Magic Kingdom Cheat Sheet

We just returned from an amazing trip. I thought I would share my Magic Kingdom cheat sheet, based on our recent experience. This may be old hat for many on this board, but I thought it might be useful for some just getting started on planning to have a cheat sheet of distilled knowledge, alongside our personal lessons learned:

1. Get My Disney Experience (MDE) App on your phone
   
   
2. Review Disboards. Consider signing up for Touring Plans/Lines. If so, Get Lines App on your Phone
   
   
3. Get these Fast passes in advance:
   

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (60+ days out)
Splash Mountain
Peter Pan
Princess Meets
Enchanted Tales with Belle
Space Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain (I assume. It was closed while we were there)

• Plan to rope drop the above rides if you do not have fast passes
  
  
• Scheduling fast passes as early in the day as possible worked well for us (another reason to book fast passes at 60+ days out – that’s when there is lots of morning availability). Then get same day extra fast passes for next rides (see point 4 below). Depending on crowd levels, it may be possible to go from fast pass to fast pass from afternoon on. You are able to reserve your next fast pass as soon as you scan your Magic Band for your 3rd Fast pass, and each fast pass thereafter.
  
  
• When searching for Fast Passes, if you are looking to see what is available close to a particular time, search by that time (rather than by afternoon, evening, or broader searches).

4. These are good same day fast pass opportunities (Can generally/often get same day fast passes for these. These are good to use as 4th, 5th, etc fast passes of the day once you use up your first 3 fast passes):

Jungle Cruise
Pirates of the Caribbean
Magic Carpets
Haunted Mansion
Buzz Lightyear
Dumbo
Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid
Mad Tea Party
Tomorrowland Speedway
Winnie the Pooh
Barnstormer

5. Rider Swap: If using Rider Swap, second ride can be any time that day (and maybe even later in the week?). It does not need to be used immediately. Can also use FP in conjunction with rider swap to get up to 4 rides with no waits. E.g., we had Space Mountain FPs for all 4 family members. On first ride, scanned 2 Magic Bands (my DH and son) and got a rider swap pass. On next ride (during same FP window) (I rode with my son, and we scanned my Magic Band and my son used by daughter’s magic band). We could have gotten a second rider swap at that time if we wanted to. We then had rider swap passes available to use whenever we wanted, and chose to ride again later that night.

6. Not to Be Missed Activities (that are not rides):

Festival of Fantasy Parade (3 PM)

Pirate Adventure (Really fun, really cool special effects! Can do at any time, so really good to do when ride lines are long. Each treasure hunt takes about 15-20 minutes. There are 5 in all. Do all 5 and get a Fast pass to Pirates of the Caribbean).

7. Great Anytime activities:

• Shows/Entertainment: There’s lots of entertainment around the park that is good to experience when ride lines are long – Look at schedule on My Disney Experience in advance to plan, or look at Times Guide in the park (e.g. Royal Friendship Faire, Pirate Tutorial, Trolley Show, Main Street Philharmonic, etc.) Festival of Fantasy Parade at 3 PM is a must do.
  
  
• Anytime attractions: Tom Sawyer Island, Hall of Presidents, Carousel of Progress, Country Bear Jamboree, Tiki Room, Swiss Family Robinson Tree House, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, Mickey’s PhilharMagic

8. Meals:

• Our favorites were Be Our Guest (breakfast and dinner) and Cinderella’s Royal Table (breakfast). Both of these restaurants were booked at 180+ days out. Pre Park opening breakfast (esp. at BOG) is great, because you can beat the crowd to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and/or to Peter Pan. Be Our Guest dinner was wonderful – best food of our trip.

• Other MK table services restaurants will have more availability, but should still be booked as far in advance as possible. Pre-park opening breakfasts should be booked at 180+ days out.
  
  
• Touring Plans Reservation Finder is great, and free! If there’s no availability when you look, the reservation finder will help! We used it for some other reservations and it worked great! People cancel all the time and the reservation finder will find even the most hard to get reservations.
  
  https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/reservation-finder
  
  
• Colombia Harbor House: best quick service of our trip (alongside Flame Tree Barbeque at Animal Kingdom) -- good food, good air conditioning, lots of available tables, line moves quickly
  

9. Afternoon breaks -- Worked well for our family. In my view, they are essential during the heat of summer. But we learned that it was difficult to do both pool time and a nap. So we alternated days -- on one day: pool time plus 1 hour of downtime in hotel room; on next day -- darken the room immediately and lay down for a solid 2 hour nap. We all napped when we did this, even the adults and 2 kids who never nap at home. We needed these breaks/naps, because of the heat and because of the combination of early mornings and later nights.

10. Our Favorite MK experiences (kids ages 4 (almost 5) and 7):

Our Family's Top Ten List (everyone thoroughly enjoyed):

1. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
   
2. Splash Mountain
   
3. Festival of Fantasy Parade
   
4. Be Our Guest Breakfast and Dinner
   
5. Cinderella’s Royal Table breakfast
   
6. Pirate Adventure treasure hunt
   
7. Mickey’s PhilharMagic
   
8. Jungle Cruise
   
9. Pirates of the Caribbean
   
10. Wishes Fireworks

For 4 year old DD – the princess meets were really special (interaction was better at the meets than at our CRT breakfast), and she loved them. We did Ariel, Rapunzel, and Tiana at MK, in addition to our Cinderella’s Royal Table breakfast. We were able to get same day fast passes for Ariel, and night before fast passes for Rapunzel and Tiana (princess meet same day fast passes are generally pretty limited, but people change plans all the time at the last minute)

Space Mountain also is near the top of the list for our 7 year old DS.

Thank you!!

My main objective is to use my 3 FPs on SDMT, PPF, and either BTMR or Splash early in the day. Maybe the one mountain I don't pick will be my 4th but I REALLY want to do Jungle Cruise at a specific time: around sunset. I got to do that once by circumstance and it was an amazing experience. It really added to the atmosphere and tone of the ride. Guess I'll haveta time it right and hope I can get an extra FP at the right hour.

For the Pirates Adventure game, does only the person whose magic band is used to play get the fast pass for pirates of the Caribbean or does the group?

Did you do pre-park opening breakfast at Cinderellas Royal table? If so, could you finish in time to get on rides when they open?

Can you use other peoples' magic bands for the fast pass on most rides?

REEREEG said:

For the Pirates Adventure game, does only the person whose magic band is used to play get the fast pass for pirates of the Caribbean or does the group?

Did you do pre-park opening breakfast at Cinderellas Royal table? If so, could you finish in time to get on rides when they open?

Can you use other peoples' magic bands for the fast pass on most rides?

Click to expand...

I assume you'll get fast passes for everyone in your party, but I'm not sure -- we did not do all 5 treasure hunts.

We did a pre park opening breakfast and CRT (7:55 am ADR). We had no trouble finishing before 9. We were in the first seating, and the restaurant was nearly empty when we arrived. The princesses came out in quick succession (almost two quick). In fact, one of our family is gluten free, and it took them a long time to make gluten free breakfast potatoes, which held up the meals for our entire table. Many other diners were finishing before we even received our food. We were still done before 9. And -- a little pixie dust-- our waitress gave us a fast pass because of the wait! We had not even complained about the wait, so I don't know why she did it but it was a very nice surprise.

We had no trouble using sibling's magic bands for fast passes. If you have someone who wants to ride coasters multiple times, combining rider swap with nonriders fast passes can get you 4 rides without much trouble.