What would a Walt Disney World vacation be like without long lines? Crowds are an unfortunate reality of a visit to the Most Magical Place on Earth, but many visitors carry the mistaken notion that 2-4 hour lines are an inescapable part of every Walt Disney World visit. The good news is this isn’t necessarily true.
For as long as Walt Disney World has existed, experts have compiled ever-evolving ways to reduce time waiting in lines. One only needs to do a quick Google search to find hundreds of sites, guidebooks, and blogs claiming to hold the secret to never waiting in Walt Disney World lines again. Disney veterans will find most of the advice familiar but tired—indeed, the source for many of these claims are travel agents hoping to score new clientele without giving any negative details. At the same time, many Disney newbies ignore advice outright and end up falling right into standard crowd trends that leave their families stuck in lines.
Fortunately, there are a number of tried and true methods that drastically reduce waits at Walt Disney World. Anyone who says you can eliminate them entirely is trying to sell something (we’ll get to the one exception to this rule later), but with proper planning and strategy, you really can set yourself up for a fantastic Walt Disney World vacation with minimal queue time.
How is a visitor to tell which line-beating strategies work and don’t work though? We looked at some of the most popular and time-honored strategies for reducing Walt Disney World waits to examine the pros and cons of each. Which of these have helped your family?
1. Plan your trip in the off-season
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PROS:
You really can’t go wrong planning a Walt Disney World vacation in the off-season. For one thing, tickets and resort bookings are much cheaper and reservations easier to come by. Avoiding peak visitor times is one of the most important steps you can take to reduce waits during your visit to The Most Magical Place on Earth. The vast majority of people who visit Walt Disney World follow predictable trends. They tend to chase Disney’s most aggressive sales for holidays and times when kids are off school, particularly in the summer.
The truth is, there really is almost nothing pleasant about visiting Walt Disney World during peak times. Sure, Disney has some special events that only come around during summertime or holidays, but these are becoming more spread out and the intensity of crowds during peak season makes the magic of visiting during these times just not worth it. On top of this, summertime and early fall in Florida is extremely humid and HOT.
We’ve talked about the complexities of pinning down Disney’s ever-changing off-season before, but in general, the best times to visit take place during the school year. In particular, late January, February, September, and the early weeks of December (all of these avoiding holiday weeks) are wonderful times to visit. You also can’t go wrong visiting on Super Bowl Sunday!
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CONS:
Unfortunately, it seems that Walt Disney World visitors have slowly caught on to crowd trends in recent years. Pinning down what the off-season even is these days can prove more challenging than ever before. For the first time ever, summer is no longer the busiest time to visit The Most Magical Place on Earth. In recent years, some visitors have even reported moderate crowds during formerly busy seasons. At the same time, some times that used to be reliably light (such as the weeks of March and April surrounding Spring break) have become insanely busy. Always research up-to-date crowd calendars before booking your vacation. You can’t avoid crowds entirely, but if you visit during the right time, they will at least be minimal.
At the same time, another downside of visiting during the off season is ride refurbishments. There is a much higher likelihood during the off-season that some of your favorite rides may be out of commission. While this is a bummer when it happens, we have found that it is still worth it due to the lower crowd levels.
2. Use Extra Magic Hours
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PROS:
If you will be staying at a Walt Disney World resort or Good Neighbor Resort, you get access to Extra Magic Hours—an extra hour (or two) in the morning or evening of a different park every day before general admission guests come in. Since their inception, Extra Magic Hours have proven a reliable way to ride Disney’s busiest attractions with far shorter waits. Our experience has generally been more positive with morning Extra Magic Hours, but in most cases, that extra hour really does help!
CONS:
Unfortunately, Extra Magic Hours have become something of a mixed bag for visitors. As more and more people have learned about EMH (which used to be an “insider secret”), early morning crowds have increased during this exclusive extra time. Particularly if you are visiting a new park addition like Toy Story Land or The World of Pandora, there are no guarantees that doing Extra Magic Hours will eliminate lines. They do usually reduce them, but zero lines are rare.
The biggest disadvantage of Extra Magic Hours is they cease to be helpful as soon as the park opens. In a fascinating twist, whatever park has Extra Magic Hours statistically ends up being the busiest park at the resort that day. Some have theorized this is due to guests planning to attend EMH but oversleeping, but if you plan on staying in the same park you started in for EMH, expect a major swell in crowds during the day. The best way to avoid this is to take advantage of that extra hour then park hop to another park. If this isn’t ideal, in some cases it can prove better to just skip Extra Magic Hours entirely and use other line-beating strategies.
3. Arrive before rope drop
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PROS:
Similar to the Extra Magic Hours strategy, arriving as soon as a park opens is another of the most reliable ways to reduce lines when visiting Walt Disney World. It’s not easy getting a sleepy family up in time to hit opening gate at Magic Kingdom, particularly if they aren’t staying on property or are locals commuting from abroad, so crowd levels are almost always lower at rope drop. Except in the cases of very, very new park additions (like the opening months for World of Pandora), you will almost certainly find lower lines on most busy attractions right after opening gate than you will any other time of the day.
