We read a ton of articles and watched a lot of videos on how to improve your Disney experience. We came up with our own 10 tips on how to maximize your trip to Disney World!
1. On A Tight Budget
The first tip on how to maximize your trip to Disney World is imply buying less stuff. Disney appears to be this magical place that makes your dreams come true. But let’s be clear, Disney is also a well oiled money sucking machine. Everything is designed for you to have fun, capture the moment and buying a little gift for someone special. You also get hungry, cold or hot, why not just buy that cute top? Unless money is not a problem for you, the urge to shop is pretty strong. And even if you are not a huge Disney fan, it might be hard to stop sometimes. Scott and I went to WDW exclusively for the experience, we did not care as much about stuff. Luckily, being on a budget helped up to resist the desire to spend money.
2. Figuring our goals to maximize your trip to
Disney World
What do you want to do and see at Disney World? There are tons of options on the website, but the main turning point should be the length of your visit. If you are staying for a few days it might be better to get a park hopper pass. This pass allows you to leave and enter any park multiple times on different days of your stay. We planned on exploring as much as we can in each park. Later we realized that we wouldn’t be able to hop from park to park within a day. We got a 4 Park Magic Ticket, and dedicated each day to each park. It’s cheaper, unless you are planning on moving from place to place a lot. We also included one day “off” to enjoy Disnay’s monorail, skyliner and numerous hotels. This planning definitely helped up maximize our trip to Disney World.
3. Avoiding expenses: food
Everything is overpriced in Disney. Food is one of the items that unless you want to spend hundreds of dollars on a meal plan (on food that isn’t that great), you’ll be trapped in the park with limited options. Obviously, you can leave the park, get food and re-enter (yes, you can do that even if you have a 4 Park Magic Ticket), but you will lose so much time and energy driving back and forth. Scott and I didn’t want to spend any more than we had to and the solution was to make our own breakfast and dinner, and eat lunch at Disney, yes, we still wanted the dining experience)
You CAN bring food, drinks and even a small cooler in the parks. I personally feel like carrying bulky coolers is not very realistic, but it’s nice to know that there is an option!
4. Choose where to stay
We found a lot of benefits to staying on Disney’s property: you are close to all of the parks, you can use Disney’s Transportation and not spend hours sitting in traffic. Scott and I factored in how much time it would take us to get from any campground or hotel and how much money we would spend on fuel and parking. We also faced the difficulty parking our RV at the hotels. For us, staying at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground won. The campground had full hookups, it was close to the pier where we could take a ferry to the Magic Kingdom Park, there were also lots of bus stops and we were able to watch the fireworks and night shows right from shore. This is how we were able to get the best location and maximize our trip to Disney World!
5. Avoid the lines
Disney has lines. With early arrival there’s a chance that crowds will come in later and you will have a couple hours with less waiting. FastPass+ which allows you to get 3 rides per day with minimal waiting. However, make sure you reserve them prior to your visit, as you might run out of popular rides. Another easy way to avoid standing in lines is to simply time it with major events, or even getting lunch before or after peak times could help reduce your wait. Also, consider avoiding major holidays and school vacation. Plan ahead and try to visit at off peak times, which for us fell between Thanksgiving and Christmas. One last tip, go to the park if they have a new ride opening. The only option would be to prebook it ahead of time, so there might be less interest to the rest of the rides.
6. Plan a day off and enjoy the facilities
Walking over 16-20k steps per day can be exhausting, so make sure you plan a day off. And by day off I don’t mean stay in your hotel and do nothing. Disney has so much more to offer! Besides the parks, there’s the Disney Transportation System that will take you to mind blowing resorts and places like Disney Springs and Disney’s Boardwalk, this allows you to see more of Disney World without having to pay for tickets. Scott and I did not know how the weather would treat us, but luckily our third day was cold and rainy, so we dedicated it to exploring hotels and Disney Springs. In one day we tried the skyliner and monorail and went to: The Contemporary, Grand Floridian, Polynesian and Pop Century for compairison! Most of them look absolutely astonishing with well thought out details and make your dream of luxurious hotels come true.
7. Pack
Weather in Florida can be as unpredictable as in our home state New Hampshire (Florida is warmer though). So try to predict the unpredictable: pack the rain poncho, because it will probably rain. Of course, you can hide in one of the shops and wait, but everyone else could be doing the same, so you might miss out on those rides you planned on going. You can also just get wet and then possibly get cold, which will prompt you to either buy the sweatshirt or get to your hotel earlier and miss out on the fun.
8. Time management
Another tip on how to maximize your trip to Disney world is time efficiency. A lot of articles that we’ve read were about importance of showing up early to skip lines and get to as many rides as possible. For us it was almost impossible to spend all day in Disney and still have energy to stay up for the night fun. Again, it’s all about your priorities and plans. Some people also recommend taking a break during the day, having a nap and coming back later. We didn’t stick to it because even with Disney transportation, you still need to wait for the busses or boats and it can eat too much time.
9. Talk to Staff
Make sure you talk to staff members! A lot of times they help you figure out the perfect time to go stay in line or wait until later and hopefully avoid the crowds. Several times, simply by asking the crew what the wait time on certain rides was, we were allows to skip the line and go through the FastPass+ line instead! But shh, it’s supposed to be a secret. Make sure you’re not rude and not expecting the freebies. You are a guest and if you are stressed, imagine the stress levels they are dealing with on daily basis.
10. Prepared for Unexpected
Planning is important, so make sure you plan for an unexpected. Most things you will likely remember are the ones you didn’t plan for, so allow time for the exploration. We usually a couple Must Dos and we tried getting the FastPass+for them. However, even if we couldn’t get a FastPass+ for it we still would have waited 2 hours. And the rest of our day was very approximate, we were wandering around, trying to find cool places to see and avoid people (which was very hard).
