We are Disney World annual passholders, and annual visitors during the end of December. (Just establishing my bona fides
). Here's my short list of advice.
1. Know right now you will not see it all. Trying to see it all is the fastest way to ruin the trip for everyone. If your spouse thinks they can plan it so your kids see it all, they are wrong. Start managing their expectations today. This is doubly or triply true for the week between Christmas and New Years. Using touringplans.com is excellent advice. But just assume that every park on every day in and around the game day will be close to a 10 out of 10 on the crowd level.
2. Arrive early. Do whatever you can to arrive early. Remember if you are driving and parking that you could have to park 1/4 mile from the tram, then wait for a tram, then ride the tram to the front of the gate. At the gate you have to get through security. (If you are going to the magic kingdom you actually get off the tram and then go through security and then ride the ferry or monorail). If you don't have a bag use the No Bag line at security. if you have a group send a couple people through the bag line with all the bags (unzip every zipper before getting to the security guard), and then have everyone else use the no bag line and meet at the souvenir stand on the other side of security. Try to do all that and then be standing at the front gate 30 minutes before the published park opening time. They will start letting people in 15 - 30 minutes before the published opening time. Getting there at this time accomplishes two things. It allows you to get the popular ride without a fast pass (which you probably won’t have) and have a hope of not waiting all day in line. Last time we did that for Flight of Passage we only waited 45 minutes, for something that will be easily a 120-160 minute wait by mid-afternoon. Second, between 8 a.m. – 11 a.m. you can accomplish more than you can at any other time of the day. The vast majority of people arrive between 10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. in my experience. On those days, the parks can be incredibly packed.
3. Using Fast Passes is great advice except you won't get any out of the shoot trying to make those arrangements today. To get good Fast Passes for that week requires staying on Disney property and being online at 6 a.m. central time 60 days in advance of your arrival, and then you might get lucky and have some of the really hard ones if you are arriving by say the 19th. Don't give up. Get the app and constantly refresh especially if you have a small group and you can get lucky and pick them up sometimes as late as the day of, although that's harder to do for this time of year. We arrive the 18th this year staying through the 26th. I was online at 6 a.m 60 days out and I was barely able to get Flight of Passage and some of the others. If you are constantly refreshing I highly recommend that you pick one adult and one kid to try to get the popular ones at the last minute. Maybe 3 people at the most. If you are trying to find last minute FP for the popular rides for 4 or more people it won’t happen at the holidays.
4. At security and the front gate and quick service restaurants there are two lines at every station. One on each side of the security guard, the card reader or the cashier. If there’s a line a mile long on the left side but no line on the right, walk right up to the right side, and skip past everyone. It isn’t just allowed it’s encouraged.
