I Broke ALL the Rules I Tell Disney Adults for One Day in Disney World…and I'm Lucky I Didn't Crash Out

There’s a certain code that we Disney Adults live by for visiting Disney World. But I made it my mission to throw caution to the wind for a day recently, and things didn’t quite go as planned!

Panicked Mickey

We’re constantly bringing you all the tips, tricks, and best practices we’ve picked up over the years from visiting Disney World every single day. It seems like Disney World is in for a whirlwind of changes over the next few years with new lands and attractions being introduced into the parks soon, and if you’re not heeding some helpful advice, you could find yourself very frustrated quickly. If you thought you had it all figured out and have been ready to throw caution to the wind on your next visit, we truly caution you to read about how one day like that went very sideways for us.

There are very few times where we’ve heard “planning a Disney World trip” and “easy” thrown into the same sentence and that’s for good reason. There always seems to be something changing, evolving, or not quite the way it once was on your latest visit.

Hi, Buddy!

Going to Disney World every day is a privilege we enjoy to help test out different strategies, angles, and ways to accomplish your day in the parks. So, it’s easy to conclude that as much time as we spend in the parks, we probably could do a day at Disney World like a breeze with our eyes closed right? Well… we decided to put that very theory to the test!

Space Mountain queue

We spent a day at Disney World breaking our own rules, and let’s just say we quickly figured out why these are staples in our everyday guidelines. So, to start out our day we made a list of rules we felt like we could break fairly easily and decided to record it all and tell you how well things went or how quickly they fell apart.

NOT Modifying Lightning Lanes

We decided to buy Lighting Lane MultiPass for a day and NOT modify the selections we initially picked up. This means that we still made 3 selections in advance but we weren’t actively looking for earlier times to modify them to and left our day truly at the mercy of current availability and chance.

Journey of the Little Mermaid

Because of this, our first Lightning Lane didn’t start until 10:40 AM. Ok — not so bad yet. Normally, we would have tried to have modified to earlier times days in advance in the hopes that once we started using them for the early times in the park, we could start picking up new Lightning Lanes even earlier than most.

©Disney

This part was frustrating because Lightning Lane availability was limited and mostly for rides I wasn’t as interested in earlier in the day. If I had planned on staying later in the day there were a few scarce ones I could have snagged, but that would have compromised my ability to use it earlier in the day and then I would have only gotten through like 5 rides and attractions total.

Pirates of the Caribbean

However, I did have one small win that wasn’t breaking the rules we had agreed to break for the day. My saving grace to getting anything done for the day was using a Lightning Lane and then picking up my next attraction as soon as I scanned into the last spot for the current one I needed to clear to gain another in its place and keep holding 3 at a time. If you’re not picky about what you get this could work well, but if you’ve got your sights set on specific rides and attractions, not refreshing in hopes of modifying certainly doesn’t do you any favors other than getting you Lightning Lanes for the less popular attractions and still waiting in long lines for the bigger rides.

Former Cast Members Reveal One MAJOR Tip for Booking Lightning Lanes in Disney World!

No Rope Drop

Cue the world’s smallest violin, please. Since I’d already made our selections for Lightning Lanes and they started more than an hour after the park opened, getting an early start suddenly didn’t seem like a priority for this experiment. So, for this day, rope dropping the park (which means we’re ready to step inside right when the park opens) just wasn’t my strategy. While this was a bit of a bummer to my “normal” day, I do recognize that not everyone is an early morning person (especially on vacation), and getting up, ready for the day, and taking transportation over to enter Magic Kingdom as it opens bright and early in the morning can be a challenge.

©Disney

However, I happened to get extremely lucky this day and wait times really weren’t so bad. I showed up at 10:30 AM just before my first Lightning Lane, and while there were longer waits like 70+ minutes at a few popular rides we knew to expect longer lines for, most weren’t above 40 minutes or less at the time. This gave me hope that I would still have a productive day.

What No One Tells You About Rope Drop in Disney World

Trading In Our Normal Sneakers For Flip Flops

Alright this might be cheating a bit, since Flip Flops are my preferred shoe, but if you’re not used to them for walking long distances, blisters can still happen, especially if they’re new. In their defense wearing flip flops around Disney World is easier in the sense they’re quick to slip on and off to give your feet a break when you’re sitting for a bit, and when it comes to drying out. This is especially handy with water rides if you plan on getting wet through the day.

So many flip-flops!

On the flip side though, blisters still can and will happen, and there’s a reason why we keep harping on you to bring moleskin with you to the parks to keep going! You don’t want to give up the rest of your trip because your feet just feel so awful. Also, if your feet are used to a lot of support, you’ll find out very quickly that those hard surfaces can be very unforgiving. If you’re not used to them for long distances or extended wear, the structure of the sandal might aggravate any underlying foot conditions that you might not be aware of until you’ve walked in them all day long. Sandals and flip flops are prone to break, too, which could leave you down a shoe (kind of like a flat tire), forced to call it a day early or spend a chunk of money buying other shoes in the store you didn’t plan for.

12 Shoes That Cost a Little Extra But Will Be Totally Worth It for Disney World

Mobile Ordered At Peak Lunchtime

For this experiment breaking our own rules, we thought we’d try mobile ordering our lunch at peak lunchtime. To really put it to the test, we also decided to order from one of the busiest restaurants in all of Magic Kingdom for quick service lunch, Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe.

Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe

This actually wasn’t near as bad as I thought for this particular day, and you may have already figured as much given my assessment of the lower crowds than expected. Granted there are times where this is a nightmare, but since the crowds were lower I was able to place an order during peak lunch time at 12:21 PM and within 5 minutes it was ready to pick up.

Lunchtime!

Inside of the restaurant had plenty of empty seating, but outside was harder to find a table. This was probably since it was such good weather outside; it wasn’t too hot or breezy, and I noticed people using it as a midday break, too.

Not to Be Dramatic, but This Disney World Mobile Order Hack Just Changed My Life

Buying SmartWater

First off, my wallet hurt after that one because SmartWater is $6 and on a hot day this could get expensive FAST! Dasani, the other bottled water inside of Disney World, isn’t much cheaper.

SmartWater

If you really don’t like the way Disney World’s free water tastes or just have a preference for bottled water, it’s MUCH cheaper to bring your own bottles in your bag, or better yet bring a reusable water bottle.

SO DANG NASTY. The Experts are DIVIDED on the FREE WATER at Disney World.

How you do Disney World and your level of comfortability is totally and completely up to you. While we try to give advice in the hopes that it will maximize the value of the time and money you’ve spent to enjoy your Disney World vacation to the fullest, what that end result looks like and the journey you take to get there is solely dependent on decisions and opinions that only you are qualified to make for yourself. It’s okay to go with the flow throughout your day and still feel as accomplished as someone who’s hopping from ride to ride all day long. Your perfect day at Disney World as a Disney Adult is what you make of it; we’re just here to offer some helpful advice along the way since we’ve seen crowds rise and fall, uncommon situations occur, and try to avoid roadblocks that could put a damper on your trip before they have a chance to begin. If this advice works for you, fantastic, and if not, that’s perfectly alright too!

Be sure to stay tuned with us at Disney Food Blog for all our best tips, tricks, and money-savers that might help you out on your next Disney World trip!

These Disney Adult Animal Kingdom Hacks Are Getting Out of Control

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