Top Tips for Planning a Theme Park Trip

We’ve planned a fair few theme park trips in the past and we’ve learnt a lot in the process. There are lots of ways you can save money, time and effort when planning you trip. We’re come up with our top 5 tips for planning a theme park trip and explored them below!

1. Search Smart

Trips can be expensive. Especially if you’re travelling half way across the world or going on a long road trip! That’s why it’s good to make use of the websites that can find you a bargain. There are lots of sites out there which can help you bring the costs of a trip down - below are some of our favourites.

• Airbnb - This is one of our favourite sites to use when booking accommodation for our trips. You can book a room or whole place so there’s the chance to find some super cheap (but amazing) accommodation. Most of the places are also kitted out with a kitchen so you can save some money on meals by cooking your own food while you’re away. It’s a great way to find a quirky, cool yet cheap place to stay - which is often a lot cheaper than a hotel.

• Booking.com - If we can’t find a decent place to book on airbnb we always turn to Booking.com. They allow you to search loads of hotels, apartments and hostels. It’s a really easy website to use with so much choice. If you’re looking to stay in a standard hotel then this is the site to use. You can also get little discounts off certain hotels, the more trips you book through them.

• Skyscanner - Flying somewhere? We always check the flights using skyscanner. It shows you the best airlines, dates and stop combinations to use to get the cheapest flight possible. It’s really useful when deciding which dates to travel on - you can just pick the days where the flight prices are lowest.

• Attractions Tickets Direct - Park tickets alone can be very expensive! Especially if you’re visiting a Disney park… That’s why we always check ticket sites like Attractions Tickets Direct to see if we can save a few pennies on our park tickets.

2. Use Furkot for Road Trips

If you’re planning a road trip or a holiday with different legs in different cities/countries then we would really recommend using something like Furkot to help you plan. It allows you to create a map of your route and add different stops for accommodation, places to visit and restaurants (or anything you like!). This is super useful for figuring out where you want to go and how long each leg will take. Once you add stops and choose your mode of transport it tells you how long it will take to travel from one to the other. So useful! It really helps you picture the whole trip and plan your itinerary well to make the most of your time.

3. Choose Your Dates Wisely

Perhaps one of the most obvious tips we can give you: if you want to travel cheaply and avoid the crowds, make sure you plan your trip during the off-peak months. This generally falls outside of school holiday dates, but remember these vary from country to country so make sure you check the dates for the place you’re travelling to! Another thing to bear in mind is the weather. In some parts of the world, extreme weather conditions occur during certain months of the year (like thunderstorms!). This isn’t ideal when you’re hoping to get on some roller coasters - they might all be shut! That’s why you should be aware of this and choose your dates accordingly.

4. Check for City-to-Park Transport

One thing we have learnt on our theme park trips is that a lot of parks offer transport to the park from the nearest city or town. This can be really useful, especially when you’re staying in the city and need to find an easy way to get to the park. Check out park websites before you go to see if they offer a shuttle bus or similar which you can use to get to the park. Often they are cheaper or easier than using public transport and can make your trip run smoother.

5. Explore!

It’s very easy to forget that we are travelling to amazing places in order to visit these theme parks! It’s always good fun to check out the cities nearby and do some sight seeing along the way. There are so many great theme parks located either right in the middle of or just outside of amazing cities and it would be a shame to go all that way without exploring a bit. We normally plan our trips around which cities we want to visit and try to create a route that includes both theme parks and cities. That way we can explore some new places and also get to the parks we want to visit!

Planning theme park trips can be really exciting. Tips like the ones above can help you plan the trip you want to go on and make sure it’s affordable and runs smoothly. There are loads more websites out there that are really useful and lots more tips to help you plan a great theme park trip - let us know yours in the comments below!

Happy planning!

- Zoe