On a recent trip to Florida I quickly became an efficient, well oiled machine when it came to getting the best from the parks in my limited time!

If only someone had told me some of these tips before I went! Now it's not an exhaustive be all and end all list but it could certainly help you save some money and time.

I had the good fortune to visit Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios.

One of the things which quickly became evident was that we were going to spend a lot of money just to stay hydrated and fed! One of the best tips I can offer is to purchase the souvenier cups which are available from most of the vendors in the parks (Universal and Islands of Adventure do this as well) Once you purchase your cup you get discounted refills or, for free, you can just fill your cup at one of the many water fountains in the parks.

Eating in the parks can be equally expensive, however, most of the cafes offer a childrens meal for around 5 dollars which consists of typical "kid food" such as chicken nuggets and cheesburger with a choice of 2 sides such as fruit, carrot sticks or fries and also a drink (milk, soda, fruit juice or water). Despite the heat the kids still needed to fill up regularly so I quite often just topped up my reserves with one of these meals for myself too!

If you prefer to take in your own food don't make the mistake we made of carrying it around until lunchtime which is a major pain! We didn't realise at first that most of the parks have lockers which you can hire. Now these weren't in the logical place I would have thought they'd be...i.e. at the front of the park or at guest services but instead they were outside some of the rides where loose articles were not permitted. Most are free for 20-30 mins (whilst riding) or you can pay extra for an extended period of time.

When entering the parks it is the natural thing to do to visit the attractions and rides in the order you come across them. The only problem with this is that everyone else is doing that too! Go to the back of the park and work your way forward. This has a couple of benefits in that you will avoid a lot of queues for attractions and rides but you will also be saving yourself the longest walk back to the exit when you are finished for the day and your feet are throbbing!

When visiting the Magic Kingdom, we found the fastest way in by far was to use the ferry across the lake rather than the monorail.

You'll be sick of the sight of Disney photo pass photographers!! This is a free service where they will take photos of you and your family meeting characters or at some of the scenic spots and scan a photocard each time they take a pic. These photos are then stored online for 30 days where you can view them and purchase them if required. They are quite expensive though! A 5 x 4 photo is around 13 dollars! However, don't be afraid to ask them to take the photo with your own camera too. They were all happy to do this for us and we have come home with some great photos that the whole family are in rather than minus the person behind the camera!

If the park is busy it seems that the queues for the rides can be at their busiest in the mornings up until mid afternoon. We had the fast pass option on our tickets but we honestly only used this twice and that was on the same ride (Test Track at Epcot). We found that by leaving the more popular rides until around 4pm onwards there were very small, if any, queues.

Go to see the many 3d/4d shows! Not my cup of tea (or so I thought!) but, as the lovely air conditioned theatres provided a welcome break from the unseasonable heat and humidity, we took cover. Travelling in a group of 10 with ages ranging from 56 down to 4 nobody was disappointed with these shows! Terminator, Bugs Life, Monsters Inc, Disney's Philarmagic, Honey I shrunk the audience...the list goes on...all fantastic!

Well, I hope some of these tips are of benefit to some! Please feel free to comment or add any of your own tips for others to enjoy.