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[andya]

Just booked for a 4 night trip 17th Aug - 21st Aug. Obviously it's the summer holidays but the price was unbeatable (2 adults, 2 children with good flight times and tickets for £1100).

It's over a weekend which could be hellish, anyone got any advice?

Obviously it will be time for magic hours, fastpass and staying late but we don't want to waste our days.

Thanks.

[Elodie]

We went at the same time last year, with a similar deal for the same length stay. We had to queue up for a lot of the big rides (eg Crush's Coaster with no fast pass) but balanced it out with lots of walk-on rides, walkthroughs and shows, so that we still ended each day feeling that we'd made the most of every minute.

What age are your children? If young enough, then look out for short / no queues for Casey Jr, Small World, Tea Cups, Pays de Contes de Fees, etc, and do the walkthroughs like Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, etc. We really enjoyed the shows too, so we planned a good time to go to one a day. When you're exhausted from racing from one ride to another, you'll be quite looking forward to spending an hour or two waiting for a big ride, or sitting in a nice cool theatre for a while!

And if the children like dressing up, take costumes, e.g. Peter Pan / TinkerBell. We didn't even know about this until we were standing in line to get fast passes for Peter Pan's Flight (2 hour queue without a pass, and still about a 30 min queue to actually get a fast pass). A cast member asked us to leave the line (we wondered what we'd done wrong!) then said that because TinkerBell was with us, we could go straight to the fast pass queue. Nobody else was in the fast pass queue at that time, so we walked straight on. We went on it again later, and had to wait behind just one family. I believe there are other rides where costumes will get you to the front of the queue, so it's worth looking into if the children are young enough and have the costumes already. We'll definitely be taking my daughter's TinkerBell dress when we go back this year!

[andya]

Thats great! Thank you.

Our children are 4 and 5 so not too young but young enough. Having had a look we panicked that we'd maybe got it wrong and it was going to be far too busy but hopefully we'll plan it right.

We'd read about costumes but we're sure it was true, maybe worth taking one!

[Elodie]

It will be great. My youngest had just turned 5 when we went and loved every minute. It was busy, but not too busy to enjoy it all. 5 days was plenty of time to have a first day exploring, 3 days ticking things off our wishlists and revisiting favourites, and a last day packing in all the little bits we'd missed and going in our favourite rides again (and again and again, in the case of my youngest who would have moved into Small World permanently if she could!) I don't regret going at that time of year at all - I gather from other reports that you'd miss out on some of the experiences and attractions that are closed / limited at quieter times.

I don't know all the costume tips and tricks, but we were also invited to sit in the VIP seats for the Frozen show because my oldest had her Anna dress on. I need to find out more before our next trip!

[andya]

We did go last year as we wanted to get them into the Disney way before we head to Florida and WDW next year but so much was closed off for refurb that is felt like there was only half the park open. When we saw free flights, hotel stay and tickets for under 7 we just decided to go for it again as we had such a great time.

You've really set my mind at ease about the crowds and how busy it will be. If you read some forums and posts you'd think it was impossible to do anything.

I'm going to have a look for costumes tips as well! I'll post any that I find. So far I've seen that if you have a Buzz costume then you go straight on the Buzz ride and all the cast salute as your little one walks by which sounds fab!

[Elodie]

Right, I'm adding a second-hand Buzz costume to my shopping list. We went on that so many times, my girls were completely addicted. Good job my 5 year old loves dressing up - I can foresee many costume changes in her future! I might need a bigger backpack too!

[polar vixen]

Keep checking disney store.co.uk too - sometimes things go super cheap in their sale or costumes can actually give for less than they do on eBay! Enjoy shopping!

[disneymagic006]

Is this really true about the costumes? Does it happen all the time or just if certain cast members are in the mood?

My niece dressed as a princess in 2015 but we didn't get any special treatment. I can't say I've ever seen it happen either.

I would consider getting my boys Peter pan and captain hook costumes if it gets us straight on to Peter pans flight - that queue is usually horrendous!

[andya]

I don't think there is any official line on whether it works and it will never be guaranteed BUT if you get a nice cast member and they spot you then it COULD work.

Is this really true about the costumes? Does it happen all the time or just if certain cast members are in the mood?

My niece dressed as a princess in 2015 but we didn't get any special treatment. I can't say I've ever seen it happen either.

I would consider getting my boys Peter pan and captain hook costumes if it gets us straight on to Peter pans flight - that queue is usually horrendous!

[Elodie]

I'm pretty sure the Peter Pan thing is true all the time - one CM told us to go to the fast pass entrance, but there were two different CMs letting people through the gate. I was a bit nervous in case they weren't on board with the TinkerBell gets to queue-jump thing, but as soon as they saw us, they both called out, "Ah welcome, Clochette!" (I presume they were hedging their bets on which language to use!!) and gave her high fives as they gestured us through. When we went back, it was different CMs each time, and we just went to the gate, said that we had TinkerBell / Clochette with us, and they let us straight through. I guess we were lucky that we were spotted in the queue in the first place, otherwise we wouldn't have known about it. I'd feel too cheeky just marching up to the fast pass entrance without checking first, but it's definitely worth asking the CMs and I'd say it's almost certain they'll agree that Peter Pan / TinkerBell get to skip the queue.