We’ve been going to Disney World for decades — and some of the advice we used to swear by, we don’t recommend anymore. Not because these tips don’t work. Most of them still do. But Disney World keeps changing, and we’ve found there are better ways to plan our trips now. So, we’re sharing the outdated Disney World advice we’ve stopped recommending, and more importantly, what we think you should do instead.

Automatically Skip Park Hopper

For years, we’ve told most Disney World guests to skip the Park Hopper option completely. And there was a good reason for that. Park Hopper can add around $80 or more per person to your ticket. So, for a family of four, you could be spending more than $300 just for the ability to visit a second park on the same day.

For first-time visitors especially, we’ve always said to save that money. There’s more than enough to do in each park to fill an entire day. And while we still think that advice makes sense for many families, we don’t automatically recommend skipping Park Hopper anymore. Because what we’ve realized is that you’re not only paying to visit more parks. You’re also paying for flexibility.

For instance, Animal Kingdom can easily become a half-day park depending on your priorities. With Park Hopper, you can spend the morning there, head back to your resort for a break, and then finish the night with dinner and fireworks at EPCOT.

It can also completely change how you approach Magic Kingdom on a Halloween or Christmas party day. And if you’re staying at a Deluxe Resort, Park Hopper makes it easier to take advantage of Extended Evening Hours without having to dedicate your entire day to that park.

Here’s what we recommend now instead: build your rough itinerary first, and then decide if Park Hopper makes sense based on what you want to accomplish.

Take a Full Rest Day

For years, we’ve recommended building a full rest day into longer Disney World vacations. And the logic still makes sense. Disney World is exhausting. You’re walking 10-plus miles a day, waking up early, staying out late, and after three or four straight park days, you’re going to feel it.

But lately, we’ve stopped recommending that everyone sacrifice an entire day just to recover. Instead, we think it’s better to build recovery time into your itinerary, but how you do so should vary based on your travel party’s needs.

Maybe we rope drop Magic Kingdom, stay through the fireworks, and put in a 14-hour park day. Instead of doing the exact same thing again tomorrow, we’ll deliberately start the next day later. Sleep in. Have breakfast at the resort. Spend some time at the pool. Then head into EPCOT in the afternoon for a few attractions, dinner around World Showcase, and the nighttime show.

You can also build your break into a park day. If you’re staying somewhere with easy transportation, head back to the resort around lunchtime when the parks are hottest and attraction waits are peaking. Spend a few hours at the pool or even take a nap, then return to the parks that evening when temperatures and crowds begin to drop.

Now, if you have 7+ days and love spending an entire day enjoying your resort, absolutely do it. A full rest day isn’t bad advice. But if you only have four or five days at Disney World, don’t give up 20 percent of your vacation just to recover.

Make All Your Disney Plans as Early as Possible

Disney World has always been a vacation that rewards planning ahead. So, for years, our advice was to start planning as early as possible. But we’ve backed off that advice quite a bit. Because while there are still some things you absolutely should book early, you don’t need your entire Disney vacation figured out months in advance.

Of course, we still recommend booking your resort early, especially if you want a specific hotel or room type. And there are certain experiences or dining reservations you don’t want to leave to chance. But beyond those priorities, we’ve found that leaving some flexibility actually makes our Disney trips better.

Park hours can change. The weather can change. New dining reservations can pop up. You might realize halfway through the trip that your family loved EPCOT and wants to go back, or that everyone is exhausted and tomorrow morning should probably start a little later. And the more of your vacation you’ve scheduled down to the minute, the harder it becomes to adjust.

So instead of trying to plan everything as early as possible, we now plan the things that would disappoint us if we missed them and let the rest fall into place. This is especially true when it comes to Disney dining reservations, because this is another piece of advice we’ve changed quite a bit.

Book All Your Dining Reservations at 60 Days

For years, we’ve treated the 60-day mark as one of the most important dates in Disney World planning. Set your alarm. Log in early. And book every table-service restaurant you might possibly want before everything disappears. But, we don’t do that anymore.

Now, there are still a handful of restaurants where booking early is crucial. If your daughter absolutely has to eat inside Cinderella Castle, or you’ve been waiting years to finally try ‘Ohana, book it as soon as your window opens. But don’t schedule every single breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the duration of your trip.

Leave some room for flexibility. If you decide you want to add in another table service restaurant later, you may be able to score a last minute reservation as other guests change their plans or join the walk-up list right from the My Disney Experience app.

