10 Things That Make Disney Trips Complicated & How to Overcome Them

I've been planning Disney trips regularly since 2006, and during that time, the park experience has evolved drastically. Creating a touring plan for each day of my Disney vacation was once an exciting prospect and a fun way to build anticipation for an upcoming visit.

Currently, however, managing the minutia of a Disney vacation can be quite a daunting and even stressful task, especially for first-timers and infrequent visitors.

At Mickey Visit we are in the parks every single week working on strategies and improving our tips for your use. The below discussion items all even seemed complicated to us at first. You should feel in good company if these changes and policies all seem a little bit overwhelming.

Do Disney Trips Involve Too Much Work?

Maximizing playtime in the parks now requires effective planning, research-based touring strategies, and navigating a complex digital reservation system. While there are definitely still plenty of fun ways to relax at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, putting in the work to make sure you get to experience your priorities without spending all day standing in lengthy queue lines can be exhausting, even for veteran Disney park goers. In this article, we will discuss ten things that make Disney trips too complicated right now.

Confusing Terminology

“My Disney Experience, Disney Genie+, Lightning Lanes, Individual Lightning Lanes, Virtual Queues, MagicMobile”…the list of Disney-branded jargon goes on.

To an inexperienced guest, it can seem like a glossary is necessary to decode all the Disney-specific lingo, and we do advise rookies to do a good deal of research to understand the nuances of Disney speak. At the very least, we recommend a thorough perusal of the Walt Disney World and Disneyland websites before your trip to decipher the meaning behind the words, phrases, and acronyms Disney uses to describe its services.

The Need For Advanced Planning

Years ago, I made the decision to take my first Disney trip as a childless adult exactly six weeks before my departure date. Although there was a bit of a learning curve, even back then, I had a great time and was able to experience almost every attraction I wanted to. These days, my first Disney trip would be impossible to recreate, as a worthwhile Disney vacation requires planning months in advance.

If you're intent on eating at a specific table-service restaurant (a sit-down dining location with wait staff), advanced dining reservations (or “ADR”s) are usually a must. Reservations open 60 days in advance, and time slots fill up quickly for coveted restaurants, meaning guests must plan in advance to secure these dining experiences.

It's also important to note that Disney Resort hotel guests can book dining for the entire length of their stay when dining reservations open, but all other guests can only book dining for one day of their trip at a time as ADRs become available 60 days before each one. Sometimes, you can still dine at a table-service location without an advanced dining reservation by joining the walk-up list, but you may have to spend a good chunk of your time waiting for a table.

You can't always rely on walk-up availability, either, so if you have your heart set on a particular restaurant, learning to navigate the ADR system is your best bet. Don't get too disappointed if you're unable to secure a reservation at a time that works for you, as availability can sometimes open up as you get closer to your trip dates. Plans change, and people sometimes drop their reservations for a variety of reasons.

Booking extra activities, like character makeovers at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, special tours, or pony rides at Fort Wilderness (to name a few), is also important to do in advance.

Remembering Important Dates

Keeping important dates in mind when planning a Disney trip is an essential part of optimizing your time on Disney property. Ride refurbishments and resort renovations are happening constantly at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, and they can often have a significant impact on your experience.

Noting special event dates can help you plan your trip at a time when you'll be able to take advantage of the ones that interest you and avoid the ones that could have a negative effect on your visit. Remembering which parks are offering extended hours on which nights or when a holiday party could shorten regular operating hours is one way to gain more valuable park time.

Of course, as we previously mentioned, knowing when dining reservations become available and storing all your reservation times—for not only dining but for other extras as well—is also imperative.

Disney Genie and Genie+

At its most basic, Disney Genie is a free service within the app that allows guests to add plans to a personalized itinerary, receive customized recommendations based on personal preferences, check wait times, order food, make dining reservations, or join a virtual queue. Things get more complicated, however, when you decide you want to purchase Disney Genie+, a paid line-expediting add-on that intrinsically creates a need for its use just by existing.

With Disney Genie+, guests have access to Lightning Lanes, which are like express lanes that bypass the regular queue lines for many attractions. However, not every attraction has one, and some of the most in-demand attractions aren't even included with the purchase—if you want to skip the lines for headliner attractions like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance or Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, you must pay an additional fee per person for Individual Lightning Lane access.

