With higher crowds & wait times, you need superior strategy for saving time waiting at Walt Disney World. That’s the purpose of this post, breaking down the best & worst options–Lightning Lanes, extra hours & rope drop–to beat long lines at Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, EPCOT and Animal Kingdom. (Updated March 5, 2025.)
Our goal is to find the ideal approach to using standby lines and/or Lightning Lanes, as well as the best times of day at each park. Spoiler: there’s no one-size fits all answer for all people or all parks. That’s the big thing we’ve learned while extensively visiting the parks extensively for the sake of research to test various strategies.
Even many longtime Walt Disney World fans are overwhelmed by the options, so we’re here to provide insight into reducing friction from your days in the parks. As the ole tantalizing teaser goes, “…and the results will surprise you!” But seriously, they will. What we accomplished (or didn’t) with some of these approaches actually caught us off-guard.
Before getting going, we want to stress the importance of this strategy for time frames when the 2025 Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar is 7/10 or higher. When wait times are below that threshold, you can “get away” with sloppier strategy–crowd levels of up to 5/10 can be beaten with moderate planning and effort, following the general advice here but without being overzealous about it. Less than 4/10 and, frankly, you don’t need much strategy at all.
Once you get to 7/10 or higher crowd levels, savvy strategy becomes downright essential. You don’t necessarily need to purchase Lightning Lanes every single day for the reasons explained here, but you need to be prepared with a plan and follow it pretty closely.
During these busier dates, the tips & tricks here will enable you to accomplish a lot more than the average Walt Disney World visitor. If you’re visiting during the peak season, holidays, or during school breaks, this advice is arguably more valuable right now than anything else on this website. Not to set unrealistic expectations, but this strategy should save you several hours per day at Walt Disney World (and it should save you money, too!).
Next, let’s do a quick run-through of the various mainstream ways to save time at Walt Disney World. This isn’t comprehensive, leaving out the priciest options–like doing VIP tours for the duration of your trip or renting out the parks–for what should be obvious reasons. Even though it’s safe to assume George Clooney, Oprah, and Carrot Top are loyal readers of this blog, most of you probably aren’t that big of high rollers.
The first option is the controversial Lightning Lanes (e.g. Paid FastPass), which offer one way to skip standby lines. Unfortunately, these come with a cost–not just a monetary one, but also with frustrations, back-tracking, making ride reservations 3 or more days before you arrive, and the steep learning curve of mastering the new system. Look no further than our lengthy Guide to Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World for how confusing it can be.
With the switch from Genie+ to Lightning Lane Multi Pass, there’s once again and on-site advantage and the ability to make 3 selections in advance. With this comes the loss of stacking, a disadvantage for off-site guests, and likelihood that you’ll be scoring fewer Lightning Lanes per day. There’s also the reality that you’re likely committing to buying (or not) before starting your trip and seeing/feeling crowd levels.
Lightning Lane Multi Pass also isn’t cheap. Current per-person prices range from $16 to $39 before tax each day, with holiday weeks (e.g.Thanksgiving) at Magic Kingdom or multiple parks expected to be at the upper end of that range. If you’re on a budget or more price-sensitive, this adds up–amounting to $400-$800 in added costs for an average family during a week-long trip.
The silver lining is that Lightning Lanes are not necessary at every park or every day. In fact, at 3 of the 4 parks, there’s superior strategy–precisely what we’ll be covering here! So you’ll only “need” to buy Lightning Lane Multi-Pass one day of your trip. A couple other days are optional, but often recommended.
Sticking with the pay to play options of sorts, there’s Early Entry (EE) and Extended Evening Hours (ExEH), which replace Extra Magic Hours in the morning and at night. Early Entry is daily at all 4 parks and all on-site guests are eligible, but is only 30 minutes long. By contrast, Extended Evening Hours typically is once per week at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, lasts 2 hours, but is only available to guests staying at the top tier resorts.
These have their own pros & cons, from being only available to on-site guests (or a subset thereof) to requiring people to get up early or stay late. If you’re unfamiliar with the ins and outs of each, learn more in our Guide to Early Entry at Walt Disney World and Guide to Extended Evening Hours at Walt Disney World.
