8 Things This Disney “Pro” Learned On Our Last Trip

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. 

But not when you’re a Disney lover.

Disney lovers go to Disney as often as they can. They go with their bag of tricks. They employ their tricks, only to find a couple of tricks that don’t work anymore. So, they adjust.

Here’s what this Disney “Pro” learned on our last trip.

10 Things Learned On Our Last Disney Trip

1. Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run doesn’t have the crazy wait times we were anticipating. With no FastPasses, we expected 2 hour plus wait times. We didn’t expect to ride at all. So, we slept in (on a Thursday). We arrived at the park for our lunch reservation at 12:30. And we casually checked wait times from the My Disney Experience App. Once it was 80 minutes. Another time it was an hour. Then,  less than an hour popped up. We made a beeline to the attraction. And we waited 45 minutes. Tops.

2. Early mornings don’t always guarantee short lines. We arrived 1/2 an hour before park open for Animal Kingdom. By the time we made it to Flight of Passage, the wait was 80 minutes. We slept in one day and rode a brand new attraction, without a FastPass with a wait of 45 minutes (see #1). Go figure!

3. Sometimes a Minnie Van or Uber/Lyft is the way to go. Transportation isn’t always there when you want it. And if you oversleep or have a dining reservation you have to make; sometimes you have to pay out of pocket for a ride that gets you where you want to go on time. Or, are you or your kids exhausted at the end of the day? A private ride back to your resort is sometimes worth the splurge.

4. Depending on how you like to eat, the Disney Dining Plan may not make sense. I tracked all of our spending and gave us a budget, per day, of what the Disney Dining Plan would have cost us. Out of 6 days, we only went over budget twice. Both days were days that we ate at high priced, sit down eating restaurants and our teenage sons had an extra counter service meal for breakfast (the granola bars and yogurt in the room didn’t fill them up.) But for my husband, daughter and me? A light breakfast in the room, sometimes sharing a lunch entree at counter service restaurants and one sit-down meal? Plenty of food. We may be re-thinking how and when we get the Disney Dining Plan.

5. Arriving at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is (still) a great idea but not necessary if you’re trying to avoid crowds. Since you can arrive at 4 pm (regular guests leave the park at 6 pm), you can still schedule 2 FastPasses to use between four and six. And it’s still pretty crowded then. But as soon as 6 o’clock rolls around the attraction lines become very manageable. I think next time, we’ll schedule an early, leisurely dinner at one of the monorail resorts and arrive at 6 pm instead. That will still be plenty of time to get a lot done.

6. A room that sleeps 5 isn’t counting on housing your almost 6 feet teenage boys. The extra bed provided in a Disney resort room that sleeps 5 doesn’t hold anyone on the tall side. Depending on who is in our party each trip, we may have to start looking at roomier options. (Cha-ching!)

7. EPCOT during Food and Wine Festival is still a time we’ll avoid with small children. Our kids are older now. But we had uncomfortable experiences back in the day with the Food and Wine Festival. A margarita spilled on our toddler’s head. Impressionable elementary-aged children (our own) making a game of counting inebriated guests. A creepy encounter with our pre-teen daughter. We decided to wait until they were older before we went back. We did. And we witnessed enough this trip to feel comfortable with our decision. We’ll definitely go back. It’s a great event. And Disney polices it well. But especially as the day wears on? We learned on our last trip that I’d still be uncomfortable with small children in tow.

8. W learned on our last trip we will never go to Walt Disney World without matching t-shirts ever again. This was a last-minute trip for us. No time to coordinate daily outfits. Or plan (and purchase) matching t-shirts. So everyone wore their favorite comfy clothes. And we were cut off in lines. People pushed ahead of us off the monorail. Bus. Boat. I don’t blame anyone. They had no idea we were together. And my husband said, mid-way through the trip, and I quote, “We will never come here without matching t-shirts ever again!” My hardest sell is now a convert!