Disneyworld gets busier and more expensive every year and Families increasingly need
to look for ways to cut corners to counter this in a way that doesn't leave their kids feeling
disappointed inevitably all the best pro tips secrets hacks whatever you want to call them
eventually become common knowledge so naturally those that want to get ahead should be prepared to
get a little bit sneaky when planning their next Disneyworld and vacation hi I'm the frugal Brit
and for this video I'm gonna provide my favorite tips for Walt Disney World that have an element
of sneakiness to them some more so than others however the tips in this video are intended to
be strictly ethical and respectful to your fellow guests so note shameful huge jumpin shenanigans or
anything like that the first part of the video will cover general tips for various things and
then the second part will focus solely on sneaky tips to help you save money this is mainly for
those like myself with multiple children that need to be as frugal as possible when visiting
Walt Disney World before we get into it don't forget to click Subscribe if you're interested
in future Orlando vacation content let's start with some planning and Fast Pass tips if you're
not clued up on what Fast Pass is and how it works I've left a link in the description below
to explain this so to get ahead of the curb with Fast Pass you should book as soon as possible
that doesn't just mean on the first day when the availability is released which is 30 days or 60
days if you're staying at a Disney Resort instead it means you need to book the best rides with the
longest standby times 7 a.m. Eastern Time in the UK that will be 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock in the
afternoon depending on daylight savings time if you can't get the attraction you're looking for
I'd recommend that you keep trying right up to the day you're in the park as people typically
will make changes during this time you're most likely to see changes within the first week of the
30 or 60 day availability or on the day of park visit if you're ponics use Fast Pass on Pirates
of the Caribbean in Magic Kingdom you may want to look into doing the pirates Adventure treasures
of the seven seas which is an interactive quest game in Adventureland if you play two missions
of this you'll be rewarded with a free Pirates of the Caribbean Fast Pass it's recommended to book
your Fast Pass in the morning but an extremely common mistake that people make with Fast Pass
is booking your slots first thing in the morning this is a bad strategy because the wait time on
your first ride will be sure if you get to a rope drop regardless so the best Fast Pass strategy to
gain that advantage is to make your bookings in near succession preferably between the hours of
10 a.m. and 2 p.m. this gives you flexibility at Road drop you'll be using your fast passes at the
busiest times of the day and once you've used them all up you can then start making the new Fast Pass
bookings you may be wondering which days to go to each of the theme parks hopefully you'll be
aware of how magic hours works which allows resort guests to enter the park early if not there's a
link in the description explaining how it works in more detail so whilst magic hours is very useful
to get a lot of the big attraction storms this often means that outside of the magic hours times
the parks are busier than usual because they're filled up with the resort guests so if you're
staying at a Disney Resort one way to counter this would be to take advantage of the magic
hours of rapport in the morning before moving on to a different park when it's finished because
those parks should in theory be a lot less busy without as many resort guests of course this tip
only applies if you paid the park hopper tickets if you're staying off-site you can still exploit
Magic Hours to your advantage by heading to a park that had magic hours the night before it's
commonly reported that on these days attendance is a bit lower when it comes to booking a visit
to the water parks I would recommend doing this on a Monday is what usually happens is that people
will arrive over the weekend for whatever reason people tend to not pick a water park early on for
their vacation so Mondays are often the quietest time to go so if this same logic Wednesdays and
Thursdays can often be the best for heading to Magic Kingdom one obvious tip for Disneyworld is
to arrive at the theme parks before rope drop to gain an advantage the problem with this is that
over the years this has become a widely adopted strategy so you do Canada to micromanage this
further these days as a general principle it is recommended that you move around the parks in
an anti-clockwise manner because for some reason theme park guests seem to start their day on the
right side my main tip for rope drop is to start with the shorter rise that don't take as long to
complete the reason for this is that you want to cover as much as possible within that first hour
of the park opening so heading on something like Splash Mountain or flighted passage can take up
quite a big chunk of your time so best to avoid that in my opinion with that in mind prioritizing
the likes of Big Thunder Mountain is a good tip which you can get through quite quickly
so after you've used up that first Fastpass booking it's important to start modifying
your second and third Fast Pass reservations to make them as early as possible for example let's
say your fast passes are booked for 10:00 a.m. 1115 and 1250 so after you've used the first
fast pass at 10 a.m. you'll want to then modify the 12:15 booking to something like 10:05 or as
early as you can and once you've used up your three fast pass selections you can then book
more so keep searching to make more bookings which will drastically reduce your wait times
at the park also if you have the flexibility of park hopping you can consider traveling to
a different park to travel to based on the best Fast Pass availability one last tip I
want to mention for fast passes to use the fast pass kiosks in the evenings if
there's nothing showing on the app although got to confess and yet to try this myself
not a lot of people who head to Disneyworld are aware of the Ryder switch system that allows
