November 18, 2025 • 49 mins
Planning just one day at Magic Kingdom? Don’t worry — we’ve got you covered! In this episode, we break down exactly how to make the most of your day at Walt Disney World’s most iconic park, whether you’re using Lightning Lane/Mutlipass or going without.
We’ll walk you through:
🏰 The best rope drop strategy for both Early Entry and Regular Park Guests
⚡ Which Lightning Lanes to prioritize (and when to book them)
🗺️ How to avoid unnecessary park criss-crossing
🍗 The best mobile order lunch & dinner spots for quick, delicious meals
🎆 When to ride Tron, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and other top attractions with minimal wait
🎭 Tips for fitting in parades, cavalcades, and shows without missing out on rides
Whether you’re a first-time visitor or a Disney pro, this one-day itinerary will help you see and do as much magic as possible!
🎧 Listen now to learn how to maximize your Magic Kingdom day — and skip the stress!
We’ll walk you through:
🏰 The best rope drop strategy for both Early Entry and Regular Park Guests
⚡ Which Lightning Lanes to prioritize (and when to book them)
🗺️ How to avoid unnecessary park criss-crossing
🍗 The best mobile order lunch & dinner spots for quick, delicious meals
🎆 When to ride Tron, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and other top attractions with minimal wait
🎭 Tips for fitting in parades, cavalcades, and shows without missing out on rides
Whether you’re a first-time visitor or a Disney pro, this one-day itinerary will help you see and do as much magic as possible!
🎧 Listen now to learn how to maximize your Magic Kingdom day — and skip the stress!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome everybody to Mom Street, USA. My name is Jackie
aka Wishes Mama, And on today's episode, we are going
to be continuing our revisit of our one day park strategies,
and today we're going to be talking about Magic Kingdom.
So we figured we would kind of hop here to
Disney after we did Universal Studios last episode with our
(00:27):
good friends Duck and Jess.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
So this episode we figured we'd hop into probably the
biggest Disney park with the most attractions to consider. So
today we're going to be chatting about what is a
good course of action if I am only going to
be spending one day at Magic Kingdom, What is kind
of my plan of attack? And what should I do
(00:52):
if I want to get as much done as I
can in only one day. So, like I said, this
is a revisit of this. We did this several years
ago here on Mom Street. But so much has changed
in the parks, and things are constantly changing anyway, so
you'll hear us talk about that throughout the series, especially
at Disney. There's a ton of construction at all of
(01:14):
the Disney parks right now. It feels like so a
lot of new is coming, a lot of new has
popped up since we last covered all of this, so
we're going to do our best to give you the
most accurate information for now. And you know what, if
in a year or so we need to revisit these again,
we will definitely do that for sure. So let's hop
(01:34):
to Magic Kingdom. A couple of just general notes about
Magic Kingdom is that the area in the front of
the park that is called Main Street USA opens before
early entry. So what is early entry. Well, we did
a whole episode on early entry and rope drop not
that long ago, but early entry is the time that
(01:55):
Disney resort guests get to have a little bit of
extra time in the parks. So typically thirty minutes before
official park open at Magic Kingdom is their early entry time.
Magic Kingdom typically opens at nine. There are a few
days that it opens at eight or that it opens
at eight instead, so take a look at your My
(02:18):
Disney Experience app or the Disney World website for those
park hours, But typically Magic Kingdom opens at nine, so
eight thirty would be that early entry time for resort guests,
so you can get there fairly early and then get
your castle and Main Street photos before your rope drop
(02:39):
time happens, So again, seventy five minutes before park open
is when that's going to happen. Now, taking let's talk
about transportation to Magic Kingdom, because Magic Kingdom is a
little tricky to get to, just because the parking lot
is actually not directly on site outside of the gates.
It was built that way intentionally. Walt wanted it to
(03:02):
be a kind of more magical approach to the park,
so he didn't want you just to walk up after
you got out of your car, So you have to
park at the Transportation and Ticket center if you are driving,
or if you are doing any sort of ride share.
So because of that, especially if you're on property and
have access to Disney buses, those buses are the best
(03:26):
transportation method to get to Magic Kingdom. Now, I know
the buses can be a pain, but they truly are
the best because they drop you the closest that you
can get to the main gate. When it comes to transportation, now,
the only other better option to that would be if
you are staying on a monorail resort or one of
(03:46):
the resorts that are close by the Magic Kingdom that
has bus transportation. Those are great options as well. Because
they all drop you very close to that entrance plaza
for Magic Kingdom. Again, if you are taking like an
uber or a lyft or ride share, they will take
you to the TTC, unless it's a mini van that
has operated under a lyft, those will actually take you
(04:09):
to the same drop off location that the buses take you.
And just another general note if you're someone who maybe
has been to Disney but not super recently. They actually
in the last several months have adjusted their early entry
process for resort guests. So it used to be that
they would scan you in kind of on the right
(04:31):
hand side of the hub, and then they would hold
you right between Cosmic Rays and the Tomarland Speedway as
you were looking at the teacups kind of in that
space right there. Well, they have shifted the way that
they do their early entry, so now they still scan
you in at the same location. You still get scanned
(04:51):
in your party for early entry, we'll have to have
a ticket or a magic band checked to make sure
that you are a resort guest. But after that they
actually let you go and queue at whatever attraction it
is that you're trying to ride first, So any of
the attractions that are open during that early entry time,
which would be Fantasy Land and tomorrow Land minus Tron,
(05:14):
You can actually go and stand in line to wait
to get into the queues for those attractions. So they
kind of shifted that a little bit away from the
old system that we have known for years and years.
I kind of like this better, but it really means
that you have to get to the park super early
because they're going to start letting people scan in to
(05:35):
go queue up at those rides. Pretty much ride at
park open, so it's not like something where you have
to congregate and wait to be scanned in until early
entry starts. Nope, they are pretty much going to let
you go to that attraction and queue up there, And
sometimes those attraction cues will even open fifteen twenty thirty
minutes before early entry starts to let people start to
(05:57):
go through the ques. You'll especially find that at something
like Seven Doors Mind Train or Peter Pan at Magic Kingdom.
So keep that in mind. You really want to make
sure you know exactly where you're going, and you really
want to make sure that you get there early. So
I know it can be a major pain to get
up super early on vacation, but especially at a park
(06:19):
like Magic Kingdom, it is super super important. So the
way that we're going to set this up today is
we're going to do kind of two different scenarios for
your one day of Magic Kingdom. The first scenario that
we are going to talk about is if you are
going to the park and you are utilizing lightning lanes,
so you have purchased multi pass and single passes and
you are planning to use those lightning lanes for your day.
(06:44):
The second plan of attack that we are going to
talk about today for Magic Kingdom will be if you
are not planning to use lightning lanes, what does that
day look like? How does it differ things like that? Now,
the thing about Magic Kingdom is there are probably five
(07:04):
different really solid itinerary choices that you can make to
make the most of your day. It really depends on
who is in your travel party, what attractions are important
to them, uh, and whether or not this is something
that you've already like you've already been to Magic Kingdom,
either on this trip or a previous trip, or you know,
(07:25):
recently within the last couple of years. So lots of
variables when it comes to that, especially if you're traveling
with kids. Aren't they young kids? Aren't they older kids?
Are they thrill seekers? Are they not? So I'm going
to go through kind of two different options sort of
for your morning time. That's kind of going to be
the biggest differences that you'll see in the varying of
(07:46):
your itineraries. So I'm going to give you two different
options that I think are both really solid options. Now,
as I go through this list, I'm going to name
the majority of the attractions at Magic Kingdom. You may
find that on this list there's two or three that
you're like, Nope, don't need to do that, or no,
I don't like thrill rides, I don't want to do that,
or Nope, we know we did that on our last
(08:08):
trip a couple of years ago. We don't need to
do it again, those types of things. If that's you, great, perfect.
I'm so glad that you know that and that you
have that kind of predetermined in your head, so that
way you can just skip that part of the itinerary
that I give you and move on to the next
part that interests you. So, like I said, I'm going
to list off the majority of the attractions at Magic Kingdom.
(08:30):
So you can pick and choose kind of from this
order that I give you, pull out the ones that
you want and create your kind of personalized itinerary from
that Before we hop in, I do just want to
mention that I am somebody who loves to do this.
I love to give specific specialized itineraries for our friends
(08:51):
that go and visit the parks. If I've got family
that's going, friends, anyone from our mom Street community, I'm
more than happy to help you. So if you're like,
I've got this crazy, big party that I'm traveling to
Magic Kingdom with, what in the world should I do?
Send me a message. I am more than happy to
help you figure out the best way to kind of
(09:12):
go about your day. Like I said, this is something
that I truly like to do. I've done it for
as long as I can remember, probably for the last
ten years for friends and family that are visiting the park.
So if you need help after you have listened to
this episode, please send me a message. Okay, all of
that being said, that was kind of a mouthful. Let's
(09:32):
talk about what we're gonna do with our lightning lanes. Now.
We're not going to talk super indepthly about what lightning
lanes are and how they work and all that kind
of stuff, because just not that long ago, we did
a whole recap on lightning lanes and I went in
depth on how to book and where on your app
to go and all of that good stuff. So if
you need specific lightning lane help, refer back to that episode.
(09:55):
But I am going to just go over some general
ideas for lightning lane at Magic Kingdom, So just some
notes you will If you are on property, which we
just talked about not that long ago, meaning you're staying
at a Disney resort or something like Shades of Green
or Swanen Dolphin, then you can book your lightning lanes
seven days before your check in date. So if your
(10:19):
check in date is on the eighth, you can book
your lightning lanes starting on the first. So keep that
in mind. If you are off property, you're not saying
it a Disney resort, maybe you're staying at somewhere near
Disney Springs or one of the other local area resorts.
You will book three days ahead of time from your
(10:40):
first park day. So it's a little bit different in
the terminology and kind of the way that you decipher
that so keep that in mind. If you're off property,
whatever day you have selected for your ticket to start
is the date that you will be is your eligibility date,
and you'll count three days before that. So on property
is check in day, off property is ticket start day.
(11:03):
So just make sure you have that kind of in
your brain to figure out when you become eligible. There
are two tiers for rides at Magic Kingdom for Lightning Lane.
Tier one is Jungle Cruise, Petapan Space Mountain and Tianas
by You Adventure. We are unsure as to what is
going to happen with Big Thunder Mountain when it reopens
in twenty twenty six. Previously it was a Tier one.
