We head out to Magic Kingdom on the morning of Saturday May 7th to see how morning touring goes on a day with Early Morning Magic, which I reviewed positively in this post. As a refresher, that is the $69/adult even that gets you into Fantasyland to ride Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, in addition to the buffet breakfast at Pinocchio Village Haus. There was some question as to how the 1% would affect morning touring for those headed to Mine Train first thing or those eating breakfast at Be Our Guest Restaurant before opening with plans to ride Mine Train first thing.

My assumption was that it would have very little effect and if you’re not in the mood to read the rest of this post, I will just tell you now that it doesn’t have any appreciable effect. The couple hundred people that participate in the Early Morning Magic event will be on their way to other attractions by 9am and there are easily a dozen destinations that make sense. At Animal Kingdom, 45% of the people at opening are headed to Kilimanjaro Safaris, 45% are headed to Everest, 7% are headed to DinoLand, and 3% are headed to Starbucks or are otherwise lost. At Epcot at the moment, 94% of the people are headed to Test Track, 4% are headed to Joy and Sadness, and 2% to Starbucks. At Studios, it’s Jedi Training, Toy Story Mania, and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. At Magic Kingdom, you could make the argument that heading to Mine Train, Anna/Elsa, Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Jungle Cruise, Anna/Elsa, Merida, or potentially a couple other attractions or characters make sense. So the few participants in the event are going to be spread out just because there are so many attractions that make sense.

One tip right off the bat as we head in from the bus stops. Disney may be running this temporary bank of bag checkers that are often overwhelmed in the morning as the majority of people are arriving from this side on buses, from the Contemporary, and from the ferry.

If you see a backup over there, consider heading over to the regular bag check where there will likely be no backup as far fewer people are arriving via monorail or boat.

This is 8:30am, which is a bit later than I like to arrive. Ten minutes earlier would be better, but that is not something you can always control.

This is 8:45am just after the Welcome Show starts. As will be the case most days, this area is full and guests arriving now will have to wait outside the tapstiles with a poor view of the Welcome Show and a delay in entering the Park as they wait for this area to clear.

Ordinarily I try to sneak in and enter from the side, but there were already a number of people over there so I squeezed in here instead. One thing about coming in from the side is that not a whole lot of people can effectively do it with so many people rushing in from the front.

And then the slow march up Main Street begins. You may notice the rope they use here and there is always an amusing individual that thinks that if they can just duck under it that they will then be able to have free reign into the Park.

As I’ve mentioned before, if you are not headed to Anna/Elsa, Peter Pan’s Flight, Cinderella/Rapunzel, or Merida and don’t want to deal with this slog, then you can just hang back either at the front of the Park or just inside the entrance.

It is not a big rush to Astro Orbiter, Buzz Lightyear, or Space Mountain. At one time I recommended doing Astro Orbiter first because it’s such low capacity, but very few people prioritize it and it’s often not quite ready to go by the time you would arrive there around 8:53am. So it usually makes sense to go to Space Mountain first anyway and you will fly through that without trouble through at least 9:30am.

As usual, we’re headed towards Mine Train via the path to the right of Cinderella Castle.

Toward Mad Tea Party.

This is one example of where if you can’t or don’t arrive as one of the first 300 or 400 people that you probably want to head elsewhere first thing.

This is the scene when I arrived back out front at 9:09am and the wait is easily 75 minutes.

If you’re going to wait in standby that long, it might as well be later in the day when waits will be longer elsewhere.

The first hour of operation is either the best or the second best hour of the day for touring outside of the very late night.

The Welcome Show begins 20 minutes prior to official Park open. I arrived at Mine Train at 8:55am and was standing in front of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at 9:10am.

While Shanghai received what is arguably an upgraded Pirates of the Caribbean, they also received what is basically a carbon copy of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

On one hand, it might be nice that they are receiving “a classic.”

On the other hand, Pooh’s Hunny Hunt in Tokyo is universally well-regarded.

Hopefully their ride system is more dependable than Magic Kingdom’s.

I was back out front at 9:21am, for a total experience time of 11 minutes. Winnie the Pooh is a higher priority now than it once was, probably because Mine Train spits so many people out nearby. In standby, you really need to get here no later than 9:30am. You might remember that I’ve tried going to Peter Pan’s Flight immediately after Mine Train from the main entrance, but the actual wait is about 25 minutes by 9:10am. It’s a good opportunity to experience the interactive queue, but that’s a lot of time in the morning and I think FastPass+ makes more sense there.

