Planning a trip to Walt Disney World is hard. It takes a lot of work to plan out the best time of the year to go, which parks you are going to on what day, what rides you want to go on, what characters you want to meet, what restaurants you want to eat at, and what activities you want to participate in. If this is your one, big “lifetime trip” to Disneyworld, you want to make the most of it and do all of the things on your families list. There is SO much to do between Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, EPCOT, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios it is impossible to do everything in one trip. My family has been going to Disneyworld for a decade and there are still rides we haven’t ridden, shows we haven’t seen, restaurants we haven’t tried, and experiences we haven’t done. In this blog I wanted to lay out the basic strategy I use to plan my trips.
1. Have realistic expectations – Disneyworld is a popular place, and everyone that goes there wants to have the perfect storybook trip. But the reality is, you are going to have to make compromises; there will be rides you won’t be able to get on, experiences you won’t be able to do, and restaurants that won’t have reservations available. Just remember that even if you don’t get to ride that new, awesome ride or get into Bibbity Bobbity Botique you are still going to have a wonderful time if you learn to roll with it. Again, there is so much to do and many of the best experiences I’ve had at Disneyworld were the “Plan B” options.
2. Have a strategy, not a plan – Disneyworld is a massive destination packed with visitors, and they do a very good job to create the environment for you to have a memorable trip. But even then, there are things that even Disney cannot control or prevent. Busses will run late, lightening will close rides and boat transportation, rain storms will come out of seemingly nowhere and soak the parks. To help manage the unknowns, I keep the number of things that are in the plan to a reasonable number. Typically I keep things like Lightening Lanes, dining reservations, and paid experiences to 2-4 per day, depending on the park and how far the planned items are located from each other. You don’t want to pack so much in that you spend your day just trying to keep on top of your schedule and risk missing something planned if something causes delays.
3. Know the park hours, especially if you are staying at a Disney Resort – The parks will sometimes have special ticketed events that will close the parks to anyone who hasn’t purchased a ticket. Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is the big one that runs in the fall for six to eight weeks and happens multiple times per week. If you are in the parks and a ticketed event is scheduled you will be asked to leave the park. Also, parks will often have “Extra Magic Hours” where the parks open a little early or stay open late for Disney Resort guests, and is a great time to get on those hard-to-get-on rides. Disney publishes the park schedules a few weeks out in My Disney Experience, so a few weeks before your trip be sure to log in and make sure your park days align with the hours you want to attend a given park. The Park Hopper option on your tickets is a good thing to have, as that will allow you to simply go to another park if there is an event or if you want to take advantage of Extra Magic Hours.
4. Build in breaks – Going to the Disney Parks can be exhausting; you are on your feet a lot, you will walk miles every day, it will be hot and humid, and most likely the parks will have a lot of people there. You will get tired. Your kids will get overstimulated. Your feet will hurt. Building in time to rest and relax is important to enjoying your trip. Typically, we will go the parks in the morning, then once it starts getting hot and crowded (usually around lunchtime) we head back to our resort for lunch and some time at the pool. Then we head back to the parks mid or late afternoon and stay into the evening or until the park closes. For long trips of a week or more, we will have one or two days where we just stay at the resort and relax.
5. Tackling food and beverages – Bottom line, eating at the parks and resort food restaurants and quick services is expensive, they aren’t always open, and you aren’t always going to want to rush out to get breakfast or a late meal. We use Instacart every trip to have beverages, breakfast foods like bagels and muffins, snacks, fruit, lunchmeats, and breads delivered to our room. This is a fantastic option for when you have to get out the door in the morning to make rope drop or when you get home after a long park day and want a snack before bedtime. You have things to eat and drink right in your room, and you can even pack some snacks in your backpack to have during your park day. We also get food delivery from local restaurants because sometimes we just want to relax and eat dinner in our room. One piece of advice to do a little research and read reviews of anywhere you are going to get food delivered from, as there are some sketchy places that deliver to Disneyworld resorts where the food is genuinely terrible, if you even get your order at all. Some of them will even put flyers under your door. Our go-to pizza delivery is Giordano’s, their deep dish pizza is really good and one of my favorite meals of the trip.
6. Transportation – Disney has a lot of options for transportation; the Monorail, busses, boats, the Skyliner, and you can also call for an Uber or Lyft. They also partner with Lyft for the Minnie Van service, which is operated by Disney and is allowed to drop you off and pick you up closer to the park entrances. Getting around Disneyworld can eat up a lot of time if you aren’t familiar with what is available and where you can get to with each mode of transportation.
a. The Monorail – The Monorail is one of the most iconic modes of Disney transportation, and its worth taking a ride just because you are there. The monorail serves Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, and provides transportation between those parks and the Polynesian, Contemporary, and Grand Floridian resorts.
b. Busses – In the My Disney Experience app, you can tap into your resort and find the bus schedule for your resort for all parks and Disney Springs. The bus schedules update in almost real time so you can check when the next bus is before leaving your room. Typically busses run about every 20 minutes, but that can often change based on driver changes, traffic, how many busses are running for your resort, and weather. Busses typically run to and from the resorts to the parks and Disney Springs. If you want to go to another resort for a dining reservation or an activity, you will have to take a bus to a park, and then take another bus from the park to the resort you want to go to.
c. Boats – Several Disney resorts and Ft. Wilderness Campground have boat service to and from the parks. Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom all have boat service from neighboring resorts. It’s a fun and relaxing way to get around, but boats are often shut down due to lightening or bad weather.
d. Skyliner – The Skyliner is a relatively new transportation option at Disney, and it’s a pretty great way to travel between resorts and the parks. It runs continuously, so you aren’t standing around waiting for bus or a boat. You can just walk up, get into a gondola and be whisked off through the sky to your destination. The only downside is that the only parks that have Skyliner service are EPCOT and Disney Hollywood Studios, and it only serves Caribbean Beach, Art of Animation, Pop Century, and Riviera resorts. The Skyliner can also be shut down by lightening or mechanical issues.
e. Ride Share (Uber, Lyft, Minnie Van) – Ride shares are usually the fastest and easiest way to get around, but it can get expensive. Popular times such as park open, park close, and ticketed events the prices and wait times go up. There generally is not a shortage of ride shares available at Disneyworld, but there are times when the wait can be excessively long, so make sure to reserve ahead when you can, don’t expect to talk out of Magic Kingdom after the fireworks on a Friday night and expect to get a ride share.
When it is all said and done, your goal is to make the most of your trip, and for each person and each family the definition of a great trip is different. The important thing to remember is that you need to manage your expectations and remain flexible to have the best experience you can. I often talk to people who say their trip was “ruined” because they didn’t get to go on a certain ride or their hotel room didn’t have the view they wanted or they were not able to book the experience they wanted. But if you can manage expectations and be a little dynamic with your plans, you can still have a wonderful and memorable Disney world vacation!