(11:24):
Don't know if they're planning to put that back on
Tier one. I would assume they probably are. I don't
know if that means that one of the other rides
is going to go to Tier two. That remains to
be seen, so we will have to kind of just
wait and see what Disney does about that. We don't
even know the date for Big Thunder yet at this
point that I'm recording this, so we're just gonna have
to kind of wait and see with that. Your Tier
(11:45):
two rides there's a whole slew of them, but Barnstormer, Dumbo,
Hana Mansion, Small World, Mad Tea Party, Magic Carpets of Aladin,
Many Ventures of Winnie the Pooh, phil Harmagic, Monsters and
Laugh Floor, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tomorrowland Speedway under the Sea,
Journey of the Little Mermaid. So those are all your
Tier two attractions. Just a note that when Disney changed
to the most recent iteration of Lightning Lanes, they took
(12:08):
off all of the character Met and Greets, so no
characters on there for that. The two single past options
that you have are Tron and Seven Dwarves, so those
are both really great options to save a little extra
in your budget to utilize that as well. Now, my suggestion,
(12:29):
because we're talking about if you are using Lightning Lanes
for this first section, my suggestion is Tier one to
book either Jungle Crews or Tiana's By You Adventure, and
then for Tier two, so you get one in Tier
one two and tier two. For tier two, I would
look at something like Haunted Mansion, Pirates, or Winnie the Pooh.
(12:50):
Those are going to be kind of your three best
options to choose from. You're gonna want to book your
first ride approximately sixty to ninety minutes after park opened
so that you can take advantage of the early morning
lower crowds. So even on even if you're someone that
doesn't have early entry, if you get there still at
rope drop, you're gonna have at least an hour's worth
(13:10):
of lower crowds, if not closer to ninety minutes, maybe
two hours on a slow day. So you don't want
to necessarily start your lightning lanes super early in the
day because you're going to be able to get through
more standby options that early in the morning. Just something
else to note as you are pre booking these lightning
lanes is you really want to pay attention to the
(13:33):
location in the park that your rides are in what
time you have that are available. The best advice I
have is to book your rides as early as possible,
starting at that sixty to ninety minute window. So if
the park opens at nine, your first lightning lane could
be ten o'clock. And ideally, now the app won't let
you overlap your ride times as much as I wish
(13:56):
it would, but you can you can overlap them about
fifty teen minutes, so ideally you've got a ten o'clock,
you've gotten a ten forty five, then you've got what
would that be and eleven thirty you know, for your
first three multi pass rides, and then you can fit
in your single pass rides after that. Aspect for that
(14:16):
another note, taking times to do things like parades, the
stage show, cavalcades. Those can be inserted anywhere in this
plan that we're going to talk about. However, keep in
mind that that will eat up a large portion of
your day if you plan to do a lot of those,
and it will minimize the amount of rides that you
can accomplish. Now, if those shows and experiences are high
(14:40):
on your priority list, then please, by all means do them.
I'm not going to necessarily talk about things like Country Bears,
Tiki Room, the Stage Show, the Adventure Friends Cavalcade, like
we're not going to necessarily include those in our list
for this itinerary because we're just focusing primarily on the attractions.
But do keep in mind that you can fit any
(15:01):
of those in depending on where you're at and what
time it is. The Festival of Fantasy Parade, which is
typically either a two or three pm parade, and the
Adventure Friend's Cavalcade, which right now I believe is like
an eleven ish Am Cavalcade currently now check your app
they have the most up to date times. Both of
(15:22):
those will start by Tiana's By You Adventure and end
by the train station and fire station down Main Street. Now,
if you want to see the new Starlight Nighttime Parade
at Magic Kingdom, it goes the opposite way. It starts
by the fire station and the train station, goes towards
the Castle and then around the corner and ends at
Tiana's By You Adventure. So keep that in mind based
(15:44):
on where you're located in the park in what time
the experience is starting to kind of plan whether or
not that's something that's going to fit into your itinerary
for the day. The stage show, which is Mickey's Magical
Friendship Fair, is at the Castle. It is a really
(16:04):
good way to see characters if you don't want to
spend a ton of time in lines to see those characters.
You will see the Fab five no Fab six sorry,
are in there. Tangled characters, Princess and the Frog characters,
and Frozen characters all in that stage show. So if
(16:26):
you want to kind of see them all and you
don't necessarily need the direct character interaction with them. That
stage show maybe a really good way to see them.
All of those characters are in the Festival Fantasy Parade,
and most of those are in the new Starlight Parade
as well. You can see Alsa, you can see Tiana
(16:48):
and Nvin, you can see Rapunzel and Flynn. That parade's
fairly new. I'm trying to rack through it in my brain,
and most of the Fab six characters are in there,
so you'll still be able to see most of those
in the Starlight Parade as well. So that is a
really good use of your time if you are someone
that wants to see characters, doesn't necessarily need the one
(17:09):
to one interaction with them, and you're trying to save
some time. So you really just have to think about
what your priority is when it comes to characters and
those parades and shows to kind of decide whether or
not you want to include those in your itinerary, and
again check your app in the morning, like when you're
on your way to the park to see what the
most up to date showtimes are because those are pretty standard. However,
(17:36):
there are certain aspects that may cause those to be
adjusted changed throughout the day, so just little things to
keep in mind. With that, all of that being said
and done, let's jump into what our itinerary is going
to look like. So with Magic Kingdom, you're going to
want to be there at least forty five minutes before
(17:57):
you can enter the park. A different courses of action.
If you are early entry, I highly suggest you rope
drop Fantasyland. If you are doing just regular rope drop entry,
you are going to want to head over to Frontierland
and Adventureland. So again with early entry, only Fantasyland and
(18:19):
Tomorrowland are open minus Tron, So you have all of
fantasy Land, and you have Space Mountain, and you have
buzz Light Ear when it reopens after the refer will
be another one the other side of the park, Adventureland, Frontierland,
Liberty Square that doesn't even open until park open, so
(18:40):
it's not part of early entry, so you don't even
need to worry about that if you're planning to do
early entry. So in Fantasyland, your first stand by rides
are going to be either Peter Pan or Seven Dwarfs.
I would do Peter Pan if you've booked a single
pass four seven Dwarves. Now, if seven Dwarves is really
high on your list and you to try to ride
(19:00):
it twice, you've booked a single pass, then go ahead
and do it stand by first thing in the morning
to kind of get that first ride in, and then
your second ride will be with your single pass lightning
lane that you've booked. After that, check the wait time.
For many adventures of Winnie the Pooh, this ride gets
a super long weight because because it is closest in
(19:22):
proximity to seven doors mind train. So any family that's
got kiddos that are not tall enough for seven Dwarves
or don't want to ride seven Dwarves, they go directly
across the way to Winnie the Pooh, So check that one.
If it's got a lower weight time, go ahead and
get in line. If that line is not all the
(19:43):
way through the garden, thumbs up, your good to go
when it comes to Winnie the Pooh. And you can
see that kind of from the front gate, which is
which is helpful. If you are like buy the Little
Beehive interactive area, go ahead and wait. You're looking at
maybe twenty twenty five at the very most, but likely
less than that. Because you don't have lightning lanes slowing
(20:03):
down those lines this early in the morning. After that,
you can kind of make your rounds. You can hit
under the Sea with Little Mermaid, and you can hit
Small World, and that will kind of round out the
majority of your Fantasyland attractions. Now you just really have
to plan initially for Peter Pan and Seven Dwarfs. If
you do Peter Pan first, I would then still do
(20:23):
the same thing where you're gonna head from Peter Pan,
don't do Small World yet, head back over towards Winnie
the Pooh to check Winnie the Pooh. If it's too long,
or you can see on your app that it's too long,
swing around. Then you can do Little Mermaid and then
over to Small World. But either way, the majority of
your early entry time for our Disney resort guests is
(20:46):
best spent in Fantasyland because you can knock out a
lot of those rides very quickly during that early entry time. Now,
if you are someone that is not doing early entry
and you are going just at park open, your best
bet is going to be heading over to the adventure
Land side of the park because the early entry guests
(21:06):
have not been over there because it's not open during
early entry. So if you are going adventure land side,
your options for rope drop are going to be Jungle Cruise.
If that's high on your list and you didn't book
a lightning lane for it, you're definitely going to want
to rope drop. That Big Thunder Mountain when it reopens
in twenty twenty six is a great option for rope
(21:28):
drop over there, as well as Tianus by You Adventure.
So those would be my top three that I would
kind of choose between priority wise. Again, some of these
you may book on your UH with your lightning lanes.
Like I said earlier, I really suggest Jungle Cruise as
one because that ride is really popular regardless of what
(21:48):
time of year. It's really popular with the holiday overlay
right now as I'm recording this, but it's really popular
no matter what, and it is a hard lightning lane
to get later in the day. We don't know what
Big Thunder Mountain is going to look like with the
new REFERB and how popular it may or may not be.
It's a very high capacity ride, so it typically doesn't
get a super long line in the morning, but that
(22:09):
remains to be seen when it reopens, I imagine there
will be kind of a big surge of people that
want to go there first just to revisit Big Thunder
Mountains since it's been so long since we've all been
able to ride it. And the same thing with Tiana's
Bio Adventure. It doesn't necessarily get a super long line
in the morning. You do have to be careful because
it doesn't always like to open first thing in the morning,
(22:31):
So be sure you have a place that you're going
to pivot to if Tiana's Bio Adventure does not open,
make sure you know what your secondary choice is when
it comes to that. So those would be my suggestions,
and then after those for other standby options, you can
do Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. Both of
those over on that side of the park should be
(22:52):
fairly low weights for you to be able to kind
of get all of that done during your first hour
ish of the park being open, depending on weights. Now,
if you happen to be there on a morning where
weights don't look too terrible. Once you've gotten through Fantasy Land,
if you're an early entry person, then head over to
(23:13):
Adventure Land and follow through the rest of that plan
that I just gave, because chances are you may still
be able to hit three or four of those rides
before your first lightning lane time even starts. That means
that you're gonna get those bonus rides on your lightning lanes,
or you're gonna have less stress trying to get some
of those times on your lightning lanes later in the day.
(23:37):
So it just really depends on how busy the park is.
