Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Disney for a Florida resident
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Old 11-28-2019, 11:22 PM
JerryLBell JerryLBell is offline
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Remember that Magical Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, EPCOT and Hollywood Studios are actually four separate parks. Unless you buy a multi-park pass, you will only be able to go to a single one of these in one day on one ticket. It is possible to try to do everything in a single park in a single day, but you are probably not going to be able to do it even if you get there when the park opens and stay until it closes, especially at busy times of the year (and winter is a busy time). For example, the Avatar Flight of Passage ride still has wait times that can run 3 or even 4 hours. That's for one 3 1/2 minute ride. That shoots a big chunk of your day on just one ride. The only way to shorten that time is to get a FastPass for it and A) I don't believe you can get FastPasses with single-day tickets (you have to get them with an annual pass or by staying at a hotel on the grounds for one or more days) and B) it's nearly impossible to get a FastPass for that particular ride - they go to people who stay on the grounds for 4 or 5 days and can reserve them 64 or 65 days in advance of their visit. Annual pass holders get to try 30 days before their visit and for that ride, the FastPasses are already long gone.

If you really want to do a park in a single day, I would suggest doing a lot of research ahead of time. First, decide which park has the attractions you want to see most. Second, prioritize the attractions within that park and realize you will only be able to get into a handful of them in a single day. Third, try to get a FastPass (which means staying at a hotel on the grounds and that will NOT be cheap). Fourth, show up an hour before the park opens - you can get into the front of most of the parks a half-hour or more before the official opening. Fifth, get comfortable running shoes. Comfortable as you'll be walking around or standing in line on hard pavement all day. Running as you may find yourself needing to sprint to get to rides ahead of lines forming when the park opens. Sixth, plan on staying until the park closes. That makes for a long, tiring day but that's the only way to see some of the big shows that run just before closing (though it may mean that you'll miss other things happening in the park only at the same time).

Actually, forget all that. It's a LOT easier to get a Florida resident annual pass and go to each of the parks several times for just a few hours each time. We found it took about four visits to each park to do everything we wanted. Fortunately, there were a few things (several kiddie rides in Magical Kingdom come to mind) that we never felt a need to do. We've done the same for SeaWorld and for Busch Gardens and will probably do the same for Universal Studios. The cost of the annual passes are a big pill to swallow but if you average it out over the number of visits you'll need to do to fully experience all of the parks, the price per visit gets very reasonable. For the parks that offer free parking with annual passes, you'll save on that as well (especially since daily parking is getting to be $25 and more in most of the parks). And if you go in the morning and leave before noon, you can eat outside of the parks, which saves you a LOT of money. Same thing for eating before going into a park in the evening.

By the way, most of the more affordable annual passes have blackout dates that might prevent you from being able to go at "popular" times like holidays, weekends and much of the summer. Oh well. Do you REALLY want to go when the parks are the most crowded and the lines are the longest? We sure don't.