WARNING: Controversy ahead!
Many Walt Disney World regulars have incredible repositories of advice for visiting The Most Magical Place on Earth. Some can leave travel agents in the dust with sharp tips on when to make reservations, how to attain the best Fastpass+ selections, which resorts to stay at, and how to reduce time waiting in line.
While most of the advice regulars gather is great, there are some foundational tips for visiting Walt Disney World that are no longer as helpful as they used to be. Some of this is due to changes at Disney over the past ten years. Others are cases where the world has caught on to popular tips and hacks previously only used by Disney insiders. While there are exceptions to every rule (put those tomatoes down), you may be surprised to learn that…
1. The best times of year to visit are changing
Image: Disney
With the exception of the rare family that just doesn’t mind Disney’s summer hordes, Walt Disney World experts have long prided themselves on knowing the best times to visit to avoid crowds. For some families, the priority is visiting during a time with moderate crowds but plenty of rides still being open. For others, the goal is to hit the parks with the fewest people possible, even if that means taking kids out of school and having them do homework on the dining room table at Old Key West.
Over the past three decades, the general rule of thumb regarding Walt Disney World crowds has been to avoid summertime, holidays, and busy events like Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival. Some of the best times to visit used to be:
- January and February (avoiding holiday weekends)
- The weeks surrounding spring break in March and April
- The 2-3 weeks of May before school lets out
- September after Labor Day weekend
- The week after Thanksgiving to the week before Christmas
Now, depending on which bits of this advice you have followed in your trip planning, it’s likely that one or two might have left you scratching your head. The reason why is that over the past five years, crowd trends at Walt Disney World have started to change in surprising ways, to the point that it is hard for experts to agree which times are the ironclad best to plan your trip.
The best example of this is the few weeks surrounding spring break. Ten to 15 years back, guidebooks were still suggesting this as a recommended time to visit. Spring break crowds were concentrated on two busy weeks, with the surrounding weeks proving moderate to light. The problem now is that spring breaks across the country are widely scattered—just look at the different school calendars in some major metropolitan area and you will see spring breaks vary over the entirety of the month depending. This is also a perfect example of people catching on that this was a good time to visit. The same thing goes for some weeks of mid-May (though there are still great days to visit early in the month).
The other factor that has thrown a wrench in crowd trends is an abundance of new events. Epcot, for example, now has four major festivals going throughout the year. While this has breathed some much-needed life into the park, it also means more visitors to Epcot at unexpected times, particularly when a festival has just kicked off. Unexpected events like Leap Day all-nighters, Magic Kingdom After Hours, RunDisney events, and other surprising additions have also skewed trends on days when visitors may have assumed crowds were supposed to be light.
Image: Josh Hallett, Flickr (license)
At the same time, summer crowds have been down at Walt Disney World the previous years, meaning more and more people are catching on and scheduling trips at other times of the year. It is reaching the point that experts are starting to shift advice on assuming summer is the busiest time all year. To make things even more confusing, it seems like even on light days, Animal Kingdom’s World of Pandora remains steadily crowded. In short, everything experts have assumed about when to visit Walt Disney World is gradually changing.
Don’t fret. The best way to make sure you are visiting at a good time is to do some research on well-updated crowd calendars. Also, be sure and check if Disney will be having special events when you visit. Don’t let Epcot festivals deter you any more if they have in the past. Generally, they seem to quiet down once the first two weeks have passed. Trip planning just requires a little extra research than it used to. Speaking of which…
2. Extra Magic Hours are no longer a guarantee which park you should visit
Image: Disney
When Walt Disney World introduced Extra Magic Hours for guests staying at their resorts, it quickly became a favorite recommendation for Disney insiders. Most experts already recommend hitting the parks at opening gate to reduce waiting time on the hottest attractions. Extra Magic Hours made this strategy work even better. Before Fastpass was introduced, it was the surest way to guarantee short waits on Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and Test Track, for example. The really surprising thing was how few people took advantage of this resort perk.
Extra Magic Hours is the perfect example of what happens when something that was previously an “insider” secret catches on en masse. What caused the switch is anyone’s guess—perhaps the fact that Extra Magic Hours are better publicized than they were before. Either way, more people than ever are taking advantage of that extra hour before or after the parks close, and the switch has had a very unusual effect on park attendance.
