Visiting Walt Disney World in 2025 - Booking a trip, experiencing all the parks & first time visitor tips!
This year, I finally did something I’ve been wanting to do for ages: I took my first trip to Walt Disney World!! I did technically go to Walt Disney World once in 2000, but I was so young and it was so long ago, that this basically felt like my first trip ever! I was surely clueless enough to be a first-timer!
The trip was so much fun, but it was also quite overwhelming trying to get my head around an entire week-long trip, so I wanted to write a series of blog posts about my trip to help anyone planning their first trip or considering a trip to Walt Disney World, and hopefully it won’t be so daunting for you!
This post will be about my trip in general and the overall planning process along with some tips at the end! In the next few weeks, I’ll be dedicating one post per park just so I can dive into the details of what I enjoyed about each park and how I navigated each one. So let’s dive in!
Planning the trip
The first steps for planning our trip was choosing a time that fit everyone! I was planning for a party of 6 adults, so after we got our schedules aligned, we decided to visit in the beginning of March. I wanted to visit during temperate weather (since Florida can get so humid!) and generally was hoping to avoid high peak crowds.
Using a Disney travel agent
For this trip, I actually used a Disney travel agent for the first time! The service was completely free to me, and it was pretty straightforward to communicate with the agent and get things planned pretty easily. The agent I worked with was Jessica Delgado from Castle Coaches Travel and she was great!
After I got in contact with them, they asked me where I was looking to stay, what kind of park tickets I wanted, and if I had any dining reservations that I wanted them to make for me. They got me a couple hotel room quotes so that I could see what worked best for us. I decided on the Art of Animation hotel since it was one of the more affordable options (and I really liked the theme).
I was looking to do 4-day single park tickets so that we could spend one day at each park, so the agent helped me with booking the hotel and park tickets as a whole package, and from there I just had to pay the deposit.
Before the window opened up for dining reservations for my trip, my agent reached back out and asked about dining reservations. I really only had one request which was for the Be Our Guest restaurant in Magic Kingdom. They got the reservation for me easily, and we were good to go from there!
For Lightning Lane bookings, we did have to do them ourselves a week before our trip. I actually didn’t end up doing any Lightning Lane bookings at all, so there was nothing for me to do here.
In general, bookings-wise, everything was pretty straightforward, and for the most part that’s what the travel agent did for me. When it came to deciding what rides we wanted to ride and what other foods we wanted to eat in the park, I planned that on my own.
I would say for me, I could do without a Disney travel agent. It was nice to just let them know what I wanted and have them do the work for me, but because I pretty much went into the trip knowing what I wanted, it was just a matter of executing. I think where an agent might be a really big help is if you’re unsure of what to do and want a lot of recommendations and itineraries planned for you. Ahead of my trip my agent sent me a PDF with all of their recommendations and a sample itinerary which I thought was really nice!
Choosing a hotel
I was already certain going into the trip that I wanted to stay on-property. Staying on-property has a lot of benefits like the early park entry and convenient transportation, etc. Plus, I really wanted to be immersed in all things Disney since that was the only purpose of the trip!
But the big choice to make was which resort to stay at?? Walt Disney World has SO many!! (There’s literally more than 25 to choose from)
And after coming back from my trip, I can pretty confidently say that the hotel you choose to stay at does matter, and here’s why:
Budget
The range of pricing for staying at different hotels in Walt Disney World is very large, ranging from around $600/night to $3500/night for a party of 6. You can stay at more budget-friendly hotels or you can go all-out on some really fancy stays. It all depends on the budget you and everyone in your party is working with.
I’m definitely a more cost-conscious traveler, and especially because I was traveling with friends on this trip, I wanted to be very considerate of everyone’s budget.
Transportation
Boy do transportation options matter when you’re trying to navigate Walt Disney World property! There are so many ways to get to do the parks or different resorts depending on where you’re coming from, it’s quite a lot to get accustomed to!
There’s a monorail, a skyliner, ferries(??), buses, and walking routes (if your hotel is close enough to a park). And certain hotels have access to certain modes of transportation, so depending on where you’re staying, you can take advantage of them.