Pull up your My Disney Experience app make sure you've
got those weight times loaded and you're keeping an eye
on them in the mornings. Like first thing. Often times
those weight times on My Disney Experience will be a
little bit inflated. So if you see something like a
thirty and you're like, uh, maybe go ahead and get
(23:59):
in line and see how it's moving. If it's moving
continuously and you don't feel like you're just like at
a standstill, chances are it's probably less than a thirty
for the majority of these attractions. It really just depends.
It's hard to predict sometimes, but that's kind of my
suggestion with that overall, Before I hop over to what
(24:19):
you're gonna want to do next. After that, let's talk
about Tron, So I do highly suggest that you book
Tron for a single pass lightning lane, especially if you're
planning to use lightning lanes. It is a fabulous use
of your budget for that. I do not suggest doing
that at rope drop one because it doesn't open for
(24:40):
early entry like the rest of that line does. However,
you will have resort guests that go and stand in
line for the line to open at park open, So
that is a really tricky one to rope drop. So
I really unfortunately don't suggest you do it if you
want to do it twice and you've booked a single
(25:01):
pass for it already, but you want to be able
to do it stand by. My biggest suggestion is to
go like lunchtime around twelve twelve thirty. If you see
that weight drop to around thirty thirty five minutes, go
ahead and get in line. My rule of thumb for
that one is if the line is not outside of
(25:25):
the main archway that's like up all the way on
the platform. If it's inside those those switchbacks that are
not outside of that kind of archway, you're probably good
to go to go ahead and wait in that standby
line you're looking at thirty five ish minutes from there.
When it comes to Tron, typically now things can happen.
(25:46):
You know, they can have loading issues, cars can have
you never know, right, but generally speaking, that's kind of
my rule of thumb when it comes to Tron. The
other time you can check is in the evening. Now
that we've got the news Starlight parade. It pulls a
good crowd away from the rides at the evening because
you've got the parade directly into the fireworks. If you're
(26:09):
someone that is either planning to stay for the second parade,
because there are two nighttime parades right now, if you're
someone that's planning to stay for the second parade, maybe
the first parade and the fireworks would be a good
time to go to hit Tron and then that way
you'll be done with it by the time the second
parade is getting ready to start. So those are my
(26:29):
suggestions for Standby. Again, I'll reiterate this later when we
talk about not using lightning lanes, but I would definitely
book a single pass for that and then use those
tips to get you a second ride if you really
want to do that twice one time through Standby. So
all of that being said, after you've kind of whisked
(26:50):
your way through one of those two plans, either Fantasyland
or adventure Land, then you're going to want to start
just utilizing your lightning lanes. So you're going to use
your first lightning lane. As soon as everybody taps in
for that first lightning lane, you're going to be able
to book a secondary lightning lane. You can always hold
three at any given time when it comes to multipass,
(27:11):
So if you're using multi pass and you've got a
seven Dwarves and a tron booked, you're going to see
five lightning lanes on your plan for the day, which
is a great way to set up your day. If
you are someone that is only planning on one day
at Magic Kingdom, that is the best course of action
when it comes to that. But if you didn't get
some of those, then that list becomes the order that
(27:34):
you attempt to book next, So things like Winnie the Pooh,
things like Big funder Mountain whenever it reopens, things like
Haunted Mansion, Tianas, Bioadventure, those rides. If for some reason
you weren't able to get those done during that first
sixty to ninety minutes of the park being open. That
becomes your priority list for booking your lightning lanes. As
(27:55):
far as lightning lanes go, you just want to book
them as early as possible, as close together as possible.
And if they don't give you a time that you want.
Let's say you use your first lightning line, you try
to book a Winny of the Pooh, it gives you
a six PM. Don't give up, keep modifying, keep refreshing
that app as you're waiting in line, and something new
(28:15):
should pop up to give you a better time. You've
just got to be patient and really diligent about it
so that way you'll be able to utilize that. Now,
that will take up the majority of your morning right
Everything that you're doing during that early entry time, everything
that you're doing right after in your first several lightning
lanes will take you all the way up to lunchtime.
(28:36):
If you are planning a quick lunch, which I do
suggest if you've only got one day at Magic Kingdom,
there are tons of different places that you can mobile
order from. Mobile ordering will save you a ton of
time when it comes to those lunch spots. I do
suggest trying to do lunch a little bit earlier. Eleven
eleven thirty is great. When you get closer to noon,
(28:57):
those places get a lot busier, it gets a lot
more hectic and crazy in there. But Casey's Corner, Columbia
Harbor House, Friar's Pinocchio Village House, all of those are
really great options for mobile ordering. So do that kind
of after you have run through your first set of
standby lines and gotten through your first maybe two to
(29:19):
three lightning lanes. Close to eleven eleven thirty would be
my suggestion for that. So after lunch, you're really going
to be looking at the weight times and kind of
living on your app for what has a low weight
or what times are available for your next lightning lanes.
So I'm going to kind of run down the next
(29:40):
kind of general list of attractions. Some of these you
may be able to do just stand by if they've
got a fifteen or twenty minute weight. Some of these
you may go, ooh, that's got a time for a
lightning lane coming up in twenty minutes from now. That's
perfect timing for us to get over there. Let's go
ahead and book that. It really just depends on the
crowd for the day. And what lightning lanes you've already
(30:03):
been able to get through at this point in your day.
You kind of have to hop around between the app
and the lightning lane to like the tip board part
of the app and the map part of the app
that will show you the weight times. The other thing
that you can do is kind of think about these
in clusters. So something like the first two on this
list are Barnstormer and Dumbo. Barnstormer might need a lightning
(30:27):
lane in the afternoon because a lot of little kids,
once you get through all of the bigger rides, a
lot of little kids still want to do Barnstormers, so
it can get like a forty minute weight. Dumbo, because
it's got a higher capacity with the double sides, typically
has closer to like a twenty five minute weight. So
maybe you book Barnstormer on lightning lane, maybe it's twenty
(30:47):
minutes from now, and maybe you go and ride Dumbo
in the meantime. So you can kind of cluster some
of these together to make it make sense with like
geographically where you're going in the park. So again, things
like Barnstormer, Dumbo, and even Mad Tea Party can be
thrown in that kind of little group, and then Magic
Carpets of Aladdin is kind of off on its own
(31:09):
little island over back towards Jungle Cruise. You maybe are
able to hit that while you're over on that side
of the park to kind of get that adventure land
side done. When it comes to between lightning lanes for
Jungle Cruise and Pirates and doing standby for Magic Carpets,
depends on your timing and things like that, Phil Harmagic,
(31:30):
Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, and the tomorrow Land Speedway. Again,
you just really have to kind of think about some
of those. You will not absolutely not need to book
with a lightning lane. Something like phil Harmagic very rarely
gets more than a fifteen to twenty minute wait because
it is such a high capacity theater. So you really
just have to look at where am I at in
(31:51):
the park, trying to avoid going cross all the way
from side to side, and kind of thinking about it
that way. After that, those kind of that I've listed,
you've got just a handful left. The railroad right now
because of construction and for the foreseeable future, probably several years,
the train is not the railroad is not running the
(32:14):
full loop around Magic Kingdom. It is just a shuttle
train the main Street station and the Fantasyland station, which
is like near Storybook Circus right by Barnstormer that we
were just talking about, so you may want to do that.
The other two attractions that you have left would be
astro Orbiter and Buzz light Year Space Ranger Spin when
(32:37):
that reopens after its refurb Those two are a little
trickier and you may have to just keep an eye
on them throughout the day and just try to find
a time where they've got a lower weight. Buzz will
be available on Lightning Lane. Astra Orbiter does not have
a lightning lane option, so it's a really tricky one
to kind of time right, but you hopefully will be
(32:59):
able to find where it's maybe a twenty or twenty
five and that's not terrible for that. After that, you
can think about things like the Carousel, People Mover, and
then that's where those shows come in. Country Bears, Hall
of Presidents, carousela Progress, and Channa Tiki Room. All of
those are great filler options if you're like waiting on
a lightning lane time to become eligible and you're nearby,
(33:21):
those are great filler rides if you've got the availability
in your schedule. The other thing to think about is
those character meet and greets. Again, we talked earlier about
the fact that there are no lightning lanes unfortunately for
the character meet and greets, so you're really just gonna
have to gauge whether or not that's something you're interested in.
You know, there are some that are stationary, like the
(33:41):
princesses that meet in Fantasyland are always located there. You've
got some that are more roaming characters. You've got, you know,
various different options when it comes to that, So just
take a look and see what really interests your group.
Maybe pick one or two and figure out where it
makes sense geographically for them to be fit into your eye.
Itenerary with the understanding that chances are good it's going
(34:03):
to be a thirty minute wait for a lot of
those characters. So after you've kind of filled your afternoon
with some of those rides that I just kind of
threw at you rapid fire there, you're gonna want a
mobile order dinner. Again, the same list that we talked
about earlier as far as locations somewhere to go, and
then the evening is really just your cleanup time. We
(34:23):
talked about this at Universal Studios with Duck and Jess
last episode as well, that that evening is really just
your cleanup time. Chances are maybe you're just like, nope,
you know, we've done everything we wanted to do for
the day. We're just gonna relax. We're gonna have a
nice relaxing dinner. We're gonna watch the parade and the
fireworks and just enjoy our evening in the parks. That
(34:46):
is an amazing way to spend the end of your
day after you've been running around like crazy and Magic
Kingdom all day, or maybe you took a longer lunch
and so now you're gonna want to try and hit
something like Tron, or you're gonna want to go back
and try to hit something like seven Do Again or
Tiannas by Your Adventure or Big Thunder Mountain whenever it reopens.
You know, those evening hours are also a good time
(35:07):
to get some of those more e ticket attraction, those
big throw rides. If you can get an additional ride
on those, that's the best time to do it. I
think that kind of gives you most of the attractions
kind of something to think about when it comes to
planning your day with light lightning lanes, Again, I didn't
give you a specific plan because it really just determines.
(35:30):
It's really just determined by the day that you go
and what the availability looks like for those lightning lanes.
Are you willing to sit and refresh because if you
know me, you know I'm really good at getting lightning lanes. Well,
that's because I have the patience to sit and refresh
my app and be ready to jump on a time
whenever it pops up. So it really just depends on
(35:50):
how much you want to be on your phone, how
much you want to do that refreshing of those lightning lanes,
and what the availability just looks like. You know it
very so much day to day. There's no way to
predict what times are going to pop up for you
whenever you go to book your additional lightning lanes. But
just remember you can book every ride once on multipass
(36:11):
the ones that are eligible for multi pass, and you
can always hold three multi pass lightning lanes at one time.
