Disney World Time-Saving Tips

We just finished another year of having annual passes at Disney World. Back in March we had a whirlwind trip of three parks (Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom) on a single busy spring break day. How did we squeeze it all in? Here are some of our simpler tips we usually give people.

The number one tip I can give people is to understand the FastPass system. When we first hit a park, one of us runs off to the longest wait ride to get FastPasses for everyone. On a busy day you should always be holding FastPasses for something. As a family with young kids, even if you miss your FastPass window, the cast member is often willing to let you use them anyways if you ask nicely. As soon as we got to Animal Kingdom that morning, the family headed for Expedition Everest while I got Kilimanjaro Safaris FastPasses. In a little over an hour, we were able to ride both, despite not even arriving at the park until 30 minutes after it opened.

You need to understand which rides have long wait times and really plan your day if you want to ride those. There are even smartphone applications now that show you actual or projected wait times for different rides. Soarin' and Toy Story Mania run out of FastPasses very early on busy days. On a busy spring break day, we just weren't willing to spend the 60-90+ minutes in line to ride either of those again. If this was a rare Disney World trip for us, we'd have planned to attack one of those rides first thing when we arrived at the park.

Avoid the crowds. Look at the Disney World Crowd Calendar (from the authors of the excellent Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World book) and see which parks are the most crowded on which days. On a really busy day, a big park like Epcot or Animal Kingdom will handle the crowds better than Magic Kingdom or especially Hollywood Studios. We did a couple of short-wait rides / shows in Hollywood Studios that day but it was so crowded that even walking around was hard with so many people. So we abandoned it and went over to Magic Kingdom. (Be aware that Magic Kingdom can and does become full enough that they close it and don't allow additional guests in.)

Don't follow the herd. Just shifting your meals so that you eat lunch earlier or later than most people can save you  a lot of time and frustration. One of the things we've done with great success is take advantage of the parades, especially in Magic Kingdom. The ride wait times plummet during the parades and we're often able to walk right onto rides that still say 30+ minute wait times just by getting there right before a parade starts. You do need to be aware of the parade routes and not get trapped. Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom is a great spot to be because the parade doesn't come through there.

Use Extra Magic Hours. You only have access to these if you're staying in a Disney resort on-property (not a nearby hotel). You get access to a park 1 hour before or 3 hours after the normal operating hours. In general most of the popular rides are still running but some things do close. The morning hour rarely seems worth it but the evening hours are a great time to get in some extra ride time. If you aren't going to use those extra hours, be aware that the parks with Extra Magic Hours that day are the most crowded ones, so you're better off going somewhere else.

Have a plan. Don't waste time wandering back and forth across the park on a whim. Don't miss things that you really meant to see. We like to have a rough plan of our "must see" items for the day and make sure to work those in if we can. If you really want to plan, get a book like

Don't go into "commando" mode. Don't be that parent dragging an exhausted, sunburned, and hungry kid across the park just to meet Ariel or ride the tea cups. Relax and enjoy your time. You can't do it all in a day. We've been to Disney World probably 50 times since our kids were born and there are still things we haven't done. It gives us something for the next time.

Disney World Money Saving Hacks

Well, we're back to Disney. Their birthday offer was too good to pass up.  Here are some cost-cutting hacks for Walt Disney World - of varying ethics.

1. Ask for water. Every food service that's equipped to serve fountain drinks will give you large cups of ice water for free if you ask. Some Crystal Light mix packets can easily turn that into lemonade, iced tea, or grape drink. Making free lemonade feels like straying into a grey area ethically but isn't too bad.
2. Bring your own food and drinks. Yes, Disney allows this. They don't allow big coolers, glass bottles, or outside alcoholic beverages, but you can certainly bring your own sandwiches, bottled water, and sodas. This is all quite ethical and allowed by Disney.
3. Free salad. I've read about this and have been surprised to see it happen. At 'counter service' burger places (Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe or Pecos Bill's), there is a 'toppings bar' with lettuce, tomato, onions, mushrooms, etc. It's possible to walk right up and make a decent salad for free. Doing it to go with your hamburger or other food purchase isn't so bad, but doing that without purchasing anything is really shady. Yet I've seen it done.
4. Drink refills. In Hollywood Studios, the Backlot Express restaurant provides free drink refills. I think it's the only 'counter service' restaurant in the parks that does. Just drinking a couple refills seems perfectly ethical, but you could clearly abuse it to refill drink bottles for free.
5. Resort mugs. The Disney resorts have refillable mugs. It appears that the official stance is that you are supposed to buy new mugs with each stay at Disney. As frequent guests, we buy new mugs each time the design changes or about once every year or so. But I've seen many guests refilling mugs of designs that are from previous years. So there are varying degrees of ethics there.
6. Outside souvenirs. It never fails that the kids will want to buy some Disney-priced item that should be in a dollar store. Before a trip you can stock up on easily packed snacks, glowing necklaces/bracelets, light-up toys, and even Disney items for a lot cheaper than in-park impulse purchases. No real ethical problem there unless you start selling them to other guests.
7. Photo Pass. Photo Pass is a system where Disney photographers at many park locations will take your photo and link it to an account - based on your Photo Pass card - so you can purchase prints later. These prints and downloads can be quite expensive. You can get nearly the same thing for free by asking the photographer to take a shot with your own camera. We've gotten many excellent family photos at Disney this way - for essentially free. It might feel a bit unethical, but this appears to be normal Disney World policy and is well-known.
8. Park for free. There are two easy ways to park for free at Disney World. Resorts will let you park for free if you're there to "eat lunch". Then a quick bus/monorail/boat ride takes you to the park. Parking at Downtown Disney is free, but requires two legs of Disney transportation (to a resort, then to a park). Getting a bus or boat from there to a resort may require showing resort key cards but I've never seen them ask. Both are clearly dipping into unethical behavior.
9. Resort hopping. When you stay at any on-property Disney resort, I believe that you are free to 'hang out' at other resorts and use any of their facilities including dining and any recreation activities they have, except the pool. We've done this quite often - heading over to Wilderness Lodge to eat lunch, doing a kids' activity at Animal Kingdom Lodge, or taking the boat from Downtown Disney to eat some beignets at Port Orleans. Doing this while staying on property sounds perfectly allowed and ethical, but it's quite easy for anyone to do this no matter where they're staying, which may be a grey area.
10. Pool crashing. The official stance is apparently that you can only use your resort's pool. There are exceptions for construction and I think all the All-Stars pools are fair game for any guest in All-Stars resorts. I believe that the only pool that really enforces this is the Beach Club Resort. Supposedly the Wilderness Lodge has started actually checking IDs - because it's a small pool and is very convenient for a quick pool trip by any Magic Kingdom guest. We've never crashed a pool, but have never once been asked for a room key or ID at any pool. Crashing a pool that's mostly empty and unused is probably a lot safer than one that's really busy. This is somewhat unethical at best.

Goodbye Disney!

Today's the day. Our Disney passes expired. I'm not even sure how many days we went in the past year, but it must be somewhere near 25. I'm sure I'll miss it, but I'm also looking forward to vacations, weekends, and just day trips to other places. Disney does a great job at almost everything they do and I know I'll miss their white-washed family-friendly perfectionism.

I have a billion photos from Disney. Hopefully by this time next year we'll have just as many photos from the beach, the smokies, fairs, the keys, etc.