7 Things That Always Waste Time at Disney, Plus the Faster Alternatives to Do Instead

Using your time to the greatest advantage on a Disney vacation is practically an art form. Between the sheer quantity of attractions, restaurants, and entertainment offerings available at the parks and resorts—and the throngs of others hoping to experience all of the above—it can be challenging to accomplish everything on your must-do list within operating hours.

No matter how much time we may have to spend at Disney, it never quite feels like enough! Avoiding decisions that could consume large blocks of that limited time is key to maximizing the fun. Read on to learn which endeavors are almost always guaranteed to take a while and probably aren't worth the minutes they'll cost you. At Mickey Visit, we cover helpful hacks like the best Disney Springs restaurants you might walk right by and overlooked resort perks.

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Disney Time-Wasters

While you should absolutely do what makes you happy at Disney, it makes sense to focus on touring strategies and activities that will give you the most return for the time you invest in them. Some of the following practices can be enjoyable, but you will often be enjoying them at the expense of other things you may not then have the opportunity to do.

Experience is often the best teacher, and we've wasted time in the past on all of the list items below, so you don't have to.

Ordering Quick Service Breakfast/Getting Coffee in the Parks

This is something I see often, especially from other Disney experts, who I imagine just visit the parks so often that they're not overly concerned about how much they're able to fit into one day. Other than seizing an opportunity to grab a coffee or breakfast item in the parks while you're waiting for rope drop (and only if a quick service dining location happens to be convenient to your spot in the sea of eager tourists), I don't understand why someone would waste valuable morning minutes waiting in line for a fancy coffee or pastry instead of hitting the headliners early.

As an alternative, I recommend adding some breakfast items and biodegradable paper coffee cups with lids to your packing list. This way, you can make coffee in your resort hotel room and take it to go to have with your breakfast. Eat on the way to rope drop, and trash the cup, so you don't have to carry a mug around all day. If you're flying, you can have these and other grocery items delivered to your resort. You can still take a mid-morning snack break to indulge in a cinnamon roll from Gaston's Tavern, a breakfast chimichanga from Ship to Shore Marketplace, or a Ronto Morning Wrap from Ronto Roasters (among other breakfast favorites) after you experience a few attractions and the masses start to flood the queue lines.

Waiting in Long Lines for Attractions

Even though waiting in lines is an inevitable part of visiting theme parks, avoiding them is kind of a core objective at Disney. The company has gone to great lengths to control traffic patterns and create line-skipping options for guests so we don't have to waste hours in line. Personally, I have a “no long line” policy. It doesn't matter how much I want to experience an attraction—I'd rather skip it than waste an hour waiting for it.

Thankfully, there are other ways to access my favorites, and I don't often have to skip them. Many attractions that tend to develop excessive wait times during the day can have more reasonable lines in the early morning hours or late evening hours. Additionally, the Disneyland app and My Disney Experience apps allow guests to check wait times for attractions at any given moment, making it easy to discover when the lines are the shortest. If you don't want to take the slightest chance of missing out on something specific, you can purchase Lightning Lane Single Pass for many of the attractions with lengthy wait times that never seem to let up. For many of the other high-demand attractions, you can skip the lines using the Lightning Lane Multi Pass.

Repeatedly Traversing Back and Forth Between Lands

It can be tempting at times to make the haul across large distances in the parks to reach those attractions posting low wait times. Maybe you're at EPCOT, where Remy's Ratatouille Adventure broke down at rope drop, but now you see that it's up and running again with a minimal wait. Do you risk huffing it across the park from Guardians of the Galaxy, knowing that by the time you get there, the line for Remy's might return to full capacity?

Well, if it's only the one time, and you plan to stay in World Showcase for a while afterward, it could be worth it. Otherwise, we don't recommend making a habit of hiking across the parks from one area or land to another. Apart from this being time-consuming, your feet will not thank you for it. Instead, try to stick to surrounding attractions as much as possible and plan for an organic route through the parks. If you avoid wasting much of your time walking throughout the day, you may just have some left over to go back and catch anything you might have missed.