So if any point in time, you hop on your
app and you're like, oh, I've only got one or
two booked, hop onto that tipboard. To see what else
is available. Go ahead and book it. You can always
try and modify it later. So those are my biggest
suggestions when it comes to lightning lanes at any park,
(36:33):
but specifically Magic Kingdom, because that's what we're talking about
right now. Now, let's talk about a game plan if
we are not using lightning lanes and what that will
look like now with Magic Kingdom. If you are someone
that wants to get in as many rides as humanly
possible at Magic Kingdom, chances are you're not going to
(36:56):
have a ton of time to do shows, characters, parades,
five works, so you really have to decide your priority list.
This is extra hard now that we've got that new
starlight parade in the evening times. That kind of uh
makes the evening a little bit harder. Previously, when it
was just happily ever after, if you had seen it,
(37:16):
or you weren't a firework person, or you didn't care
to see it from the front of the castle, was
much easier to maneuver around and not have to worry
about that. Now that starlight is a thing, a lot
more people are not riding rides in the evening time,
which is great. If that is something that you are
wanting to do as well, So just keep that in
(37:37):
mind as we go through. You're not going to hear
me talk about a lot of shows, parades, fireworks in
this specific itinerary because there is so much to do
with Magic Kingdom now. The morning, if you're not using
lightning lanes, the morning is going to seem fairly similar
to what we just talked about. You are going to
If you are an early entry resort guest, you're going
(37:59):
to head to Fantasyland. If you are a regular guest
off property, you're gonna head to the Frontierland, Adventureland Side
Again fantasy Land. You're looking at Peter Pan or Seven
Dwarves as your first ride that you're gonna queue up for.
After that, you're gonna look at things like the opposite
of that. Right if you did Seven Doors, check the
Peter Pan line or vice versa, many adventures of Winnie
(38:20):
the Pooh being your next ride in that specific area.
For the Adventureland, Frontierland Side Jungle Cruise would be my
first option. Big Thunder Mountain is a good one once
it reopens. Tiana's By You Adventure, and then Hana Mansion
and Pirates so those lists for your morning pretty much
don't change whether you're using lightning lanes or not. It's
(38:42):
really that is just the best course of action no
matter who you are, visiting the parks in the morning
in my personal opinion, again, once you have hit one,
like if you're a Fantasyland rope dropper because you've got
early entry, but you want to hit some of those
adventure Land rides, do your top two in fantasy Land
(39:02):
and then head over to Adventureland to catch the rope
drop over there. But I would say two rides in Fantasyland,
maybe three if it's a really slow morning, and then
hop over to the Adventureland side to rope drop over
there as well. The thing that is really hard when
you're not using lightning lanes are those two single pass rides.
(39:23):
And you'll hear me talk about those single pass rides
at every other park two during lightning lane itineraries and
no lightning lane itineraries. Those single pass attractions are the biggest,
the biggest time consumption that you're gonna have at these
parks when you're visiting. So Tron is a really, really
tough one to get on, just because it doesn't open
(39:46):
with early entry, even though it's in Tomorrowland, all those
things we talked about earlier. I highly highly suggest that
if you're able to budget even just a tiny amount
for Magic Kingdom a little bit of extra, do the
single pass for Tron. You don't necessarily need to for
seven doors, because you can rope drop that. As long
(40:07):
as you get there early, you'll be on and off
there fairly quickly if you're able to get up and
get going in the morning. Tron is so hard to
get on without spending thirty to sixty minutes or more
in line, So I highly suggest if you're able to
find those few extra dollars per person to do your
Tron single pass. Otherwise, again, you can try to rope
(40:31):
drop it, but chances are there's going to be a
long line there and you're going to spend an hour
at least probably in the morning to devote to Tron,
which means then you're going to be skipping out on
seven Dwarfs Peter Pan Jungle Cruise, you know. So you
really just have to decide now, if Tron is your
absolute top priority, then go ahead and rope drop it.
(40:54):
But you just have to understand that it's a give
and take situation when you're not using those lightning lanes
at Magic so again lunchtime or parade time, evening time,
you just really have to keep an eye on what
those wait times are doing. And again, look, go and
look at the physical line. I know what's annoying to
walk all the way up there. But if that standby
(41:16):
line is underneath and not outside of the main entry
at the very top of that platform, you're looking around
thirty five minutes, so that can be a really good gauge.
If that line starts to come out and down the walkway,
come back another time. It's not worth it at that moment.
Come back another time to try again. Your morning is
(41:38):
going to be spent Fantasyland, adventure Land, or vice versa,
trying to get as many of those rides done as possible.
So let's say you are an early entry guest. If
it were me, I would do Seven Dwarves, Winnie the Pooh.
Then I would do I don't need to do Peter Pan,
I don't need to do Jungle Cruise. Personal opinion, so
(41:58):
I would do Seven Dwarves, Many Ventures, Winnie the Pooh,
I would do Mermaid and Small World, and that would
knock out most of Fantasy Land for us. Then I'd
head over to Tiana's well haunted mansion Tianas and Pirates,
and that would be most of my morning before lunchtime. Again,
mobile ordering for lunch can save you a ton of
time and a headache of having to wait in line
(42:18):
and figure all that out. So the same places that
we talked about earlier for lunch, places like Casey's Corner,
Cosmic Rays at Columbia Harbor House, Friar's Nook, and Pinocchio
Village House are all decent options. Again, theme park food,
you know how it is. I really like the new
menu over at peycost Bill as well, which I don't
(42:39):
think I mentioned that earlier. It wasn't initially on my
list when I started this. Now your afternoon is going
to be almost identical to what you did or what
we just talked about with lightning lanes, only you're not
gonna be looking lightning lanes, so you really are gonna
have to live on that app. You're gonna have to
see what those weight times look like, and how can
I cluster rides close together. I'm not having to go
(43:01):
all the way across the park to get to those
shortwait times, so clustering together Mad Tea Party, Dumbo, and
Barnstormer most of those three attractions. Again I said earlier,
Barnstormers sometimes gets along line. It just really depends on
the day. Doing things like Filharmagic, Monsters, Inc. Laf Floor
may or may not be on your list. There are
(43:22):
more shows and not rides, so it just depends on
your personal preference. Magic Carpets of Aladdin is a good
one to kind of throw in when you're over on
that side of the park. Again, same with Tomorrowland Speedway
when you're near kind of Mad Tea Party, that could
go up with that group as well. So really just
kind of geographically making your secondary list based on what
(43:45):
you know you're gonna want to do after you run
through that morning list. So ultimately the afternoon is gonna
be almost identical other than you're gonna be using lightning
lanes for some whereas you're gonna be doing all stand
by obviously if you're not doing lightning lanes. But those
rides that you're really doing in the afternoon are pretty
identical across the board. Again, things like the Train, character
(44:08):
meet and greets, those shows like Country Bears, Tiki Room.
You may not have time for those when it comes
to not using lightning lanes, because your time is going
to be more spent waiting in those key lines for
the attractions that you want to do. So you really
got to make that priority list of this this afternoon.
You really have to know, Okay, these are our top
three rides we really want to try to get in
(44:29):
this afternoon, so you can make those a priority and
then go from there. You'll probably be able to get
in four to five rides before dinner time. Again, mobile
ordering is a huge, huge benefit when it comes to
Magic Kingdom, especially because those quick service restaurants can be
very overwhelming, again trying to eat when it's not prime
(44:53):
meal time. So maybe your dinner is closer to four
or closer to seven, you know, and not kind of
in that five six o'clock rush hour, with your lunch
closer to eleven, closer to one, you know, depending on
what you're able to do or if you want to
grab a snack along the way. Tons of options when
it comes to that as well. And then in the
(45:13):
evenings again, any other rides that you missed or second
rides of attractions that wait times have come down. Now
that it's winding down to the evening, take a look
at what time the Starlight Parade and Happily ever After
are running right now, it's been typically that Starlight is
eight and ten and Happily ever After is at nine,
(45:37):
But changes you're based on the time of year, based
some of the sun's going down, right, because all of
those have to happen after it has you know, started
to get dark at Magic Kingdom. So take those things
into consideration whenever you're looking at your list of your
evening rides, because if you're not planning to do any
of those, any of the either of the parades or
(45:59):
the fire works, you're gonna have a lot more time
to work with in the evening. If you're planning to
do the fireworks or the parade, highly suggests the second
parade because it will be far less busy, a lot
easier to kind of walk up within the last you know,
ten fifteen minutes before the parade starts to find a
decent spot. That first parade is always really really packed
(46:20):
because families with the youngest kids in the park are
wanting to do the parade and get out or do
the parade the fireworks and get out right because it
becomes very very late for those little littles. So keep
that in mind. Go back to the rides that you
were rope dropping to see whether or not those are
going to be rides that you want a secondary chance
(46:41):
at getting in line for, because even things like seven
Dwarves during Happily ever after that weight time does tend
to drop. And the other thing that you have to
consider is that during that time a lot of lightning
lanes are not being utilized, so the standby line does
go by quicker. That's not something we've necessarily talked about yet,
but that is something to consider with your early and
later stand by times. You don't have as many lightning
(47:04):
lanes overlapping that are going to slow down your standby line.
So just something else to consider when it comes to
your evening time at Magic Kingdom is whether or not
the rides that you want to get on are going
to be a ride that has a high capacity, has
a high amount of lightning lanes, it may still be
coming through. All those types of things are things to consider,
(47:26):
but generally speaking, that is kind of my suggestion a
little fast and furious to get you through Magic Kingdom.
Hopefully that is helpful to you. Again, if you are
someone that's like, Okay, yep, I hear you. That all
makes sense. But I've got a group of ten and
we're going to Magic Kingdom for a day, and we've
got kids that are five, six, twelve, and fourteen. What
(47:47):
do I do? Send me a message. I am happy
to help you guys with that. I want you guys
to have a successful trip. I want you guys to
feel like you can accomplish everything you want to accomplish
on you or Magic Kingdom or any other park day.
Right This is part of our one day Park Strategy
series that we are in the middle of right now
(48:08):
on mom Street, hitting all three of the Universal parks
in all four Disney parks, so stay tuned for the
other parks coming up. We are going to be headed
to Animal Kingdom next and then we are going to
hop back to Universal to do Islands of Adventure after that.
So we've got some more parks coming your way with
(48:30):
this series. Again, as always, if you've got suggestions or
comments or questions things that you need help with when
it comes to planning your trip, please reach out to us.
