How I Do Disney

Between 2012 and 2017 I went to either Disneyland or Disney World seven times. For various reasons (including Covid of course) I went on a four year Disney hiatus but finally returned last month.

For some of us a theme park vacation is very exciting while others it is the last thing they’d ever want to do with their free time. The latter group typically complains about “crowds” and “lines” as their biggest turnoffs, but I think they’d have more fun than they anticipate if they went with one of us more experienced folks.

Many of my friends ask me for advice before they head to the parks, so I figure that I’d write some down.

Plan Your Trip

Half the fun of a Disney vacation is in the planning. The parks are so rich and complex that looking into what they have to offer and prioritizing what looks the most interesting to you will go a long way in maximizing your experience.

The first thing to decide is how much you’re will to do in a given day. If you want to take things casually and need breaks from the crowds and the walking, then I suggest hitting the parks in the morning, then head back to your hotel in the early afternoon for some rest and pool time before heading back to the parks in the late afternoon or evening. This way you often avoid the hottest and most crowded part of the day. If you want to see all of the major attractions you’ll need more days at the parks with a more casual itinerary.

Alternatively you can choose to “go hard” and maximize your time to see as many attractions as you can in a single day. I spent my last trip with only two teenagers who very much had this mindset and we would arrive soon after opening (we didn’t get there in time for rope drop because teenagers) and stay until they closed. On one of these days my watch registered over 27,000 steps.

Disney offers parades, fireworks and water shows so look up those schedules so that you can be at the right park at the right time.

Avoiding Lines

Start by looking up the online crowd calendars before you schedule your trip. You’ll find that any time school is out to be the worst, but different school districts have breaks at different times, which is why the week between Christmas and New Years is the absolute worst time as every kid in the US is free at that time.

Disney’s FastPass system is the next tool you can use for avoiding long lines, but that system hasn’t been available in Disneyland since it reopened after the Covid shutdown, and Disney World is replacing theirs with a new system called Genie+ that requires an extra payment. This isn’t surprising (Universal Studios has offered a paid system for line skipping for years) but I did appreciate the fact that Disney’s system used to be more equitable. Disneyland did have a virtual queue system when I was there for their two most popular rides, Web Slingers and Rise of the Resistance, but I assume this will be replaced by a paid system in the future.

You can use the park’s app to keep tabs on wait times so you know what you’re getting into before you show up to an attraction. Mornings tend to be a better time for attractions that are more interesting for adults while evenings are better for kiddie rides. The lines usually go down when the evening fireworks show starts and spike back up as soon as it ends.

If you’re staying at a Disney hotel (which I recommend as it adds to the experience) then there are often “Magic Hours” which are exclusive to hotel guests at the beginning or end of the day. Occasionally a park is open until 2 am which may feel doable if you’re traveling to Orlando from the Pacific time zone.

How Much Time To Budget For Each Park

A good rule of thumb is that you’ll want as many days at the parks as there are parks to visit, and perhaps one additional day to redo your favorite attractions. So if you want to go to Southern California, you’ll want two to three days for both Disney parks and one more if you want to go to Universal Studios Hollywood. In Orlando you’ll want four or five days to cover Disney World because there are four parks there (plus two water parks) and a couple of days for Universal Orlando which has two parks. You can do both Universal parks in one day if you “go hard” and spring for the Express Pass which allows you to skip most of the lines.

I prefer to get park hopper passes and split each day between two parks for variety. In Disney World, Magic Kingdom is the biggest park so you should plan to spend more time there than the other three. In California you can easily walk between the two parks but in Disney World they are further apart. Fortunately Disney World offers a free bus system that runs pretty frequently between the parks and to and from Disney hotels, plus the monorail which you can use to get between Magic Kingdom, Epcot and a few of the hotels.

What To Eat

The food is a big part of the experience. All of the restaurants in the park are themed with their own cuisine. For example the new Avengers Campus has a restaurant called Pym Test Kitchen where you can get oddly-sized food (Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, created tech for shrinking and growing things). At Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge you can get a Ronto Wrap (the breakfast version of this is my favorite) and Blue Milk. At Universal you can get Butter Beer which is goddamn delicious.

Disney’s app offers the ability to order food at the fast-casual spots or make reservations at the sit-down restaurants to remove even more line-waiting from your day. Some restaurants like Be Our Guest book weeks in advance. There are also lots of fun dining, dessert and shopping options in Downtown Disney (in Anaheim) and Disney Springs (in Orlando).

Transportation

When going to California I typically fly in and out of LAX because it is a very cheap option from Seattle, but if it isn’t much more expensive to fly into Santa Ana, that airport is much closer to Disneyland. I will also rent a car and drive between Disney and Universal at night to avoid the worst of LA traffic.

In Florida it’s much easier to go car-free. Disney offers a free bus to and from the Orlando airport, and you can take an Uber, Lyft or taxi to Universal.

Where To Stay

In Disneyland I generally opt for Disney’s Paradise Pier hotel, which is the cheapest of the three, though not cheap (last time I paid about $400/night). You can save by staying at a third party hotel, which may require a little extra walking, but there are several that are close enough. The Disney hotels do a good job of maintaining the Disney experience if you choose to spend the extra money.

In Disney World, Disney owns most of the land around the parks, so third party options tend to be farther away than first party ones. The story is that Walt didn’t like the non-Disney accommodations that popped up around Disneyland so he bought a huge plot of Florida swampland to control more of the experience there. In Orlando it’s fun to split your stay between two hotels for variety, and Disney will transport your bags between them for free. A couple of my favorites are Wilderness Lodge (free water taxi to Magic Kingdom) and Beach Club (pool with a sandy bottom and walking distance to Epcot).

On our last trip to Universal Studios Hollywood we stayed at a Sheraton which is walking distance to the park and allowed us to park there for free the whole day even after we checked out. In Florida there are a few themed hotels which are walking distance to Universal Orlando.

Should You Wait For Covid To Be Over?

The staff at every park was militant about making guests mask up indoors, but there’s no way to be perfectly safe when it comes to Covid. Disney is requiring all of their employees to get vaccinated so you should be relatively safe from the staff.

At this point I’ve come to accept that Covid will never actually end. The pandemic will inevitably transition to an endemic and we’ll just have to live with it. Don’t head to an area that is experiencing a major surge as the hospitals may become overwhelmed, but otherwise I think it’s time to start living life again.