Each year, GlenOak High School sends arts students to Walt Disney World to represent our district in competition and performance. This opportunity comes as a delight to many students, but the happiest place on Earth poses its own challenges.
Wait times, walking distance, and in-park purchases can be both overwhelming and confusing to first-time parkgoers. In order to make the Disney World experience truly magical, students must enter prepared.
Plain Local parent and self-proclaimed Disney World expert Beth Postlewaite concurs.
“If you go to Disney without some type of strategy or forethought, you will not get everything that you want out of the experience,” Postlewaite said. “Disney is too expensive to go unprepared.”
The preparation in question can exist in many different forms, but for any kind of school trip, Postlewaite recommends beginning by downloading the Walt Disney World App.
“If you get the Disney World App, you can see the wait times for every attraction in the park,” Postlewaite said. “Pay attention to those to make a gameplan for your day.”
It is incredibly important to create a rough itinerary for your day in any Disney park. By using in-app wait times and park maps, you can minimize the number of steps taken and time spent waiting in your day. This is especially possible when you work through the park in clusters.
“By paying attention to where each attraction you want to go to is in the park, you don’t waste time and energy walking back and forth across the entire park multiple times,” Postlewaite said. “A day in Disney gets really exhausting, and you especially don’t want to waste your energy.”
Another way to maximize your time in the Disney parks is by purchasing a Lightning Lane pass; these can be purchased in the Disney World app as well. There are two different types of Lightning Lane passes: Individual Lightning Lanes and Multi Passes.
“The Multi-Pass will give you quicker access to almost every ride in the park, except the ones that are Individual Lighting Lanes,” Postlewaite said.
Rides that require Individual Lightning Lane passes are generally those with the highest rider traffic, such as The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Magic Kingdom or Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind in EPCOT. These passes generally range from $15 to $22, but can vary depending on the day.
Multi-Passes for each park generally range from $25 to $40, but are also subject to change. Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios boast the highest Multi-Pass price, whereas EPCOT and Animal Kingdom tend to be more affordable. Each Multi-Pass can only be used at its specified park, unless you have a Park Hopper pass, which allows you to visit multiple parks in one day.
It is also important to note that if Lightning Lane passes are purchased in the Disney app before entering the parks, users have the opportunity to preregister for three rides before even entering the park; of these three, there must be one Tier One ride and two Tier Two rides (which are indicated in the app).
As soon as you tap into the first ride you’ve preregistered for, your registration can be altered in the app as soon as it includes different rides in the park, or even rides in other parks if the rider has a Park Hopper pass.
“Watch wait times once you get in line and see if it makes sense to modify your Lightning Lanes,” Postlewaite said. “It’s a great way to make sure that you actually get to ride everything you want to.”
With tickets bought, apps downloaded, Lightning Lanes purchases and rides scheduled, the only thing left to worry about for Disney-goers is food.
“If you aren’t super worried about the food, I would recommend sticking to quick-service places,” Postlewaite said. “They give you the most flexibility to make it to all the attractions you want.”
The most highly recommended quick-service restaurants tend to include The Satu’li Canteen in Animal Kingdom, The Columbia Harbour House in Magic Kingdom, Docking Bay 7 in Hollywood Studios, as well as any of the countries in EPCOT’s World Showcase.
“Quick-service restaurants are especially nice because if you want a smaller or more affordable portion, they will sell kids’ meals to you, no matter how old you are; they also have to give you cups of water for free,” Postlewaite said.
With some preplanning, the happiest place on Earth can be even more magical when you know how to navigate it.