I don’t usually advocate going to Tomorrowland so early with plans to backtrack to Fantasyland as it’s a lot of walking, but I was curious what actual waits would be at Space Mountain and Buzz. And Space Mountain is just about five minutes away from Winnie the Pooh, so it isn’t like we’re crossing the whole Park. It would just make more sense to spend time in Fantasyland and then use FP+ in Tomorrowland if you wanted to go in that direction. Using your initial three selections on Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, and Buzz Lightyear would make some sense.

Here at 9:26am, the posted wait is 10 minutes.

Hopefully the capacity problems that plagued our visits for most of April are behind us as Disney was already operating both sides of Space Mountain on a day that was expected to see just a little above average attendance.

The ride was virtually a walk-on, though it takes about five minutes just to walk the queue.

So uncomfortable.

And back out front at 9:39am, which might be some kind of record with the 13-minute total experience time.

This is ten minutes worth of a wait at Astro Orbiter, plus the time you’d wait up top. It’s going to take about 20 minutes.

Over to Buzz, which is posting 10-minutes at 9:41am.

With the re-ridability, you might want to prioritize it. As FP+ availability continues to get worse every day, it is not such an easy 4th or 5th selection anymore.

Peak waits here are typically 30 to 50 minutes up from 20 to 30 minutes a few years ago.

I am amusingly terrible at it, though I am not particularly wild about the fact that there are a couple targets that will award you something like 100,000 points, while most others are 100 or 1,000. Somebody could hit 75 targets and score 90,000 and somebody else might hit eight and come away with 475,600.

Standing tall over the incoming throngs.

Tomorrowland Speedway was still closed, which means long waits later in the day as all those people with canceled FP+ return.

Dumbo started with one carousel operating, but already had the second going by 9:55am. The posted wait is still 20 minutes.

Barnstormer was 10 at 9:56am and will likely be less with so few people in line.

This is about three minutes worth.

Not my finest work.

And back out front at 10:05am for a total experience time of nine minutes.

Dumbo is still posted at 20, but I crossed my fingers and got in line. Unlike the Barnstormer queue, this one is harder to gauge as the majority of the people are inside.

You might remember that last time, the playground wasn’t even open, which is another reason the line might stretch outside. Fortunately here it was.

Crying.

Dumbo still took 18 minutes, which is about twice as long as it would with both carousels operating at open.

I have ridden Dumbo literally by myself before. This is 9:12am almost a year ago to the day with both carousels operating.

So if you are pinching pennies, or if you’re Disney, pinching $100 bills, then it makes some sense to run one of the two Dumbo carousels for the first 20 minutes of the day or something. But trying to push that to 45 minutes or an hour is going to cause waits at 10am to be 25 to 35 minutes, especially if you are distributing FP+ like both carousels are operating. The Ariel meet is still posted at 20 minutes at 10:25am.

And over to Mermaid Ride, which I like to get in line for between 10:30am and 11:15am.

This Ariel animatronic wasn’t working and a cast member had to literally come out and step into the show scene to press a button to make her start dancing.

My face when.

The story of my life.

Me writing this post.

You reading this post.

You after clicking the “X” to close the tab after realizing that you could have stood in line for a Sprinkles cupcake in the amount of time that it’s taken to read up to this point.

Oh yeah that’s artsy.

Too artsy.

The line to get into Be Our Guest lunch with the birds flying over Beast’s Castle overhead.

The standby line for Mine Train is down there somewhere.

Dumbo took 17 minutes from 10:26am – 10:43am.

Pan up to 70 minutes. We’ll be riding with FP+ shortly.

At 11am, you probably want to get in line at a moderate priority attraction that will have a 20ish minute wait. Here’s a look at wait times over the course of the day:

Larger: https://i2.wp.com/easywdw.com/reports13/mk5716.jpg

By 11am, the average wait at attractions that post one is 30 minutes and the average wait will peak at 41 minutes at 4:15pm. At 11am, only four attractions have posted waits under 20 minutes:

The Magic Carpets of Aladdin,

Mad Tea PartyDonald/Goofy Meet

Mickey’s PhilharMagic

Monsters Inc Laugh Floor

Prince Charming Carrousel

Pretty slim pickings.

small world posted at 25 minutes at 10:52am.