The buses might be my least favorite mode of transportation (they sure are cute, though!). While I’m sure in practice they’re efficient, it just felt like they weren’t while we were waiting at the bus stop for a bus to arrive. We even had a mishap on our last day when we were at Disney Springs where we literally waited 40 minutes for a bus to take us to the Grand Floridian and that made us almost late our friends almost late to their flight 🥲. For this reason, I probably wouldn’t choose to stay at a hotel that only has bus transportation.
And maybe I’m biased, but after staying at the Art of Animation which is along the Skyliner route, I have to say I’m a big fan of the Skyliner. The Skyliner definitely feels efficient since it’s basically always moving. And it’s nice that the gondolas don’t get overly crowded the way a bus does at the end of the night.
Theme
The themes at all the hotels are soo different! And that’s part of what makes staying on-property so cool! I think it really contributes to the experience if you enjoy the theme and feel immersed in the experience.
Choosing Art of Animation
Honestly, I already knew I wanted to stay at the Art of Animation as soon as I saw the theme. Yet somehow, it also satisfied every requirement that I had anyway, so it ended up being the perfect place to stay for us!
Art of Animation is actually one of the most affordable hotels on property (at least at the time that I was going), so it fit right into our budget without issue. It’s also one of the hotels that’s on the Skyliner route, and I had already heard from several people how much they liked the Skyliner, so I was happy with that as well. After staying there, I can also say that I really do enjoy being on the Skyliner route. It makes it super easy and straightforward to get to both EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. You do have to take the buses to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom (and I wasn’t a huge fan of the buses), but it overall wasn’t too difficult. We were always one of the first parties on the buses on our Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom days so getting there was really easy, and getting home from the parks wasn’t too bad either.
I’ll be diving into more detail about my Art of Animation stay in my next post, but suffice it to say, I think staying at Art of Animation was great choice for us, and it literally fit all of our wants and needs!
Planning our park days
I’m a Disneyland local, so there was so much about Walt Disney World that was new to me, and I definitely wanted to experience as much of the exclusive things to Walt Disney World as I could. This was in part why we chose to stick to a single park for each of our park days. I didn’t want to spend time hopping to other parks since I wanted to dedicate a full day to each park.
General itinerary
Here’s the general schedule of how we broke down our days:
| Day | Park |
|---|---|
| Day 0 | Check-in and Blizzard Beach |
| Day 1 | Magic Kingdom |
| Day 2 | Hollywood Studios |
| Day 3 | Rest |
| Day 4 | EPCOT |
| Day 5 | Animal Kingdom |
Rationale
If you stay on-property at a Walt Disney World hotel, they’re currently offering a perk in 2025 that gives all guests access to their water parks on the day of check-in! I’d recommend checking in to your hotel as early as you can if you want to take advantage of the included water park day! During our visit, Blizzard Beach was the water park that was open, so we headed there after we checked in and had a great chill day riding some water slides!
We started off our planned park days with Magic Kingdom first because we wanted to visit this park while we were all still fresh at the beginning of the trip and had the most energy. Since this park is just so iconically and classically Disney we thought this would be the most exciting way to kick off the trip!
Since we anticipated Magic Kingdom being a really long and exhausting day, we wanted a bit of a breather after that, so we decided to visit Hollywood Studios second. Based on the available rides and experiences at Hollywood Studios, we figured that this day wouldn’t be quite as exhausting for us. There were several shows we wanted to see, and quite a bit of rides we wanted to ride, but overall it didn’t feel like it would be too packed.
A rest day felt really crucial to keeping everyone’s energy up for the week-long trip. Since we did early entry for every park and stayed at each one until closing each day, we knew if we tried to push through all 4 days straight we might be too exhausted to really enjoy our time towards the end.
On our rest day, we took it easy - we woke up later in the morning, took our time getting ready for the day, and spent most of the day in Disney Springs. We stopped by some resorts along the Skyliner route like the Riviera Resort and then walked through Caribbean Beach before heading back to Art of Animation for dinner and an early night in.
EPCOT is such a LARGE park, so we knew this day was going to require LOTS of walking. We scheduled EPCOT for the day after our rest day, hoping that the rest day would help prepare us for all the walking. It also just so happened to coincide with the start of the Flower and Garden Festival (which was a complete coincidence!) so it worked out that we ended up visiting on the second day of the festival!
