How a trip moves from first message to a finished schedule

Nothing gets booked until the dates, opening hours and ride rules line up. Here is the order we work in, and what you can expect at each stage.

1. Stage 1

   You send the basics

   Travel dates, departure city, how many people are coming, and the ages of any kids in the group. That last part matters more than most people expect, because a four-year-old and a nine-year-old rarely want the same afternoon.

2. Stage 2

   Dates get checked against park calendars

   A coordinator pulls the opening hours for each park on your exact dates, then flags the weeks where school holidays push queue times up. If a park closes early on a Tuesday, you will know before the schedule is built around it.

3. Stage 3

   Ride height rules get mapped to your group

   Every coaster and water slide has a minimum height, and those limits differ from park to park. We list which rides your younger kids can actually board, which ones need a parent alongside, and where the grandparents can sit out without missing the day.

4. Stage 4

   Transfers and buffers are laid out

   Hotel to park, park to park, and the realistic time each leg takes with a mixed-age group. Shuttle options go in here too, along with the extra twenty minutes that always disappears when someone needs a bathroom stop.

5. Stage 5

   Ticket bundles are compared

   Once the park days are confirmed, we check which bundle fits those days and which one just adds unused entries. This happens before any payment step, so you are not locked into a package that does not match the plan.

6. Stage 6

   One schedule comes back to you

   Park days, rest days, wet-weather backups and city add-ons placed where they fit without crowding the trip. Nap breaks and slower mornings are written in, not treated as spare time. You get a single document to work from, and the coordinator stays with the booking from there.

How to reach the planning desk

Once your dates and group size are in, most of the back-and-forth happens over email. It keeps height rules, opening hours and transfer notes in one thread you can scroll back through before you fly.

Common questions about height rules, queue windows and wet-weather swaps are collected on the resources page, and you can read how a booking moves from first message to finished schedule on the support page.

What you actually get out of the planning desk

Once you send your dates, departure city and group size, the work moves through a fixed order. These are the parts that change how a park day runs in practice.

• Height rules checked before you commit

  We go through each ride's minimum height against the ages in your group, so you know which coasters your youngest can join and which ones need a split. Child swap passes get noted where a park offers them.

• Queue windows mapped to your travel dates

  Opening hours and peak-season crowd patterns are matched to the exact days you fly. You see which mornings to hit the headline rides and which afternoons to leave for water play or a slower area.

• Transfers with realistic buffers

  Shuttle times, hotel-to-park runs and city add-ons are laid out with the extra minutes a mixed-age group actually needs. Toddler nap breaks and grandparents sitting out coasters are built into the same timeline.

• Ticket bundles compared to confirmed park days

  Before anyone pays, the coordinator lines up ticket options against the days you have locked in, so you are not buying a multi-park pass for a trip that only fits two parks.

• One schedule, wet-weather backups included

  The handover is a single day-by-day plan: park days, rest days, indoor or aquarium swaps for rain, and city stops placed where they fit without crowding the trip.

Want to see how the stages fit together first? Read the planning services or check the trip types we plan most.