Thanks FastPass+.

Fantasyland.

Refresh refresh. We might not be able to count the smiles if everyone is going to have their heads buried in their smartphones.

A little toight:











All in all, small world took a total of 38 minutes, about 20 of which were waiting in line. The website’s estimate of how long the attraction takes with FP+ is 20 minutes, so this took just about twice that amount of time. But here at 11:30am, the average posted wait exceeds 30 minutes, so your options are to start using FastPass+, move on to the truly “anytime” attractions, or wait in a couple of lines.

Fantasyland.

Over to Haunted Mansion at 11:38am to use our first FastPass+ at Haunted Mansion. This is around the time I like to start using FP+. With the exception of small world, I didn’t wait more than a handful of minutes anywhere. Using FastPass+ earlier in the day means saving less time than you would by using it now when waits are longer. Using FP+ earlier also means you’ll be arriving at each standby attraction later in the day when waits are longer. But you could theoretically start using FP+ in the 9am-10am slot for Mine Train or Peter Pan’s Flight and then try to add additional FP+ earlier in the day when availability is a little better. But with how poor 4th FP+ selections have become, you never really know what you’re going to get. Here I am bypassing about 25 minutes worth of actual wait at a convenient attraction:









Back out front at 11:57am for a total experience time of 19 minutes. The website’s estimated average is 20 minutes.

Back to Fantasyland where the small world queue is spilling out well into the extended outdoor portion with a 30-minute posted wait. It will peak at 40 later in the day, so the 20 we waited wasn’t necessarily terrible.

At least the Peter Pan’s Flight wait has dropped.

The FP+ queue here has been extended considerably to prevent it from spilling out towards Mickey’s PhilharMagic.

There are only three opportunities to ride this without a 45+ minute wait – first thing, with FastPass+, or in the final hour of operation and ideally just before close.

That girl on the left looks like she just got the bill at the end of her trip.

Not so bad.

Because I don’t value my health or my bank account, I had plans to eat dinner at Diamond Horseshoe for a second time, so I was interested in a snack over in Frontierland.

It can always be worse.

Disney announced the addition of “Creative Fries” at Golden Oak Outpost back in August of 2014 in this Parks Blog post: https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2014/08/creative-fries-at-golden-oak-outpost-in-magic-kingdom-park/. It was a somewhat comical announcement as the kiosk was open for literally one day with the new menu before “seasonally closing” for something like 23 of the next 30 days. You might have been able to order them if you had visited between 11:09am and 12:06om on a Saturday with a full moon.

The website poo-poo’d the fries obviously as it hates everything, but six fries for $5.99 wasn’t a tremendous value. Then Disney required adding a side of apple slices and bumped the price to $7.99. *upsidedownsmileyface*

Things are decidedly less creative now, but the naked waffle fries remain on the menu for $2.99 or a snack credit on the Disney Dining Plan.

And if you’re going to order a carton of chicken nuggets anyway, you might find the side of waffle fries more interesting than the standard version.

The website would remind you that Golden Oak is adjacent to Pecos Bill, where you’ll find an assortment of goodies at the toppings bar including shredded cheese, salsa, sliced jalapenos, guacamole, and basically everything that went into the $5.99 Tex-Mex Fries. The fries here are otherwise a decent, quick snack if you’re in the area and looking for something a little more hearty. Very fresh with a nice crunch.

That is as far as this post will take us I think. We’ll return for Part 2, which will cover some ideas on how to spend your afternoon time and perhaps review the Pecos Bill Taco Burger (shudder) and Pinocchio Village Haus’s Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo (shudder).

My morning otherwise went:

Mine Train: 8:55am – 9:09am Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: 9:10am – 9:21am Space Mountain: 9:26am – 9:39am Buzz: 9:41am – 9:51am Barnstormer: 9:56am – 10:05am Dumbo: 10:06am – 10:24am Mermaid Ride: 10:26am – 10:43am small world: 10:52am – 11:30am Haunted Mansion with FP+: 11:38am – 11:57am Peter Pan’s Flight with FP+: 12:03pm – 12:12pm Waffle Fries and sitting: 12:26pm – 1:18pm

That’s a pretty solid morning with five high priority attractions mixed in with some moderates and still a FastPass+ experience to share.

I am headed out to Plaza Restaurant for lunch.