Animal Kingdom was our last park because it looked like a pretty chill park with not too many rides and more animal experiences and shows. We figured we’d be quite exhausted by the end of the week, so a more chill park would align better with our energy levels. It would also give us time to do any last-minute shopping and packing since Animal Kingdom also closes the earliest.
How well did this plan work out for us?
It actually worked out really well! Having access to Blizzard Beach on our check-in day was a really cool perk! I wouldn’t have deliberately planned a day at the water park, so it was fun to check it out without feeling pressure to make the most out of it. We headed to Blizzard Beach in the afternoon and stayed until the park closed at 5:00PM, and generally had a relaxed day trying the different water slides and of course hanging out in the lazy river! It really helped establish that our vacation week was getting started!
We hit the ground running on our first day with Magic Kingdom as expected. It really was one of our most eventful days since we were going all around the park, watching all the shows, and trying to get on as many rides as we could.
As expected Hollywood Studios was a lot more chill and we were able to take a little more easy that day, which was really nice.
And the rest day was a REALLY good idea. It was nice to have a little break in the middle and not feel like we were in go-go-go mode for four days straight. The only thing I would have liked more for our rest day was if we could have done even less walking. We ended up walking a lot around Disney Springs and then through the different resorts along the Skyliner line. So I would have loved to rest our feet more, because EPCOT was quite a lot!
Since we were on the Skyliner route, we entered EPCOT from the back of the park near France Pavilion, but we wanted to rope drop Cosmic Rewind which is all the way at the FRONT of the park. So we basically speed-walked / ran from the back of EPCOT to the front for Cosmic Rewind then made our way BACK to the back of the park for Ratatouille. And that was just within the first hour - the rest of the day was a lot of walking through all the pavilions then trying to get to the other rides, and all that. Definitely a looong day.
Ending on Animal Kingdom was nice because it was more relaxed, but it some ways it also felt a little…anti-climactic? Animal Kingdom’s nighttime show is the lighting of the Tree of Life, and while that’s nice, it’s not as fun as watching Happily Ever After at Magic Kingdom or Luminous at EPCOT. I think going out with a bang would have also been really fun. I will say, the energy required for Animal Kingdom did match up with the energy levels we all actually had, so all in all it felt like it worked out pretty well! I did like getting back to the hotel earlier in the night so that we could rest earlier than other days.
High energy vs. low energy
In my mind, I categorize Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios as “low energy” parks. Not to say that they’re boring or anything, but I didn’t feel a lot of pressure to walk quickly or rush around to get things done. EPCOT and Magic Kingdom felt like “high energy” parks because I felt like I really needed to strategize to efficiently get to everything I wanted to do (and I still couldn’t do it all!).
I think categorizing the parks this way really helps identify a plan of attack that works for you. I like the idea of balancing a low energy park with a high energy park on both halves of a weeklong trip so I didn’t feel like I was expending too much energy during any one half.
I liked having the most energy for the high energy parks and then having a bit of a breather with a low energy park. BUT I also think it’d be really cool to end on a really awesome nighttime show like Happily Ever After. So ending the trip on Magic Kingdom sounds like it would be great, but also would I have had enough energy to do everything I wanted to do and still enjoy it? I guess I’ll just have to see next time 😉
Priorities
When you’re going to a place like Walt Disney World, there’s simply no way to do absolutely everything in a single pass, so it’s really important to prioritize the things you know are must-dos for you!
At each of the parks, we prioritized the rides we wanted to do and made sure to try to get to those first, especially because we weren’t doing any Lightning Lane passes. We used our early park access to get ourselves to our number 1 priority ride of the day and that was very much worth it!
We also prioritized shows at each of the parks as well, so I set alarms ahead of the showtimes so that I could remind myself when we had to get to a viewing spot. I looked on the Disney World app to find the showtimes for each park for the day we were visiting. We generally played this part by ear if there were several showings of something. All the shows we saw were fantastic and I would highly recommend trying to see them if you can.
Packing List
Here’s my packing list for my trip to Walt Disney World! I kept the list really simple to only bring the necessities.
I had separate outfits for each park day pre-planned so that I knew exactly what clothing items to bring, and also coordinated outfits so that I could re-use a couple items to reduce the amount of separate garments I needed to pack. Pre-planning outfits makes packing so much easier, so I highly recommend it!
