How to Skip The Lines At Disney World
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After countless 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 somewhere.
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 dodge 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 click here to learn more about my Disney World Visual Guidebook.
2) Use the Lightning Lanes & Virtual Queue
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.
Looking at going forth week in April 2018 what’s it like then? The third week in April is school vacation for Maine, what is it like then?
Hi Lisa! Both weeks have an average of 5/10 crowds, so moderate. I’d prefer the last week since fewer places would be out of school, but it would only be slightly fewer crowds. The weather will be outstanding!
How is September in Disney? I am worried about hurricanes and taking the risk!
Hi Corissa! We LOVE visiting at the end of September – in fact, we have gone that week the past four out of five years! Maybe we are just lucky but we have never had trouble with a hurricane. However this year a hurricane hit two weeks before our trip, so it really does depend. If you are worried, you can get travel insurance with my recommended provider: https://bit.ly/2AFfkIw And check out my favorite times to visit WDW here: https://bit.ly/2bvqybD
This is our first time going to Disney. I have Feb 6 to the 13th booked for 2018 how will the parks be? I have planned out all of our restaurants already and saw that we are going to Epcot feb 9 and Animal Kingdom feb 12 (this one I can switch to another day since I don’t have a meal planned for here that matters) on days that have a ! How bad will those days be do you think? I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old.
Also staying about 10 min away from Disney once we get into the park is there a lot of traffic getting into the parks, how long do you think once we enter WDW will it take to get to the parks just so I give myself enough time to drive threw the parking lots.
Hi Chris! Early February will have overall low crowds – some of the lowest of the year!
I wouldn’t worry too much about those days at Epcot and AK… I see no reason why Epcot would be particularly crowded on the 9th. AK does have morning extra magic hours on the 12th, so it might be better to switch it to another day if possible. But even if you can’t I don’t expect it to be that bad.
Traffic is only bad at peak times getting through the gates, which is usually 9-10 am. If you arrive earlier you should be fine. Do factor in additional time to park and either ride the ferry or take the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. I usually plan for an additional 30 minutes just to be on the safe side.
We are going May 6. How will the parks be then? And for planning sake what IF we can’t use Fast Pass because they’re all booked uo. Can you still plan so you have little to no wait times?
May is generally a great month to visit with pretty low crowds, Gina. Are you staying off-property and able to book FastPasses 30 days out? If so, you should be able to get them for almost any attraction you want, with the exception of possibly Frozen Ever After and Seven Dwarves Mine Train. If you can’t get FastPasses for these and want to ride them, just be at the parks at least 30 minutes before opening and position yourself to head straight there first. If you use FastPasses later in the day and get to the parks early, you should still be able to do lots without much waiting. Have a great trip!
We are going in July (I know horrible for crowds but the only time my husband could take vacay) and I have our agendas planned just like you said you normally do. Early to the parks, leave after lunch and Resort dinners/dinner shows. My son will be 4 and just won’t be up for full park days, but luckily we are all morning people. I have read tons of posts/books and no one else has ever said that’s how they build their days, so I was really starting to worry we would miss out on too much. But I also think it gives us flexibility, if everyone seems in a good mood we can stay after lunch, if not it’s back to the resort we go.
I think your approach to visiting the parks in July with your family is PERFECT. You will see and do so much while beating the mid-day heat and giving your son time to rest. I think you will enjoy yourself more than others who try to do everything (which is impossible anyway) and end up overheated with miserable kids. Let us know how it went and I hope you have a great trip!
Our kids were 3 and 6 on our first visit and we stayed at the parks all day. They were in a double stroller and they did not have to walk much at all so they did not get tired. My husband got a workout from pushing that stroller, but we were able to skip the nap/swimming/hotel room part of the day. This gave us lots of extra time at each park.
We are going April 2,3,4, how crowded will MK be?
Hi Catherine! You are looking at pretty high crowd levels since it is spring break, about a 7/10. The best day to visit the MK is the 4th according to the crowd calendars. Hope that helps!
OH NO! From what I had saw- Spring Break is in March.. not April? :[ That’s such a bummer… We just booked our trip from April 3rd. Ughhh.
Hi Chelsea! It will likely be pretty crowded this year the first week in April since Easter falls late this year. Just get an early start and use a crowd calendar to visit the least busy parks on each day and you will be fine. Have a great trip!
The only way to avoid lines is not to go. I went for my last time last November. Second week of November is supposed to be the slowest time for Disney. We’ve gone there during that week before and were very happy but this past time was ridiculous. Use fast past had to plan a whole day around it and still didn’t get on a lot of things we wanted to. That’s a lot of money to spend to standstill waiting in lines. I’m done with Disney. My hard earned money could be spent better somewhere else. In my opinion the problem is they keep building more and more hotels more and more people keep going there and they don’t build more attractions so you have so many more people waiting to see the same things. We even had to wait in line 30 to 50 minutes just to get food. That’s crazy
Have you ever been in March? I have booked a reservation for March 6-10. Just wondering how the crowds are then.
The first week in March is a great time to visit this year, Shiree! The crowds will be low since it is right before the spring break crowd surge. Have an awesome trip!
Hi, if you are visiting Magic Kingdom on EMH day, will the opening showing be prior to the EMH opening, or will it be prior to the park opening for the public? Leaving in 2 weeks!
Hi Amanda! The morning show will be before the Extra Magic Hours Opening. It may be an abbreviated show or it may be the full show. It is very early to get there but the opening show is one of my favorite things at the MK! Hope you have a great trip!
We are locals and visit Disney often. Now, after you use your first 3 passes you can schedule one at a time on your app whereas before you had to go to a kiosk to do so. When we were there last week they were even allowing the ability to book the extra pass at any park if you had the park hopper. (was in testing mode they said). They are really putting in great effort on this. Soon you will probably be able to book a whole itinerary!
Thanks for the update, Dustin! How cool that you are locals. I love that you can book additional FastPasses as soon as you use your first three. I’ve heard that as soon as you scan your MagicBand/ticket media for your last FastPass you can select another in the app while you wait to get on the ride! Not sure I’d do that but it is good to know. 🙂