After over 40 trips over the past 40 years, I’ve finally figured out how to skip the lines at Disney World.
I love riding all of the incredible attractions at Walt Disney World… but I hate waiting in line.
In this post I’ll share my strategies for avoiding long waits at Disney World, so you can spend your vacation enjoying all the parks have to offer instead of waiting in line.
#1) Use a Crowd Calendar to Plan Your Park Days
No matter what time of year you visit, there will be crowds at Disney World.
It is the world’s #1 vacation destination, so there are always thousands of people at the theme parks.
The key to having the best possible vacation experience is to avoid these crowds as much as possible!
Luckily, some wise folks have figured out crowd patterns for you. I regularly use a free crowd calendar that shows recommended parks to visit and parks to avoid for each day of the year, such as this one published by Undercover Tourist.
My goal on every trip is to visit only recommended parks each day. This is particularly important at Magic Kingdom, the smallest and most popular park.
For example, Magic Kingdom is particularly crowded on Mondays and Saturdays.
These are the most common days of the week for folks to start their vacations, and most folks want to visit the Magic Kingdom first. So I try to always avoid MK on these days of the week!
Here is an example of how powerful the crowd calendars are.
Against my better judgment, we went to Disney World over Christmas about five years ago to celebrate my birthday (I was born on Christmas day). Christmas is likely the busiest day of the whole year at Disney World.
Using the crowd calendar as our guide, we visited the recommended park, Animal Kingdom, on Christmas Day and were shocked to discover a practically empty park!
We rode all the attractions with little wait and roamed freely around the park – on the busiest day of the year.
That same day Magic Kingdom was filled to capacity and had to close its gates around noon. So do not underestimate how much using a crowd calendar can affect the quality of your vacation experience!
If you want a detailed step-by-step plan that will save you hours in line, then I strongly suggest a TouringPlans subscription – get the details here!
2) Use the Lightning Lanes & Virtual Queue to Skip the Line at Disney
Disney Genie+ and the Lightning Lanes are a great way to skip the line at Disney World.
But you have to know how to use them to get your money’s worth out of them!
Check out my ultimate guide to using Lightning Lanes here.
Also, be sure to check out this guide on how to use the FREE Disney World Virtual Queue system to ride the newest attraction.
3) Get to the Parks Early
You’ve likely heard the advice to get to the theme parks early to avoid long lines. Maybe you are hoping this actually isn’t true, and there’s no reason to set your alarm on your much-needed vacation.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but getting to the parks before they open is likely the single best way to avoid long waits at Disney World!
Most people like to sleep in on vacation. The vast majority of people arrive at the theme parks after 10 a.m.
If you can manage to be in the theme parks during the first hour they are open, you will be able to ride many attractions with little to no wait.
On regular days, the published opening time for the parks is 9 am. However, Magic Kingdom opens up Main St USA to everyone an hour before the published opening time. It’s the perfect time to get pictures, grab breakfast, and enjoy the atmosphere.
If you are staying at an on-property Disney resort, you’ll get access to certain attractions 30 minutes before officially park opening every day thanks to Early Theme Park Entry.
Staying one step ahead of the crowds is the best tactic to skip the lines at Disney World.
My family has had so much fun during morning early entry, especially at Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom.
We have ridden Expedition Everest five times in a row with no wait and had our pick of any ride at Magic Kingdom!
We often just visit the parks in the morning, head back to our resort for a nap/swim, then eat dinner at one of the resort hotels.
We can still get a solid four hours in at the parks and enjoy them when they are the least crowded!
4) Use Mobile Order To Avoid Long Lines at Restaurants
The lines at Disney World aren’t limited to rides. At peak times there are also long waits to just order food at Disney’s Quick Service restaurants.
But there’s a way to skip those lines, too! Click here for my guide to using Mobile Order in the My Disney Experience app to go straight to the counter to get your food.