One thing I brought with me to this trip that I didn’t realize would be so helpful was bringing along a neck fan! The humidity in Florida can get a little overbearing, especially if you’re sensitive to heat (as I am), and the neck fan was great for mild heat relief throughout the day.
Tips for First-Time Visitors
Here are my main takeaways for anyone who’s visiting Walt Disney World for the first time! I’ll dive into more details for park-specific tips in each park focused blog post, but these are more general for the overall park experience.
Tip 1: Make sure you know how to get to all the parks from your hotel
As I mentioned above, each park has a different mode of transportation to get to each of the different parks. Make sure you know ahead of the day how you’ll be getting to the park!
At Art of Animation, we used the Skyliner for EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, then used the buses for Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Since we scoped out the bus stops and the Skyliner station when we checked in to the hotel, we had no issues getting to the right place on time for each of our park days. Just helped make the process smooth and simple!
It’s also important to know when the modes of transportation start operating! Buses and the Skyliner started operating around one hour before the earliest park opening. This helped us know when to arrive at the stops if we wanted to get ahead of the crowd - the lines got loooong at the Skyliner leading up to the start of operation.
Tip 2: Plan your park days ahead of time
Since park day reservations are no longer required, you don’t actually have to decide which park you want to visit before you actually go. However, I think it’s still important to know which day will be dedicated to which park! If you plan to make dining or Lightning Lane reservations, you absolutely need to do this. But even if you don’t, it should help with figuring where you’re headed and also what your first priorities of the day are.
Tip 3: Get a Disney travel agent if you need it!
If you have a lot of reservations you want to make or you simply don’t want the stress of having to do any bookings yourself, a travel agent could be a really good idea! These are probably ideal for people who don’t enjoy the planning process or anyone who’s overwhelmed by all the Walt Disney World information. Getting each of the parks, their attractions, and all that straight when you’ve never been before can be truly confusing!
Another benefit that I received from having an agent was them finding me a better price for my same reservation after I had already paid my deposit and applying the new price to my trip! This saved me around $700, which was great! I’m not sure if I would have been able to get a price adjustment if I had booked my reservation by myself, but it was nice to know someone was on the lookout and I didn’t have to do any extra work to receive that!
Other than this though, I personally felt like my trip was pretty straightforward since I didn’t do a lot of reservations or questions, so I probably could have just done it myself. For future trips, I’ll most likely handle my own bookings, but it was great to try out an agent for the first time. And it was a great experience overall!
If you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed from trying to plan a WDW trip, that might be a good sign to consider getting an agent. 4 parks is a lot to plan for, so if offloading any of that to someone helps make your trip more enjoyable, I think it would be a good idea!
Tip 4: Plan a rest day!!
Every person in my party agreed that we were all soo glad that we had the rest day planned in the middle of the week. Even though we were all happy to be there, taking on all the theme parks from morning until night every day was tiring, especially because for some of us, this kind of theme park trip is rare! Having a break in the middle just to get a breather and do some lower-exertion exploring (like resort hopping) really helped with enjoying the second half of the trip!
Tip 5: Know your priorities for each park
I think it’s generally good to have 2-3 things for each park that you know you absolutely want to do. This will help structure how the day goes and what you may want to do first.
If you’re trying not to spend extra on things like Lightning Lane, this is especially important so that you can hit the most coveted thing on the list first and not worry if you can’t get back to it later in the day.
I can say for a fact that prioritizing Tron Lightcycle at Magic Kingdom and Cosmic Rewind at EPCOT were fantastic ideas. We started off the day with an awesome ride and we didn’t have to wait over an hour just to experience it and miss out on precious park time.
As a (basically) first time visitor to Walt Disney World, I would have to say that I had a really successful trip. I had so much fun, I enjoyed all the parks, I got to experience almost everything that I was hoping to do, and more! I know that planning visits to the Disney parks can sometimes feel overwhelming, so if you’re planning your own trip, I hope that I can offer any sort of advice, guidance, or even just some fun anecdotes that makes your trip a little less overwhelming and more enjoyable!
If you have any questions regarding the Walt Disney World parks, I’ll do my very best to offer any advice based on my limited experience! But I’m here for you and hope to help make your trip even more magical!
