With a trip to Walt Disney World on most family travelers’ bucket lists, here are some helpful tips from Disney travel planning experts at MagicGuides.
My Disney Experience App
The My Disney Experience App will be your best friend leading up to the trip and during your trip. Three months before your trip, use the app to make dining reservations, purchase priority access packages, view your tickets and plan out your park days. Once you are in the park, the app can be used as a park map helping you navigate your way throughout, see wait times, ride maintenance, place mobile food orders, enter virtual queues when available, and see your Disney Genie and priority access packages.
How to Avoid Long Lines
For those looking to ride the popular or new attractions, consider “rope dropping” by showing up at the park before it opens and heading straight to your desired attraction so you can be one of the first groups in line.
Another thing to keep in mind is heading to these popular attractions during the afternoon parade, nighttime fireworks or peak meal times. The Disney Genie section of the My Disney Experience App shows wait times for all rides, allowing you to gauge the estimated time and see if it’s worth waiting for or not.
Genie+ and Lightning Lanes
Recently, Fast Passes were replaced by Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. For a fee of $15–30 per person, Genie+ lets visitors make ride reservations on the morning of their visit and continue to make reservations one at a time the remainder of the day. Lightning Lanes are available for the most popular rides in each park. Guests can purchase one entrance per day for each ride. The cost ranges from $10 to $20 per ride and are available for purchase on the day of your visit.
Make sure to take the time to understand the difference between these two before booking your reservations. Plan out your days ahead of time so you are going into the reservation process with a plan to make the process quick and easy.
Take Advantage of Mobile Ordering
Many quick service locations throughout the four parks offer mobile ordering services through the My Disney Experience app. Guests can view menus, order and pay ahead of time all through the app. When it’s time to eat, bypass the regular line and go straight to the mobile pickup window to get your food.
Park Hopper Tickets
Park Hopper tickets allow you to visit more than one park a day. These are perfect for guests who don’t want to spend the full day in one park but still get their money’s worth of a Disney trip. It’s also idea for travelers who aren’t at the park long enough to spend four full days at each park. Start your day at one park and hop over to another one for the second half of the day.
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