Just Say No . . . to Saturdays.

On a recent trip to the Kingdom, I was struck by a revelation about touring the parks.

I had flown down to Orlando on a Wednesday in November. While riding the Magical Express I overheard a girl behind me remark "the wait time for Everest is 5 minutes."


"Five minutes??? How'm I s'posed to pee and grab a cup of coffee in 5 minutes?!?!"

I had to interrupt and ask her to repeat herself. "Pardon me, but did you just say the wait for Everest is only 5 minutes? And do you have any Grey Poupon?"

I quickly learned that was going to be par for the course during my visits. The wait times for most attractions were nada! The Stand By signs basically read "How fast can you scoot up the queue?"

It was wonderous! I was twirling through the parks like Templeton the rat parading through the fairgrounds at night!!!

And then something horrible happened. Something akin to driving 70 miles an hour in a cherry '67 GTO convertible down an open highway and suddenly slamming head-on into a brick wall!
The horrible thing you ask? Not getting stuck on an operational Small World for hours on end. Not breaking down at the peak of the hill on Everest (which as you know did happen, and sucked!) No the terrible thing that almost ruined my whole trip?

Saturday.

I woke up at my leisure on Saturday. Took my time eating breakfast at the Everything Pop! food court. Watched a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, as you do. And headed out to the bus stop to take one last trip to the Magic Kingdom. For the first time, there was a pretty full line-up to get on the bus. That's odd, I shrugged. How little I knew.

When we arrived at Magic Kingdom and I crossed through the gates, it was like I'd somehow been thrust 5 months into the future and it was the thick of Spring Break! I swear everyone in central Florida decided to come Walt Disney World that day.

Main Street was clogged from side-to-side. I couldn't even get from the Emporium to the bakery. The flow of humanity carried me onward toward the castle, against my will.
Finally I pushed, shoved, elbowed, and bit my across the crowd to the Tomorrowland bridge screaming "I just want to ride Space Mountain!!!"

Thankfully, by some strange force of nature the masses were directed left at the Partners statue towards Adventureland and Liberty Square. Tomorrowland was actually still pretty quiet. The wait time for Space Mountain was only 15 minutes so I knew I'd best take advantage. But before I headed in, I thought I'd record a little message to be included in my book later. I don't give a lot of serious advice, but that day I came up with another Golden Rule of going to Disney. SKIP SATURDAY!



I know, it's not always possible to avoid hitting a park on Saturday, but I really do recommend it. While Tomorrowland wasn't bad, somewhere in Fantasyland I found the crowds! And most of the attraction waits were absurd. It was the kind of day you'd be lucky to get on 5 rides all day.
I ended up hitting three parks that day, as it was my last and I had an agenda. Space Mountain, Flame Tree for lunch, and then a carrot cake cookie from the Writer's Stop before I headed out of town. All three parks were a nightmare. And the common variable . . . Saturday! I said it on video and I'll put here in writing, avoid the parks on Saturday if at all possible. And if you can't help yourself, don't say I didn't warn ya!