Rookie Mistakes
5 Things that First Time WDW Guests Do Wrong
Visiting Walt Disney World in Florida is a holiday like no other and the planning and preparation required to get the most out of it can sometimes feel like you are getting ready for a family wedding. Here are 5 mistakes that a lot of first time Disney guests make.
1. They don't get up early
I am more of a night owl than an early bird but I learnt a long time ago that getting to the parks early is one of the best ways to make the most of your time at WDW. If you can try to get to the entrance before the park you are visiting opens.
2. They go to the Park with the Extra Magic Hours
If you are staying at a Disney resort you can avail of what are known as Extra Magic Hours (EMH). This is where one of the parks opens early (or sometimes late in the evening) exclusively for guests who are staying on Disney property. It is a very nice perk but the problem with Extra Magic Hours is that they tend to skew the distribution of visitors within the parks. For example, people see that EPCOT has early morning Extra Magic Hours on Monday morning and you can be fairly confident that EPCOT will be much busier that day than a typical Monday for that time of year.
The end result is that you are able to avail of an extra hour of short lines but then spend the rest of the day having to put up with unusually long lines. Ironically, many Disney guests do not actually make use of the EMH but still head to the park that has them. This is an illogical thing to do when you know that this park is likely to be the busiest of the four but people do not look at it that way.
Instead, what tends to happen is that visitors arrive at their hotel at the beginning of their trip and are given information about park opening hours. They then set about deciding which parks to visit on which days. If you have no other information to go on, choosing a park with extra magic hours seems like a sensible thing to do. After all it is a free perk. People think to themselves if we make use of the EMH that is great and if we don’t we have lost nothing. In reality they have probably just chosen to visit the busiest park on each day of their vacation.
So what should you do about Extra Magic Hours?
The answer to this really depends on what sort of ticket you have. If your ticket allows you to hop between parks then by all means make use of the Extra Magic Hours but rather than staying on at that particular park, it is then a good idea to go to another park. For example, if you go to EPCOT to use the EMH it is very easy to hop on the monorail over to Magic Kingdom. This way you get the best of both worlds. You avail of the EMH and you avoid the longer lines that build up later in the day. Moving between Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom and one of the other parks is a little bit more tricky as there are no direct busses but you can get around this by taking one of the resort busses and then waiting for the bus to the park of your choice from that resort. You usually will not have to wait more than 20 minutes.
If your ticket only allows you to visit one park a day (i.e. you are not allowed to park hop) then my advice would be to forget about the EMH and head to one of the other parks. Equally, visitors who are staying outside Disney should use the EMH information to plan a visit to one of the other parks.
3. They don’t take a midday break
The parks at Walt Disney World are hot places to be during the hours of 11am and 3pm, especially during the summer months. Not only that but they are also extremely crowded during these times. Remember all those people who had a lie in, well they have now arrived.
Seasoned WDW visitors, on the other hand, try to avoid the parks during these peak times. We often head back to our resort pool for a swim or even just take a rest in our air-conditioned hotel room. This ensures that we are able to recharge our batteries and are ready to take on one of the parks in the evening. If you have children in your party this rest time is vital. Most first time visitors underestimate just how physically draining a trip to WDW can be. Many adults struggle to stick the pace so imagine the toll it takes on children. Make sure you build in adequate rest time.
What if you are not staying at a Disney resort?
If you are staying outside Disney the time needed to get back to your hotel or villa may make this an unrealistic option but that does not mean you are trapped in the parks. There is nothing to stop you going to one of the resorts for lunch. For example, if you are at the Magic Kingdom you could walk over to the Contemporary Resort and get brunch at Chef Mickeys or ride the monorail over to the Grand Floridian and have a relaxing lunch at the Grand Floridian café.
4. They don’t make the most of their FastPass+ allocation
Fastpass+ is a great system. It enables you to ride the top attractions with little or no wait time. For example, take Sorin in EPCOT. The standby line wait time is typically an hour or more but by booking a Fastpass+ for this ride you can cut this time down to 10 or 15 minutes at most. The best thing about Fastpass+ is that it is completely free to use. Universal Studios charge guest for priority access to rides but in each of the Disney parks you can make Fastpass+ selections without any additional cost. That said you do not have an endless supply. Typically, you are given three Fastpasses each day so you need to use them wisely.
There are two main things to consider with FastPass+. Firstly, the timing. If you follow my advice about getting to the park early you may find that the ideal time to book your Fastpasses is for around 11 o’clock, just as the crowds are reaching their peak. Before this time most rides can usually be accessed with relatively short queues so using Fastpasses early in the morning is, in my opinion, a bit of a waste. On the flipside, you don’t want to leave your Fastpass selections for too much later in the day because you are likely to start wilting in the heat.
In any case using your allocation of Fastpasses before lunch means that you can search for more Fastpasses for later in the day. Additional Fastpass+ selections can only be made once the initial ones have been used. Fastpasses can be set up 60 days in advance so you should be aware that you are unlikely to get on any of the headline attractions but that doesn’t matter they are effectively bonus Fastpasses.
5. They leave the Parks when it Rains
First time visitors to WDW are often surprised by how much it rains in central Florida but if you visit Orlando during the summer months you are practically guaranteed to see rain. You may even see quite a lot of it - you are in tropics after all. Typically it will rain late in the afternoon and these downpours are often heavy but they are usually short lived.
The rain has two beneficial effects. Firstly, it clears the air and makes walking around the parks a cooler and much more pleasant experience. Secondly, it empties the parks. Leaving when a thunderstorm is looming is an understandable reaction, we have been caught in one or two very heavy thunderstorms down the years and it is not pleasant to be soaked to the bone. However, it you can avoid a drenching by finding somewhere dry to take shelter, it is often worth the effort because the queues for rides sometimes become non-existent as a consequence of the rain. Once the storm is over the park will dry out very quickly (as will you) and you are free to hop on and off rides in a way that would not have been possible if the rain had stayed away.
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