Years ago, when our oldest turned 5, we went to Walt Disney World in Orlando. Somehow, that precedent turned into a tradition. We have now been to WDW four times, most recently in January 2024,
I am not a “Disney” person. I hate crowds, abhor waiting in lines, don’t like hotels, and like to be in nature. While Disney does not check these boxes, it is undeniable that our kids loved each trip. Disney, like going to a popular national park, is a place that rewards people who plan carefully and take a strategic approach. Disney is not relaxing or really even a vacation, and because everything at Disney is expensive, we tried to maximize the opportunities on each trip. As I hope to not go to Disney again, at least until I have grandkids, I wanted to share the lessons learned with other families planning a WDW trip.
Pick 1 or 2 parks and max them out. A day at a WDW park (there are four: Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios) is exhausting. On park days, we are up before 6 am and don’t go to bed until after 11 pm. Two activity days are about as much Disney as we can tolerate on one trip. If you want to do more than 2 parks, I recommend inserting a rest day, meaning the trip lasts 5 days. That is a lot of Disney time. Here is how I rank the parks based on kids’ fun levels.
- Magic Kingdom – the classic, stuff for all ages.
- Hollywood Studios – the most roller coasters and Star Wars. The best park for older kids.
- EPCOT – my favorite and a combination of tech-themed rides and the world lagoon. The best for adults.
- Animal Kingdom – fun but smallest park.
Stay at a WDW hotel. Staying on WDW property has two huge benefits. One, you can enter the parks 30 minutes before everyone else. This means you can usually do one or two of the most popular rides before general admission. Two, because WDW has a convenient transport system, you can leave the park after lunch when it is packed and go back to your hotel to take a nap or chill, then come back in the evening. A third, smaller benefit is that because there is a bus from the Orlando airport to each WDW property, there is no need to rent a car unless you are planning to go somewhere off WDW property.
As for specific hotels, on our first trip, we stayed at the Wilderness Resort. It was pleasant but pricey. On our last three visits, we stayed in one of the Disney All-Star Resorts, the cheapest on-property hotels. The rooms are simple but can sleep 6 and come with a kitchenette. Each All-Star Resort has a pool, an arcade, and a cafeteria/fast food-style restaurant.
Bring your own food and drinks. Eating at WDW is expensive and, most of the time, requires reservations. On the plus, Disney lets you bring food into the parks. For each of our trips, we packed a suitcase with microwaveable breakfast food and sandwich ingredients or similar lunch food. We would take our lunches to the park in a backpack and eat them on a bench (the best picnic spot at the Magic Kingdom is to go on the Liberty Square Riverboat, which takes about 20 minutes and is never crowded). For dinner, most nights, we would eat at the hotel restaurant. The money you can save on food can be applied to buying Lightning Lane passes.
Dealing with crowds. Before having high-school-age kids, we would just go during low-demand parts of the year, like mid-September or late-January. The last two times we went were in early December (crowded) and right after New Year’s (super crowded). Obviously, if you can go during off-peak weeks, do that. On our low-season trips, we rode many of the most popular rides. During the last 30 minutes, we rode some rides back-to-back-to-back without getting off. A casual approach to a WDW park can work during these times of the year.
Going to a WDW during crowded times (summer, Thanksgiving, winter break, spring break) is entirely different. You can still do the rides, but it will take lots of planning, hustle, and a willingness to pay money to avoid lines. To give specific examples, on our last trip (Jan. 3 and 4, 2024), we did every ride the kids wanted to do at the Magic Kingdom and every ride they wanted to do at Hollywood Studios except for one that we missed because the kids instead voted to do the Rockin Rollercoaster (one of the most popular rides) twice. But to do this, we had to hustle, be on top of the Lightening Lane system, and be strategic.
Research Tools: There are a bunch of websites specifically focused on planning for Disney with up to date information. The most useful ones I have found are:
Mouse Hacking – Excellent articles explaining how Genie+ works and rope drop strategies.
Touring Plans – Good explanation of the various attractions at each park. I did not pay for the subscription and just reviewed the general pages, so I cannot comment on whether the subscription is worth it.
Thrill Data – Aggregator for data on the wait times at each ride. Useful for predicting crowds.
Research the Rides/Experiences
Each park has rides ranging from incredibly popular to not popular and with different experience based on the ages of kids. Little kids are more likely to want to meet characters. Big kids are going to want to do the roller coasters. Disney roller coasters are generally mild, but research the height requirements to avoid potential meltdowns.
Learn how to use Lightning Lanes and Genie+
Disney always has a program that allows you to skip the line on some rides. This used to be called Fastpass but is now an app called Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. The rules are always changing, so you will need to research before you go. But, the basic principles of crowd avoidance remain the same:
- Research the rides and which ones are the most popular at specific times of the day.
- Download the app and learn how to use it ahead of time.
- Pay $ to do the absolute must rides like Rise of the Resistance, Seven Dwarves, or TRON. These will have an hour plus wait right at opening.
- Set alarms to remind yourself to enter lotteries or buy Lightning Passes.
Be prepared for a long day. Strategically, I break up a day at a WDW park into three stages:
Morning: Get up early and hit as many rides as possible before it gets crowded. Find out when the first bus from your hotel to your park arrives and be outside at the bus stop at least 15 minutes early.
Once in the park, be strategic about what rides you want to target. I recommend not trying to run to the most popular rides (Seven Dwarves Mine in Magic Kingdom or Rise of the Resistance at Hollywood Studios) but focus on the slightly less popular rides. This strategy is explained in this article.
For our day at the Magic Kingdom, the first bus was at 6:30 am, which meant we were up at 5:30 am. We got into the park around 7:10 am and then walked to the Tomorrow Land Bridge, where we waited for park staff to drop the rope at 7:30. We bee-lined to Space Mountain, where, after a bunch of people tried to cut the line, a Disney staffer laid down the law, and we were the very first people on Space Mountain.
Afternoon: Once the parks are jammed with people, return to the hotel and rest. On a crowded day, by noon, every ride has an hour’s wait, and all of the Genie+ available spots will be for the evening. At that point, we take the bus back to the hotel and rest. Literally, we make the kids nap. If we don’t rest, we will not have the energy to hustle at night’s end. I used this time to catch up on work stuff. During the rest time, set alarms to book Genie+ spots as they become available for slots at the end of the night.
Evening: Return to the park when everyone else leaves for dinner and stay until closing. Around 4:30 pm, we eat dinner and then head back to the park. On our last trip, we used all our Lightening Lanes, and we realized that if we wanted to do Tower of Terror, we were going to have to suck it up and wait in a 70-minute line. So we grabbed burgers and fries from the hotel restaurant and ended up eating dinner in the line. Lines are also shorter near fireworks times and in the last 30 minutes before the park closes.
Is WDW worth it? It is not my cup of tea, but kids love it. I will close with a cautionary tale. We were at the Magic Kingdom, packed around 11:30 in the morning. We had already done most of the rides we were targeting and were headed back to the hotel to chill. A mom with three little kids was having a complete meltdown because she did not understand how to use the Lightning Lane system – by this point in the day, all Lightning Lane spots were gone until evening, and every ride had a wait of at least 75 minutes. She had paid hundreds or thousands for her family to go to the park but would only get to ride a few rides after waiting hours in lines with little kids. That type of experience is definitely not worth it. So, if you go WDW, go in with a plan.
Vamonos Baby! 