Additionally, we have about a dozen or so “Extra Hours” Photo Reports, with more coming in Spring 2025 now that both Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind have standby lines and the latter is part of Early Entry. We’re also still hoping to see TRON Lightcycle Run added to the Early Entry lineup, but it’s been months and that still hasn’t happened, so it may not.
Next, there’s tried and true rope drop or regular park opening.
For those unfamiliar with this inside baseball-esque term, rope drop is simply when the lands and attractions officially open, which is synonymous with the published park opening time. (It’s literal–there’s a rope that is dropped, opening the lands to guests.) Since the front gates usually admit guests before park opening, Disney fans have demarcated the two times with this rad term. In practice, rope drop is pretty much anytime during the first hour of regular operations.
Finally, there’s the end of the evening, which is usually the last couple hours of regular operations. We don’t have a rad term for this one, but I feel like that’s a huge missed opportunity for a cryptic moniker. Just imagine how many of the uninitiated we could confuse by referring to this as “rope rise.” (Get it? Because they drop the rope at the beginning of the day, so it stands to reason that they pick it–you know, nevermind.)
If we did call the end of the night “rope rise,” no one would know what the heck we’re talking about, so fewer people would take advantage. In any case, wait times tend to be shorter towards later at night. When and by how much they fall varies by park, and is often not fully reflected in posted wait times.
Of course, there’s also the middle of the day, or anytime between around 10 am and 6 pm.
With few exceptions, this is the busiest time of day at Walt Disney World–when crowds peak as most guests have arrived, but few have left. The majority of guests visit the parks during these hours, making them the worst time to do anything popular. Conversely, it’s the best time to focus on unpopular, low-wait attractions like stage shows and other entertainment.
Got all of that? Good. Now let’s go park by park and discuss which approach is best right now. We’ve tested and retested every single strategy for all of the parks, and updated our conclusions as things have changed. Here’s the park by park rundown of which time-saving approaches are best…
Magic Kingdom
When it comes to beating the crowds at Magic Kingdom, let’s start with Early Entry. Unfortunately, we’ve found that on-site perk to be less successful here than at any other park. This is due to a mix of higher demand and only Fantasyland and Tomorrowland being open. We’ve done Early Entry at Magic Kingdom over a dozen times, and have always had less success there than at the other parks–but that is starting to change as of 2025 (see below).
If you’re not eligible for Early Entry, regular rope drop is actually still somewhat good because Frontierland and Adventureland are not open during Early Entry. This makes rope drop alone, or Early Entry plus rope drop a great approach. If you’re only eligible for rope drop, doing Frontierland and Adventureland first and saving Fantasyland until later in the day can be a workable approach.
There are more strategy options for Magic Kingdom than any other park participating in Early Entry and at regular rope drop. See our step-by-step Magic Kingdom Morning Tips & Tricks in 2025: Rides to Do & Avoid at Rope Drop & Early Entry for multiple options not just for the first 30 minutes, but the first couple hours of the day.
There are also enough worthwhile secondary attractions in Magic Kingdom that you can round out the rest of your day with relaxing, low wait shows and more. Many of our smartest and sexiest readers enjoy filling out the middle of their days by watching Country Bear Jamboree on repeat.
One thing to note here is that TRON Lightcycle Run still does not participate in Early Entry. Despite this, TRON has become the #1 destination for Early Entry, meaning that on-site guests are taking their 30-minute head start and using that to pre-queue up for TRON Lightcycle Run. Hurry up and wait.
As explained in Why You Should Skip Magic Kingdom’s Biggest Ride During Early Entry & Rope Drop, we strongly recommend not doing this. Starting at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, or elsewhere in Tomorrowland are all better options. The opportunity cost of using that 30 minutes to wait for a non-operational ride is too high, as is the time cost. You’re better off waiting until later to do TRON Lightcycle Run, especially given that evening is the best time for the attraction from a subjective perspective.
Speaking of switching to standby, it’s worth reiterating that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has ditched its virtual queue, but it also is not participating in Early Entry. This is to be expected, as Frontierland opens with regular rope drop. However, because Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is down until 2026, we do not recommend prioritizing this corner of the park until next year.
With all of that said, it’s Lightning Lane Multi-Pass that works best at Magic Kingdom and it’s really no contest. Thanks to a high worthwhile attraction count available via Lightning Lanes, Magic Kingdom is the one park where we highly recommend buying LLMP.