We are Momstreet USA at gmail dot com. You can
find us at Momstreet USA on several different social media platforms,
and if you haven't checked out our new still somewhat
(48:52):
new Patreon account, we do post a lot of content
over there, and we will be posting over there some
graphics with the these one day itineraries kind of laid
out for you guys to be able to pick and
choose from once we kind of wrap this series, So
that is coming your way and it will be posted
on our Patreon account. So if you are someone that
(49:14):
needs that visual, head over there here in the next
coming weeks and we will have I'll try to get
those first couple done here and maybe we'll post them
in two groups for you guys to have access to
over on the Patreon account. So that is coming very
soon with this. But for this episode, thank you all
so much for joining me for mom Street USA and
(49:35):
I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Bye. Everyone,
Welcome everybody to Mom Street, USA. My name is Jackie
aka Wishes Mama, And on today's episode, we are going
to be continuing our revisit of our one day park strategies,
and today we're going to be talking about Magic Kingdom.
So we figured we would kind of hop here to
Disney after we did Universal Studios last episode with our
(00:27):
good friends Duck and Jess.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
So this episode we figured we'd hop into probably the
biggest Disney park with the most attractions to consider. So
today we're going to be chatting about what is a
good course of action if I am only going to
be spending one day at Magic Kingdom, What is kind
of my plan of attack? And what should I do
(00:52):
if I want to get as much done as I
can in only one day. So, like I said, this
is a revisit of this. We did this several years
ago here on Mom Street. But so much has changed
in the parks, and things are constantly changing anyway, so
you'll hear us talk about that throughout the series, especially
at Disney. There's a ton of construction at all of
(01:14):
the Disney parks right now. It feels like so a
lot of new is coming, a lot of new has
popped up since we last covered all of this, so
we're going to do our best to give you the
most accurate information for now. And you know what, if
in a year or so we need to revisit these again,
we will definitely do that for sure. So let's hop
(01:34):
to Magic Kingdom. A couple of just general notes about
Magic Kingdom is that the area in the front of
the park that is called Main Street USA opens before
early entry. So what is early entry. Well, we did
a whole episode on early entry and rope drop not
that long ago, but early entry is the time that
(01:55):
Disney resort guests get to have a little bit of
extra time in the parks. So typically thirty minutes before
official park open at Magic Kingdom is their early entry time.
Magic Kingdom typically opens at nine. There are a few
days that it opens at eight or that it opens
at eight instead, so take a look at your My
(02:18):
Disney Experience app or the Disney World website for those
park hours, But typically Magic Kingdom opens at nine, so
eight thirty would be that early entry time for resort guests,
so you can get there fairly early and then get
your castle and Main Street photos before your rope drop
(02:39):
time happens, So again, seventy five minutes before park open
is when that's going to happen. Now, taking let's talk
about transportation to Magic Kingdom, because Magic Kingdom is a
little tricky to get to, just because the parking lot
is actually not directly on site outside of the gates.
It was built that way intentionally. Walt wanted it to
(03:02):
be a kind of more magical approach to the park,
so he didn't want you just to walk up after
you got out of your car, So you have to
park at the Transportation and Ticket center if you are driving,
or if you are doing any sort of ride share.
So because of that, especially if you're on property and
have access to Disney buses, those buses are the best
(03:26):
transportation method to get to Magic Kingdom. Now, I know
the buses can be a pain, but they truly are
the best because they drop you the closest that you
can get to the main gate. When it comes to transportation, now,
the only other better option to that would be if
you are staying on a monorail resort or one of
(03:46):
the resorts that are close by the Magic Kingdom that
has bus transportation. Those are great options as well. Because
they all drop you very close to that entrance plaza
for Magic Kingdom. Again, if you are taking like an
uber or a lyft or ride share, they will take
you to the TTC, unless it's a mini van that
has operated under a lyft, those will actually take you
(04:09):
to the same drop off location that the buses take you.
And just another general note if you're someone who maybe
has been to Disney but not super recently. They actually
in the last several months have adjusted their early entry
process for resort guests. So it used to be that
they would scan you in kind of on the right
(04:31):
hand side of the hub, and then they would hold
you right between Cosmic Rays and the Tomarland Speedway as
you were looking at the teacups kind of in that
space right there. Well, they have shifted the way that
they do their early entry, so now they still scan
you in at the same location. You still get scanned
(04:51):
in your party for early entry, we'll have to have
a ticket or a magic band checked to make sure
that you are a resort guest. But after that they
actually let you go and queue at whatever attraction it
is that you're trying to ride first, So any of
the attractions that are open during that early entry time,
which would be Fantasy Land and tomorrow Land minus Tron,
(05:14):
You can actually go and stand in line to wait
to get into the queues for those attractions. So they
kind of shifted that a little bit away from the
old system that we have known for years and years.
I kind of like this better, but it really means
that you have to get to the park super early
because they're going to start letting people scan in to
(05:35):
go queue up at those rides. Pretty much ride at
park open, so it's not like something where you have
to congregate and wait to be scanned in until early
entry starts. Nope, they are pretty much going to let
you go to that attraction and queue up there, And
sometimes those attraction cues will even open fifteen twenty thirty
minutes before early entry starts to let people start to
(05:57):
go through the ques. You'll especially find that at something
like Seven Doors Mind Train or Peter Pan at Magic Kingdom.
So keep that in mind. You really want to make
sure you know exactly where you're going, and you really
want to make sure that you get there early. So
I know it can be a major pain to get
up super early on vacation, but especially at a park
(06:19):
like Magic Kingdom, it is super super important. So the
way that we're going to set this up today is
we're going to do kind of two different scenarios for
your one day of Magic Kingdom. The first scenario that
we are going to talk about is if you are
going to the park and you are utilizing lightning lanes,
so you have purchased multi pass and single passes and
you are planning to use those lightning lanes for your day.
(06:44):
The second plan of attack that we are going to
talk about today for Magic Kingdom will be if you
are not planning to use lightning lanes, what does that
day look like? How does it differ things like that? Now,
the thing about Magic Kingdom is there are probably five
(07:04):
different really solid itinerary choices that you can make to
make the most of your day. It really depends on
who is in your travel party, what attractions are important
to them, uh, and whether or not this is something
that you've already like you've already been to Magic Kingdom,
either on this trip or a previous trip, or you know,
(07:25):
recently within the last couple of years. So lots of
variables when it comes to that, especially if you're traveling
with kids. Aren't they young kids? Aren't they older kids?
Are they thrill seekers? Are they not? So I'm going
to go through kind of two different options sort of
for your morning time. That's kind of going to be
the biggest differences that you'll see in the varying of
(07:46):
your itineraries. So I'm going to give you two different
options that I think are both really solid options. Now,
as I go through this list, I'm going to name
the majority of the attractions at Magic Kingdom. You may
find that on this list there's two or three that
you're like, Nope, don't need to do that, or no,
I don't like thrill rides, I don't want to do that,
or Nope, we know we did that on our last
(08:08):
trip a couple of years ago. We don't need to
do it again, those types of things. If that's you, great, perfect.
I'm so glad that you know that and that you
have that kind of predetermined in your head, so that
way you can just skip that part of the itinerary
that I give you and move on to the next
part that interests you. So, like I said, I'm going
to list off the majority of the attractions at Magic Kingdom.
(08:30):
So you can pick and choose kind of from this
order that I give you, pull out the ones that
you want and create your kind of personalized itinerary from
that Before we hop in, I do just want to
mention that I am somebody who loves to do this.
I love to give specific specialized itineraries for our friends
(08:51):
that go and visit the parks. If I've got family
that's going, friends, anyone from our mom Street community, I'm
more than happy to help you. So if you're like,
I've got this crazy, big party that I'm traveling to
Magic Kingdom with, what in the world should I do?
Send me a message. I am more than happy to
help you figure out the best way to kind of
(09:12):
go about your day. Like I said, this is something
that I truly like to do. I've done it for
as long as I can remember, probably for the last
ten years for friends and family that are visiting the park.
So if you need help after you have listened to
this episode, please send me a message. Okay, all of
that being said, that was kind of a mouthful. Let's
(09:32):
talk about what we're gonna do with our lightning lanes. Now.
We're not going to talk super indepthly about what lightning
lanes are and how they work and all that kind
of stuff, because just not that long ago, we did
a whole recap on lightning lanes and I went in
depth on how to book and where on your app
to go and all of that good stuff. So if
you need specific lightning lane help, refer back to that episode.
(09:55):
But I am going to just go over some general
ideas for lightning lane at Magic Kingdom, So just some
notes you will If you are on property, which we
just talked about not that long ago, meaning you're staying
at a Disney resort or something like Shades of Green
or Swanen Dolphin, then you can book your lightning lanes
seven days before your check in date. So if your
(10:19):
check in date is on the eighth, you can book
your lightning lanes starting on the first. So keep that
in mind. If you are off property, you're not saying
it a Disney resort, maybe you're staying at somewhere near
Disney Springs or one of the other local area resorts.
You will book three days ahead of time from your
(10:40):
first park day. So it's a little bit different in
the terminology and kind of the way that you decipher
that so keep that in mind. If you're off property,
whatever day you have selected for your ticket to start
is the date that you will be is your eligibility date,
and you'll count three days before that. So on property
is check in day, off property is ticket start day.
(11:03):
So just make sure you have that kind of in
your brain to figure out when you become eligible. There
are two tiers for rides at Magic Kingdom for Lightning Lane.
Tier one is Jungle Cruise, Petapan Space Mountain and Tianas
by You Adventure. We are unsure as to what is
going to happen with Big Thunder Mountain when it reopens
in twenty twenty six. Previously it was a Tier one.
(11:24):
Don't know if they're planning to put that back on
Tier one. I would assume they probably are. I don't
know if that means that one of the other rides
is going to go to Tier two. That remains to
be seen, so we will have to kind of just
wait and see what Disney does about that. We don't
even know the date for Big Thunder yet at this
point that I'm recording this, so we're just gonna have
to kind of wait and see with that. Your Tier
(11:45):
two rides there's a whole slew of them, but Barnstormer, Dumbo,
Hana Mansion, Small World, Mad Tea Party, Magic Carpets of Aladin,
Many Ventures of Winnie the Pooh, phil Harmagic, Monsters and
Laugh Floor, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tomorrowland Speedway under the Sea,
Journey of the Little Mermaid. So those are all your
Tier two attractions. Just a note that when Disney changed
to the most recent iteration of Lightning Lanes, they took
(12:08):
off all of the character Met and Greets, so no
characters on there for that. The two single past options
that you have are Tron and Seven Dwarves, so those
are both really great options to save a little extra
in your budget to utilize that as well. Now, my suggestion,
(12:29):
because we're talking about if you are using Lightning Lanes
for this first section, my suggestion is Tier one to
book either Jungle Crews or Tiana's By You Adventure, and
then for Tier two, so you get one in Tier
one two and tier two. For tier two, I would
look at something like Haunted Mansion, Pirates, or Winnie the Pooh.
