The thing is, our friends are huge Disney fans, they love and go to all the Disney movies as soon as they come out, growing up they dressed their daughter in all the Disney princesses, they collect Disney memorabilia, their daughter room was decorated Disney, so yea they are definitely big Disney fans as we are. Our daughters are same age and grew up together and were always Disney tv, Disney on ice, etc..So whether or not ur your "Disney Folks" dont mean ur going to like or dislike the parks. There is definitely a "whole extent" of planning. You can decide to only do fp, u can just do ADR, you can even do both and it's still even close to being done with planning if you really want to plan. There is so much more than people realize than just fp and adr and this is what I was talking about with the whole extent of the planning process. And although planning wont be the difference between loving or hating in every trip, it absolutely makes the difference in some. Yea, I agree that if they would've got their desired fp and adr it still wouldn't make the crowds, long lines and money go away but it can make things better which can make ur experience better and could be the difference in opinion. It's not just fp and adr you have to consider. Most all first time guests dont get the whole extent of the planning, yes Disney says RSVP recommended for fp and adr but what Disney doesn't say is, you should review a map of the resorts and the parks and all the different types of transportation available and make sure u pick a resort based on ur needs, this resort only has 1 bus, this resort has monorail, u can use van, u can even call uber, etc.. and these are all very important parts of planning and can be extremely frustrating after u arrive and didn't realize u should've considered all this. Also, the Disney site doesn't say hey, take note that some of the days there are EMH in specific parks on specific days and the crowds tend to be a lot higher so if ur not taking advantage of EMH then u might want to plan around this. It also dosent say, u need to take into consideration the days we do they special ticket event party that the crowds tend to be lower that day but note, if u dont have a ticket u have to leave the park early. This is just few examples of the planning that I consider "whole extent". Now proper planning wont make the actual prices go down, it can definitely help make people feel like they got their money's worth. So I do agree, the best planning in the world wont make the difference for everyone but I do believe it could make the difference for a big majority. If our friends would've taken some time and listen to some advice, they could've ensured they booked the best resort for their needs, researched the EMH/special event days to plan which days they went to which park, gotten the top fast passes, booked some character meals, decided on transportation and by doing so, they would've had a much better experience that might've resulted a different opinion. This is just my opinion based off my experience, different strokes for different folks.