If you start filling your vacation with reservations months in advance, they can start dictating your park days and cause added stress to your vacation. Believe us, we still cancel at least one dining reservation every trip because our in-the-moment plans change.

Eat at Off-Peak Times to Maximize Ride Time

Speaking of dining, here’s another strategy we’ve recommended plenty of times. Eat when everyone else rides, and ride when everyone else eats. The idea is simple: instead of eating lunch at noon with everybody else, grab lunch at 2 PM. While thousands of people are eating, you can hopefully take advantage of shorter attraction lines.

And yes, that strategy does still work. But these days, we’re much more likely to eat during these so-called peak times. Because think about what Disney World looks like around noon. You’ve already been in the park for several hours. It’s getting hotter. Your feet could use a break. The park is getting crowded.

So rather than standing in a 60-minute line just because everyone else is having lunch, that can be the perfect time to sit in an air conditioned restaurant, get something to eat, and reset for the afternoon. This is especially true if you rope dropped that morning. By noon, you’ve hopefully already taken advantage of several hours of lower waits.

The moral of the story is don’t force your family to eat a late lunch just because somebody told you that’s the optimal Disney strategy. Hangry family members can make your day miserable instead of enjoyable!

You Need to See All Four Disney World Parks

This next one is something we especially used to recommend to first-time visitors. If you’re going all the way to Walt Disney World, you should see all four theme parks. And if you have enough time and want to experience all four, we still think that’s a great way to do a first trip. But we’ve stopped treating it as a requirement.

The four Florida theme parks are very different and so is every family visiting Disney World. A family with young kids might want two days at Magic Kingdom and have very little interest in spending any time at Hollywood Studios. A Star Wars fan or families with teenagers might want considerably more time at Hollywood Studios.

Depending on your family, Animal Kingdom might be your favorite park—or you might be perfectly happy spending half a day there. Contrary to popular belief, your kids might actually love EPCOT—or you might just want to spend an evening here in the World Showcase to grab dinner and a couple drinks. Some travelers might even be fine skipping one or two parks completely.

So, instead of starting with four parks and trying to squeeze everything into your allotted vacation time, start with your family’s priorities. What attractions do you actually want to experience? What characters do your kids care about? Do you want thrill rides? Festivals? Animals? Shows? Then, allocate your park time accordingly.

The goal isn’t to come home saying you checked all four parks off a list, it’s to actually enjoy your trip!

Book the Cheapest Hotel Because You’re Never There

I’ve tried to convince Heidi of this many times over the years. Why spend more on a hotel room when you’re going to be in the parks all day? And purely from a room standpoint, that makes sense. If all you’re doing is showering and sleeping there, why spend hundreds more per night?

But I’ve conceded a bit and stopped looking at Disney hotels as just a place to sleep. Because sometimes what you’re actually paying for is time.

Take a resort on the Skyliner. Being able to walk out of your hotel, hop on the Skyliner, and head directly to EPCOT or Hollywood Studios can completely change your morning. Or consider the EPCOT-area resorts where you can simply walk to EPCOT and in some cases Hollywood Studios. At Magic Kingdom, staying on the monorail loop or within walking distance can make getting to and from the park considerably easier and quicker. That convenience adds a lot of value!

Now, we’re not saying everyone should upgrade to a Deluxe Resort. Far from it. We’re saying don’t choose a hotel based solely on the nightly rate. Look at its location. Look at how you’re getting to the parks. Look at which parks you’ll visit most. And ask yourself whether spending a little more could save you meaningful time every day.

Sometimes the cheapest room is absolutely the right choice. But sometimes paying more for location is one of the best upgrades you can make.

Book Your Disney Vacation Directly With Disney

You don’t have to book your Disney World vacation yourself. Disney has made it incredibly easy to go online, choose a resort, add your tickets, and book everything directly. And there’s nothing wrong with doing that.

But you’re paying the same price whether you spend hours comparing resorts, promotions, and packages yourself or have someone who does this every day help you. That’s why we now book our Disney vacations with Mouse Fan Travel, the official travel partner of Eat Sleep Disney. Yes, I’ve finally relinquished control and trust them to do the work for us.

They’re Authorized Disney Vacation Planners, and their planning services don’t cost anything extra. They can help you compare resorts and packages, answer questions, and perhaps most importantly, keep an eye on new Disney promotions after you’ve booked. So if a better offer becomes available, you’ve got someone who can help determine whether you can take advantage of it.

We still like being involved in planning our trips. But we’ve learned there isn’t much upside to handling every piece of the reservation ourselves when we can have an expert helping us for free.

