If you had seen Lauren (my sister) and I at any point during the first 3-4 hours in our adventure, y

Now, let me be completely clear here: Both of us are in our twenties, and we did work hard to play hard in our Disney 1-Day Extravaganza—but don t let that stop you from using the following tips to your advantage during your Disney vacation. In one day, we hit up all of our favorite attractions, without compromise (well, we did have one compromise, but I ll get to that later), and still made it home before the Disney buses stopped running (around 1am).
If you had seen Lauren (my sister) and I at any point during the first 3-4 hours in our adventure, you would never have believed we accomplished what we did. I swear we missed at least three buses, a ferry, the first two major rides we visited in Magic Kingdom were not operating, and the first attraction we wanted to ride at Hollywood Studios had a 180-minute wait. This is on top of having will-call ticket pick-up issues at both our Disney Resort and at the Magic Kingdom Guest Services. At the time, we seriously thought the world was against us having a good experience that day.
Things did turn around, but before we move on to step two, make sure your expectations honeymoon cruises soecials are in check and plan extra time in your schedule for when the inevitable setback happens. Besides, you re at Disney World—the happiest place on Earth!
One of the small hurdles we experienced on our Disney Day was at a crucial time—the opening of the park for Extra Magic Hours. honeymoon cruises soecials We already missed the park opening by 10 minutes due to watching a bus pull away and waiting another 20 minutes for the next one. We had some issues with confirmation numbers and some other mundane details since our parents technically purchased the tickets (even though it was under my name for pickup).
This is one of the coolest and most handy improvements to the Disney experience since my last visit here four years back. Disney offers a free app with many useful features that provides useful info across the entire gamut of Walt Disney World, including every restaurant, resort, and most importantly—every park. The app allows you to view wait times for every attraction, shows the time you would have to return honeymoon cruises soecials if you picked up a FastPass right then at each attraction, and lists showtimes for their live entertainment. It has so many other cool features as well, so make sure you download and get familiar honeymoon cruises soecials with it before you head out to the parks. ( Keep in mind that the queue times are typically behind the times listed at the attractions honeymoon cruises soecials , so if there is a discrepancy, the attraction is most likely to be up-to-date.)
Extra Magic Hours aren t a secret anymore, but they still are an important part of the strategy. If you stay at a Disney Resort, you get priority treatment and may enter one of the four parks an hour early (the parks are on a rotating schedule—check with your front desk to get more details). Our morning plan hinged honeymoon cruises soecials on using this extra hour very strategically, as we chose the day that Magic Kingdom opened an hour earlier than normal. (Be careful though, as we noticed that it also closed an hour early on the Disney schedule too.) Don t expect the entire park to be open though, as many attractions still don t open until the normal park opening time. (We actually went to Magic Kingdom again to end the day, and found out they extended the park hours to the normal midnight honeymoon cruises soecials closing schedule so we actually had two Extra Magic Hours!)
Unfortunately, we showed up at Magic Kingdom at about 8:10 (we missed a bus), picked up our tickets at will call, and went straight for Space Mountain—but it was down for technical difficulties (a common term at Disney). Even so, we FastPassed it, and went straight for the other two mountains, Splash and Big Thunder. The Frontierland didn t open until 9am, though, so we had to wait for that.
We gambled on Splash Mountain over Big Thunder Mountain, and we lost—it was also closed for technical difficulties. I found a particularly generous Disney Cast Member (it s what they call their employees) nearby honeymoon cruises soecials and asked him for the scoop. He quickly shared that the problem was actually already honeymoon cruises soecials fixed, and now the crew was going through their normal preparations to open the ride—which is causing the current honeymoon cruises soecials delay. At this point, many of the folks in line had already migrated to the neighboring Big Thunder Mountain, and we moved up near the front of the line. It opened after about a 10-minute wait, and we hopped right on!
Luckily, we asked a Cast Member instead of giving up on the situation. After that, we went next door to Big Thunder (which has a very quick-moving queue). It wasn t long before we knocked out two of the major mountains at the Kingdom, and we headed back to Tomorrowland to redeem our FastPasses at Space.
One of the most magical experiences honeymoon cruises soecials that Disney s parks offer is their truly magical parades. During our day, we witnessed three parades at two different parks and each one was unique and really captivating to experience.