Take a look at our Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Multi-Pass Rankings & Time-Saving Strategy for recommendations as to your first 3 picks, as well as subsequent selections. During a normal day at Magic Kingdom, you should be able to score about a half-dozen good Lightning Lanes.
This is very difficult at the other parks, especially Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Unlike those, Magic Kingdom is the park where Lightning Lane Multi-Pass is easiest to use and presents the fewest headaches. At Magic Kingdom, you can book Lightning Lane ride reservations with a more leisurely approach and less criss-crossing the park.
It’s especially nice that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is included with LLMP. This is the newest attraction at Magic Kingdom, and it still has reliability and downtime woes even after switching to standby. Due to these issues, the attraction can be frustrating and wait times are inconsistent. The difference is that, at least if you do get a Lightning Lane, you’re essentially guaranteed being able to ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. It’s a good hedge to have on a day when TBA is unreliable.
Next, there’s the end of the night. Like every other park, wait times at Magic Kingdom do fall off in the evening as guests grab spots for the Happily Ever After fireworks. You can enjoy shorter waits if you’re willing to skip those, or watch them from a last-minute location in Fantasyland.
The drop-off isn’t quite as pronounced as the other parks, but it’s still significant. That plus queueing up for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or TRON Lightcycle Run one minute before park closing is a great approach if you don’t buy Lightning Lane Single Passes for them.
For select guests one night per week, there’s Extended Evening Hours. We’ve done this a handful of times, so our sample size is still relatively limited, but our success rate is 100%. Low waits everywhere and blissfully uncrowded parks.
Even if you take advantage of one of the aforementioned approaches and “conquer” Magic Kingdom before this late night perk, do it anyway. It’s a delightful way to enjoy Magic Kingdom, offering a serene experience that’s a great way to decompress from the earlier chaos during peak season. (See Magic Kingdom Extended Evening Hours Photo Report.)
Epcot
Early Entry is the best way to beat the crowds at Epcot. That’s doubly true if you’re arriving via International Gateway, as you’ll be able to do Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure with a 10 minute wait or less. (See Early Entry at Epcot via World Showcase.)
From the Rat Ride, it’s entirely possible to do Frozen Ever After as a near walk-on and Soarin’ Around the World with minimal wait…and everything else in the new neighborhoods with no waits. It’s a lot of walking, but that’s par for the course at Epcot, and you could modify this approach to minimize steps if you’re staying the full day.
If you’re coming from the front entrance, the obvious starting point is Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, which now uses a standby line. You should be able to knock out Cosmic Rewind, potentially more than once, before the regular rope drop rush arrives. Or you can move on to one of the other top attractions in the front half of the park.
Those arriving for regular rope drop will still enjoy success and time savings pretty much everywhere except Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. With both attractions, we’ve found that there’s a mid-morning lull around 90 minutes after park opening, so you should target one of the two then, and save the other for the end of the night. It’s easier to do Cosmic Rewind earlier, as it’s closer to the main entrance.
If you’re at the front of the pack, doing Cosmic Rewind during regular rope drop is also possible with a below-average wait. As for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, it’s easy enough to save for the end of the night. You can either do it around 8 pm and be done in time for the Luminous fireworks, or wait until 8:59 pm if you don’t mind skipping that nighttime spectacular. Off-site guests who aren’t eligible for Early Entry aren’t at too considerable of a disadvantage at Epcot.
Speaking of which, the front of the park empties out at Epcot in the evening hours, because guests eat and drink around the World Showcase, and secure spots for the fireworks. Hitting these rides the last two hours of the day can be a smooth move, especially since it’s not imperative that you get a front row view for the fireworks.
For those arriving after rope drop, Lightning Lanes are your default. Epcot is our second least favorite park for the line-skipping service, and we don’t recommend it here unless you’re Park Hopping or cannot take advantage of the aforementioned strategies.
If you’re visiting on a busier day when Lightning Lane Multi-Pass costs the most, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll score Lightning Lanes for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, Soarin. On those days, I still strongly favor arriving early or staying late, especially since Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Epcot can force you to do a lot of backtracking.