Avoid Magic Kingdom on Party Days

Now, this next one sounds completely logical. If Magic Kingdom is closing early for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, don’t visit Magic Kingdom that day. You’re paying for a full-price park ticket and getting fewer hours. Why would you do that?

Well, because everyone else is thinking the exact same thing. On party days, guests without party tickets have to leave Magic Kingdom before the event begins. So plenty of people choose another park where they can get a full day for their money. And that can make the hours Magic Kingdom is open surprisingly productive.

So we’ve stopped automatically avoiding Magic Kingdom on party days. If rides are the priority, getting there early on a party day can be a great strategy. You can potentially get quite a bit done before the party crowd starts arriving later in the afternoon.

When regular park hours end, your Disney day doesn’t have to end. This is where that Park Hopper we talked about earlier can become valuable. Head to EPCOT or Hollywood Studios for the evening. Or don’t hop at all. Go have dinner at a resort, relax at the pool, or simply call it an early night before another big park day.

If seeing the Magic Kingdom fireworks is important to you, obviously don’t make this your only Magic Kingdom day. But if you’re looking primarily for attractions, this shorter park day can sometimes be the smartest choice.

Avoid Disney World During the Summer

For a long time, summer was one of the easiest times for us to tell people to avoid Disney World. It’s hot. It’s humid. Kids are out of school. And afternoon thunderstorms are practically part of the itinerary. None of that has changed.

But we’ve actually stopped telling people not to go during summer. One reason is that Disney has been giving guests more reasons to consider visiting during this time of year. There can be aggressive hotel and ticket promotions, and Disney has been adding new entertainment and attraction openings during the summer months.

In recent years, some of those old assumptions about summer crowds aren’t even as straightforward as they once were. Then there’s late August and early September, when many schools around the country are already back in session. If your schedule allows you to travel then, you may find a very different Disney World than you would during a major holiday week.

Of course, you still have to be realistic about the weather. If somebody in your family doesn’t handle extreme heat well, summer probably isn’t your ideal Disney vacation.

Don’t start by crossing summer off the calendar automatically. We now recommend you look at the price, promotions, and what’s happening in the parks. Because depending on your family, summer could offer better value than you expect.

Plan a 5-to-7-Day Disney World Vacation

This is another piece of outdated Disney World advice that we’ve given plenty of times—especially to first-time visitors.

Plan five to seven days at Disney World. Four parks, resorts, Disney Springs, maybe a rest day. A week gives you enough time to see everything without rushing. And that still sounds great. Until you look at what those extra days actually cost.

So we’ve started thinking about trip length differently. Instead of asking, “How many days do you need for Disney World?”, we think the better question is: “What do you actually want to do?”

If Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios are your family’s priorities, you may not need seven days. Maybe you’d rather take a four-night trip, stay somewhere with a better location, buy Park Hopper, and spend your money on the experiences that matter most.

The point is, there isn’t a correct length for a Disney World vacation. And we don’t think you should stretch your budget and spend more than you can afford just because someone tells you that you need a week to “do Disney right.” You can absolutely still have a magical vacation even just visiting for a long weekend if that’s all that time or money allows.

Always Stay at a Disney-Owned Resort

And finally, this might be one of the biggest changes in how we look at Disney World vacations. We’ve traditionally been big proponents of staying on Disney property. And we still love Disney resorts. You get Early Theme Park Entry, free transportation, Disney theming, and depending on where you stay, other perks like Extended Evening Hours.

For a lot of trips—especially a first Disney vacation—we’d still recommend staying on property. But if you’re a returning visitor, you don’t have to stay at a Disney-owned hotel.

The Swan and Dolphin might be Disney World’s best-kept secret. You’re right in the EPCOT resort area, within walking distance of EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, and you get many of the same Disney resort benefits. But they’re Marriott hotels, which means you may be able to use or earn Bonvoy points. And depending on your dates, the price can be considerably different from the Disney Deluxe resorts sitting right next door.

And once you get beyond the Disney bubble, there are plenty of off-property hotels that can offer more space or lower prices, too. Of course, you have to do the math. Transportation, parking, resort fees, and losing certain Disney resort perks can quickly eat into what looks like a huge savings.

So our new advice isn’t “stay off property.” We’re just saying to stop assuming a Disney-owned resort is automatically your best option—and don’t forget about the Swan and Dolphin when weighing your options.

Comments

Do you have any other outdated Disney World advice to add to this list? What other Disney tips did you used to follow but no longer do? Leave us a comment below with your words of wisdom.