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!
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