Taking your little (or maybe not so little) one(s) to Walt Disney World's
Magic Kingdom is an incredibly daunting endeavor; not to be taken
lightly. Theme Park tickets are nothing to scoff at: $105 per adult and
$99 per child ages 3-9 (as of June 2015). Most of the very popular
attractions can reach wait times upwards of 2 hours! I'm sure that for
most of you, that last thing you want to do after spending $100 per ticket, is
to spend your day baking in the hot Orlando sun waiting for a ride that lasts 5
minutes. In this article, I am going to lay out how I, along with my son
and one of my daughters (ages 5 and 3) managed to fit in around 24 attractions
in a single day at the Happiest Place on Earth.
But before we get into the day, a little bit of background first. This
wasn't our first time at Disney. We took my son and 3 daughters 2 years
ago and wound up getting Annual Passes, which gave us the opportunity to get a
feel for the different rides and took a much more leisurely pace. We've
also driven from the NYC area to Orlando as well as flown down and stayed at
various vacation homes and hotels in the surrounding area. This time
around, we stayed at the
Port Orleans - Riverside Resort and it was a
significantly different experience, which I may detail in a later post.
The reason I bring this up is because staying at the resort allowed us to 1)
take advantage of the Magic Kingdom's Extra Magic Hours (12:00AM - 2:00AM)
available only to resort guests and only on certain days, and 2) utilize the
Disney shuttle bus system to bypass the need to use the monorail (necessary if
you drive to Magic Kingdom and park).
Additionally, we made valuable use of the park’s
Fast Pass system.
Fast Pass
is available to all park guests that purchase their theme park tickets ahead of
time, and allows them to select up to 3 attractions based on availability,
often weeks in advance.
As part of each
selection, you are presented with windows of time (usually 30 minute blocks)
for which the Fast Pass is valid.
When
you show up during the scheduled time, and typically at a separate entrance,
you are scanned and allowed to bypass 95% of the line and proceed almost
directly to the front.
Once you have
used up your 3 passes for the day, you can also stop at one of the many kiosks
located throughout the park to make an additional selection. Once you use up
that Fast Pass, you are allowed to repeat the process again and again, assuming
there are available Fast Passes for that day.
Here is the effective, yet demanding, schedule we took to reach 24
attractions:
8:00 AM - Wake up the kids. I dressed in their theme park
clothes when I put them to bed, so I just brushed their teeth and we were out
the door. I also gave them cereal and juice in their stroller (Baby
Jogger City Mini Double Stroller) which they munched on while we waited for the
bus and while in transit to the park.
8:45 AM - Caught the Bus to Magic Kingdom. About 15
minute ride to the Main Gate.
9:15 AM - Finally in the park. As you enter the park, you
have 2 check points, a bag check and the ticket check. There is a center
lane at the bag check to let guests in that don't have bags. Aim for the
bag check lanes closest to the center lane as other guests typically made their
way towards the outer/closest lanes.
Ideally, I would have hoped to get to the park as it opened at 9:00 AM, but
I had to make do. Rather than starting at the front and making a circle
around (which I find to be the route of choice for most first timers), I
proceeded to go directly to the back (Fantasyland) while the rest of the
tourists were busy taking pictures on Main Street. I thought that despite
being 15 minutes behind schedule, that I was still ahead of the curve. We
made our way to Fairytale Hall, at the
Anna and Elsa Meet-and-Greet, but
found out that the line was already 90 minutes long!!!
9:20 AM - After striking out at Fairytale Hall, we quickly shifted
over to Ariel's Grotto, also in Fantasyland, where we got to do the
Ariel
Meet-and-Greet (1) with no wait.
9:30 AM - Followed up the Meet-and-Greet by doing Ariel's ride,
Under
the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid (2), also with no wait.
9:50 AM - Stayed in Fantasyland to do the
Prince Charming Regal
Carrousel (3). We only had to wait about 5-10 min for the ride to do
one set of passengers before we got on the following one.
10:05 AM - Used our first FastPass for
Peter Pan's Flight (4)
where we waited about 5 min after the FP entry to get on the ride.
Peter Pan’s Flight is typically one of
those popular attractions that always has a higher than average wait time.
10:20 AM - Went across the path to the
It's a Small World Ride (5)
with a 5 minute wait to get on.
10:45 AM - Attended the
Mickey's Philharmagic (6) show, with a
10 minute wait while the preceding show finished. Nice air-conditioned
break for about 15 minutes. My 3.5 year old did not like the 3D glasses,
while my 5 year old did just fine. Maybe it's an age thing. YMMV.
11:10 AM - Used our second Fast Pass for
Cinderella and Rapunzel
Meet-and-Greet (7), with a 5 minute wait to meet the princesses.
11:35 AM - Made our way from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland and only
waited 5 minutes with a quick stop at the
Mad Tea Party (8).
12:00 PM - We were early for our next FastPass, so we attended
another show to stay out of the heat,
Monster's Inc Laugh Floor (9).
12:25 PM - Used our third and final pre-selected Fast Pass on
Buzz
Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (10) and had no wait to get on the
ride. We used the kiosks in Tomorrowland, located next to the Monsters,
Inc. attraction to make our evening selection.
12:45 PM - As we made our way out of Tomorrowland, we caught the end
of the
Move it! Shake it! Dance Party (11) Parade near the statue of
Walt Disney and Mickey at the center of the park. They make an
interesting use of social media where they ask attendees to post selfies at the
parade and tag it using #moveitshakeitdanceparty and post it to Twitter and
Instagram, and then they select a few and post it on big screens throughout the
parade. As the parade ended, we immediately got behind the last performer
and stayed in the wake of the parade and followed it all the way down Main
Street to the entrance. The kids even got into it and started waving at
the people still on the sidewalks!