adults that are in groups with small children to take turns riding the bigger rides whilst part
of the group wait with the children so here's how that works so let's say there are four adults and
one child group one has two adults and group two has two adults and one child as you enter a ride
that has a height requirement group one and two should be present and you can tell a cast
member that you'd like to use the Ryder switch the cast member will then scan the magic bands
or tickets of Group two who will be waiting with a child who can expect to see the Ryder switch
added to the Fast Pass section of their my Disney experience account group one without the child can
now proceed through the line group two now has one hour to redeem their ride a switch pass this
is a really handy tip because it effectively allows you to double the number of Fast Pass
reservations you can get let's move on to food the most popular dining throughout Disney World
is quick service this popularity does become a bit of a problem when everyone goes to get food at the
same time creating long lines so the first bit of advice here is to avoid peak at dinner times
for example when I'm at Disney World I'll head for lunch at 11:00 a.m. Pat the absolute latest
the best tip I can give when it comes to quick service is to use the mobile food ordering option
within the my Disney experience up listen save you a lot of time for example this allows you
to order food whilst queuing for a ride then you can head over to collect your food when you're
done some locations even have an exclusive menu only for mobile ordering unfortunately though not
all the quick service restaurants offer mobile ordering which is a shame but most do if you're
having trouble booking a table service restaurant in Disney Springs open table comm have been known
to show available reservations when the Disney app isn't showing anything unfortunately open table
doesn't show this for every restaurant chef Ausmus being notably absent however most are available
the magic King and parades don't usually require lining up way ahead of time though Main Street USA
will have lots of people waiting way before hand most of the time my sneaky tip here is
to watch the parade's either from a frontier land or where it starts or from the front of
the park where it ends the best way to view the fireworks and Disney World is in Main Street USA
or its surrounding areas but a sneaky tip to avoid the crowds would be to watch these from
behind the castle in New Fantasyland it's a lot less crowded here and provides a different
perspective given that you're in the midst of the fireworks unfortunately you won't be able to see
the projections from this area which is definitely worth seeing so it's not something I'd recommend
for any first-timers whilst the fireworks are incredible you probably won't feel the need to
experience this every time you're in the park and so a great tip here is to sneak off and ride some
of the big attractions whilst everyone else is watching the fireworks I would highly recommend
Big Thunder Mountain during the fireworks which you can view whilst on the rise so sort of hitting
two birds with one stone so after you've had a fun and sneaky day avoiding queues you should
keep in mind before you head back to your hotel that the attractions don't close when the park is
supposed to be closed so let's say Epcot closes at 9:00 p.m. you can actually get on a ride at
8:59 even if the signs advised 860 minute wait this is one of my favorite sneaky tips to avoid
perpetually long lines on frozen ever after flight of passage or Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
without wasting valuable time also important to note that Disney is itself a bit sneaky here as
they've been known to exaggerate the wait times the closer you get to park closure so if you
see 30 minutes or less wait time this often will mean you can walk on with little to no wait time
the parks will close an hour after the fireworks one issue caused by this is that there is a mass
exodus which ideally you would want to avoid in particular at Magic Kingdom to avoid this
situation instead of leaving the park you can use this time to do some shopping until most of the
guests have left the park one of my favorite tips when leaving the Magic Kingdom is to cut through
the Emporium to avoid the Main Street traffic which gets quite hectic this is also a good tip
to exit when there's a parade on that you're not interested in or if it's raining outside
moving on to transportation one of my favorite tips when I'm travelling by cab to the Magic
Kingdom is to get dropped off at the Contemporary Resort and then walk over to the Magic Kingdom by
the sidewalk from this resort this only takes about five minutes and is appreciated more so
in the evening when everyone is leaving at the same time one thing that's kind of linked to
transportation is renting a stroller so instead of paying to rent a stroller at one of the
theme parks which is quite expensive there are companies you can pay to deliver a stroller to
the resort you're staying at and these are a lot more comfortable as well or at least look a lot
more comfortable if you're planning a Disney World vacation and you're certain that you want to stay
on site then you can get this booked very early without needing to hesitate often people will
delay booking a resort until they see a discount come up on Disney's website but you don't actually
need to bother waiting to booked the reason is and not many people take advantage of this is because
if you do see a special offer advertised on Disney's website after you've booked you can phone
Disney and ask them to apply any discounts that your previous booking would have been eligible
for retrospectively and then you can refund the discounted amount or apply the free dining to
your booking if that applies one really useful tip if you're staying on site is to use bail services
to take care of your luggage if you've arrived early before your rooms ready which allows you to
use this time to head out to the parks when your room is ready just head to your room and call bail
services to drop off your luggage also if you're not flying home until late on your last day you
can leave your bags with bail services head out to the parks and then pick them up before your