Genie+ Lightning Lane selections are not unlimited, and to secure a Lightning Lane entry for your top choice attraction for Disney World, you'll need to purchase Genie + early on the morning of your park day to be eligible to make selections at 7:00 a.m. sharp, as Lightning Lanes for some attractions disappear quickly. Guests can only make one Lightning Lane selection at a time, but you can make a new one as soon as you redeem your existing Lightning Lane entry. If you can't get an early time for a Lightning Lane you want, you can still make your next selection after a 2-hour waiting period, but the 2-hour wait to make another selection only begins after the park opens, even if you made your first selection at 7:00.

This all gets even more complicated if you intend to park hop, so be sure to read our guide to Genie+ at Disneyland and  Genie+ at Walt Disney World for all of our tips on navigating this service.

Virtual Queues

Virtual queues are a problem-solving initiative Disney created to eliminate the absurdly long lines that tend to form at new attractions in the parks, often snaking through their respective lands and causing foot traffic problems for guests trying to move through those areas. Although these online boarding passes can be a nice alternative to purchasing Individual Lightning Lanes, they also disappear in a matter of literal seconds once they become available each day.

This puts hopeful guests in the stressful position of having to wake up early, refresh Disney Genie until those boarding passes show up, and compete against thousands of others trying to score one of the limited spots in the virtual queue for an attraction. Fortunately, Disney World usually provides other opportunities to snag virtual boarding passes later in the afternoon (typically at 1:00 p.m.) and sometimes during extended evening hours. You can see our guide to Virtual Queue for TRON Lightcycle / Run with tips!

Mobile Ordering

There are definitely several benefits in the “pros” column for mobile ordering, like being able to purchase quick-service food from anywhere at Disney World or Disneyland and pick it up later without wasting precious minutes standing in line with the masses during meal times. However, this feature is not immune to technical difficulties, and sometimes in my experience, my order has inexplicably disappeared from the app before it's complete or the app has failed to notify me my food is ready before the pick-up window closes.

Mobile ordering can also require forethought, since convenient pick-up times may not be available at certain locations during peak hours. Online menu items may vary at times from what is being offered on-site, and you may discover you wish you had ordered something more appetizing when you arrive to retrieve your mobile order.

Making Your Genie + Purchase Count

Pricing for Genie+ fluctuates according to demand, but often purchasing this upgrade for my family of four can cost as much or more than an extra park ticket.

Obviously, after spending a significant amount of your vacation budget to bypass stand-by lines, you'll want to bypass as many as possible using this service. Doing so requires your attention throughout your park day to ensure you're making Lightning Lane selections as soon as they become available to you. That first early morning selection is important, but if you want to stack those “LL” entry times like a pro, grabbing subsequent selections promptly as soon as a Cast Member scans you into an attraction or as soon as your 2-hour wait is up (whichever comes first) will help you do this.

Over-Reliance on Mobile Devices

While many of the current features available to Disney guests via the My Disney Experience and Disneyland app can be beneficial in the quest to optimize the number of attractions and entertainment offerings guests are able to fit into a park day, it's debatable whether or not they collectively improve the Disney theme park experience.

With wait times to check, Lightning Lanes and Virtual Queues to join, mobile orders to make, dining reservations to remember, and photos to take, I find that either my husband or I constantly have a device in hand while touring the parks, like many others. This can make it really difficult to be present with each other and to enjoy the immersive atmosphere that made us fall in love with Disney parks in the first place.

Scheduling Park Days

Ever since Disney reopened the U.S. theme parks after their pandemic closure, guests have been required to make park reservations in addition to purchasing admission tickets for each date they want to visit a specific park. At times, the park reservation calendar could fill up months in advance, so even if you had park tickets for the dates of your visit, you might not be guaranteed entry to every park you wanted to visit. This system is currently still complicating the Disney planning process and preventing any small degree of spontaneity from entering the Disney experience. The good news is that Disney World is ending the park reservation requirement next year for date-based tickets.

Fluctuating Prices

Last, but certainly not least, prices for resort stays, park tickets, and extras like Disney Genie+ can fluctuate wildly depending on demand. This is a huge factor to consider when booking a trip to Disney World or Disneyland, but it's usually safe to assume when crowds are up, costs will go up as well.

Genie+ can still be particularly vexing because even if you can make an educated guess about the price of this service before you arrive on property, you won't know for sure what the cost is for each day until it becomes available for purchase in the morning hours on that specific day. This can over-complicate the decision-making process, forcing some of us to make a last-minute choice to use or forego this add-on during the high-stakes early morning period before our park day begins.

Some of these complications may affect you more than others, but longtime fans of the Disney parks know the company is constantly adjusting, re-calibrating, and striving for improvements to the guest experience. If your next trip feels too complicated, know that there are plenty of resources available to simplify the process!

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