(12:50):
Those are going to be kind of your three best
options to choose from. You're gonna want to book your
first ride approximately sixty to ninety minutes after park opened
so that you can take advantage of the early morning
lower crowds. So even on even if you're someone that
doesn't have early entry, if you get there still at
rope drop, you're gonna have at least an hour's worth
(13:10):
of lower crowds, if not closer to ninety minutes, maybe
two hours on a slow day. So you don't want
to necessarily start your lightning lanes super early in the
day because you're going to be able to get through
more standby options that early in the morning. Just something
else to note as you are pre booking these lightning
lanes is you really want to pay attention to the
(13:33):
location in the park that your rides are in what
time you have that are available. The best advice I
have is to book your rides as early as possible,
starting at that sixty to ninety minute window. So if
the park opens at nine, your first lightning lane could
be ten o'clock. And ideally, now the app won't let
you overlap your ride times as much as I wish
(13:56):
it would, but you can you can overlap them about
fifty teen minutes, so ideally you've got a ten o'clock,
you've gotten a ten forty five, then you've got what
would that be and eleven thirty you know, for your
first three multi pass rides, and then you can fit
in your single pass rides after that. Aspect for that
(14:16):
another note, taking times to do things like parades, the
stage show, cavalcades. Those can be inserted anywhere in this
plan that we're going to talk about. However, keep in
mind that that will eat up a large portion of
your day if you plan to do a lot of those,
and it will minimize the amount of rides that you
can accomplish. Now, if those shows and experiences are high
(14:40):
on your priority list, then please, by all means do them.
I'm not going to necessarily talk about things like Country Bears,
Tiki Room, the Stage Show, the Adventure Friends Cavalcade, like
we're not going to necessarily include those in our list
for this itinerary because we're just focusing primarily on the attractions.
But do keep in mind that you can fit any
(15:01):
of those in depending on where you're at and what
time it is. The Festival of Fantasy Parade, which is
typically either a two or three pm parade, and the
Adventure Friend's Cavalcade, which right now I believe is like
an eleven ish Am Cavalcade currently now check your app
they have the most up to date times. Both of
(15:22):
those will start by Tiana's By You Adventure and end
by the train station and fire station down Main Street. Now,
if you want to see the new Starlight Nighttime Parade
at Magic Kingdom, it goes the opposite way. It starts
by the fire station and the train station, goes towards
the Castle and then around the corner and ends at
Tiana's By You Adventure. So keep that in mind based
(15:44):
on where you're located in the park in what time
the experience is starting to kind of plan whether or
not that's something that's going to fit into your itinerary
for the day. The stage show, which is Mickey's Magical
Friendship Fair, is at the Castle. It is a really
(16:04):
good way to see characters if you don't want to
spend a ton of time in lines to see those characters.
You will see the Fab five no Fab six sorry,
are in there. Tangled characters, Princess and the Frog characters,
and Frozen characters all in that stage show. So if
(16:26):
you want to kind of see them all and you
don't necessarily need the direct character interaction with them. That
stage show maybe a really good way to see them.
All of those characters are in the Festival Fantasy Parade,
and most of those are in the new Starlight Parade
as well. You can see Alsa, you can see Tiana
(16:48):
and Nvin, you can see Rapunzel and Flynn. That parade's
fairly new. I'm trying to rack through it in my brain,
and most of the Fab six characters are in there,
so you'll still be able to see most of those
in the Starlight Parade as well. So that is a
really good use of your time if you are someone
that wants to see characters, doesn't necessarily need the one
(17:09):
to one interaction with them, and you're trying to save
some time. So you really just have to think about
what your priority is when it comes to characters and
those parades and shows to kind of decide whether or
not you want to include those in your itinerary, and
again check your app in the morning, like when you're
on your way to the park to see what the
most up to date showtimes are because those are pretty standard. However,
(17:36):
there are certain aspects that may cause those to be
adjusted changed throughout the day, so just little things to
keep in mind. With that, all of that being said
and done, let's jump into what our itinerary is going
to look like. So with Magic Kingdom, you're going to
want to be there at least forty five minutes before
(17:57):
you can enter the park. A different courses of action.
If you are early entry, I highly suggest you rope
drop Fantasyland. If you are doing just regular rope drop entry,
you are going to want to head over to Frontierland
and Adventureland. So again with early entry, only Fantasyland and
(18:19):
Tomorrowland are open minus Tron, So you have all of
fantasy Land, and you have Space Mountain, and you have
buzz Light Ear when it reopens after the refer will
be another one the other side of the park, Adventureland, Frontierland,
Liberty Square that doesn't even open until park open, so
(18:40):
it's not part of early entry, so you don't even
need to worry about that if you're planning to do
early entry. So in Fantasyland, your first stand by rides
are going to be either Peter Pan or Seven Dwarfs.
I would do Peter Pan if you've booked a single
pass four seven Dwarves. Now, if seven Dwarves is really
high on your list and you to try to ride
(19:00):
it twice, you've booked a single pass, then go ahead
and do it stand by first thing in the morning
to kind of get that first ride in, and then
your second ride will be with your single pass lightning
lane that you've booked. After that, check the wait time.
For many adventures of Winnie the Pooh, this ride gets
a super long weight because because it is closest in
(19:22):
proximity to seven doors mind train. So any family that's
got kiddos that are not tall enough for seven Dwarves
or don't want to ride seven Dwarves, they go directly
across the way to Winnie the Pooh, So check that one.
If it's got a lower weight time, go ahead and
get in line. If that line is not all the
(19:43):
way through the garden, thumbs up, your good to go
when it comes to Winnie the Pooh. And you can
see that kind of from the front gate, which is
which is helpful. If you are like buy the Little
Beehive interactive area, go ahead and wait. You're looking at
maybe twenty twenty five at the very most, but likely
less than that. Because you don't have lightning lanes slowing
(20:03):
down those lines this early in the morning. After that,
you can kind of make your rounds. You can hit
under the Sea with Little Mermaid, and you can hit
Small World, and that will kind of round out the
majority of your Fantasyland attractions. Now you just really have
to plan initially for Peter Pan and Seven Dwarfs. If
you do Peter Pan first, I would then still do
(20:23):
the same thing where you're gonna head from Peter Pan,
don't do Small World yet, head back over towards Winnie
the Pooh to check Winnie the Pooh. If it's too long,
or you can see on your app that it's too long,
swing around. Then you can do Little Mermaid and then
over to Small World. But either way, the majority of
your early entry time for our Disney resort guests is
(20:46):
best spent in Fantasyland because you can knock out a
lot of those rides very quickly during that early entry time. Now,
if you are someone that is not doing early entry
and you are going just at park open, your best
bet is going to be heading over to the adventure
Land side of the park because the early entry guests
(21:06):
have not been over there because it's not open during
early entry. So if you are going adventure land side,
your options for rope drop are going to be Jungle Cruise.
If that's high on your list and you didn't book
a lightning lane for it, you're definitely going to want
to rope drop. That Big Thunder Mountain when it reopens
in twenty twenty six is a great option for rope
(21:28):
drop over there, as well as Tianus by You Adventure.
So those would be my top three that I would
kind of choose between priority wise. Again, some of these
you may book on your UH with your lightning lanes.
Like I said earlier, I really suggest Jungle Cruise as
one because that ride is really popular regardless of what
(21:48):
time of year. It's really popular with the holiday overlay
right now as I'm recording this, but it's really popular
no matter what, and it is a hard lightning lane
to get later in the day. We don't know what
Big Thunder Mountain is going to look like with the
new REFERB and how popular it may or may not be.
It's a very high capacity ride, so it typically doesn't
get a super long line in the morning, but that
(22:09):
remains to be seen when it reopens, I imagine there
will be kind of a big surge of people that
want to go there first just to revisit Big Thunder
Mountains since it's been so long since we've all been
able to ride it. And the same thing with Tiana's
Bio Adventure. It doesn't necessarily get a super long line
in the morning. You do have to be careful because
it doesn't always like to open first thing in the morning,
(22:31):
So be sure you have a place that you're going
to pivot to if Tiana's Bio Adventure does not open,
make sure you know what your secondary choice is when
it comes to that. So those would be my suggestions,
and then after those for other standby options, you can
do Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. Both of
those over on that side of the park should be
(22:52):
fairly low weights for you to be able to kind
of get all of that done during your first hour
ish of the park being open, depending on weights. Now,
if you happen to be there on a morning where
weights don't look too terrible. Once you've gotten through Fantasy Land,
if you're an early entry person, then head over to
(23:13):
Adventure Land and follow through the rest of that plan
that I just gave, because chances are you may still
be able to hit three or four of those rides
before your first lightning lane time even starts. That means
that you're gonna get those bonus rides on your lightning lanes,
or you're gonna have less stress trying to get some
of those times on your lightning lanes later in the day.
(23:37):
So it just really depends on how busy the park is.
Pull up your My Disney Experience app make sure you've
got those weight times loaded and you're keeping an eye
on them in the mornings. Like first thing. Often times
those weight times on My Disney Experience will be a
little bit inflated. So if you see something like a
thirty and you're like, uh, maybe go ahead and get
(23:59):
in line and see how it's moving. If it's moving
continuously and you don't feel like you're just like at
a standstill, chances are it's probably less than a thirty
for the majority of these attractions. It really just depends.
