Planning a “Maximized” Day for First-Timers

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

My brother and I are heading down to WDW for a short trip in June to celebrate the end of MuppetVision (the company I work for is hosting an event with Imagineers and Jim Henson Co. people who worked on the attraction), and two friends of mine who have never visited any Disney parks before most likely will be joining us. We’ll be doing two parks- Hollywood Studios on June 7th and Magic Kingdom on June 8th.

Since this is their first ever visit to Disney ever, I want to make it as perfect as possible. We’re not staying at a WDW Hotel so if there are extra magic hours these days we won’t be using them, so we’re limited to normal park hours. With four people, how can we maximize our time at both parks? DHS has less to do so I’m less worried. Magic Kingdom seems a bit daunting to get all the essentials done, especially with BTM down, reducing capacity. We’re all late 20s so we’ll be skipping attractions that are specifically for kids and families, like Slinky Dog Dash, but we’re definitely going to do the iconic stuff like Dumbo. We likely won’t be doing any meet and greets either. My brother is autistic so we always had the DAS equivalent growing up, but with the changes idk if he’d qualify anymore since he’s high functioning (though he still dislikes spending a long time in lines/crowds).

Is there an optimal strategy these days for completing the park in one go, either with or without Lightning Lane/DAS? I remember the strategy used to be “start in Tomorrowland and work your way west” but that might not be a thing anymore.

 

[Worldlover71]

Since you are trying to maximize ride time and are going during a busy time of year, I would say that Lightning Lane MultiPass is essential. We may not like having to pay extra for it, but it will cut down your wait time on at least a few rides, allowing you to fit in a few more.

You will want to arrive well before rope drop (usually 9am), so you can be at the front of the line for your first attraction (start in Adventureland in the MK since that is not open to folks with early entry.)

Lines are often a bit shorter during parades and fireworks at MK if you don't mind skipping them.

Good luck and enjoy!

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

Since you are trying to maximize ride time and are going during a busy time of year, I would say that Lightning Lane MultiPass is essential. We may not like having to pay extra for it, but it will cut down your wait time on at least a few rides, allowing you to fit in a few more.

You will want to arrive well before rope drop (usually 9am), so you can be at the front of the line for your first attraction (start in Adventureland in the MK since that is not open to folks with early entry.)

Lines are often a bit shorter during parades and fireworks at MK if you don't mind skipping them.

Good luck and enjoy!

For Adventureland, are any of the attractions worth rope dropping? IIRC all of them have pretty low wait times, Jungle Cruise being the longest. Would it make sense to cut through Adventureland to start with Tiana's since that'll probably have a longer line? I've also heard 7DMT is worth rope dropping but is often down in the morning.

If we end up having DAS, is it still worth it to also get any LLs? When I was last there in 2023, we bought LL even with DAS and in the end we probably could've saved the money, I think the only benefit we had was getting to ride Splash twice between LL and DAS, which was nice since it closed right after we went.

 

[Disstevefan1]

My brother and I are heading down to WDW for a short trip in June to celebrate the end of MuppetVision (the company I work for is hosting an event with Imagineers and Jim Henson Co. people who worked on the attraction), and two friends of mine who have never visited any Disney parks before most likely will be joining us. We’ll be doing two parks- Hollywood Studios on June 7th and Magic Kingdom on June 8th.

Since this is their first ever visit to Disney ever, I want to make it as perfect as possible. We’re not staying at a WDW Hotel so if there are extra magic hours these days we won’t be using them, so we’re limited to normal park hours. With four people, how can we maximize our time at both parks? DHS has less to do so I’m less worried. Magic Kingdom seems a bit daunting to get all the essentials done, especially with BTM down, reducing capacity. We’re all late 20s so we’ll be skipping attractions that are specifically for kids and families, like Slinky Dog Dash, but we’re definitely going to do the iconic stuff like Dumbo. We likely won’t be doing any meet and greets either. My brother is autistic so we always had the DAS equivalent growing up, but with the changes idk if he’d qualify anymore since he’s high functioning (though he still dislikes spending a long time in lines/crowds).

Is there an optimal strategy these days for completing the park in one go, either with or without Lightning Lane/DAS? I remember the strategy used to be “start in Tomorrowland and work your way west” but that might not be a thing anymore.

To maximize with less effort purchase LLPP. Then you can focus planning dining reservations and other things.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

To maximize with less effort purchase LLPP. Then you can focus planning dining reservations and other things.

Isn't that $450 a person? That's insane. I'd rather wait in line than pay three times the price of my ticket just to ride everything once. Plus, dining reservations aren't that hard imo, you can take care of that before you're at the park.