CONS:
Getting up early enough to hit opening gate is not easy. The process of getting to the park so early in the morning and then arriving to stand in what looks like a sea of people can feel chaotic and discouraging. Once inside the parks, these crowds usually disperse, but if you plan on going straight for the park’s most popular attractions (Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, Space Mountain/Seven Dwarves Mine Train, or Frozen Ever After), expect to travel with a lot of people doing the same thing. The lines will be reduced, but it’s very difficult to eliminate them entirely.
Arriving at opening gate also does not help much if Extra Magic Hours have already begun an hour before. Those parks will already be brimming with people who arrived for EMH.
4. Use FastPass+ correctly
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PROS:
FastPass+ is definitely an amazing system that helps families at Walt Disney World manage their time more easily. If you can score FastPass+ reservations for Disney’s busiest attractions, you will dramatically reduce your line-waiting time compared to hopping in the stand-by line. FastPass+ also allows guests to plan their days with a little more foresight.
CONS:
Fastpass+ is not without problems. Having a FastPass+ reservation is not a skip-the-line pass. Particularly when a FastPass+ time window first opens, it’s common for a large number of guests scheduled for that time slot to all arrive at the same time. Bottlenecks are a common problem, both from people waiting in line to get in (for no reason—seriously) and from people who may be newer to the system and don’t know how to check in. Also, while FastPass+ is helpful on popular attractions, there are many mid-popularity attractions where it doesn’t help at all. On some occasions, the stand-by line can prove shorter than the FastPass+ line.
The other downside of FastPass+ is that the most helpful reservations are the hardest ones to get. Even 60 days ahead of time, reservations for Frozen Ever After, Avatar: Flight of Passage, and Slinky Dog Dash can disappear in what feels like an instant. Going in the off-season helps this, but many a local passholder has ended up frustrated that scoring these important Fastpasses without a resort reservation can prove near impossible.
5. Ride super-popular rides during parades and fireworks
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PROS:
This strategy does work! While there are exceptions to every rule, daily parades and fireworks shows are excellent “crowd-sponges”. Particularly in the evenings, the hordes of people who flock to watch fireworks shows can leave popular e-ticket rides with delightfully low queues. During off-season days, some attractions even have such short lines you can marathon-ride favorites like Expedition: Everest and Splash Mountain.
CONS:
Parades and fireworks may not eliminate lines on super-popular attractions, particularly if those attractions have had multi-hour waits that built up long before people started settling in to watch an evening show. If you happen to miscalculate trying to get to certain attractions during a parade, particularly in Magic Kingdom, you may find yourself stuck in a massive crowd on the wrong side of the park. Certain parts of Magic Kingdom become completely inaccessible during parades, so make sure you get where you want to go early!
6. Clever scheduling
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PROS:
One of the most reliable methods for reducing lines is to schedule smart by not following crowd trends. Most families follow a very predictable schedule when they arrive at Walt Disney World, arriving around breakfast time for an in-park meal, filling up attraction lines until they eat at a standard lunch time, then standing in more lines until regular dinner time, fireworks, and a quick park exit.
Smart scheduling can help you avoid traditional crowds. Arrive early and take your meals at unusual times. In many cases, it’s better to skip breakfast in the parks entirely by eating in your room unless you’re planning a special character meal for one day. Most guests don’t like zig-zagging through the parks and visit attractions in a circular fashion. If you are willing to walk, you can reduce wait times by following a less predictable pattern crossing the park when lines swell. A favorite tool of many readers are touring plans, though more and more guests are becoming aware of these and they may frustrate guests who prefer more spontaneity.
CONS:
It can sometimes be difficult to get the family on board with wacky scheduling. You might be up for 100,000 steps of walking, but Aunt Cher may not even be up for a stroll down Main Street. Kids who are used to eating on a strict routine may need to have some snacks on hand to adapt to eating at different hours. You will likely do a lot more walking than the average guest. If you can work with these parameters, clever scheduling definitely works.
7. VIP tours
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PROS:
Earlier we mentioned that anyone who tells you there’s a way to completely avoid Walt Disney World lines is probably selling something. That is technically true, even for our one exception—in this case, it’s Disney themselves doing the selling.
If you truly want a line-free Walt Disney World visit, your best bet is to invest in a VIP tour experience. It’s easy to assume such experiences are only for celebrities and the super-rich. In truth, if you have the means and time to save up for a VIP tour experience even for just one day of your Walt Disney World vacation, you will be in for a very-worthwhile treat.
Walt Disney World offers several varieties of VIP tours. Some of them only focus on specific rides while others offer an all-encompassing experience of the parks. During your tour, you will be escorted by a specially assigned Cast Member who will take you for the day. You will not only get to enjoy all the biggest attractions in that park with no waits (your tour guide will take you straight to the front of the line), but you will also likely get some really fun insider information on park trivia. It is seriously an amazing experience that cannot be beat.
CONS:
It goes without saying, but VIP treatment is EXPENSIVE! A Walt Disney World vacation is already a pricey endeavor, so saving up for a VIP tour on top of that can seem insurmountable for the average family. However, if it is a dream of yours or a loved one to enjoy the ultimate Disney day with special treatment, no waits, and more magic than you can imagine, a Walt Disney World VIP tour is a must-do experience. The pre-packaged VIP tours that focus on classic attractions, thrill rides, or single parks are likely to prove more affordable than a custom all-access version.
What’s your favorite way to beat lines at Walt Disney World?
