Disney Vacation Day: #1
Total Magic Kingdom rides: 9
Color: Blue
Total Steps: 17,140
Temperature: 3rd Circle of Hell
Featuring:
Overall Park Strategy
I spent weeks researching the best ways to enjoy Disney, as each park has its own ins & outs. So I gathered multiple opinions on everything from ride strategies, navigating the parks at different times of day, the best snacks, and, of course, the best cocktails. 🙂 After determining our priorities and what we wanted to spend time doing, I created our very own Montgomery Family Disney Optimization Plan, the MFDOP if you will. 😉
In a nutshelll, the plan was to tackle high priority Magic Kingdom rides before lunch when, in theory, wait times are shorter. Then take a breather around lunch to refuel and escape the heat. And lastly, tackle any remaining attractions + extra things we wanted to do later in the day, when demand, and temps, were lower.
With this logic, our day was broken into these three parts:
- Before Lunch Priority- our “must do attractions”
- Lunch Block- activities planned while we refueled & rested
- Afternoon To Do’s- remaining attractions + any attraction related things before leaving for the day
This way, we would be able to do what we had our hearts set on, with everything else being gravy. For the most part, it served us well. If you take nothing else away from this article, please have a plan before you go to Disney. It can be overwhelming and “what do next” isn’t something you want to be thinking about when you’re tired, hot, dehydrated, or a ride is down. You can find my other tips on surviving Disney here.
Magic Kingdom Itinerary
It’s Disney Vacation Day #1 and I’m SUPER excited to get going. Easily more excited than the girls, who gave me the eye when I donned my Pandora ears and all but skipped to the Magic Kingdom shuttle.
We arrived at Magic Kingdom an hour before opening, a practice known as rope dropping. Getting there early allows you to (1) gain entry sooner as Disney usually opens early, which (2) lets you enter when the “rope” drops, so you can make a beeline for your favorite attractions when lines are at their lowest.
My girls have two different mindsets. One only wants to ride thrill coasters while the other wants to take it easy and look around. So our early morning priorities were to knock out 3 of the big thrill rides, while also fitting in some of the classics.
The Before Lunch Priority list for Magic Kingdom consisted of:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Peter Pan
- It’s A Small World
- Hauted Mansion
- Big Thunder Mountain
- Splash Mountain
The Lunch Block consisted of :
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Jungle Cruise
- Lunch at Jungle Navigation Skipper Canteen
After Lunch Priorities were:
- Space Mountain
- Checking out the shops on Main Street
- Snacking
Magic Kingdom Recap
The Magic Kingdom is indeed magical, however, the day was not without its challenges. For one, it was hot as Hades in Orlando at the end of May. And combine the heat with face mask protocols (COVID-19 precautions), it was quite daunting to remain cool. Thankfully, we could pull them down while walking and in outdoor queues, as long as we maintained social distancing.
The MFDOP served us well, only had 2 kinks this day but we were able to manage them just fine. The first kink was the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. This was our rope drop attraction and we booked it over Fantasyland to knock it out first.
After about 20 minutes, with NO movement, they told us ride was down due to some technical difficulties. They didn’t know when it would open back and told us it could be minutes or hours. We waited an additional 15 mins, because we saw maintenance riding the coaster and thought it may open soon. But, alas, it did not.
Since we had a plan, we had options if rides were down or lines too long. We were able to knock out the next 3 rides on the list in about an hour. Then we circled back to the 7 Dwarfs. By prioritizing & grouping attractions, we kept our movements efficient vs. running back & forth, all will nilly, across the entire park tiring ourselves prematurely.
Splash Mountain was kink #2. It was down all morning, and when it did open, the wait time was 120 mins. After 5 hours in the heat spanning 3 of Disney’s main areas, we just didn’t have it in us to double back and wait 2 hours in the heat. Especially when the sun was at its zenith. So Splash Mountain got added to our “maybe next time” list.
Next up, Space Mountain. We tackled this one in the early afternoon, which tends to be the busiest time for Disney. But since this was the last major attraction on our list, we didn’t mind. We were in line for about an hour and have I mentioned it was hot yet? Or that there is very limited shading in the outdoor Space Mountain queue? Oh, let me mention that now….
The payoff was worth it though. We loved this ride, it’s easily in my Top 3 Magic Kingdom rides. After this, we sort of just wandered around at a slower pace, snacked, and did some window shopping before heading back to the resort.
Below are some of our pics, that do a better job of narrating the day than I could.
Oh, and I have videos up on my YouTube channel of most of our Disney adventures. My favorite Magic Kingdom moment was Big Thunder Mountain. It was our first real coaster of the day and my eldest daughter was just not ready-LOL. It’s a Small World, Peter Pan, and Haunted Mansion had her feeling laxed. Big Thunder Mountain definitely woke her up though. 🙂
Be warned, I’m mostly just laughing hysterically at my daughter for the majority of this video.
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