It's hard to predict sometimes, but that's kind of my
suggestion with that overall, Before I hop over to what
(24:19):
you're gonna want to do next. After that, let's talk
about Tron, So I do highly suggest that you book
Tron for a single pass lightning lane, especially if you're
planning to use lightning lanes. It is a fabulous use
of your budget for that. I do not suggest doing
that at rope drop one because it doesn't open for
(24:40):
early entry like the rest of that line does. However,
you will have resort guests that go and stand in
line for the line to open at park open, So
that is a really tricky one to rope drop. So
I really unfortunately don't suggest you do it if you
want to do it twice and you've booked a single
(25:01):
pass for it already, but you want to be able
to do it stand by. My biggest suggestion is to
go like lunchtime around twelve twelve thirty. If you see
that weight drop to around thirty thirty five minutes, go
ahead and get in line. My rule of thumb for
that one is if the line is not outside of
(25:25):
the main archway that's like up all the way on
the platform. If it's inside those those switchbacks that are
not outside of that kind of archway, you're probably good
to go to go ahead and wait in that standby
line you're looking at thirty five ish minutes from there.
When it comes to Tron, typically now things can happen.
(25:46):
You know, they can have loading issues, cars can have
you never know, right, but generally speaking, that's kind of
my rule of thumb when it comes to Tron. The
other time you can check is in the evening. Now
that we've got the news Starlight parade. It pulls a
good crowd away from the rides at the evening because
you've got the parade directly into the fireworks. If you're
(26:09):
someone that is either planning to stay for the second parade,
because there are two nighttime parades right now, if you're
someone that's planning to stay for the second parade, maybe
the first parade and the fireworks would be a good
time to go to hit Tron and then that way
you'll be done with it by the time the second
parade is getting ready to start. So those are my
(26:29):
suggestions for Standby. Again, I'll reiterate this later when we
talk about not using lightning lanes, but I would definitely
book a single pass for that and then use those
tips to get you a second ride if you really
want to do that twice one time through Standby. So
all of that being said, after you've kind of whisked
(26:50):
your way through one of those two plans, either Fantasyland
or adventure Land, then you're going to want to start
just utilizing your lightning lanes. So you're going to use
your first lightning lane. As soon as everybody taps in
for that first lightning lane, you're going to be able
to book a secondary lightning lane. You can always hold
three at any given time when it comes to multipass,
(27:11):
So if you're using multi pass and you've got a
seven Dwarves and a tron booked, you're going to see
five lightning lanes on your plan for the day, which
is a great way to set up your day. If
you are someone that is only planning on one day
at Magic Kingdom, that is the best course of action
when it comes to that. But if you didn't get
some of those, then that list becomes the order that
(27:34):
you attempt to book next, So things like Winnie the Pooh,
things like Big funder Mountain whenever it reopens, things like
Haunted Mansion, Tianas, Bioadventure, those rides. If for some reason
you weren't able to get those done during that first
sixty to ninety minutes of the park being open. That
becomes your priority list for booking your lightning lanes. As
(27:55):
far as lightning lanes go, you just want to book
them as early as possible, as close together as possible.
And if they don't give you a time that you want.
Let's say you use your first lightning line, you try
to book a Winny of the Pooh, it gives you
a six PM. Don't give up, keep modifying, keep refreshing
that app as you're waiting in line, and something new
(28:15):
should pop up to give you a better time. You've
just got to be patient and really diligent about it
so that way you'll be able to utilize that. Now,
that will take up the majority of your morning right
Everything that you're doing during that early entry time, everything
that you're doing right after in your first several lightning
lanes will take you all the way up to lunchtime.
(28:36):
If you are planning a quick lunch, which I do
suggest if you've only got one day at Magic Kingdom,
there are tons of different places that you can mobile
order from. Mobile ordering will save you a ton of
time when it comes to those lunch spots. I do
suggest trying to do lunch a little bit earlier. Eleven
eleven thirty is great. When you get closer to noon,
(28:57):
those places get a lot busier, it gets a lot
more hectic and crazy in there. But Casey's Corner, Columbia
Harbor House, Friar's Pinocchio Village House, all of those are
really great options for mobile ordering. So do that kind
of after you have run through your first set of
standby lines and gotten through your first maybe two to
(29:19):
three lightning lanes. Close to eleven eleven thirty would be
my suggestion for that. So after lunch, you're really going
to be looking at the weight times and kind of
living on your app for what has a low weight
or what times are available for your next lightning lanes.
So I'm going to kind of run down the next
(29:40):
kind of general list of attractions. Some of these you
may be able to do just stand by if they've
got a fifteen or twenty minute weight. Some of these
you may go, ooh, that's got a time for a
lightning lane coming up in twenty minutes from now. That's
perfect timing for us to get over there. Let's go
ahead and book that. It really just depends on the
crowd for the day. And what lightning lanes you've already
(30:03):
been able to get through at this point in your day.
You kind of have to hop around between the app
and the lightning lane to like the tip board part
of the app and the map part of the app
that will show you the weight times. The other thing
that you can do is kind of think about these
in clusters. So something like the first two on this
list are Barnstormer and Dumbo. Barnstormer might need a lightning
(30:27):
lane in the afternoon because a lot of little kids,
once you get through all of the bigger rides, a
lot of little kids still want to do Barnstormers, so
it can get like a forty minute weight. Dumbo, because
it's got a higher capacity with the double sides, typically
has closer to like a twenty five minute weight. So
maybe you book Barnstormer on lightning lane, maybe it's twenty
(30:47):
minutes from now, and maybe you go and ride Dumbo
in the meantime. So you can kind of cluster some
of these together to make it make sense with like
geographically where you're going in the park. So again, things
like Barnstormer, Dumbo, and even Mad Tea Party can be
thrown in that kind of little group, and then Magic
Carpets of Aladdin is kind of off on its own
(31:09):
little island over back towards Jungle Cruise. You maybe are
able to hit that while you're over on that side
of the park to kind of get that adventure land
side done. When it comes to between lightning lanes for
Jungle Cruise and Pirates and doing standby for Magic Carpets,
depends on your timing and things like that, Phil Harmagic,
(31:30):
Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, and the tomorrow Land Speedway. Again,
you just really have to kind of think about some
of those. You will not absolutely not need to book
with a lightning lane. Something like phil Harmagic very rarely
gets more than a fifteen to twenty minute wait because
it is such a high capacity theater. So you really
just have to look at where am I at in
(31:51):
the park, trying to avoid going cross all the way
from side to side, and kind of thinking about it
that way. After that, those kind of that I've listed,
you've got just a handful left. The railroad right now
because of construction and for the foreseeable future, probably several years,
the train is not the railroad is not running the
(32:14):
full loop around Magic Kingdom. It is just a shuttle
train the main Street station and the Fantasyland station, which
is like near Storybook Circus right by Barnstormer that we
were just talking about, so you may want to do that.
The other two attractions that you have left would be
astro Orbiter and Buzz light Year Space Ranger Spin when
(32:37):
that reopens after its refurb Those two are a little
trickier and you may have to just keep an eye
on them throughout the day and just try to find
a time where they've got a lower weight. Buzz will
be available on Lightning Lane. Astra Orbiter does not have
a lightning lane option, so it's a really tricky one
to kind of time right, but you hopefully will be
(32:59):
able to find where it's maybe a twenty or twenty
five and that's not terrible for that. After that, you
can think about things like the Carousel, People Mover, and
then that's where those shows come in. Country Bears, Hall
of Presidents, carousela Progress, and Channa Tiki Room. All of
those are great filler options if you're like waiting on
a lightning lane time to become eligible and you're nearby,
(33:21):
those are great filler rides if you've got the availability
in your schedule. The other thing to think about is
those character meet and greets. Again, we talked earlier about
the fact that there are no lightning lanes unfortunately for
the character meet and greets, so you're really just gonna
have to gauge whether or not that's something you're interested in.
You know, there are some that are stationary, like the
(33:41):
princesses that meet in Fantasyland are always located there. You've
got some that are more roaming characters. You've got, you know,
various different options when it comes to that, So just
take a look and see what really interests your group.
Maybe pick one or two and figure out where it
makes sense geographically for them to be fit into your eye.
Itenerary with the understanding that chances are good it's going
(34:03):
to be a thirty minute wait for a lot of
those characters. So after you've kind of filled your afternoon
with some of those rides that I just kind of
threw at you rapid fire there, you're gonna want a
mobile order dinner. Again, the same list that we talked
about earlier as far as locations somewhere to go, and
then the evening is really just your cleanup time. We
(34:23):
talked about this at Universal Studios with Duck and Jess
last episode as well, that that evening is really just
your cleanup time. Chances are maybe you're just like, nope,
you know, we've done everything we wanted to do for
the day. We're just gonna relax. We're gonna have a
nice relaxing dinner. We're gonna watch the parade and the
fireworks and just enjoy our evening in the parks. That
(34:46):
is an amazing way to spend the end of your
day after you've been running around like crazy and Magic
Kingdom all day, or maybe you took a longer lunch
and so now you're gonna want to try and hit
something like Tron, or you're gonna want to go back
and try to hit something like seven Do Again or
Tiannas by Your Adventure or Big Thunder Mountain whenever it reopens.
You know, those evening hours are also a good time
(35:07):
to get some of those more e ticket attraction, those
big throw rides. If you can get an additional ride
on those, that's the best time to do it. I
think that kind of gives you most of the attractions
kind of something to think about when it comes to
planning your day with light lightning lanes, Again, I didn't
give you a specific plan because it really just determines.
(35:30):
It's really just determined by the day that you go
and what the availability looks like for those lightning lanes.
Are you willing to sit and refresh because if you
know me, you know I'm really good at getting lightning lanes. Well,
that's because I have the patience to sit and refresh
my app and be ready to jump on a time
whenever it pops up. So it really just depends on
(35:50):
how much you want to be on your phone, how
much you want to do that refreshing of those lightning lanes,
and what the availability just looks like. You know it
very so much day to day. There's no way to
predict what times are going to pop up for you
whenever you go to book your additional lightning lanes. But
just remember you can book every ride once on multipass
(36:11):
the ones that are eligible for multi pass, and you
can always hold three multi pass lightning lanes at one time.
So if any point in time, you hop on your
app and you're like, oh, I've only got one or
two booked, hop onto that tipboard. To see what else
is available. Go ahead and book it. You can always
try and modify it later. So those are my biggest
suggestions when it comes to lightning lanes at any park,
(36:33):
but specifically Magic Kingdom, because that's what we're talking about
right now. Now, let's talk about a game plan if
we are not using lightning lanes and what that will
look like now with Magic Kingdom. If you are someone
that wants to get in as many rides as humanly
possible at Magic Kingdom, chances are you're not going to
(36:56):
have a ton of time to do shows, characters, parades,
five works, so you really have to decide your priority list.
