New Magical Opening hours at Disney’s Magic Kingdom
One of the Disney strategies to beat the crowds was to get up at 5 AM and head over to the Magic Kingdom to watch rope drop. The characters would come out at the Magic Kingdom train station and welcome you into the park and off you would speed walk to your top attractions with little to no wait times.
This has all changed at the Magic Kingdom for several reasons.
Instead of waiting outside the park you now get to enter the Magic Kingdom. This is fantastic news as it allows you to eat, shop and see the new castle show to start your Disney day.
You can grab breakfast, or just a coffee at Starbucks and enjoy Main Street USA. This beats standing outside waiting at the Magic Kingdom gates. But there are a few disadvantages. We use to book guests at a character meal and they would get early park admission to have breakfast inside the Magic Kingdom. This allowed you to walk down an empty Main Street USA and get amazing family photos in front of Cinderellas castle with nobody in the shot. With everyone now entering the Main Street area at the same time this little secret way to enjoy breakfast and some amazing photos is now gone.
The other disadvantage is that possibly more guest will arrive early to the Magic Kingdom as they find out that they can enjoy Main Street USA and breakfast before the lands open up. So you could possibly see lines quickly forming at the top attractions and might want to look at your Disney Fastpass strategies to make sure they are still the best way to unitize your fastpass times and selections. One of our Pixie at Pixie Vacations will help you plan your fastpasses if you are an early morning riser planning on going to the Magic Kingdom.
But overall this new magical mornings at the Magic Kingdom is an advantage for you on your Disney World vacation. You just have to get up early and get to the park. You can plan a character breakfast, or Main Street USA now has lots of grab-n-go breakfast options. The kids can watch the castle show, you can shop and have items sent to your Disney resort so you don’t have to carry them around all day, and enjoy some of the little things around Main Street that most guest just walk right by.
When the ropes drop to let you into the themed lands I would head to the very back and work my way back up to avoid the crowds. So maybe knock out Big Thunder Mountain, then Splash Mountain, then Pirates of the Caribbean, or do the same thing in Torrowland or Fantasyland depending on your family mix.
However you decide to tour the Magic Kingdom on your vacation, there is defiantly an advantage for those that can get up early and beat the crowds.
