Want to take advantage of every second that you are at the Walt Disney World Resort? Well, you are certainly not alone! Since Walt Disney World is one of the most visited places in the entire world, it is extremely important to read up on time saving tips before you leave home to ensure that you fit everything into your vacation that you want to do! Below are some of the ways that Disney has provided its guests to see their world faster and more efficiently.
But before you leave home for your vacation to Central Florida, it is also important to purchase your theme park tickets to Walt Disney World. Here at Orlando Fun Tickets, we have some of the best prices around, so be sure to check out our unbelievable discounted ticket prices! We’re not only here to save you time – we also want to save you money!
Disney came up with a system quite a few years ago that is now mimicked among theme parks across the world – Disney's FASTPASS Service. Having a FASTPASS allows guests to bypass the standby lines at all of the big attractions and cut through to a much shorter FASTPASS line. Every guest in the theme park can access the FASTPASS, but there is a catch to the system. There are limited amounts of FASTPASSes that are issued per hour, and you can only get one FASTPASS at a time. So, plan your FASTPASS uses wisely because, for example, if your FASTPASS time for Space Mountain is from 3-4 p.m., you cannot get another FASTPASS until 4 p.m. (Some of these bigger attractions give out their FASTPASS slips early in the day. It might be 10 a.m., but they could already be giving out a FASTPASS for 8 p.m. at night! Hint: don’t do that! That would mean you couldn’t get another until 8 p.m. Instead, get a FASTPASS for another attraction and simply wait until that line dies down towards the evening hours to ride that attraction.)
Disney’s FASTPASS Service is also easy to operate. Simply slip your park pass into the FASTPASS machine at an attraction to receive an assigned return time. Then, come back at that assigned time and head right to the designated FASTPASS line. Here’s another tip though – only use the FASTPASS service for the biggest attractions at the park – i.e. Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain and certain attractions in Fantasyland that have long wait times at the Magic Kingdom, Soarin’ and Test Track at Epcot, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Featuring Aerosmith and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at the Disney-MGM Studios and Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain and the Kilimanjaro Safaris at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park. The other attractions’ lines fluctuate throughout the day, but those rides are sure to always have a long wait!
Another system that Disney has in place is the baby swap. This is designed to allow parents with small children who cannot experience the attraction the opportunity to ride one at a time and not have to wait in line twice as long since they are riding separately. To enjoy this perk, simply ask a Cast Member at the attraction’s entrance if you can obtain a baby swap. They will give you a pass, allowing one parent to go ahead and experience the attraction while the other waits with the small child. Then, once that parent is finished with the ride, they will wait with their child while the other parent can head to the front of the line to also experience it as well. This is a great perk that many parents do not know about – but it can be a real time saver (and can prevent a lot of headaches!).
There are also other things that Disney has put in place to allow their guests to save time. At the Disney-MGM Studios, you can take advantage of the Fantasmic! Dining Experience. This will allow you to enjoy a nice dinner at either The Hollywood Brown Derby, Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano or Hollywood & Vine, and then receive a voucher for guaranteed seating for that evening’s Fantasmic! performance. Since this show fills to capacity nightly and often requires a minimum of an hour wait inside the theater to guarantee seats, this is a great way to get in a nice dinner and ensure that you can walk up right at show time and still receive seats for you and your family!
When it comes to saving time, when you visit the parks may be just as important as taking advantage of the tips above. As a general rule of thumb, January (starting the second week to avoid the New Years crowd and Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend crowds), February, September and October are the least busy times of the year for all of the theme park destinations in Orlando. By far, the busiest months for the Walt Disney World Resort are late May through August, when the summer crowd hits and kids are out of school. March and April are also busier than usual as well, as Spring Break is an extremely popular time for parents to take their children to Central Florida to take advantage of the warm (but not too hot) temperatures. So, if you plan your vacation around these times of year, you may not even need to use the FASTPASS or baby swaps!
And, don’t also forget that if you are staying at a hotel at the Walt Disney World Resort, you can also take advantage of Extra Magic Hours (before the parks open and after they close), in which only resort guests get to experience the best attractions with much lesser crowds. Since each park has designated days in which they open early or stay open late for resort guests (for example, the Magic Kingdom may open an hour early for resort guests on Monday, but Epcot may be open an hour later for resort guests on Tuesday night – your hotel will have a complete list of these Extra Magic Hours) you can hit the biggest attractions during these hours to lessen your wait time!
We here at Orlando Fun Tickets hope that these tips will help you save time – and have more fun – on your next Walt Disney World Resort vacation!
