How to Do it All, One Day in Walt Disney World

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Walt Disney World is huge, and honestly I don’t even know if it is possible to do absolutely everything there is to offer on the property in multiple days but….. I just got back from an amazing short weekend in Florida with some family and I am thoroughly surprised at how much we were able to accomplish. So, let me explain.

My mom, aunt and I decided we needed a little girls trip to get out of the cold weather in Pennsylvania. The winter blues were really beginning to catch hold. So we planned a long weekend, Thursday to Tuesday in Florida. We planned 2 days in the parks, a beach day, and a day swimming with the manatees. Last minute one of my really good friends called and decided she was going to meet us down there to visit Disney for the first time. Naturally me being me, that meant that we had to get as much as we could done in the one day they were visiting.

So my mom, aunt and I spend Friday in the parks leisurely knowing full well that Monday (our next park day) was going to be a long one. Now this isn’t something I would recommend for everyone, but my friends wanted to do as much as possible in one day. Also keep in mind I really don’t think that anyone can get the full disney experience in one or two days, and its not my favorite way to enjoy the parks, but we were going to do everything we could in one day.

So.. here’s a little list of what we did.. in one day.. and then I will go over how and give you some tips on getting the most in on your trip.

Our Walt Disney World Itinerary

Now, Let’s Discuss It.

Okay, so I realize that this list seems ridiculous, but we really did all of that in one day. It is possible to do all the parks in Walt Disney World in one day. Now you know. Actually we probably could have spent more time in Epcot if we wanted to, but we really wanted to end the day in Magic Kingdom and get a good experience. And clearly the Gods were in our favor because some of it had to be luck. But whatever it was we were happy about it. Our goal for the day was to get my friends through as much as possible. They wanted to see everything, ride everything and eat everything. We knew going into it that it was going to be an exhausting day, but we did it! And we managed to get way more done than I ever thought would be possible.

Also, we really didn’t need to go to Epcot. Technically it was a little bit of a time waster, but it was with it to us. The wait for the bus was going to be a while and my friends wanted to ride the skyliner. They also wanted to see what Epcot looks like. So they got the chance to ride almost all forms of transportation, ride most of the rides, and at least see all four parks. Which I would call a win win. So how did we do all this in one day?

Well here’s my advice..

1. You’re going to need a Walt Disney World park hopper pass.

I feel like this one is probably the most obvious, but for those that don’t know.. In order to do more than one park in a day you’re going to need a park hopper pass. This allows you to choose which park you would like to start your day in. Then after 2:00pm you can venture to any additional parks you would like.

Keep in mind the park hopper pass is more pricy than the usual tickets, which is why I only recommend them for times where you need to get multiple parks done in one day. If you have time to do one park each day you’re vacationing then I highly recommend saving the money and just doing that. That way you can leisurely enjoy everything each park has to offer.

Butttt…..

If you’re trying to do it all and only have one or two days to do it like we did, then this is your only option.

2. Pay the extra for Disney Geinie Plus

As much as I truly hate the idea of having to pay more money for things in Walt Disney World, if you want to do it all some things are just necessary. So.. what is Disney Genie Plus?

Disney Genie Plus is what replaced the fast pass system for Walt Disney World. You can find it in the My Disney Experience App. This app allows you to get a pass to skip the line for certain attractions at an additional cost. There is a general option to pay a fee per person per day to get lightening lanes for most attractions in the parks. This option is allows multiple rides for one fee. And there is a second individual purchase option for a few select high ticket attractions that are not offered in the other option. This pass is for things such as, Star Was Rise of the Resistance, Seven Dwarf Mine Train, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avatar Flight of Passage and the new Tron attraction opening up in Magic Kingdom next month.

Again, I will forever miss the old fastness system, but for this day we knew we were going to have to bite the bullet. We decided to only purchase the Genie Plus pass that allows us most of the rides and decided to wait in line for whatever else we wanted. And when I say that this is the main reason we were able to do everything we did I honestly mean it. We paid $25 per person, which wasn’t bad considering that the Friday before price was $30 per person.

Keep in mind these prices seem to vary based on how busy the parks are. Last fall a friend of mine and I did 3 parks in one day and our Genie Plus passes were only an additional $15 per person. We will discuss the genie plus system in another post though if you’re interested.