flight in the evening you know that there is an expectation to leave $1.00 per bag tip when doing
this all right so I appreciate that some people who plan a vacation at Disneyworld just want to
have the best and most magical time without any compromises unfortunately if you fit this category
then I'm afraid this section certainly won't be for you instead this is aimed for those that need
to save as much as possible maybe because they're traveling with several children and/or headed to
Disneyworld for a longer trip with that said let's start my sneaky tips with food so we all know that
food can be super expensive throughout Disneyworld whilst the quality is very good most of the time
the value certainly is not my first sneaky tip that not everyone takes advantage of is to bring
your own food in your backpack when heading to the theme parks it's a common misunderstanding
that you can't do this but it is certainly allowed therefore I recommend packing your
backpack like you're going on a hike because by the end of the day it will certainly feel
like you've been on one so you'll want to pack granola bars bananas sandwiches and other simple
snacks to keep you going of course you're gonna need to buy this food from somewhere so my next
tip is to order groceries directly to your resort this is aimed mainly for those thing at a Disney
Resort because this isn't always available for off-site resorts so yeah if you are staying in
Disneyworld you can take advantage of Amazon Prime now assuming you have an Amazon Prime subscription
I provide a link if you're interested in signing some of the services you may want to check out our
Garden Grove sitcom and instacart also delivers from the Publix to any Disney Resort which is
free for orders over $35 getting groceries delivered can be really useful in particular
for those bulkier items such as nappies do keep in mind that there is technically supposed to
be a five-dollar charge from Disney for having stuff delivered but in reality Disney rarely
applies this from my experience of course at some point you're likely gonna want to eat out within
Disney World you don't necessarily have to break the bank when doing this one thing that will help
you in this regard is splitting meals if you're just looking for a small meal the portions in
Disney World are bigger than average and for a lot of people splitting a meal at lunch provides more
than enough food another option available to you would be to order from the kids menu which very
often is enough food for an adult another way to save money on food at Disney World is to have a
huge breakfast at one of Disney World's buffet restaurants and skip lunch if you do bring a lot
of food back from the buffet to your table just be careful that's something like an apple or a pastry
doesn't accidentally fall into your backpack arguably the best money saving tip when you're in
the theme parks is that you can get a free cup of ice water from all the quick service restaurants
in all the parks if staying at Disney World with kids for over a week this can save you an absolute
fortune also if you have a water bottle with you which I would strongly recommend you can also fill
these up at the water fountains throughout the parks the only issue is that Florida water can
taste a little bit funky at time so you may want to take something in your backpack to flavor the
water one of the most effective ways in which Disney gets you to spend money that you didn't
plan on is with its merchandise this new your absolute masters when it comes to this even a
song that tries to be as frugal as possible I must confess that when exiting through a Disney World
gift shop with my kids I am extremely vulnerable to spending money that I don't need on absurdly
expensive merchants so I would say possibly the tip has saved me the most money at Disneyworld
with children is to buy toys in advance of your trip to Disney World preferably ones that will
match the theme of a particular ride such as Star Wars toy story or frozen and then when the kids
exit through the gift shop they get to unwrap a present that costs a fraction of the official park
merchandise also if you're staying at the parks late in the evenings your children will be really
grateful if you packed one of those cool toys that light up in the dark another way to save money
with Disney merchandise is to purchase from the Disney character warehouse which is a merchandise
clearance center at Orlando Premium Outlets there's also one right at the top of International
Drive here you can pick up some cool stuff for considerably less keep in mind though that there
is quite often a reason that this off ends up in an outlet store so recommend not getting too
carried away here also I really wouldn't recommend heading to these outlets unless it's in the
evening as I've read reports that the queue to get in can take over an hour on occasion when they're
above capacity one other thing I would recommend buying before you head to Disney World assuming
you plan on doing the water parks would be to buy a waterproof phone case you'll really appreciate
being able to have your phone with you at the water parks and the waterproof cases at the parks
and not the best value I'll leave a link in the description for anyone interested in buying one of
these as well as some other links to inexpensive items that I'd also recommend purchasing in
advance my last sneaky tip for this video is that there are tons of really cool free things that you
can do at the Disney World resorts the reason for this is that Disney wants you to come and
check out their resort because of course they want to head back and book your next vacation at one
of these so if there's anyone in your group that doesn't want to hit the theme parks they may want
to consider traveling around some of the amazing Disney World resorts a great example for this
would be Animal Kingdom Lodge which has several savannas allowing you to view over 30 species of
African wildlife completely free of charge that's it for this video thank you for watching if you
have any sneaky tips on your own please share them in the comments which would be much appreciated do
check out my other Disney World and Orlando videos if you're headed this way on your vacation and of
course if you're interested in future Disney and Orlando vacation content don't forget to subscribe