How far in advance do you start planning?

[First timer loz]

61 weeks to go for me 😂 at time if booking we had 501 days to go and serve booking I’ve been on the dibb about 3 times a day 😂

[cornishfrogboy]

I am plotting and scheming all year round.

I start proper planning around 2 months before flights are due to become available. Having said this, I know that any US vacation will be at either Easter or Summer School Hols and I therefore am very interested in prices year round for these periods, whether I am intending to travel or otherwise.

I have ideas where I want to go, generally whilst including just a period in Orlando and will be researching flights relating to 3 or 4 different dual centre vacations (the long haul sectors only) as the 11 month from Departure point approaches.
For this year, It was definitely Boston and Orlando (or the other way round) other places being considered were Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, NY, Dayton , Philly and Washington DC with Dayton OH being strongly favoured.
I bought London-Boston within days of the 350 day release as it was imho a very good price with Norwegian. I bought Fort Lauderdale (now changed to Miami) app 2 weeks after its release.
After the purchase of those flights, I then started the planning of what I would do in the 3 week period between them.

So I guess the answer is that I start my planning in phases, but am investigating year round.

[Alien]

We booked POFQ for next year.

I thought about having few extra days offsite and Universal. I looked at costs around that. 500 euro per night at Universal hotels and half that including food at POFQ increased the days at POFQ. Still have decided about Universal and how much of it as I am honestly shocked at their prices. 34 usd for parking for one night at the hotel on top of the 500 euro for one room! However if we stay it will be max of 1 night at US

I know the EMH schedule from last year and Friday is usually MK, Saturday AK, Sunday is HS . At the start of the holiday we don't use EEH, and Wednesday is MK evening and Tuesday is usually Epcot evening. Meaning Tuesday evening would be perfect for one night at universal hotel

so our first week could be
Arrving Thursday
EMH at MK
EMH at AK
EMH at HS
rest or water park
Early hour at US
Early hour at US & IOA
EMH Hour at Epcot
Rest or water park

As you can see while I have spend time thinking and researching, while trying to identify at what point it will be good to book night at HRH or RPR


I also looked at potential restaurants we want to eat, cost of upgrading to ddp and cost of oop.

I am enjoying researching options. We did only Disney with full ddp last time so there was ADRs to book. This time we plan to do other parks and this will require some planning to decide

I booked 8 days to Lanzarote hour after we decided to go and that was my planning done. The holiday is 2.5 weeks after we booked. I enjoy not planning for some destination but in my opinion for Orlando - planning is part of it. Probably not for all but for me it is

[tink111]

I’d been planning our September trip since last august... now we’re delaying until 2021 and i keep having a look on the dibb so I suppose it’ll put me in the two years and planning category. I’d like to say I won’t plan as much for the next trip to avoid disappointment if it doesn’t happen... however I’m sure I will!