Tuesday Disney Tips: Carry the Bag, Rent a Locker, or Skip Bag Check Altogether

Among the many choices in every arena of  the gigantic fun machine that is Walt Disney World, you may not have thought all that much about how you will tour the park on each day of your itinerary. If you are like me, you may want to give it a little thought.

I love being free to walk around without any bags; to just flutter around the park as if I didn’t have a care in the world. When my kids were very young, this was impossible. When they were a little older they began carrying their necessary items in their backpacks while I carried my things along with the items we all shared in mine. Sometimes we took our lunches in our backpacks, sometimes not. Sometimes we took extra items because there was a good chance we would be getting wet that day. Sometimes we rented a locker, sometimes we carried our bags and sometimes we didn’t take anything except what fit nicely into our pockets.

If you think about it, you might find that you don’t really need to carry everything to each park every single day. You can put on waterproof, sweatproof sunscreen before heading to the park and it lasts all day. Take advantage of the free ice water from the counter service walk up counters. You can carry your itinerary, complete with ADR confirmation numbers, right inside your pocket. Free yourself for just one day and enjoy the park.

At the very least, if you have young ones, rent a locker and use it throughout the day as you need to. Lockers are a great alternative to carrying a bag. Granted it is not quite as convenient as having what you need at your fingertips, but it does enable more freedom, especially on days that require jackets and maybe extra (dry) socks or shoes for the kids. Additionally, some of the lockers are large enough to hold a soft-side cooler, thus enabling you to pack a picnic lunch and save some money. Here is some information I have gathered on the locations, sizes, and costs of the lockers at the 4 parks, the 2 waterparks and Downtown Disney.

For your convenience, each park and waterpark has lockers available for rent. The policy for renting lockers at the four theme parks is:

• Must pay per-day fee plus a $5.00 key deposit which is refunded when the key is returned
• Key must be turned in within an hour of the park closing
• The key operated lockers can be accessed as often as desired

If you are visiting more than one theme park on the same day, you can save money this way:

• Return the key for the $5.00 deposit and get a receipt
• Take the receipt to the next theme park
• Present the receipt, pay the $5.00 key deposit and you’ll have a locker for the remainder of the day

The locker locations, sizes and costs for each park are shown below:

Magic Kingdom

Location: Inside the park, under the Train Station

Size: Small – 11″H x 9″W x 16″ D; Large – 17″H x 12″W x 22″ D

Cost: Small – $7.00 per day plus deposit; $9.00 per day plus deposit

EPCOT

Location: To the right of the base of Spaceship Earth, near the restrooms; and at International Gateway

Sizes: Small – 11″H x 9″W x 16″ D; Large – 17″H x 12″W x 22″ D

Cost: Small – $7.00 per day plus deposit; Large – $9.00 per day plus deposit

Hollywood Studios

Location: Crossroad’s of the World – Lockers located next to Oscar’s Super Service

Sizes: Small – 11″H x 9″W x 16″ D; Large – 17″H x 12″W x 22″ D

Cost: Small – $7.00 per day plus deposit; Large – $9.00 per day plus deposit

Animal Kingdom

Location: Expedition Storage lockers by Guest Services inside the park; and outside the park near the Kennel (rent at the Kennel)

Sizes: Small – 11″H x 9″W x 16″ D; Large – 17″H x 9″W x 16″ D; Extra Large – 17″H x 12″W x 16″ D (Kennel location only)

Cost: Small – $7.00 per day plus deposit; Large – $9.00 per day plus deposit; Extra Large – $9.00 per day plus deposit

Blizzard Beach

Location: Near the park entrance

Sizes: Small – 11″H x 9″W x 16″ D; Large: 17″H x 9″W x 16″ D

Cost: Small – $8.00 rental per day for plus deposit; Large – $10.00 rental per day plus deposit

Typhoon Lagoon

Location: Near the entrance to the park

Sizes: Small – 12″H x 12″ W x 16″ D; Large – 18″H x 18″W x 16″ D

Cost: Small – $8.00 rental per day for plus deposit; Large – $10.00 rental per day plus deposit

Downtown Disney

Location: At the Marketplace, near Cap’n Jack’s Restaurant and the Marina Rental Window

Sizes: 17″H x 9″W x 16″ D

Cost: Coin operated and require 4 quarters each time they are accessed.

There are luggage lockers at Epcot and at the Ticket and Transportation Center. The Epcot luggage lockers are located behind the bus information booth. The TTC lockers are located next to the bus information booth. The dimensions of these lockers are: 23″H x 16″W x 29″ D. They are coin operated and require 4 quarters each time they are used.

Now that you have the information you need regarding lockers, you can make the choice whether to carry the bag, rent a locker, or skip bag check altogether. Because there are many times when we all have to go through bag check, I will provide some helpful information to make that experience easier for you on Thursday. Hopefully, you will find this helpful when planning your daily itinerary to the most magical place on earth! Happy travels!

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Brenda is a native Texan born and raised on the Gulf Coast. She visited Disney World twice as a teenager and always dreamed of growing her family Disney. She took her first-timer husband and their three children to Disney World in 2000 and they now spend every Thanksgiving there. Brenda writes with a comedic twist on various Disney topics. She will be sharing tips she has learned during her travels and also hopes to enlighten people on little-known freebies that Disney has to offer. She wishes she could have met Walt Disney and considers herself to be a student of Walt. In parallel to his dream it is her wish that everyone would take at least one trip to Disney World in order to share in its magic with their families.