 

[Worldlover71]

For Adventureland, are any of the attractions worth rope dropping? IIRC all of them have pretty low wait times, Jungle Cruise being the longest. Would it make sense to cut through Adventureland to start with Tiana's since that'll probably have a longer line? I've also heard 7DMT is worth rope dropping but is often down in the morning.

If we end up having DAS, is it still worth it to also get any LLs? When I was last there in 2023, we bought LL even with DAS and in the end we probably could've saved the money, I think the only benefit we had was getting to ride Splash twice between LL and DAS, which was nice since it closed right after we went.

You are correct, Tiana is a great choice for rope drop, as is Jungle Cruise. If you do get LL, you should rope drop one and use LL for the other. 7DMT is not good for rope drop though because it is part of early entry, so by the time you get to it after rope drop, the line will already be very long. Better to save that for the end of the day.

I don't have any experience with DAS, so I don't know much about using it with or instead of LL.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

You are correct, Tiana is a great choice for rope drop, as is Jungle Cruise. If you do get LL, you should rope drop one and use LL for the other. 7DMT is not good for rope drop though because it is part of early entry, so by the time you get to it after rope drop, the line will already be very long. Better to save that for the end of the day.

I don't have any experience with DAS, so I don't know much about using it with or instead of LL.

Gotcha, We'll do either Tiana's or Jungle Cruise then! I'm looking into LL, and it seems like MultiPass isn't too bad? It's $30 per day and it starts with 3 but whenever you use one you can redeem it for something else, if I'm understanding it? Kinda like the 3 free fast passes you used to get with a ticket. I'm still waiting to hear from the two first timers on what attractions they want to do and what they don't care for, but at the very least the big waits (Tron, Tiana, Peter Pan, Seven Dwarfs, Jungle Cruise) are likely all must-dos.

In a perfect world, we could start the day with a leisurely train ride around the park as a "sneak peek" of everything to come, but oh well, lmao. That worked in Paris, not so much in America!

 

[erstwo]

Gotcha, We'll do either Tiana's or Jungle Cruise then! I'm looking into LL, and it seems like MultiPass isn't too bad? It's $30 per day and it starts with 3 but whenever you use one you can redeem it for something else, if I'm understanding it? Kinda like the 3 free fast passes you used to get with a ticket. I'm still waiting to hear from the two first timers on what attractions they want to do and what they don't care for, but at the very least the big waits (Tron, Tiana, Peter Pan, Seven Dwarfs, Jungle Cruise) are likely all must-dos.

In a perfect world, we could start the day with a leisurely train ride around the park as a "sneak peek" of everything to come, but oh well, lmao. That worked in Paris, not so much in America!

You are correct. As soon as you scan into one of your fastpass/ lightning lane/ (whatever they are calling it now) - you can immediately book your next ride. If you aren’t picky about the order you ride the rides (might need to cross cross the parks a little) you can get quite a few MK rides done in a day. I think my highest one day total was something like 75% of the rides plus a couple of shows. I was able to do things like ‘scan into Buzz at 9am’ then ‘immediately book Speedway for 9:15 am’. Then ‘scan into speedway’ and ‘immediately book Barnstormers for 9:45am’
Things will start to slow down towards lunch. You’ll run into the issue of the next ‘available time’ to book a fastpass won’t be for an hour or two from the current time. So you’ll either need to pick a ride with a standby line, watch a show, the parade, eat and so on to kill the time.

So INCREDIBLY jealous of the Muppet event. Hope you all have a blast and make great memories!

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

You are correct. As soon as you scan into one of your fastpass/ lightning lane/ (whatever they are calling it now) - you can immediately book your next ride. If you aren’t picky about the order you ride the rides (might need to cross cross the parks a little) you can get quite a few MK rides done in a day. I think my highest one day total was something like 75% of the rides plus a couple of shows. I was able to do things like ‘scan into Buzz at 9am’ then ‘immediately book Speedway for 9:15 am’. Then ‘scan into speedway’ and ‘immediately book Barnstormers for 9:45am’
Things will start to slow down towards lunch. You’ll run into the issue of the next ‘available time’ to book a fastpass won’t be for an hour or two from the current time. So you’ll either need to pick a ride with a standby line, watch a show, the parade, eat and so on to kill the time.

So INCREDIBLY jealous of the Muppet event. Hope you all have a blast and make great memories!

Thank you for the advice!! We should definitely try using that system. I was making a potential schedule doing things in order but if walking around gets more done then we’ll do it!

The Muppet event is looking to be pretty good, some Imagineers and potentially people from the Jim Henson company are doing panels/Q&As the day before it closes! Tickets go on sale on Monday!