How to Charge Your Phone at Disney World and Preserve Cell Battery Life

Where can you charge your phone at Disney World?

And why would you want to? Well, that is a great question!  The answer is complicated.
The why is obvious to anyone that has spent more than half a day at the parks and used their phones for anything of significance (photos, videos, random updates to Facebook, whatever)

You might find these phone charging stations in a couple of places:

They are free, and theoretically a great idea.  There are, however, a couple of problems.

1. They are scarce2. When you do find one, it will probably be full 3. After 40 minutes my phone went from 10% power to 15%.  Impressive, yes?

Other Charging options

• Try to get seated at a table at any of the restaurants near an outlet, so you can plug in while you dine

• Go to any of the resorts and plug into one of the outlets in the lobby and camp out for a while

• Sit on the floor of any after ride store and plug in.  Be aware, however, that if it is anything resembling a walkway, even if it isn't a walkway, you may eventually be chased out by an overzealous Cast Member intent on preserving the safety of all of the guests that will not be walking there

• If you get a blister or have a headache, head to a First Aid station in the parks; get your boo-boos tended, sit in air conditioning, and plug in

• Go to Guest Services at the parks (not as successful at Magic Kingdom).  They have chairs near outlets, and most people don't think of utilizing them

• There are a few "charging stations" in the parks. The problem is they may have enough outlets for 30 people, but there will be three chairs

Ways to preserve the battery life on your phone

• Keep it on airplane mode except while you are online or texting or calling. You can still take photos and record while in this mode.  Also, the phone will likely charge faster if in airplane mode

• Make sure your screen resolution is on Auto, or set to a low resolution

• Log out of Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media, don't just close out.  When logged in, even when inactive, your phone is constantly updating

• Turn off wifi search unless you are online. I noticed while in the parks and resorts I was constantly getting kicked off of the Disney wifi and picking it back up.  That is a battery sucker, because your phone is constantly searching for wifi.

• Change the network mode when possible (for example, from LTE/WCDMA/GSM to just GSM or just WCDMA...google that if you want to understand it better)

• Turn on your power saving mode

• Turn off GPS, Multi Window, SBeam, Screen Mirroring, ect.

• Call your cell provider before you go and get more tips

Now, I have a Note 2, which has a huge screen, and it loses about 5% battery each time I just hit the button to LOOK at the home screen.  Here are some of the creative places I found to charge my phone during the 24 Hour Rock Your Disney side event, and over the course of a fun filled, no breaks allowed packed Disney weekend:

• The free cell phone charging station, sort of (5% in 40 minutes)

• Standing at the charging station in the Space Mountain gift shop and arcade since there are literally three chairs for about 30 chargers

• Sitting on the floor in various corners in that very same shop and arcade

• Sitting on the floor in the corner at the shop after Test Track in Epcot

• At Guest Services

• At the First Aid Stations (blister, bad ankle, eye problems...I needed sleep)

• In the lobby of the Yacht Club in a floor plug

• Around the corner from my table at Captain's Grille, necessitating craning my neck to make sure my phone baby was safe every few seconds during my meal

• Triumphantly, I had an outlet under one airplane seat during one of my five flights

By Lucy