3. Utilize early entry, and get there as early as possible.

Early entry is literally a life saver. This is something you need to take full advantage of. For years I didn’t take advantage of it because I wanted to rest from the day before, and now I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Especially if you want to skip some of those uber long lines. And the best part about this one is that it’s only available to guests staying on property and it is free.

We were actually running late this day. We planned on being in the park by 7:30am for early entry and didn’t get into Animal Kingdom until 7:45am. It was still well worth it.

This allowed us to get in line for Avatar, knowing we had other lightening lanes we needed to get. The wait when we got to the line already said it was an hour, which we were prepared for. We figured no big deal to wait in a long line early in the day before we all are exhausted. And we lucked out and it was less than 45 minutes which was awesome, this also allowed us to walk onto dinosaur with less than a 10 minute wait when we were finished. So I highly advise getting to the parks as early as you can, its going to be your best bet on getting things in without much of a wait.

Check the WDW website to see check park hours, and see what times early entry is here.

4. Plan to stay past park close.

Staying late is the other thing that allows you get things in. People usually don’t make it all night. Again if they come early they are usually leaving early, so take advantage of the wait times dropping after 8:30/9:00 pm. Also, the rides and attractions may close at a certain time, but you get an additional hour to get out of the parks. This mean that as long as you’re in line before the park closing time you should be able to hop on another ride. I always try for atleast 15 minutes before close just in case. Then more than likely you will still have some time to shop on Main Street on your way out.

The Magic Kingdom closed at 10:00 pm on the night we were there so at 9:40pm we hopped in the line for Space Mountain knowing if we would have went any earlier we would not have had time to do the other rides. We were out of Space Mountain by 10:25 and spent a little bit of time shopping in the Main Street shops before we left.

5. Skip the fireworks if you want to ride more rides.

I am a huge fan of the fireworks, they are absolutely beautiful to see. And to be completely honest Walt Disney World firework shows are some of the best firework shows out there. This is one of those things your really have to think about, because if its your first time visiting and you enjoy fireworks I wouldn’t miss the show.

But if you really want to get some extra rides in, I say skip them. If you can that is. Sometimes I can’t even force myself to skip them. For. the sake of our trip though we had to. And we were all glad we did. We lucked out and at 8:30 pm we found a Lightening Lane for Pirates of the Caribbean at 8:50pm. Someone must have dropped it in order to watch the fireworks which made things great for us. We finished off pirates by 9:00 and ran to the Jungle Cruise. Which we walked onto, and watched the fireworks start as we were climbing aboard the boat. After that we booked it like hell to haunted mansion to try to beat the crowd after the fireworks and lucked out again by walking on. So we really got 3 rides in because of skipping the fireworks.

6. Try to plan your events in some kind of order.

I highly suggest planning your stuff around whatever Lightening Lanes you get, do everything around that lightening lane while waiting for your next one if you can. This way you’re not running back and forth across the parks. You might not realize how much running around the parks will exhaust you, but trust me when I say it will. So taking some time to enjoy the areas in as much order as possible is going to save you time and energy.

7. Eat on the go.

When you’re trying to do it all you really might not have time to sit down for a nice meal. Although if you had a dining reservation, and it’s not too busy you can sometimes get in and out in 30 to 45 minutes which isn’t bad. But just keep in mind the more time you have the better, so try to make dining as quick as possible.

8. Be prepared to take not breaks.

This was a personal choice. Obviously you can plan your day however you want, but again we had a long list of goals to accomplish and not enough time to do them. And sitting down and relaxing wasn’t on our list. Again, time wasted was time not being utilized to get in everything.

9. Know that you will be exhausted by afternoon.

If you’re looking to go to Walt Disney World and have a leisurely trip, know that this isn’t the way to do it. It is super exhausting. Just look at my fitness screenshot from my Apple Watch. We walked over 15 miles. This way of hitting up the parks is something you do for fun, just to see if you can. Or you do it when you only have one day to do it and want the chance to do as much as possible. I also highly recommend the day after doing this be a day where you get to sleep in. Luckily for us it was our day to head home so we got to sleep in and relax before packing up and heading home.

The above photo is a screenshot of what my watch tracked on our Disney day just for reference. This way you can see how much walking we really did. We burnt mad calories and we were all whooped by the end of the day. Was it worth it? Heck ya it was! But it’s not for everyone so just keep that in mind!

If you have anymore good tips that I need to know about please feel free to comment them below. We all need as many Disney tips and tricks as we can get!! Thanks for reading and hopefully you found some good info!