With that said, there is a huge strategic advantage to knowing when and where the parades honeymoon cruises soecials are so that you can enjoy them when you want and avoid them when you don t. Our first parade was quite by accident, and I wish we had intentionally visited this parade. Lauren wanted to get a picture with Minnie Mouse in the background (to send to a friend who asked for it). To get the best angle, honeymoon cruises soecials we went to the large roundabout circle in front of Cinderella s Castle.
We got a decent photo, and as we tried to continue our trek across the Magic Kingdom to ride Space Mountain, the parade began moving again and we were stuck on the roundabout for another honeymoon cruises soecials 10-15 minutes while the floats and paraders went through. It was an absolutely wonderful show and a fun parade that made me actually dance a bit—don t get me wrong—but it was frustrating to be stuck there because of a simple mistake we made in not being prepared! (Remember, not much has gone right for us this morning yet, so we are in a somewhat negative mindset well, as negative as you can be at Disney World, I suppose )
Later, when we got to Animal Kingdom, honeymoon cruises soecials we did our homework on the parades and got the intel and suggestions honeymoon cruises soecials from helpful Cast Members on what to expect and where, so we strategically experienced a fun, cultural parade there. This is what I would recommend to you if you want to see and experience honeymoon cruises soecials the fun parades honeymoon cruises soecials Disney parks offer: Find out when they are, what route and direction they take, and plan to walk through that way from one attraction to another during the beginning or height of that parade (though I would recommend ending your day with the 11pm Main Street Electrical Parade at Magic Kingdom). You still get a great experience, you can often follow the paraders and floats, and you re making progress traversing the park to your main attraction which leads me to my next point.
honeymoon cruises soecials This step is huge for your strategic Disney park success. I m not suggesting you skip the parades altogether, but if you follow Step 6, you ll get to experience plenty of parading and still be able to take advantage of the fact that most of the park visitors are standing honeymoon cruises soecials five-deep watching honeymoon cruises soecials the parade. The old trick of riding the popular attractions during lunch is somewhat helpful, but the fact is most park visitors eat at all times of the day (and you should too—more on that in a minute), so don t expect honeymoon cruises soecials to skip to the front just because you ate early or plan to eat late.
The parades, however, are another story. Almost everyone is at the parade (unless they were already near the front of their queue). We discovered this nifty trick accidentally while at Animal Kingdom (our third park). There was a fantastic parade we witnessed honeymoon cruises soecials as we walked from the Everest ride to Kilimanjaro Safaris. When we arrived, there was absolutely no one in line. Granted, this was the third- or fourth-most popular ride at Animal Kingdom, but literally ZERO people were ahead of us. Use this to your advantage on the rides you know you re going to have to wait in line for! Plan to wait in line for the most popular rides DURING a parade if possible. We actually arrived at Magic Kingdom (for the second time) around 10:05pm after the Epcot Illuminations show. The MK fireworks show was going on in all its glory, and we watched as we walked to Space Mountain. While everyone was outside watching the end of the fireworks, we jumped into a short wait line (around 15 minutes) to ride Space Mountain again —making up for the fact that we missed Test Track earlier in the day—and we didn t have to FastPass it or wait in an unreasonably long line.
Single-Rider Lines. These aren t as well-known honeymoon cruises soecials as I would have expected. I knew about the single-rider line at Test Track (which was the only ride we missed that we wanted to go on), but there are many other attractions with single-rider lines. Unless you are experiencing honeymoon cruises soecials the day with your sweetheart, consider breaking up during the actual ride and meeting together again on the other side. You ll save about 3/4 of the wait time by going as a single rider. There are only a few attractions that offer this, so ask your resort staff or call guest services to find out when planning your trip (some of the attractions tend to change).
The Rider Switch Passes. This is something I m not familiar with, but it can be a lifesaver for families with kids who can t or don t want to ride the big-kid or scarier attractions. The basic gist is that Dad can wait in line and ride a ride while Mom watches the kids, and then Mom gets a Rider Switch pass to the front of the line—as if you waited together. honeymoon cruises soecials It apparently works much like a FastPass. Here s some more info.
So back to the relatively rough morning we finally got to FastPass Space Mountain, and we stop for an early lunch (about 10:30-11am) at the diner in Tomorrowland (which has some healthy options—my sister honeymoon cruises soecials won t eat beef, pork, or dairy, and we found plenty of food options at every park) . This was the first real body fuel we d had since a very light breakfast at 6:30am, and we had been busting it for the