The past few times I’ve gone to Disney World, it’s been while my family was vacationing in Cocoa Beach (about an hour away from Orlando). Because it’s only been a one-day excursion, I’ve had to fit every Disney activity I wanted to do into that one day. Now that I’ve successfully mastered “Disney in a Day”, I wanted to share some of my tips with all of you!
Tip #1: Buy your tickets at least 30 days in advance. This is important because once you’re 30 days out from your Disney day, you can start reserving FastPasses. Ticket prices don’t really fluctuate either, so there isn’t any benefit to waiting. Because you’ll only be spending one day at Disney, you’ll want to purchase the One Day Park Hopper ticket option, because this will allow you to go to all of the parks (or as many as you want) in one day.
Tip #2: FastPass+ is your BEST FRIEND! For those that don’t know, FastPass+ is a system that allows you to skip the line for a ride at the Disney park of your choice. When redeeming a FastPass+, you’ll be sent to a separate shorter line for your ride. Keep in mind that you still may have to wait 10-20 minutes, but this is nothing in comparison to the usual 2+ hour wait some rides are known for. With the purchase of a one-day park hopper ticket, you are given 3 FastPass+ experiences. However, there are some limitations. First, you can only use your FastPass+ experiences at one park. So, it’ll be important to plan out which park has the best rides or experiences for your group that you definitely want to see. You can also only use one FastPass+ per hour. We decided to reserve our FastPass+ experiences for our last park of the day, Magic Kingdom. Because we were going there last, we knew lines would be long. We used our FastPass+ to ride Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, and Splash Mountain. It’s also wise to assess which rides are known for having long wait times so that you can use your FastPass+ wisely. Download the My Disney Experience app to take a look at what current wait times are. Popular rides like Everest Expedition, Space Mountain, and Tower of Terror rarely have a wait time of less than an hour. This app is also a great tool to use while in the parks to track wait times for all the rides and shows!
Tip #3: Check the schedule before you begin planning because some parks may open earlier than others. A few years ago when we tackled Disney in a day, Animal Kingdom opened up an hour before all the other parks. We were able to see and do everything we wanted at Animal Kingdom and still made it to our second park of the day as it was opening. That year, we also noticed that Magic Kingdom was open an hour later than all the other parks, so we made sure to visit that park last. Seasonal events could also affect park hours, check out Disney’s park schedule here.
Tip #4: As someone who loves having photos to document trips and events, I knew that a day at Disney would be no exception. This is one of the reasons we decided to buy Disney’s Memory Maker One Day PhotoPass. The One Day Photo Pass is a great deal for someone in our shoes who was only at Disney for one day and wanted to make the most of it. While some of Disney’s Photo Passes are a little pricey, the One Day pass is only $69. Another benefit of the PhotoPass is that you get all of the souvenir photos from the rides you go on. Best part is, that anyone in your party can access the photos! So if you’re traveling to Disney with a big group of 10 people, only one person needs to buy the Memory Maker One Day PhotoPass and everyone in your party will have access to the photos. And even if your group splits up, any photos taken of a member of the group will be added to the album in the app (regardless of whether the person who purchased the photo package is with them or not). My brothers and cousin went off to do some rides that Matt and I weren’t interested in and all of their photos showed up on my app even though I wasn’t with them. This package can be purchased at the ticket counter of the first park you visit at the very beginning of your day.
Tip #5: One of the most expensive aspects of Disney is ALL THE FOOD! Everywhere you turn, there are tempting treats all around. One tip that will keep you from losing track of time (and money) is planning out when and where you will eat throughout the day. Take a look at all the dining options throughout the parks and determine where’d you’d like to eat around lunchtime and dinner time. We brought some granola bars with us to snack on and ate a big breakfast before we got to the parks. Our group split up while visiting the World Showcase in Epcot and grabbed lunch there. We all had dinner together at the Starlight Lounge in Magic Kingdom’s Tommorowland.
Tip #6: Before deciding which parks you want to visit in what order, determine which rides or attractions are most important to you. This will help you figure out how much time you should allocate to each park to make the most of your day. We knew that we definitely wanted to ride Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom, but didn’t really have any other must-do’s at that park. We also knew that Expedition Everest was known for having really long wait times, so we decided to go to Animal Kingdom first to beat the crowds. We also didn’t have a ton we wanted to do at Hollywood Studios (the new Star Wars expansion hadn’t opened yet), so we stopped there second. This left a lot of time in the day for our last two parks, Epcot and Magic Kingdom.
Below is the timeline we made for our day at Disney. We knew we wanted to spend the most time at Magic Kingdom because it had the most rides and attractions we were interested in.
8:00 AM- Arrive at Animal Kingdom (all parks opened at the same time this day)Because we arrived right as the park was opening, there were hardly any lines. We were able to ride Expedition Everest three times in a row without having to wait. The only other ride that was a must-visit for us at Animal Kingdom was Dinosaur. We only had to wait about 10 minutes for this one. We finished everything we wanted to do at this park within an hour, so we hopped on the shuttle bus and headed to Hollywood Studios.
9:30 AM- Arrive at Hollywood Studios. We didn’t really have much on our must-do list at this park. All we did here was the Star Wars: Galaxy Tours ride and then we watched a Star Wars show. The lines were a little longer here, but not too bad.
11:00 AM- Arrive at Epcot. Once we got to Epcot, our group split up. Matt and I wanted to walk around the World Showcase and grab lunch. My two younger brothers and younger cousin (Clayton, Spencer, and Olivia) went off on their own. Matt and I ended up eating at the American restaurant (I’m a very boring picky eater) and Matt tried a few beers from the different countries. The grapefruit beer from Germany was his favorite! The only ride we did at Epcot was the Test Track ride. We ended up riding it separately because they have a single rider line that moves a lot faster if you don’t care about not being able to ride with your group.
2:00 PM- Arrive at Magic Kingdom. This is the park with the most to do and definitely where we wanted to spend the most amount of time. This is where we had all of our FastPasses reserved. We reserved one for Space Mountain (our favorite ride) at 3:00 PM. Our second was for Big Thunder Mountain at 4:00 PM and our third was Splash Mountain at 5:00 PM. Once you use up all your FastPasses, you get more! Most of the rides were sold out, but we managed to get another go on the Buzz Lightyear ride. We grabbed dinner at the Starlight Lounge in Tommorowland and then watched the fireworks before heading home.
10:00 PM- All parks closed so we headed home
