Planning your holiday to Walt Disney World is easier than you might think, even if you are a first timer. Lots of people suggest you think about what you want to get out of your holiday as a first step, but that’s a bit unrealistic if you don’t know what Disney has to offer.
This guide starts by giving you real UK based comparisons so you know what to expect from Walt Disney World resort. It is so much more than theme parks. We then look at the frequently asked questions about visiting Walt Disney World and then provide an average cost from the UK.
What can I expect from Walt Disney World?
Coming from the UK and trying to grasp Walt Disney World as a resort is really tricky. We know. To understand what a Disney experience can be and to know what a Disney experience offers you as a UK visitor you need UK comparisons.
We hear Disney World comparisons to places in America; for example you often hear that Walt Disney World is the size of San Francisco. Unless you have been there, Brits still have no real idea what that means, until now.
UK size comparison for Disney World
For a Brit there is no true comparison to what Walt Disney World Resort offers here in the UK. The size of the resort is however comparable with the size of Liverpool, both measuring 43 square miles. Did you know Disney cruise ships also visit Liverpool?
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Both cities have water front locations, boasting a strong cultural heritage with iconic structures. For example, Liverpool is home to the Liver Building while San Francisco is home to the Golden Gate Bridge.
The theme parks, hotels, shopping and amenities of Walt Disney World are spread out across an area owned by Disney that is the size of Liverpool.
How big is Walt Disney World Resort?
Disney World offers so much and there is not really a British, or world comparison. Offering a huge scale of activities, experiences, and memory making opportunities all one resort, Disney World is a big place to get your head around. This table shows you the main Walt Disney World experiences and the closest UK equivalents:
| Walt Disney World | UK comparison |
| Disney Springs: an area of 120 acres which has over 150 venues offering dining, entertainment and shopping. There is a dine in cinema and large bowling alley. | Trafford Centre in Manchester: is 150 acres on three floors offering … venues with dining, entertainment and shopping. There is a cinema. |
| Magic Kingdom is 107 acres. This theme park is the number one visited theme park in the world, offering nightly fireworks displays and world-famous rides. Not including hotels. | That’s like two and a quarter Blackpool Pleasure Beaches in size. |
| EPCOT is 305 acres in size and is home to the most expensive rollercoaster ever built at Disney World: Guardians of the Galaxy. Not including hotels. | Drayton Manor is the fourth largest UK theme park at 280 acres. |
| Hollywood Studios is 135 acres in size and has a land dedicated to Star Wars. Not including hotels. | Lego Land, Windsor is 150 acres but this site includes the resort hotel. |
| Animal Kingdom is 580 acres in size, home to over 2,000 animals and the tallest rollercoaster in Disney World is here. Not including hotels. | Alton Towers Theme Park, is 550 acres in size and is the UK’s largest theme park. Not including hotels. |
| 2 water parks: Typhoon Lagoon which is 61 acres and Blizzard Beach which is 66 acres. Only one is usually open at a time. | Each water park is 50% larger than Blackpool Pleasure Beach. There is not a UK comparison as they are both outside water parks and the UK’s largest outdoor water park is Splashdown Quaywest in Devon. |
| 25 different Disney resort hotels to choose from if you stay onsite | The average resort in the UK has one hotel. |
Beyond size comparisons
The scope and size of the Walt Disney World resort is only one factor to consider when working out what to expect. The theme park experience is well known as are the interactions you can have with Disney characters around the parks. But there are other Disney experiences both across the resort and in the parks that you may not know about.
What Walt Disney World has to offer UK guests
- Over 200 restaurants across the resort offering a range of dining experiences including:
- Character restaurants
- A Michelin starred restaurant
- Dining packages including preferred viewing for fireworks shows and other events
- 2 miniature golf courses, access to which are included free until 4pm with 14-day magic tickets from the UK
- Horse riding experiences
- Bike hire and boat hire
- The world’s largest hand painted balloon which you can ride
- Nightly drone and fireworks shows, 365 days a year, at a variety of locations around the resort.
- One of the largest man-made ocean habitats, home to an array of sea life.
Disney offers so much for Brits to enjoy. Some is free, some is included in park ticket purchases, and some is priced individually. The next question is how much is all of this going to cost me?
The cost of an average Disney holiday
The average Disney holiday for a Brit travelling from the UK is £2,500 per person based on return flights, accommodation for two weeks and a 14-day Magic Ticket for Walt Disney World. For a family of four that means you can expect to pay £10,000. This cost does not include food, unless you choose to stay onsite and get a free dining plan.
If you are looking to optimise you visit you may start asking the following questions.
Top three questions Brits ask when planning for Disney
These three questions are the most popular questions we find people ask when planning Disney and working out how to get the most out of their visit:
- When is the cheapest time to visit?
