This is such good advice! I don't recommend making a really detailed, minute-by-minute plan, but have a general idea of what you want to do, where you want to eat (making ADRs in advance as needed), and the general order of things for each day. It's such a waste of time standing around a map trying to figure out what to do next. Your time at WDW is valuable, and you don't want to waste it!
Agreed! I did alot of research before we went to Disney, so we knew which days we would attend which parks, based on park recommendations. We also made a list of the rides/attractions we wanted to see, noted where they were located, which ones had FP available, and prioritized our "must do!".
We hit the parks first thing in the morning (but were never there BEFORE the park opened), and we had a general order of what we wanted to do. For example, we did EMH morning and did Space Mountain a few times, because it was open, the headed over to Frontierland for the other mountains as they opened. Also strategically used FP. For example, grabbed FP for BTMRR as we we entered the standby line, rode, then headed over to Splash, rode standby with no wait, and by then,were able to get another FP, so grabbed it for Splash. Then used two FP in a row, and was able to get another just a few minutes later. So we had done all the mountains multiple times before 10:00 am.
I tried to "guesstimate" how long it would take us to wait in line, ride, and get to the next attraction. I did this simply as a guide so I would know if we were doing good on time or if we should re-prioritize.
Also, we made no ADR. We liked the freedom of being able to eat when we want, and hated the idea of spending a few hours of precious Disney time in a restaurant, or worse, waiting to be seated.