Last updated on October 30th, 2024 at 11:54 am

Now that we’ve picked our travel dates, booked our hotel rooms, gotten park passes and park reservations, it’s time to start planning our park days! And thankfully I’ve got a Disney planning guide to help!

Make sure you’re thinking about what dining reservations you want to make too, so you’re prepared at 60 days out when it’s time to book!

Start making loose plans now for your park days, and once you have dining reservations booked you can adjust accordingly! 

I can be your Disney planning guide!

Touring Plans by Park

I highly recommend using Touring Plans to create a plan for each day in the parks. These Touring Plans take into account the day you’re visiting, start and end time, dining reservations, walking speed, and how much time you want to spend walking vs. waiting. 

After inputting your information and optimizing the plan, Touring Plans will tell you the order of rides to go on, how long you’ll spend waiting in line, on the ride, and walking to your next ride. 

The amount of data they have and use to plan your park days is crazy. 

Even if you aren’t going to use Touring Plans, you should be putting together a loose plan for what you’re going to do each day. 

No one will be having fun if after you get off a ride you ask for a show of hands on what ride to go on next, checking the wait time, and going back and forth.  

What you need to know for each day you’re visiting a park:

• Meals, both reservations and quick service
• Rides
  • What does the group want to go on?
  • What are your kids tall enough to ride?
  • Will your kids be afraid to ride?

Meals

I’ve done a deep dive into Disney World Restaurants, so take a look at that one while picking where you’d like to eat. 

You don’t need to make dining reservations for every day of your trip, or at all if you don’t want to. Just make sure you have an idea when and where you want to eat on each day. 

And if you do make reservations, make sure you’re not halfway across the park 5 minutes before your reservation time! There’s a little bit of a grace period, but it’s best not to push it! 

Rides

This is the good stuff! One (of many) of the best things about Walt Disney World is there are so many rides little kids can go on. I never felt like my daughter (who was 18 months on her first trip) was missing out on the experience because she was so little. 

I haven’t felt this way at other theme parks because there was literally nothing she could go on besides a carousel. Nothing. Which is so frustrating as a parent when you want them to have a good time. 

And don’t stress if you want to go on Space Mountain, and you know your kids won’t. You can, and should, still go on it! 

I’ve included a Disney Planning Guide at the bottom of this post with what you need to know about each of the rides, but let’s cover off some important things first. 

Height Restrictions

While a lot of rides at Walt Disney World are for anyone and everyone, there are some rides with height restrictions. 

Get out that measuring tape and figure out which rides your kids are tall enough to go on. It must be a crushing feeling hoping you can go on a ride, and when you get measured at the front of the line, you find out you aren’t. 

Once you know what rides your kids can go on, now you need to find out if they want to go on it! Especially if this is the first time they’ll be experiencing any of the faster and more intense rides. 

One of the best ways to gauge your kid’s interest is to show them videos of the rides on YouTube! Either it’ll help get them excited to ride, or realize maybe they’re not quite ready yet. 

And maybe they’ll change their minds when they get to Disney World, either way! 

Otherwise, you might end up like me at 10, riding Splash Mountain for the first time saying “I hate myself!” That’s a story I’ll never live down. 

Rider Switch

Rider switch is a great service offered at Disney parks for those bigger attractions your kids might not be tall enough to ride, or want to ride. 

With Rider Switch, one adult waits with the non-rider(s) while the rest of the group goes on the attraction. When the group gets off the attraction, they supervise the non-riders, while the other adult gets right on the ride, without waiting in the regular line again! 

And, if you have older kids (or adults) who enjoy the ride, they could actually go on twice! 

It’s nice that your kid(s) don’t have to wait in a long line with you, and instead can relax, have a snack, or even go on an attraction with a short wait!

I know it’s not fun waiting in a long line to get on an attraction, however, as a parent who was on an almost 2-week long vacation with her husband and 18 month-old, standing in a line where I didn’t need to talk to anyone and could look at my phone in peace wasn’t all that bad. 

How to use Rider Switch, according to the Disney website: 

1. First check with a Cast member to see if Rider Switch is offered at the attraction in question.

2. Once at the attraction, approach the greeting Cast Member with your entire party. At least one adult member of your party and the Guests who are not riding will be issued a Ride Switch entitlement by the Cast Member and asked to wait in a designated area (usually outside of the attraction). This group is “Party 2.”

3. The other party members (“Party 1”) ride the attraction.

4. After riding the attraction, Party 1 locates Party 2. Then, Party 1 takes over supervision of the non-riding children or Guests.

5. Party 2 enters and boards the attraction without having to wait in the regular queue a second time. The Rider Switch entitlement must be validated by a Cast Member at this time.

Single Rider 

On our last trip, another “hack” we took advantage of were single rider lines! Plus, they’re starting to come back! 

Single rider lines are meant to fill in any open seats on attractions, so they can be running at full capacity. 

Single rider is a separate line at select attractions, and at the front of the line you’ll be added to a random group’s party. 

The line is usually a significantly shorter wait than the standby line, so it’s great for saving time. 

There are some cons for Single Rider though – 

• If you’re in a group, you will be broken up
• You won’t be able to experience the entire ride queue 
• On Test Track, you can’t design your own car
• On Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run, 99.9% chance you will be an engineer and have to sit in the back
  • Definitely not the most fun seat on the ride, and when I went on it I had a 10 year-old who also went through the single rider line, yelling at me to push the buttons

You can use Single Rider and Rider Switch at the same time! Follow all the Rider Switch steps above, but use the single rider line instead of the standby line! 

Disney Planning Guide 

Start putting your plans down on paper – meals, reservations, and rides, and see what you’re working with. 

Continue to adjust as you get closer to your trip, but make sure you use your Disney planning guide so everyone has an amazing time! 

I’ve created some editable and printable PDFs, as a part of my overall Planning a Disney Vacation Guide, check it out! 

The Walt Disney World Planning Guide

Get all of these tips, and more, in The Harper Girls Walt Disney World Planning Guide! Over 70 printer-friendly pages of information, including planning checklists, fun things to do in Disney (for free!), budget tips, resort and park info, and more! 

Purchase the guide here, or sign up for our newsletter and get a code for 20% off! 

Other Disney World Planning Posts – 

How to Plan a Trip for a Large Group in Disney

Planning an Amazing Trip to Disney World on a Budget

Picking the Best Disney World Restaurants for Your Family

Your 2022 Disney Trip – Dates, Tickets and Hotels; the Ultimate Vacation