5) Take Your Vacation During Off-Peak Times of Year
My last tip for avoiding long waits at Disney World is to plan your visit during a less-crowded time of year. While Disney has recently made efforts to distribute crowds more evenly throughout the year, there are still certain times of year that are less crowded than others.
You can get my picks for the best time to go to Disney World in this post.
I’ll share the less-crowded times of year to visit the parks below but be warned: they all take place when kids are traditionally in school.
It is the best possible learning situation for them, so please don’t feel bad or hesitate to take your kids out of school to travel to Disney.
So here are the overall less-crowded times of the year at Disney World:
- January (except for marathon weekend)
- February (except for President’s Day weekend)
- September
- After Easter until Memorial Day
- After Thanksgiving until mid-December (though this time gets busier every year due to promotions Disney has been running)
If you visit during these times of the year and use the other strategies I mentioned above, you can easily ride every attraction you want to at Disney World and never wait for more than 10 minutes.
I hope you got lots of ideas for how to skip the lines at Disney World in this post. Want more help planning your Disney World vacation?
Click here to get a free quote from Siera at Destinations in Florida, my recommended Disney travel planner, who can help you decide where to stay, what parks to visit, and more, all at NO cost to you.
If you have any questions about avoiding crowds at Disney, feel free to leave a comment below.
John
Sunday 15th of December 2019
Thank you for some info before my family heads to the big castle Mar 12th-20th. I hope to hear about your trip from Feb. maybe you’ll have some new tips. We still have the old tickets that don’t expire. I hope they don’t give us a problem with those. Thanks again John
Leah
Monday 16th of December 2019
Hi John! Have you already linked your no expiration tickets to your My Disney Experience account? I'd do that as early as possible. The tickets won't be activated until you use them to enter a theme park. You will want them linked ahead of time so you can make your FastPass reservations. Hope that helps!
Nora
Monday 22nd of April 2019
I have been to Disneyworld 3 times in the past 2 years and have to say there is no such thing as low crowds and no waiting! Each time we went during supposedly low crowd dates and choose days for parks according to lowest crowd day per park but still waits were outrageous and parks were crowded! Cast members told us it was unusually busy for the time of year each time, and the consensus is that so many people are trying to beat the crowds that it ends up leveling out so that there's a good crowd no matter what. The only possible exception is after Labor Day (start of school) especially on bad weather days. But you'll STILL wait on lines, just maybe not 60+ minutes. I'd avoid Easter and Christmas weeks because crowds are super outrageous then, but otherwise, it's pretty much all the same.
Leah
Wednesday 24th of April 2019
Hi Nora! You are right, Disney has definitely made efforts to disperse crowds throughout the year and it has worked. But I have experienced VERY low crowd days as recently as January of this year (2019 - just a few months ago) so they do still exist. We went to Epcot in the middle of the week the last week of January (the lowest crowd days of the year according to the crowd calendar) and we were able to ride everything with no wait. We used FastPass extensively (as described in this article) getting 7 FastPasses throughout the day. So the tips in this article really do help and it is possible to ride everything with no wait - I am constantly testing this to be sure!
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Alana
Thursday 4th of October 2018
Hi we are going next week and I have two questions. We booked our trip through Costco Travel and got a really good deal but they said we could do our fast pass 30 days ahead we tried to do this and we keep getting a message that we can not perfomr this with Will Call tickets.
My second question is for the Magic Band. I read your article and since we are staying off Disney property can we still link a credit card to our magic bands? I really want to be able to take advantage of that part of them.
Thanks!
Leah
Thursday 4th of October 2018
Hi Alana! Did you try to link the tickets to your My Disney Experience account and you are getting an error? I don't have any experience with Disney Costco packages, so you may want to ask someone at Costco about the ticket situation.
Unfortunately, you can't make charges with your Magic Band unless you are staying on Disney property. You can buy them and link them to your MDE account which will let you use them to enter the parks and redeem Fastpasses. But you can only charge back to the room if you are staying at a Disney resort. They do sell little wristband gift cards at Epcot since it is Food & Wine fest - that might be a good way to go.
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