It’s essential to maximize your day when you visit Magic Kingdom® Park. With dozens of rides and attractions, multiple parades, fireworks shows, and character sightings, many visitors find it challenging and overwhelming to navigate. As a travel advisor who has visited, researched, and tested various strategies to optimize your time, here are my top five suggestions for maximizing your day at Magic Kingdom® Park.

1. Early Entry Tips and Strategies

For guests looking to make the most of their day, I often recommend taking advantage of Early Entry for resort guests. Guests staying on-site at a Walt Disney World® Resort hotel get thirty extra minutes in all four Walt Disney World theme parks daily. While an extra half-hour in the parks may not seem significant, it can help kickstart your day and tackle rides with longer wait times later. By knocking out rides earlier in the day, you can also enjoy the air-conditioned attractions or take a resort break during the heat of the day.

Morning Transportation Strategy

Having an effective day begins with a solid morning plan back at your resort. Transportation to Magic Kingdom® Park begins one hour prior to the Early Entry start time. For example, if Early Entry begins at 8:30, transportation begins at 7:30. For most guests, transportation to Magic Kingdom® Park will be busses with a select few resorts offering monorail or ferry transportation. My advice here is to be at the stop for your transportation method no later than an hour and 15 minutes prior to the beginning of Early Entry.

Walt Disney World Resort Lingo and Early Entry Protocol

If you’re unfamiliar with Walt Disney World® Resort, learning all the lingo is overwhelming. You may also hear people call this “rope drop” because cast members literally drop ropes to allow guests into certain areas of the park. I say certain, because Disney only opens specific sections or “lands” of the park for Early Entry. Knowing which lands have open attractions is crucial to using this time well. Ask me and I can help you discover which parts of the park are currently open during these times.

Ride Prioritization

To use the Early Entry time most effectively, you need to know which rides to prioritize. My advice here is to start your day in Fantasyland and knock out Peter Pan’s Flight followed by the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, “it’s a small world”, and Haunted Mansion. This does require a bit of backtracking, but really sets you up for success in the long run. I highly recommend that you resist the urge to join the masses rushing to ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Trying to tackle this one during Early Entry is a poor use of time. Instead, I suggest jumping in line a few minutes before the park closes or buying an individual lightning lane if this ride is important to you. Accomplishing the rides in this order helps minimize wait time while maximizing that extra half-hour. It also sets you up perfectly for the next maximization strategy – heading left.

2. Strategic Routes and Ride Prioritization

Most people tend to head to the right of Cinderella Castle when entering Magic Kingdom® Park, which is why I encourage you to head left. Left is the path less traveled and has the shortest wait times. By following this approach, you set yourself up to hit multiple heavy hitters with lower wait times. Starting in Frontierland can help you minimize your wait time for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and conquer one of Magic Kingdom® Park’s sunniest areas before the sun gets too high in the sky.

Adventureland Adventure

Conquering Adventureland can be a bit tricky as Jungle Cruise tends to wrangle a lengthy wait throughout the day. We highly recommend Disney’s Genie + Service and making Jungle Cruise your 7 AM Genie + pick. Plan to visit Pirates of the Caribbean next. By this point, it’s typically time to take a break, grab a snack or a meal and just chill for a bit. This brings us to maximization strategy #3- pace yourself.

3. Pacing and Personalization

Taking a Breather: Relaxation Recommendations for a Well-Paced Visit

Until now, our maximization strategies have been prescriptive. If you’ve done the list above and need to take a break, we recommend checking out Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room or The Hall of Presidents. Both locations provide a dark, air-conditioned space to relax for a few minutes before conquering your next attraction. Shows run continuously and typically have relatively short wait times, if they have a wait at all.

Savoring Snacks: Mobile Ordering and Spectacular Treats Near the Shows

While the shows do not allow food, grabbing a quick snack before or after is an excellent choice. Should you find yourself in need of a snack, I suggest mobile ordering. Both Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room and The Hall of Presidents have some spectacular snack offerings nearby. I highly recommend the I Lava You Float from Sunshine Tree Terrace in Adventureland (close to Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room) or Nutella Fruit Waffle from Sleepy Hollow in Liberty Square (close to The Hall of Presidents).

4. Dining Strategies

One thing that can really eat into your day is waiting in lines to order meals. Whenever possible, I suggest using mobile order within the My Disney Experience App to save yourself time. Waiting to order food can be incredibly time consuming, so finding a way around this can be beneficial. If you’re worried about members of your group making decisions in real time, you can solve this by collecting orders beforehand. Make sure you have your card information in the app as well so you’re not having to fumble around with this while you’re in the park.

Obviously, the strategy above only works if you don’t have pre-existing dining reservations or don’t intend to enjoy a table service (AKA sit down) meal. This strategy also might not be the most effective for those with food allergies, so take this one with a grain of salt. Also, keep in mind that some popular snack options, like the egg roll cart at the entrance to Adventureland don’t offer mobile order.

5. Strategies for Stress-Free Enjoyment

Strategies for Two-Day Enjoyment

If Magic Kingdom® Park is chock full of things you’d like to enjoy, you might feel a lot of pressure or stress to get it all done. While I’m all about maximizing time, I’m also about maximizing enjoyment. Let’s face it, if the day feels pressurized and stressful, you may not enjoy it as much. Adding a second day at Magic Kingdom® Park allows you to approach each one with a bit less pressure. If you opt for two Magic Kingdom® Park days, you can devote one to dining reservations and magical extras like Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique while using the other to prioritize rides. Obviously, your reservations won’t take all day, which means you can use the extra time on day two to do the things you’d hoped to achieve on day one. Alternatively, you can visit day one favorites for double the fun.

Tailoring Your Experience with a Travel Advisor

It’s no secret that a trip to Magic Kingdom® Park can be an overwhelming experience. However, beginning the day with a solid plan and expectations enables you to truly make the most of the day ahead. When you work with me as your travel advisor, I can tailor each piece of the strategy listed above. This way, it perfectly matches the wants and needs of those you’re traveling with. Do you have questions about how to maximize your Magic Kingdom® Park day? Are you looking for tips and tricks for certain rides or experiences? Drop a comment below or contact us so we can answer your specific questions.

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