But, if you’re there as a family – then another time through the ride would be a great memory for them – and it can be great family time together in line.

So then, what are we to do… Well great news, this guide is designed to help you answer that question. And it all starts with figuring out what you want the vacation to look like when you get home. Perhaps you haven’t had a Disney vacation before, think back to any vacation you’ve had, or those you had growing up as a child – what sort of memories do you have? That can begin your though process on what you’d like to see come out of this vacation.

For many of you, it is to enjoy time with your family… While the attractions and entertainment that Disney has to offer is first class, and second-to-none, they are simply tools to help you enjoy time as a family. When approaching rides, lines, meltdowns, remember what your focus is for this vacation.

Let me give you an example… understand what can realistically be accomplished and you’ll have a great time. I recently took a trip with my son (17 months) and his 6 year old friend – yes, a boy’s trip to Disneyland. It was for exactly 24 hours (travel time included). We had an absolutely amazing, fantastic trip – spent only about 10 hours in the park any everyone thorough enjoyed themselves. Our friend loved the fact that he got to drive the Autopia cars twice, experienced snowfall, and fight Darth Vader on stage after being selected as a Jedi Padawan. Fantastic trip, very short, but it met our expectations. We probably experienced 5 attractions, but a lifetime of memories.

For many of you, it is about the memories we create, which can take place in line, back at the hotel, or sharing moments together. There will be long lines, disruptive people, and unhappy children (or even adults)… Disney has created an amazing bubble that really does separate us from the rest of the real world. It was designed to be a magical place. And it truly is, but also help set the expectations that there is still real people in the park with feelings and emotions.

I hope that while reviewing this guide we can help show you some tips on how to manage expectations, help keep the kids and adults happy, and truly have a magical time…

Another tip we’ll share later centers directly over the vacation or relaxation part of a Disneyland vacation. Many people think it will be relaxing, but the only way for this to be true is if you intentionally make it this. There are many things which are vying for your attention that, if you let it, will consume all of your available time. If you want a Disney vacation to be relaxing, it can be, but just decide that up front and later we’ll share how this can become reality.

One last thing to share about is that of traveling with other family members, this could be adult siblings, aunts, cousins, or just close family friends. It is important to understand what their goals and objectives of this trip will be. Often they will be different. Also, people attend to approach vacations very differently. I know some who are die-hard planners, while others are very relaxed “go with the flow” type. You can imagine how sometimes these two personalities might not mix well. So it is a great idea to get together and simply understand where everyone is coming from. It is sometimes best to plan spend only 50% of the time together, and make some of the other time independent. This also works when you have grown children as well who can navigate the park alone. With my parents, we’ll spend part of the morning together, then go separate ways and meet up again around dinner, or perhaps to experience a show together. We tend to have better quality time together when done this way, instead of trying to spend the entire time together.

While everyone will find what works best for them when going with family, or an extended group, the point, simply, is to understand that it might work best to not spend 100% of the time together. On that topic I’ll also throw out that Disney is a great place to begin letting your older children venture out on their own.

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This guide is a free except from my eBook, Vacationing Disneyland the Sane Way, available at no cost to my clients. If you’re interested in a copy, please contact me.