Lining Up Early for Parades and Fireworks

There's no parade like a Disney parade, and those nighttime fireworks displays provide a climactic end to a day in the parks. Many Disney outlets will still tell you that claiming a prime spot for parades and nighttime spectaculars one hour in advance is essential to the Disney experience. I've followed this advice myself in the past, and while it will provide you with unobstructed views, it will also cost you quite a bit of time in your schedule.

In our experience, you can enjoy the parades and fireworks at Disney without lining up excessively early to see them. Finding viewing locations somewhat off the beaten path — that is, not right in front of the castle, on Main Street, or in the main hub — can allow you to drop in 15-20 minutes before start time and get a unique and sometimes secretly fantastic vantage point for the show.

Relying on Disney Transportation

Disney's transportation options can be a super convenient and often magical way to get from place to place. However, making the decision to use a mode of Disney transportation means putting your time in the hands of the Disney gods. Sometimes buses don't always arrive when you expect them to, the boat fills up before you make it aboard, the Monorail breaks down, or the Skyliner stops in mid-air without warning.

If you want to avoid delays at Disney World, driving your own vehicle or driving a rental to the parks is honestly the most efficient strategy. That is, unless you're staying at a resort within walking distance—in which case, walking is your best option. If you're flying to Disney and don't want to rent a car for the duration of your stay, or you prefer not to navigate Disney property, reserving a rideshare is another way to minimize your travel time.

Disneyland is a different animal entirely, and staying at a Disneyland hotel or at an off-site hotel within walking distance to the parks is your best bet to save valuable time.

Making These Dining Mistakes

We know the food at Disney is an important aspect of the adventure, and with so many amazing table service restaurants and quick service offerings that garner cult followings, it can be tempting to spend your whole day eating and drinking your way around the parks and resorts. Making too many advanced dining reservations for table service restaurants, or stopping for food at quick service locations without using mobile ordering, will cost you so much time that you may end up doing just that.

Instead, we recommend being selective with your dining reservations and sticking with just one sit-down meal per vacation day. While Disney table service restaurants often feature immersive atmospheres and unique menu items that make them worthy of a significant time investment, eating more than one meal at this type of dining location will definitely limit the other kinds of Disney experiences you're able to enjoy. There are plenty of delicious quick-service options available to help you save time and money. Be sure to use Disney's Mobile Order service wherever it's available to skip the lines at counter service windows. See the other biggest Disney dining mistakes to avoid here.

Rushing Attractions That Typically Post Low Wait Times During Early Morning Hours

The first time I took my son to Magic Kingdom, he wanted to ride the first attraction he saw after passing under Cinderella's castle, which was Prince Charming's Regal Carousel. Now, I love an antique carousel as much as the next person, but knowing that particular attraction seldom requires a long wait, and that other attractions he had expressed more interest in — like Peter Pan's Flight — would quickly become inundated with other guests, I encouraged him to ride the attractions with higher demand first.

It would behoove anyone visiting the parks for the first time to do a bit of research to find out which attractions typically post low wait times and save those attractions for moments during the day when everything else is swamped. There are also some attractions, like Spaceship Earth at EPCOT, that fill up early in the morning because they attract guests just coming through the front gates at park opening. Save yourself some Disney heartache, and do not wait in long lines for these kinds of attractions. Their wait times will drop, and you will be sad that you spent 45 minutes waiting in line for something you could have ridden later in 10.

READ MORE – Leave The Magic Kingdom to Eat at These Quick Service Restaurants at Nearby Resorts

There are many different restaurant options near the Magic Kingdom that are FAR BETTER than anything that you can get inside the theme park. That park has the worst dining of pretty much any Disney theme park around the world and the restaurants nearby are much better. See Leave The Magic Kingdom to Eat at These Quick Service Restaurants at Nearby Resorts.

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