Designing Your Own Walt Disney World FastPass+ Itinerary

DISNEY WORLD ITINERARY DESIGN

This site provides 8-night itineraries here for all of the year (published about six months ahead), as well as itineraries a night or two shorter (more of these are coming…).  Beginning for June 2014 travel dates, all are based on optimizing the use of FastPass+.

If these aren’t enough, here are a few thoughts on designing your own shorter itinerary.

For a blank excel version of the itinerary spreadsheet to use for your own itinerary, click here. For a blank PDF version, click here.

How to divide up and allocate your days

• Decide how many days you can be at the parks—include if you can time on your arrival and departure days, as the cost of tickets after four days is so low that partial days are worth it! Shoot for at least 6 days and 5 nights on site–e.g. four full days and two partial travel days. 7 days and 6 nights is much more humane, if you can do it
• Divide your days among the parks. You have two different issues here: the overall use of your time at the four parks, and the days you can spend at each. Because you can pre-book only three FastPass+ per park, two half days–and thus six FastPass+–are more valuable than one full day.
• For the overall use of your time, very few sources will suggest less than
  • At least a day each at the Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios
  • More than a day at Epcot
  • Around two days at the Magic Kingdom.

How to sequence your days

Work through the following five rules in order. You rarely will be able to design a perfect trip unless you have extra off times that you can move around, so do the best you can. You will need to check the Disney calendar while doing this.

It’s easier to work with the individual park calendars. To view a day–for example, to figure out if and when Fantasmic or Wishes is on that day–go to the individual park’s monthly calendar and click within the date you are curious about.

• Magic Kingdom Calendar
• Hollywood Studios Calendar
• Animal Kingdom Calendar
• Epcot Calendar

1. Avoid Extra Magic Hours unless you are starting at a morning EMH park and hopping to another park where your FastPass+ are scheduled. The higher crowds in EMH parks typically overwhelm the EMH benefits

2. Make sure that one of your Magic Kingdom evenings is a day with the fireworks show “Wishes,” and ideally one that also

• Has an evening parade
• Does not close right after the fireworks

3. Otherwise, avoid Magic Kingdom on days where it has the evening shows in the middle of a stretch of days where it doesn’t.

4. Make sure that Fantasmic is playing one of your Hollywood Studios days. Fantasmic is on almost–but not quite–every night.

5. Within the constraints above, try to see Epcot first, and the Magic Kingdom last

FOOD, SHOWS, AND SUCH

See this for various meal and show options ranked in order.

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