- When is the quietest time to visit?
- When is the best time to visit?
When is the cheapest time to visit?
Disney has three different levels of ticket pricing according to seasons where they predict crowds: low, medium and high. Prices can usually be gauged around these seasons. There is about £50 difference between ticket prices from low to high season. Mid-January – March is low season and often cheaper, but there are traditionally a few more ride closures as it is a low season. Early May and early June are also often cheaper times to book, and November can be quite reasonable too.
Prices do fluctuate however, and people have picked up bargains at all times of the year. As part of our newsletter package, we send out a holiday prices email once a week, with holiday prices checked that day and the offers we have found. Take the hassle out of looking and sign-up. We might find you a bargain.
When is the quietest time to visit?
Quiet at Disney is not what you might be expecting quiet to be. Days with low attendance are still fairly busy by UK standards. There are however quieter days and times of the month. You can still expect to queue for the big name rides like Jungle Cruise and Rise of the Resistance, on those quieter days and on most days you will find a ride on the app with a queue time in excess of an hour. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Magic Kingdom for instance has the queue time or much higher for most of the day, every day.
Quieter Days
The Disney parks are often quieter on a Tuesday and Wednesday. Wait times are less and if you have forgotten to book dining experiences before you go these are often the days you will be able to pick one up and add into your schedule when you get there.
Quieter Months
January and February are probably the quietest months to visit Walt Disney World. There are also weeks within other months which do have quieter footfall and the price of your Disney World park ticket is often the best gauge as to whether it is a quieter or busier time to visit.
UK and American holidays are busier, as they are at all attractions. Avoiding these times if you can will see your attraction wait times reduced but Disney is a resort which is fairly busy all year.
When is the best time to go to Walt Disney World?
We think the best time to go to Disney is anytime. Disney is magical all year and has plenty to offer whatever the weather. When you’re planning to visit Disney, we believe you should choose to visit at a time that is right for you because that is what will give you the best experience. Our advice for this question: expect Disney to be busy and understand that quiet at Disney is not like quiet at British theme parks. ‘Best’ Disney time is the time you want to visit.
With so many influencers offering tips on the ‘best’ time, we offer examples of what ‘best’ times at Disney can look like by providing you with the information to know what is going on at Disney at certain times of the year so you can choose your best.
Best times to go
Here are some of the ‘best times’ you can go, depending on what you are looking for and what best means to you:
- Looking to be there when you can walk around, take it all in and enjoy cooler temperatures for longer park days: October – March.
- You have school aged children and want to go in the school summer holidays: It’s warm but there are some great deals to be had. The kids can make great memories and due to the temperatures you get time to relax together as a family.
- Free dining plan offers – this offer does come around if you book direct with Disney. For those of you choosing to book holidays during promotions, the bonus of free meals reduces costs.
- Peak periods around Christmas and Easter are busier, as everywhere else is. But don’t let queues put you off, this is a great time to visit and make a memory that will last a lifetime. For lots of us, this time is also part of our annual paid leave, so by going around this time you are maximising your holiday time.
Here at Brits with Ears we love Christmas and Halloween due to the extra magic that the seasonal decorations bring to the parks. But often, if you book according to a crowd calendar, these would be the times to avoid.
Crowd calendars
Avoid them. Do not listen to them. They are predictions. Over 17 million people visit Disney every year, lots of them check crowd calendars just like you. So, when sites say it’s quiet more people book to visit at that time. Then the quiet time on the calendar ends up being busy in the parks. Holiday periods will naturally be busier times, so we advise that you avoid the key holiday dates in the UK and the USA and leave the crowd calendar well alone.
We recently used a crowd calendar to book a trip and our experience, along with many other people in the parks left us all saying the same thing: “It was meant to be quiet”.
Our advice about crowd calendars may seem unconventional, but we visit Disney a lot. Crowd levels vary, queue times are always frustrating for some rides, but there are strategies to beat them. Cheap is not really a term that works for a holiday to Disney World. The best time is when you want to go and when you can go.
Budgeting and planning Disney
Now you have an idea about what to expect from your Walt Disney World Resort holiday and a rough average cost, you need to budget and plan.
Working out where you are going to do all this planning and where to find the information to help you plan can feel daunting. Will you keep notes in a book, on your phone, in a spreadsheet? What questions do you need to answer? Fortunately for you, we have the answers to all this.
Our website is designed to be a guide for you to answer the questions you have about budgeting, planning, booking, packing and holidaying Walt Disney World style.
To help you figure out our budget we have some advice on how to budget in our Ultimate guide to Disney World budgeting for UK visitors which is a great read next.
