I am so excited for you! You are planning your trip to Disney with your family. But wait- have you thought about surviving waiting in Disney lines? Disney to most including me is the most magical place on earth! It truly is. BUT included in that magic is a lot of waiting. If you are not prepared for it can ruin your trip.
I LOVE Disney. But there is literally waiting for everything. Checking into the hotel. Waiting for the bus. Waiting to get into the park. Waiting to get food. Waiting for the rides. Waiting to leave. I know, now you are thinking does this person hate Disney? No I am just being honest. It is a lot of waiting, but you can make it so much better by being prepared.
Surviving waiting in Disney Lines-Buses
If you are staying on site, you will see the buses everywhere. If you are not staying on site you will still likely experience the buses depending where you park and how many parks you are going to. Use the app! The Disney App is a life saver and helps with being aware of the waiting. It will tell you when the buses are coming. When you decide to head to the parks plan ahead. If the park opens at 10 and you want to be there at 9:30 try going even earlier. This may not guarantee you to get on the first bus but it will help make sure you still get there on time.
The Disney buses usually have characters on them. For my family one of the ways of surviving Disney lines on the buses is counting the number of characters we see on the buses. We also guess which character our bus will be. This won’t always last for too long but it does make it a game. My kids still do this after being at Disney many times.
Be prepared for when the bus comes. If you have a stroller have it already folded. This is where having a baby carrier comes in handy if you have a baby. If you have popcorn buckets or water bottles have them clipped to the side of the stroller or on a backpack strap. When we are heading to Disney our kids don’t bring bags. This becomes too much. My husband and I have a backpack that has everything we need.
Surviving waiting in Disney Lines-getting into the park
When you planned this trip you may not have thought you would be waiting to get in. But to be honest more times than not we are waiting to get into the gate. This one is really hard. The kids are so excited, they see it, they feel the excitement and they have to wait! If you don’t have magic bands and are using cards do not give your kids the cards until you are ready to scan. We have struggled trying to find where the kids put the cards at the last minute. This is a great chance to have a dance party, plan where you are going to go. Get a drink of water before heading in or a last minute snack.
Waiting in Ride Lines
This is the one that will happen most often. Pretty much every ride that you go on there will be some waiting. If you aren’t using Lightning Lanes which we don’t often waiting can be long. Being honest with you kids is important so they know what to expect. In every line there is always something cool to look at. Sometimes it is paintings or fun decoration or even mini musuems in the line. Take advantage of these so it takes your kids minds off waiting for a bit.
Keep your back pack with you. This is where having bubbles, small hand held games and snacks come in really handy. Having a portable charger is really handy too because we usually let the kids take turns on our phone if the wait is pretty long. We take this opportunity to look through the autograph books. My kids love seeing how many they have gotten and figure out which ones they are missing.
Again-use the app! The wait times are listed and are fairly accurate and up to date. I like to look a few days before going to see if there is a trend on when the wait might be lower and try to go at that time. If you have your heart set on one ride but another is shorter- take advantage of this.
Our favorite line to wait in is by far Dumbo in magic kingdom. They have an indoor playground!! My kids sometimes even like just playing in the park rather than going on the ride.
Check out some other travel tips for families at Home – Together We Can Travel
