by Amer Numan

Created on: March 25, 2009

The best way to optimize your use of time at a theme park is to examine the most popular time-wasting actions ahead of time, and make sure you avoid them. In most cases, theme park visitors travel a significant distance to get to a park, often involving pricey flights or buckets of precious gas. You don't want to finally get to a park and find that there are a dozen obstacles you could have skipped that are wasting a third of your day there.

Let's start with the most basic delay; purchasing tickets. All major theme parks have online ticketing now. Instead of lining up to purchase tickets or set up annual passes at the gate upon arrival, you can get them from your home in advance for a scheduled future visit and take care of filling out your contact information and making payment. That alone saves you an average of one hour depending on the park.

Another potentialy tough one is parking. Some tickets do not come with parking included, and you have to stop and line up at a parking garage gate to be issued a metered ticket or purchase flat-rate parking. Of course, metered or timed tickets require you to line up again and "check out" after your day is over, too. You can avoid this by making sure any tickets you purchase in advance allow you parking with an easy flash of ID or printed pass. Some parks even have separate parking for advance ticket holders or annual pass holders, which is also something you can learn and prepare for before your trip.

Once you're in the park, the most common time killer are the lines at each ride. Almost every park has a witty, pricey ticketing program with some sort of name like "Express Pass," "Fast Pass," "Super Pass," "Preferred Pass," or something like that. Although some of these ticket upgrades can cost you double what you pay for a regular ticket, many of them are worth the extra cost for someone who travelled a big distance to get to the park, because they maximize what you can do in the same time window, letting you try 10 rides in the time a regular ticket lets you try 3 or 4. In addition, several parks have options for upgraded tickets to match your specific needs; soem focus on repeat visits, some on going to different sections of the park that are separately gated, some for letting come back for the rest of the year for a flat price. It's important to decide on what you want more and go for a ticketing option that matches your trip.

Apart from rides, getting food and drinks at theme parks, depending on the season and size of the park, can be a hassle. Food joints with the best prices are often the most crowded, and prices can be quite inflated on food that you can make yourself in a couple of minutes at home. A good way to save some time and money in this delay area is to make advance reservations before your trip at a restaurant that accepts that. Or to purchase a type of ticket that includes a meal voucher to show the restaurant without the need to line up for payment or wait on a server to process your credit card.

Last but not least, have a general plan! As fun as it is to walk around and explore theme parks, it all comes down to the fact that you went there for the attractions, and they are all positioned in different parts of the park in such a way that you will get to do your walking and sightseeing on your way from one to the other. Instead of running around cluelessly, try doing rides in some sort of order or loop so you can maximize the value and excitement out of your visit and spend less time "finding" rides and more time "riding" rides!

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