3. Bring your own snacks

Image: Disney

Speaking of snacks, locals and passholders have the distinct advantage to easily pick up inexpensive snacks before visiting the parks. If you are visiting Disney often, you don’t want to spend all your cash on snacks you don’t love, particularly if you have some favorite items in mind that you want to splurge on.

To make sure you don’t succumb to the munchies, bring a few inexpensive snacks to help you power through the day. Even grabbing some chips, granola bars, and a banana from a gas station will prove cheaper than purchasing those things at Walt Disney World. Don’t go too crazy—lugging a huge cooler will only tire you out.

If you really want to save, plan a Disney day picnic. Bring a small, soft cooler with a light lunch and pick one of your favorite spots in the parks to relax and enjoy your meal. Some favorite places might be Tom Sawyer Island in Magic Kingdom, the gardens behind the Canada pavilion in Epcot, or the little hut next to Drinkwallah at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

4. Score last minute FastPass+ reservations

Image: Disney

One of the biggest downsides to last minute Disney days is that you may have a tough time scoring FastPass+ reservations. While there may be nothing to be done about this if you visit during peak season (not the best time to have a last-minute Disney day), just about any other time of the year there is a trick where you can still get decent FastPass+ reservations. It is such a good trick that I kind of don’t want to share it with you. It is so good, you should stop reading right now and pretend you never saw this…

Okay, I’ll tell you, but you have to keep the secret.

Guests who planned their trips months in advance often already have FastPass+ selections made before they arrive. A disciplined group will likely stick to this schedule, but it is not uncommon for others to cancel or modify Fastpass+ choices at the last minute. Maybe someone is going to miss their dining reservation if they run across the park to ride Test Track. Maybe little Johnny started projectile vomiting after one too many rides on the Mad Tea Party. No matter what day it is, people are constantly cancelling and rescheduling FastPass+ selections.

This can result in FastPass reservations for extremely busy attractions popping up out of the blue at the last minute. The best way to see if any FastPass cancellations came up is to periodically log into My Disney Experience and either add a new FastPass or modify an existing one. After picking your date and park, on the screen where you pick the Fastpasses, click back and forth a few times between the “Morning”, “Evening”, and “Night” options to see if anyone has cancelled. This may take several attempts at different times of the day, or even while you are literally standing in the parks. While this doesn’t work too often the night before, it can result in hot ticket FastPasses popping up on the same day.

Image: Disney

On our last visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, this method not only got us last-minute morning FastPass reservations to Rockin’ Roller Coaster, but by repeating the process several times while standing outside the Tower of Terror, we incrementally scored earlier and earlier Fastpasses until we only had to wait five minutes to get on the ride because someone cancelled at the last second.

While I would not count on this method to get coveted FastPass+ reservations for Frozen Ever After, Navi River Journey, or Avatar Flight of Passage, I have seen all three pop up on My Disney Experience rarely using this method. If you see one of these and can make the time, grab it fast. Someone may just be doing the exact same thing as you!

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