According to my plan, I wanted to force a hard stop on the day by noon/1PM
in order to A) avoid the high noon heat, B) avoid the now lengthy lines, C) get
something to eat (we had only been snacking up until then), and most
importantly, D) get the kids to sleep so that they could last the 2nd half of
our day. Either way, we had already done more attractions than our entire
first day at Disney during our initial visit.
We had to wait about 20 minutes or so for the bus back to the hotel, and
then another 20 minutes or so in transit. For those staying at the
Port
Orleans - Riverside Resort, the South Depot is the one closest to the
check-in building. We picked up a quick bite to eat, then showered as we
were all soaked in sweat at this point, and then turned in for a very long
nap. As it turns out, it actually started to downpour at around 4PM, so
I'm glad we avoided that mess!
10:00 PM - After waking up, grabbing another quick bite to eat, and
catching the bus again, we made it back to the Magic Kingdom just in time for
the start of the nightly
Wishes Fireworks Spectacular (12) where from
Town Square, we had a view of all of Main Street, Cinderella's Castle, and the
fireworks.
Alternatively, I would also recommend watching the
fireworks from within Fantasyland, as it overs a very up close view of the
fireworks overhead.
10:15 PM - Immediately after the fireworks, we ducked into the Town
Square Theater for the
Mickey Mouse Meet-and-Greet (13) which had no
wait, since everyone was outside watching the fireworks.
10:30 PM - The quick stop at Town Square Theater was just enough to
let the crowd along Main Street disperse as we made our way back to the center
of the park at the Walt\Mickey statue. We were able to get prime seating
in the middle to watch the
Celebrate the Magic (14) light show on
Cinderella's Castle.
11:00 PM - Used our fourth Fast Pass (which we selected earlier in
the day) to do the
Anna and Elsa Meet-and-Greet (15) at Princess
Fairytale Hall. Only a 5 minute wait compared to the 90 minutes that it
still was since the park opened.
11:30 PM - Using the
My Disney Experience app on my iPhone to
check the wait times for the rides, we made our way to the
Haunted Mansion
(16) which had no wait.
11:50 PM - Cutting back across Fantasyland, we made our way to the
circus. Apparently, they added a new feature to the Dumbo waiting line in
the form of a children's
Dumbo Play Area (17) which holds your place in
line while you sit and your kids play. This is an aweome idea and should
be implemented at all the major rides! More info
here.
12:15 AM - Finally managed to pry the kids away from the play area to
go on the
Dumbo the Flying Elephant (18) ride.
12:25 AM - The
Barnstormer also had no line, but unfortunately
it requires a 1:1 kid:adult ratio to ride :(
12:45 AM - Again using the
My Disney Experience app, we
went back to Tomorrowland to ride the
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
(19) again, with no wait.
Since this
attraction also typically has a massive line, we took advantage of a second go
round.
1:00 AM – Finally made our way
into Adventureland to ride
Aladdin’s Flying Carpets (20, 21, and
22).
Not only did the ride have no wait,
the operator also allowed us to stay on the ride for three consecutive
“flights”!
1:30 AM – Walking through
Frontierland looking for something that the kids could ride, we settled on
watching the
Bear’s Jamboree Show (23).
The funny thing was that there was no one else in the audience except
for us, so we were treated to our own personal show
J
1:55 AM – We wrapped up the night
with another
Peter Pan’s Flight (24) again.
2:00 AM – Now with the park
officially closed, we made our way to the exit, cutting one last time through
Cinderella’s Castle.
There was very
little foot traffic, as compared to around 10 or 11 PM, when most other
families who had spent the entire day there were calling it quits.
Tired, yet satisfied, we made our way onto
the bus, back towards the resort.
Now, this next part isn’t actually part of the 24 attractions, but I wanted
to include it because it was so amazingly clutch.
Moving aggressively throughout the park over
the last 4 hours had left us hungry.
Unfortunately, when the park closed at 2AM, so did everything else.
Frantically searching on my phone, I was
lucky to find that Dominos Pizza (
8542 Palm Pkwy, Orlando, FL 32836
(407) 239-1221) was open
until 3AM and they delivered! It is
important to note that they will ask for 1) your room number and name that it
is registered under, and 2) the phone number for the resort you are staying at
(found on the room phone, so you may want to jot it down before leaving). I
called and ordered while on the bus from the park, which really minimized the
wait once we got back to the resort.
Epic WIN!
So there you have it, 24 attractions in a single day.
If you’ve been to WDW before, you know this
is no simple feat.
However, please be
aware that this trip purposefully avoided some very popular attractions, such
as the classic
Space Mountain and the new
7 Dwarfs Roller Coaster,
since the two little ones didn’t meet the height requirements and would have
gotten upset if I rode without them ;)
My suggestion would be to utilize those Fast Passes if any of those high
speed rides are on your must-do list.
Also, note that we went right as school ended (late June), so it may
have played a factor in the wait times.
Overall, the underlying concepts should hold true.
Arrive early.
Stay at a Disney resort if your means allow, in order to access the
extra Magic Hours.
Book your Fast Passes
for early in the day, so that you can book more later.
If the line is too long, move on to another
attraction (using the WDW app to find the shortest waits) and circle back
later.
Some attractions will always have
long wait times at all hours of the day (I’m looking at you Anna and
Elsa!)
Go back to your room during the
hottest parts of the day and REST up so that you can close out the park at
2AM.
Stay hydrated and snack during any
wait times you encounter.
Save the big
meals for your rest time.
Hopefully this
has been helpful, but remember that each day is different so be prepared to
adjust to the situation on the fly and use the principles listed above to
making your magical day full of enjoying attractions, rather than waiting in
line.
Cheers!
