12 Tips for Planning Your Arrival Day at Disney World

You’ve planned and planned. From dining reservations to park itineraries, you’ve done your due diligence. But there’s still one thing nagging you. What will you do on your arrival day? You have an early morning flight because it was the best deal you could find. It looks like you’ll get to your hotel by 11:00 a.m. You’ll have nearly an entire day! Maybe you should go to the parks when you arrive.

On the other hand, you’ll be up by 4:00 a.m. to get to the airport on time. If you try to pack in a lot of activities, everyone will be tired and cranky well before bedtime. What should you do? I’ll be honest. There are numerous things to do once you set foot on Disney property. It’s also likely your family will be bubbling over with excitement and eager to hit the parks. But if you’re on a limited vacation and don’t visit Walt Disney World regularly, you probably don’t want to waste an entire day’s ticket on a half-day in the park, especially if you’ve been up since the crack of dawn.

So, below, I’m sharing our best tips on tackling your arrival day at Walt Disney World. These tips come from many years of experience and will help you plan an arrival day that will leave you breathless (not out of breath)!

1. Have a Plan!

I know you’ve been busy planning, and your arrival day was probably an afterthought until everything else was squared away. You won’t need to plan this part down to the exact detail. A loose schedule that includes options will work fine. I recommend creating a list with your flight details and anticipated arrival time at the resort. In a perfect world, it takes about an hour and a half to deboard the plane, collect luggage, and travel to Walt Disney World. However, many factors come into play when traveling, so allow some cushion. We wouldn’t recommend scheduling reservations anywhere near your travel times. You do not want to find yourself sitting on the tarmac at the airport with 1-hour until your dining reservation at Disney Springs, wondering if you’ll make it. (You won’t.)

So when you finish reading this article, decide how you would like to spend your arrival day and keep it realistic. This very important day will set the tone for the rest of your vacation.

2. Unpack and Organize

You may or may not be able to access your hotel room on arrival. So, I wouldn’t count on receiving a room assignment until after 3:00 p.m. Once you arrive at the resort, you should check-in. You can do so using the online feature in the My Disney Experience app, or you can check in at the front desk. If you connect to Disney’s Wifi, the app will usually know you’re there and send you a text message to confirm whether or not your room is ready. If not, stop at the front desk and ensure they know you’ve arrived. When your room is ready, you’ll receive a text message.

My best tip is to unpack and get organized on your check-in day. You don’t have to do this as soon as you can access the room, but at some point, before bedtime, organize clothes, shoes, pajamas, and toiletry items for the week. We like to make things as simple as possible to minimize time in the room and maximize time in the parks. If you read our packing tips guide, you know packing cubes will help you keep things organized. They will also help you unpack quickly and efficiently. You do not want to spend 10 minutes digging through a suitcase of clothes looking for that one pair of socks your child has to wear before you leave for the parks in the morning. I don’t know about you, but an organized room beats an early morning meltdown any day of the week…at home or on vacation.

3. Set Yourself Up for Success by Locating Transportation Options at the Resort

Whether your hotel has only one bus stop or multiple transportation options, ensure you’re aware of them. You want to know where they’re located, where they’ll take you, and the most efficient way to get to each option from your room. We have a transportation guide for every resort hotel at Walt Disney World. Make sure to read over the one for your hotel before your visit.

On your arrival day, review the map, and then make your way from the room to the bus stop, gondola station, monorail, or boat dock. Point things out that will help you and your family remember the route. For example, if you’re staying at Disney’s Beach Club, you might take the walking path to Epcot’s entrance, then walk to the resort’s bus stop and later locate the boat dock. If you go to Magic Kingdom the following day, you’ll know that you need to take the bus and how to get to the bus stop.

4. Take it a Step Further and Get to Know Your Resort

After you locate transportation options (or while you’re in the process), you might want to take things a step further and locate the resort’s other amenities. Regardless of where you stay, your resort will be considerably large. If you’re paying to stay here for a week, knowing your options and how to locate them is a good idea.

For example, if you’re staying at Disney’s Coronado Springs, you might not know you can get an elevated cup of coffee at Barcelona Lounge each morning. Imagine staying at a hotel for an entire week, subjecting yourself to hotel room coffee, only to find out later you could have picked up a specialty coffee each morning in the hotel near your village. That might sound silly, but it’s your vacation. Sometimes, little things like savoring a cup of coffee each morning with a view of a peaceful lake are the things you end up remembering the most.

5. Hit the Pool

While exploring the resort, you’ll come across the resort’s pool or possibly pools. Most of the resorts have a quiet pool and feature pool. The feature pool is where all the fun activities happen in the afternoon. Cast members are on duty and help entertain children with games and trivia at the pool. Parents, you can sit nearby with a watchful eye and relax. At least, for an hour or so, they won’t be begging you to keep them entertained. So check out the feature pool and get a photo of the resort’s monthly recreation calendar. It will list any extracurricular activities throughout the week, the timing of the nightly marshmallow roast, and the weekly Movies Under the Stars schedule. (We’ll discuss that shortly.)