Image: Disney
In general, Extra Magic Hours can still be a great time to visit the parks. The catch, however, is that it has become a steady trend that whichever Walt Disney World park has Extra Magic Hours on a given day becomes the busiest park that day. Disney has room for something around 30,000 guests at any given time in their resorts. While that’s a reasonable number of people in the parks during the actual Extra Magic Hours, the rest of the day that is a lot of extra people in the same park. Many guests plan their entire trip around Extra Magic Hours days, even if they don’t end up taking advantage of the extra hour. While this used to be a wonderful way to plan, it is no longer a surefire way to avoid crowds.
The key is to not bet your entire trip on chasing Extra Magic Hours. Plan a few days when you know you want to hit the parks early in the morning or stay late at night. Schedule your other trip days according to preference. That way you aren’t inadvertently planning your entire trip on the busiest days in each park. If you are planning to park hop, you can hit Extra Magic Hours in the morning and stay at that park until things start to get busy. This is a great strategy to take advantage of those extra hours while skipping the crowds the rest of the day.
3. Some of Disney’s best restaurants are no longer worthy recommendations
Image: Jett Farrell-Vega
One of the most common frustrations our readers mention is declining food quality at Walt Disney World. While restaurant recommendations ultimately come down to personal preference, there has been a notable shift at some of Disney’s previously-remarkable restaurants—to the point they are no longer good recommendations at all.
We detailed in the past our surprise over the disappointing changes at Epcot’s Garden Grill. Readers echoed that they’ve experienced similar declines at Liberty Tree Tavern, Restaurant Marrakesh, Crystal Palace, and even Ohana to some degree, with plenty more that can be included on the list. Hope isn’t entirely lost for these Disney mainstays, but even many of the items presented at Epcot’s festivals throughout the year bear the mark of a shift away from the legendary quality of Disney yesteryear (whose idea was the “glownut” again?).
Some blame the Disney Dining Plan for the changes. Others point to Disney corporate leadership. Either way, while Walt Disney World still has loads of wonderful food, prices have gone up while quality has gone down at many locations.
Image: Jett Farrell-Vega
You don’t have to completely scratch your favorite locations off your list. However, before you make reservations for your next visit, it is wise to do a search for recent reviews on your favorite restaurants on Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and even here at Theme Park Tourist. Look for reviews that specifically mention that the reviewer used to love that location but things have changed (this is what many of our readers responded with about their experience with lunch and dinner at The Garden Grill). If you see a consistent shift towards complaints, consider making your valuable dining reservations at one of Disney’s other establishments. The Rose and Crown, Tusker House, The Flying Fish, Biergarten, and Satu’li Canteen are just a few of the great options that still receive thumbs up from our readers and writers!
Also, on the subject of dining…
4. The Disney Dining Plan is almost never a good deal
Image: Disney
We’ve touched on this subject before, but it is worth revisiting: the Disney Dining Plan is no longer a no-brainer for saving money on Walt Disney World dining.
It’s not that the dining plan is terrible. Particularly if you eat lots of heavy meals and like the budgeting option, it is still worth researching and considering. However, if you are looking to save money, you likely will do better by putting your dining budget on Disney gifts cards.
The main issue is value. Most guests are not horking down prime rib and buffets for every meal. Many visitors report a common issue ending up with too many snack credits at the end of the trip. While you can certainly find creative ways to spend these, is it money that you wouldn’t have spent if you hadn’t been on the dining plan? Even when free Disney Dining Plans are offered, take the time to do the math to see if you are spending extra on full price resort rates. If it works out in your favor, awesome, but it isn’t worth just assuming like it used to be.
If you are really determined to try to figure out if the Disney Dining Plan is a value for your family, you have a few options. There are several simple calculators online that will give you a general estimate on if the dining plan is worth it. If you really want to pinch pennies, you may need to break out a spreadsheet and peruse through menus of the restaurants you are planning to visit. Consider what you would spend if you weren’t on the dining plan, then calculate that. If you are the types who avoid eating breakfast in the parks, bring your own snacks and water, and don’t eat particularly heavy, you will likely save money skipping the Dining Plan.
What is some other Walt Disney World advice you have heard that has changed dramatically?