Extended Evening Hours at Epcot are not quite as delightful at Epcot as Magic Kingdom. The lower ride count, more obvious top priorities, and walking distance between headliner attractions means wait times for the trio of headliners don’t fall as dramatically and it takes you more time to accomplish less. On top of that, if even one ride is down, it can throw a real monkey wrench into things.
With good strategy, you can still accomplish Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, and Test Track during this post-closing perk, but it does require determination (and luck). You can also do Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at the absolute last minute, but that often comes at the expense of one of the other 3 rides with standby lines. Unless you get incredibly lucky, it’s almost impossible to do all 4 in one night.
Hollywood Studios
We’ve been saying for the last few years that Hollywood Studios is the most frustrating park at Walt Disney World. Among other things, this is due to the top-heavy nature of its attraction lineup, and lack of secondary rides. There was a point during the phased reopening when this was particularly problematic, but it has gotten much better with the return of most stage shows and entertainment.
For much of the last two years, wait times at Disney’s Hollywood Studios have peaked earlier than any other park at Walt Disney World. In the last month, this has started to shift with the return of Fantasmic, and we’d expect that trend to continue. Even Animal Kingdom, which opens earlier and is commonly derided as a half-day park, doesn’t see its longest wait times of the day until afternoon.
Against this backdrop, the best option for beating the crowds at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is Early Entry. In large part, this is because Early Entry encompasses all important, high-wait attractions at DHS and also because it usually ends up being much more than a 30 minute head-start.
That’s especially true if you prioritize Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, with the added upside of doing this first being that you’re less likely to encounter a breakdown while you’re in line for it. Check out our report on Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios that covers our experience knocking out the “triple digit trio” at DHS before the park opened to regular guests.
The worst strategy for Disney’s Hollywood Studios is relying on traditional rope drop. This should be pretty intuitive for the two reasons identified above: wait times peak early and all headliners are open for Early Entry.
If you can’t enter DHS until regular park opening time, you’re going to get maybe 1-2 attractions done with below average waits. Your likelihood for frustrations–and thus leaving before the end of the night–will also be higher.
Instead, consider an afternoon arrival and staying until park closing. The good news is that there’s still a pronounced drop-off during dinner and Fantasmic. If there are two showings of that nighttime spectacular, you’re golden–take advantage of lower crowds during the first Fantasmic, and watch the second one at or after park closing.
The bad news is that, like everyone else, you’ll probably want to eat and see Fantasmic…and if it only has one showtime, this is tricky. This is definitely a big blow for our favorite way to do DHS, but it’s definitely not a net-negative. Fantasmic is great, so we’re very happy to have it back; also, DHS is now drawing crowds away from EPCOT and Animal Kingdom in the evening hours, making those comparatively less crowded.
Posted wait times are lower in the last two hours of the day at DHS, but that only tells part of the story. Actual wait times are often dramatically lower, particularly for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog Dash, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, and other headliners.
The only caveat we’ll add here is that this approach with the unreliable Rise of the Resistance is risky–if you only have one shot at it and the ride goes down in the last two hours of the day, you might be out of luck. Read our Ride Guide for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which offers an overview of the best & worst ways to do that, and plan accordingly.
Finally, there’s Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. We’ve covered experiences with this extensively, most recently in My Great Day Using Lightning Lanes at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
DHS has a top heavy lineup, which can make it tricky to score 4 or more good selections via Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. That was the case under the old Genie+ system, to the point that we heard more complaints about Lightning Lanes at DHS than any other park. However, since the switch to LLMP, that has not been our experience at all.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is now the #1 park for purchasing Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Walt Disney World. As discussed in our new Top 10 Tips & Tricks for Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World in 2025, there are a few reasons for this. More than anything else, it’s because DHS has gotten better as Magic Kingdom has gotten slightly worse.
Beyond that, Disney’s Hollywood Studios offers the most upside with LLMP. It’s the park with the highest average standby wait times, the #1 overall Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, and easier same-day availability for tier two attractions and ride reservation refills if you leverage the rolling 3 rule and put a little elbow grease into your refresh game.
Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is now a great option most of the time, but we’d still recommend viewing it as a safety net. It’s still the best practice to arrive for Early Entry and/or stay late, but if you can’t for whatever reason, you should purchase LLMP and possibly Lightning Lane Single Pass for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
Any of these time-saving strategies for Disney’s Hollywood Studios can be headache-inducing, but not any more so than standby lines, which are just brutal at DHS. You really need to utilize savvy strategy to prevent Disney’s Hollywood Studios from being downright unpleasant. And with an “all of the above” approach and a little luck, you might find yourself able to experience multiple rides on each of the headliners at DHS in a single day!
Animal Kingdom
We go from the most frustrating park to the easiest one. Strategy for Animal Kingdom essentially amounts to “don’t go during the middle of the day and stand in long lines,” which seems to be what the vast majority of guests do for some odd reason.
Going early, staying late, or using Lightning Lane Multi Pass are all solid strategies. Almost equally so. We’d give the edge to Early Entry, which starts at 7:30 am on most dates. That is absurdly early, and a huge barrier for most guests. If you’re able to arrive to Animal Kingdom by 7 am, this gives you a huge advantage.
Traditional rope drop also works, so long as you prioritize something other than Avatar Flight of Passage. Again, most people aren’t up and out the door this early in the morning on vacation, and that applies even to regular park opening time at Animal Kingdom. (With the peak season 8 am official opening, you might be able to hit Flight of Passage with minimal wait even at traditional rope drop.)
Personally, I’m a fan of doing Animal Kingdom later in the day (see Animal Kingdom Afternoon Arrival Strategy). Subjectively, this is nice because Animal Kingdom is the hottest park at Walt Disney World, and hitting it when the sun is lower knocks a good 10-20 degrees off the feels like temperatures. The atmosphere at sunset and night is also fantastic, and something few fans see.
Unfortunately, wait times aren’t plummeting towards the end of the day like they were about a year ago, which is likely due to more entertainment having returned. While most other rides will be walk-ons or close to it, you can still expect lengthy lines for the two Pandora – World of Avatar attractions.
Lightning Lane Multi Pass is the objectively better option at Animal Kingdom than staying late. Even though the lineup is limited, most eligible attractions have availability well into the afternoon. I’m disinclined to buy LLMP at Animal Kingdom because arriving early or staying late works well and the eligible attraction roster is so limited, but it still offers time savings.
Personally, I only buy LLMP at Animal Kingdom when Park Hopping. It’s our recommendation then because you can knock out the few attractions where Lightning Lanes are useful at Animal Kingdom and also use LLMP to skip a few lines in one of the other parks, too. Outside of Lightning Lane Multi Pass, Avatar Flight of Passage can be worth the cost of the Lightning Lane Single Pass, but we usually hit it early, late, or during the lunch lull instead.
Ultimately, there are a lot of ways to beat the crowds at Walt Disney World, and that applies even during the peak weeks of summer and beyond. Strategizing has definitely gotten more complicated in the last year, and we’ve heard from countless long time visitors who feel left behind or overwhelmed. The bad news is that there are more pay-to-play options and they’ll either cost extra or have less eligibility.
The good news is that there’s actually greater accessibility to saving time at Walt Disney World. If you read this ~4,000 word post the night before visiting Walt Disney World, you could take advantage of many of these tips. That simply was not possible at this time a few years ago, when pre-booking FastPass+ up to 60 days in advance closed the door for a lot of first-timers who, quite understandably, had no clue ride reservations were booked months in advance.
Now, tactics are uneven and inconsistent among the parks, but there’s pretty much something for everyone. Whether you want to pay extra, not pay extra, rise early, or stay late. As always, we highly recommend our Walt Disney World Park Itineraries for more granular, step-by-step advice for planning out your entire day.
About the only thing you can’t do is sleep in, visit the parks from 11 am until 4 pm, and leave early. This has always been the worst way to do Walt Disney World, and that remains true to this day. Yet, for reasons beyond me, that continues to be the “preferred” approach for so many guests. If you simply don’t do that, you’re automatically ahead of the pack!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on our suggested strategies for each of the Walt Disney World theme parks? Do you prefer rope drop, “rope rise,” Early Entry, Extended Evening Hours, or Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass? Or, do you favor a miss of approaches when touring the parks? How do you do things differently in each park? Any other feedback on arriving early or staying late at the Walt Disney World theme parks? Agree or disagree with our advice or approach? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!