I know what you’re thinking–what if you can’t access your room to change? No worries. Each feature pool (and many quiet ones) has a restroom with changing areas, showers, and toiletries. If you plan to use the pool on your arrival day, pack your swimming essentials toward the top of your luggage so you can quickly access them. Then, take advantage of the pool and relax!

6. Visit a Water Park

Usually, I wouldn’t recommend visiting a water park on your arrival day. However, in 2025, Disney is offering resort hotel guests complimentary tickets to the water parks on their check-in day. This new benefit will not work for everyone based on their arrival time. That said, I think it’s a tremendous and generous offer from Disney. So, if you can take advantage of it, I would say go for it. The water parks are incredible, and we enjoy them immensely.

What’s the latest you should go? If you’ve read anything on the site before, you might know I often drive over to Typhoon Lagoon and spend the afternoon from about 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. If they are open until 6:00 p.m. or later, I sometimes don’t arrive until 3:00 p.m. So if the conditions are right (weather and timing), I recommend going as long as you have approximately three hours to spend. You can stay in the water right up until the park closes. Don’t feel like you have to be in a rush to leave.

If you don’t feel like doing all the slides and attractions, spend your time floating around the lazy river or hanging out at the wave pool. Take it slow.

7. Find a Quiet Spot to Relax

If life is chaotic and you need a little downtime, you can always find a quiet spot to relax at your resort or another one. Disney vacations are often busy. So don’t feel guilty if you do nothing on your arrival day but rest. It might be the perfect transition between the real world and the Disney bubble. You’ll feel refreshed and relaxed. Get a copy of our five best crowd escapes at the Disney Resorts for some of our favorite tips.

8. Take a Ride on the Monorail or Skyliner

If you’re not staying at a monorail or Skyliner resort, you might not need to use either form of transportation during your vacation. However, guests enjoy a loop around Epcot via the monorail or sailing over Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort in a gondola for fun. So, if you are interested, your arrival day is an excellent day to do either or both! You’ll want to plan the logistics ahead of time.

9. Take a Resort Hop

While planning a monorail or gondola ride, you might want to incorporate a resort hop. There are so many ways you can do this. My best advice is to visit the resorts that interest you most. We have a list of resort hopping itineraries with ideas of things to do and see.

10. Plan a Dining Reservation

It might seem like a no-brainer, but you’ll want to plan a dining reservation or, at the very least, know where you’ll eat on your check-in day. (You need reservations for table-service dining.) You might even consider planning a character meal at a resort so it won’t cut into your park time later in the week. But remember not to make dining reservations anywhere near your travel times. For example, if we had plans to arrive at the resort by noon, we would plan to pick up a quick service meal for lunch and schedule a dinner reservation. (You can always check for walk-ups at table service restaurants when you arrive.)

11. Take in a Movie Under the Stars at Your Resort

This is one thing I wish we had done more when my son was younger. Most nights, each resort has a “Movie Under the Stars.” You can check the resort recreation calendar (in the lobby or near the pool) to see what movie plays each night and the exact location. It’s just a fun, quiet way to end the day.

12. Don’t Overdo it!

Finally, my last tip is don’t overdo it! We’ve discussed many things you can do on your arrival day. You might have noticed that I didn’t mention going to Disney Springs. We love Disney Springs, but it’s a tremendous venue requiring much walking and time in the sun. As the day goes by, the venue gets more and more congested.

Most of our visits to Disney Springs are for a dining reservation. We know how to get there and where to go when we arrive. We dine, quickly stroll around that area, and then leave. If you decide you want to “see Disney Springs,” you could find yourself wandering around the venue for hours. So I’m not saying don’t visit Disney Springs, but maybe don’t wear yourself out there on your arrival day.

If you’re curious about where we like to eat, try our list of the best restaurants at Disney Springs. Serious foodies will enjoy the lengthy list of celebrity chefs with restaurants there. We frequent a few of them.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, these tips gave you an idea of how to plan your arrival day at Walt Disney World. Remember that an arrival day is often the buffer between life at home and vacation mode. The point is to ease into things so you’re ready to hit the parks hard the following day. Yes, your kids will be excited, so the pool might be the best way to help contain that excitement on day one. But don’t be surprised if they have so much fun that they ask you to return to the pool when you’re touring the parks. It happens.

For more on planning a Walt Disney World vacation, you might enjoy:

• How to Create a Budget for a Disney World Vacation (Series)
• The 10 Best Resort Pools at Disney World Ranked
• The Ultimate Disney World Dining Guide (A Complete Overview)
• Everything You Need to Know About Refillable Mugs at Disney World

Or sign up for our complimentary, self-paced course: The Road Map to Magic!