This is extra hard now that we've got that new
starlight parade in the evening times. That kind of uh
makes the evening a little bit harder. Previously, when it
was just happily ever after, if you had seen it,
(37:16):
or you weren't a firework person, or you didn't care
to see it from the front of the castle, was
much easier to maneuver around and not have to worry
about that. Now that starlight is a thing, a lot
more people are not riding rides in the evening time,
which is great. If that is something that you are
wanting to do as well, So just keep that in
(37:37):
mind as we go through. You're not going to hear
me talk about a lot of shows, parades, fireworks in
this specific itinerary because there is so much to do
with Magic Kingdom now. The morning, if you're not using
lightning lanes, the morning is going to seem fairly similar
to what we just talked about. You are going to
If you are an early entry resort guest, you're going
(37:59):
to head to Fantasyland. If you are a regular guest
off property, you're gonna head to the Frontierland, Adventureland Side
Again fantasy Land. You're looking at Peter Pan or Seven
Dwarves as your first ride that you're gonna queue up for.
After that, you're gonna look at things like the opposite
of that. Right if you did Seven Doors, check the
Peter Pan line or vice versa, many adventures of Winnie
(38:20):
the Pooh being your next ride in that specific area.
For the Adventureland, Frontierland Side Jungle Cruise would be my
first option. Big Thunder Mountain is a good one once
it reopens. Tiana's By You Adventure, and then Hana Mansion
and Pirates so those lists for your morning pretty much
don't change whether you're using lightning lanes or not. It's
(38:42):
really that is just the best course of action no
matter who you are, visiting the parks in the morning
in my personal opinion, again, once you have hit one,
like if you're a Fantasyland rope dropper because you've got
early entry, but you want to hit some of those
adventure Land rides, do your top two in fantasy Land
(39:02):
and then head over to Adventureland to catch the rope
drop over there. But I would say two rides in Fantasyland,
maybe three if it's a really slow morning, and then
hop over to the Adventureland side to rope drop over
there as well. The thing that is really hard when
you're not using lightning lanes are those two single pass rides.
(39:23):
And you'll hear me talk about those single pass rides
at every other park two during lightning lane itineraries and
no lightning lane itineraries. Those single pass attractions are the biggest,
the biggest time consumption that you're gonna have at these
parks when you're visiting. So Tron is a really, really
tough one to get on, just because it doesn't open
(39:46):
with early entry, even though it's in Tomorrowland, all those
things we talked about earlier. I highly highly suggest that
if you're able to budget even just a tiny amount
for Magic Kingdom a little bit of extra, do the
single pass for Tron. You don't necessarily need to for
seven doors, because you can rope drop that. As long
(40:07):
as you get there early, you'll be on and off
there fairly quickly if you're able to get up and
get going in the morning. Tron is so hard to
get on without spending thirty to sixty minutes or more
in line, So I highly suggest if you're able to
find those few extra dollars per person to do your
Tron single pass. Otherwise, again, you can try to rope
(40:31):
drop it, but chances are there's going to be a
long line there and you're going to spend an hour
at least probably in the morning to devote to Tron,
which means then you're going to be skipping out on
seven Dwarfs Peter Pan Jungle Cruise, you know. So you
really just have to decide now, if Tron is your
absolute top priority, then go ahead and rope drop it.
(40:54):
But you just have to understand that it's a give
and take situation when you're not using those lightning lanes
at Magic so again lunchtime or parade time, evening time,
you just really have to keep an eye on what
those wait times are doing. And again, look, go and
look at the physical line. I know what's annoying to
walk all the way up there. But if that standby
(41:16):
line is underneath and not outside of the main entry
at the very top of that platform, you're looking around
thirty five minutes, so that can be a really good gauge.
If that line starts to come out and down the walkway,
come back another time. It's not worth it at that moment.
Come back another time to try again. Your morning is
(41:38):
going to be spent Fantasyland, adventure Land, or vice versa,
trying to get as many of those rides done as possible.
So let's say you are an early entry guest. If
it were me, I would do Seven Dwarves, Winnie the Pooh.
Then I would do I don't need to do Peter Pan,
I don't need to do Jungle Cruise. Personal opinion, so
(41:58):
I would do Seven Dwarves, Many Ventures, Winnie the Pooh,
I would do Mermaid and Small World, and that would
knock out most of Fantasy Land for us. Then I'd
head over to Tiana's well haunted mansion Tianas and Pirates,
and that would be most of my morning before lunchtime. Again,
mobile ordering for lunch can save you a ton of
time and a headache of having to wait in line
(42:18):
and figure all that out. So the same places that
we talked about earlier for lunch, places like Casey's Corner,
Cosmic Rays at Columbia Harbor House, Friar's Nook, and Pinocchio
Village House are all decent options. Again, theme park food,
you know how it is. I really like the new
menu over at peycost Bill as well, which I don't
(42:39):
think I mentioned that earlier. It wasn't initially on my
list when I started this. Now your afternoon is going
to be almost identical to what you did or what
we just talked about with lightning lanes, only you're not
gonna be looking lightning lanes, so you really are gonna
have to live on that app. You're gonna have to
see what those weight times look like, and how can
I cluster rides close together. I'm not having to go
(43:01):
all the way across the park to get to those
shortwait times, so clustering together Mad Tea Party, Dumbo, and
Barnstormer most of those three attractions. Again I said earlier,
Barnstormers sometimes gets along line. It just really depends on
the day. Doing things like Filharmagic, Monsters, Inc. Laf Floor
may or may not be on your list. There are
(43:22):
more shows and not rides, so it just depends on
your personal preference. Magic Carpets of Aladdin is a good
one to kind of throw in when you're over on
that side of the park. Again, same with Tomorrowland Speedway
when you're near kind of Mad Tea Party, that could
go up with that group as well. So really just
kind of geographically making your secondary list based on what
(43:45):
you know you're gonna want to do after you run
through that morning list. So ultimately the afternoon is gonna
be almost identical other than you're gonna be using lightning
lanes for some whereas you're gonna be doing all stand
by obviously if you're not doing lightning lanes. But those
rides that you're really doing in the afternoon are pretty
identical across the board. Again, things like the Train, character
(44:08):
meet and greets, those shows like Country Bears, Tiki Room.
You may not have time for those when it comes
to not using lightning lanes, because your time is going
to be more spent waiting in those key lines for
the attractions that you want to do. So you really
got to make that priority list of this this afternoon.
You really have to know, Okay, these are our top
three rides we really want to try to get in
(44:29):
this afternoon, so you can make those a priority and
then go from there. You'll probably be able to get
in four to five rides before dinner time. Again, mobile
ordering is a huge, huge benefit when it comes to
Magic Kingdom, especially because those quick service restaurants can be
very overwhelming, again trying to eat when it's not prime
(44:53):
meal time. So maybe your dinner is closer to four
or closer to seven, you know, and not kind of
in that five six o'clock rush hour, with your lunch
closer to eleven, closer to one, you know, depending on
what you're able to do or if you want to
grab a snack along the way. Tons of options when
it comes to that as well. And then in the
(45:13):
evenings again, any other rides that you missed or second
rides of attractions that wait times have come down. Now
that it's winding down to the evening, take a look
at what time the Starlight Parade and Happily ever After
are running right now, it's been typically that Starlight is
eight and ten and Happily ever After is at nine,
(45:37):
But changes you're based on the time of year, based
some of the sun's going down, right, because all of
those have to happen after it has you know, started
to get dark at Magic Kingdom. So take those things
into consideration whenever you're looking at your list of your
evening rides, because if you're not planning to do any
of those, any of the either of the parades or
(45:59):
the fire works, you're gonna have a lot more time
to work with in the evening. If you're planning to
do the fireworks or the parade, highly suggests the second
parade because it will be far less busy, a lot
easier to kind of walk up within the last you know,
ten fifteen minutes before the parade starts to find a
decent spot. That first parade is always really really packed
(46:20):
because families with the youngest kids in the park are
wanting to do the parade and get out or do
the parade the fireworks and get out right because it
becomes very very late for those little littles. So keep
that in mind. Go back to the rides that you
were rope dropping to see whether or not those are
going to be rides that you want a secondary chance
(46:41):
at getting in line for, because even things like seven
Dwarves during Happily ever after that weight time does tend
to drop. And the other thing that you have to
consider is that during that time a lot of lightning
lanes are not being utilized, so the standby line does
go by quicker. That's not something we've necessarily talked about yet,
but that is something to consider with your early and
later stand by times. You don't have as many lightning
(47:04):
lanes overlapping that are going to slow down your standby line.
So just something else to consider when it comes to
your evening time at Magic Kingdom is whether or not
the rides that you want to get on are going
to be a ride that has a high capacity, has
a high amount of lightning lanes, it may still be
coming through. All those types of things are things to consider,
(47:26):
but generally speaking, that is kind of my suggestion a
little fast and furious to get you through Magic Kingdom.
Hopefully that is helpful to you. Again, if you are
someone that's like, Okay, yep, I hear you. That all
makes sense. But I've got a group of ten and
we're going to Magic Kingdom for a day, and we've
got kids that are five, six, twelve, and fourteen. What
(47:47):
do I do? Send me a message. I am happy
to help you guys with that. I want you guys
to have a successful trip. I want you guys to
feel like you can accomplish everything you want to accomplish
on you or Magic Kingdom or any other park day.
Right This is part of our one day Park Strategy
series that we are in the middle of right now
(48:08):
on mom Street, hitting all three of the Universal parks
in all four Disney parks, so stay tuned for the
other parks coming up. We are going to be headed
to Animal Kingdom next and then we are going to
hop back to Universal to do Islands of Adventure after that.
So we've got some more parks coming your way with
(48:30):
this series. Again, as always, if you've got suggestions or
comments or questions things that you need help with when
it comes to planning your trip, please reach out to us.
We are Momstreet USA at gmail dot com. You can
find us at Momstreet USA on several different social media platforms,
and if you haven't checked out our new still somewhat
(48:52):
new Patreon account, we do post a lot of content
over there, and we will be posting over there some
graphics with the these one day itineraries kind of laid
out for you guys to be able to pick and
choose from once we kind of wrap this series, So
that is coming your way and it will be posted
on our Patreon account. So if you are someone that
(49:14):
needs that visual, head over there here in the next
coming weeks and we will have I'll try to get
those first couple done here and maybe we'll post them
in two groups for you guys to have access to
over on the Patreon account. So that is coming very
soon with this. But for this episode, thank you all
so much for joining me for mom Street USA and
(49:35):
I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Bye. Everyone,
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