2. Use Extra Magic Hours

Image: Disney

PROS:

If you will be staying at a Walt Disney World resort or Good Neighbor Resort, you get access to Extra Magic Hours—an extra hour (or two) in the morning or evening of a different park every day before general admission guests come in. Since their inception, Extra Magic Hours have proven a reliable way to ride Disney’s busiest attractions with far shorter waits. Our experience has generally been more positive with morning Extra Magic Hours, but in most cases, that extra hour really does help!

CONS:

Unfortunately, Extra Magic Hours have become something of a mixed bag for visitors. As more and more people have learned about EMH (which used to be an “insider secret”), early morning crowds have increased during this exclusive extra time. Particularly if you are visiting a new park addition like Toy Story Land or The World of Pandora, there are no guarantees that doing Extra Magic Hours will eliminate lines. They do usually reduce them, but zero lines are rare.

The biggest disadvantage of Extra Magic Hours is they cease to be helpful as soon as the park opens. In a fascinating twist, whatever park has Extra Magic Hours statistically ends up being the busiest park at the resort that day. Some have theorized this is due to guests planning to attend EMH but oversleeping, but if you plan on staying in the same park you started in for EMH, expect a major swell in crowds during the day. The best way to avoid this is to take advantage of that extra hour then park hop to another park. If this isn’t ideal, in some cases it can prove better to just skip Extra Magic Hours entirely and use other line-beating strategies.

3. Arrive before rope drop

Image: Disney

PROS:

Similar to the Extra Magic Hours strategy, arriving as soon as a park opens is another of the most reliable ways to reduce lines when visiting Walt Disney World. It’s not easy getting a sleepy family up in time to hit opening gate at Magic Kingdom, particularly if they aren’t staying on property or are locals commuting from abroad, so crowd levels are almost always lower at rope drop. Except in the cases of very, very new park additions (like the opening months for World of Pandora), you will almost certainly find lower lines on most busy attractions right after opening gate than you will any other time of the day.

CONS:

Getting up early enough to hit opening gate is not easy. The process of getting to the park so early in the morning and then arriving to stand in what looks like a sea of people can feel chaotic and discouraging. Once inside the parks, these crowds usually disperse, but if you plan on going straight for the park’s most popular attractions (Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, Space Mountain/Seven Dwarves Mine Train, or Frozen Ever After), expect to travel with a lot of people doing the same thing. The lines will be reduced, but it’s very difficult to eliminate them entirely.

Arriving at opening gate also does not help much if Extra Magic Hours have already begun an hour before. Those parks will already be brimming with people who arrived for EMH.