Two major areas opened up this past week as part of the Cinderella Castle plaza / Hub expansion project at the Magic Kingdom. They are located at the north end of Main Street, USA, and are known as Plaza Gardens East and West. Each section features areas to sit (or lie down), as well as brand new walkways that are designed to help alleviate the congestion that is often found in this area of the park.

Most of us are used to walking all the way up to the hub and then taking one of the spokes into the various lands. However, even on an average crowd day, this can be challenging during parades, street parties, and fireworks. When it is crowded, it can be difficult to walk through that area for much of the day. Now that the Plaza Gardens walkways have been created, it will make navigating around the hub much simpler. I’m going to discuss a few new routes that can help you avoid some crowd frustration on your next visit to the Magic Kingdom.

First off, if you are walking up Main Street from the entrance, you can now take a right at the Plaza Ice Cream parlor and then your first left, which will take you directly to the bridge to Tomorrowland. This helps you completely bypass the hub, without having to go all the way up through Tomorrowland Terrace.

You can utilize this method on the west side as well. You make a left turn at Casey’s and then your first right prior to arriving at the Crystal Palace. This drops you right on the bridge to Adventureland, and also makes it easy to cut across to Liberty Square.

Probably the best use of the new walkways will occur when you are trying to leave the park. Many guests decide to call it a day around the time of the afternoon parade. Add in the Move It! Shake It! Dance & Play It! Street Party, the Main Street Electrical Parade and Wishes, and the hub area is pretty busy from 2:00 through the rest of the day. So, when coming from the Tomorrowland bridge, guests can make the new left turn before hitting the hub and take it down to The Plaza restaurant before hanging a right. When coming from Liberty Square or Adventureland, guests can bypass the hub with the new walkway on the right-hand-side headed toward Casey’s.

For many guests, these new routes may be relatively obvious. However, for those of us who have navigated the same way for so many years, I hope these tips will help you discover the road less traveled!

I hope you enjoy “Tour Guide Tuesday.” If you want additional tips while you’re in the parks, WDW Guided Tours is happy to help!