Early Morning Magic is good if you want to get a ton of Mine rides in

[SuJo]

Just got back from a week at Disney and I bought the Early Morning Magic event that was held at Magic Kingdom on Friday. They have 3 rides opens (Dwarf Mine Ride, Peter Pan, and Winnie the Pooh) and they serve you breakfast. The event runs from 7:45 to 10:00. We arrived at 7:30, were given an "Early Morning Magic" sticker to wear and a pink wristband. We were let into the park at 7:45. We headed back to the Mine ride and rode it about 4 times in a row. You can pretty much pick where you want to sit so we tried front, back, and middle. There were no lines and usually the cars were only half full if at all. The attendant said the record is 17 times in a row for Early Morning Magic. I don't think I could have handled that many times in a row but we did get a bunch in. We also rode Peter Pan and Pooh but not as much as the Mine ride. The breakfast was good, eggs, bacon, french toast, croissants, yogurt, milk, apple juice and water. The cast members working the breakfast were very nice and made sure everyone was having a good time. The down side was that the park opened at 9 so from 9-10 you had to deal with longer lines. They told us that the wrist band works as a Fastpass till 10 on those 3 rides. We got back on the Mine ride OK but the FP line was longer than when we were in the park by ourselves so we had a wait. When we went to ride Pooh the attendant said that our event ended at 9. We told him that it went until 10, he let us through the Fastpass but didn't believe us that the event wasn't over. If you love the Mine ride and want to get on it a bunch of times then this is the event for you. Otherwise probably not worth the price.

Susan

 

[disneyygirrl]

Thank you for the review! It just doesn't seem worth it to me. The after hours event,which has many more rides open, is much more appealing to me!

 

[Goldilocks07]

Thank you for that really informative information!

 

[lchuck]

Thanks for the review. I posted a thread earlier looking for reviews from people who had been to one of these morning events more recently to see if the crowd numbers have changed from the first dates. It sounds like the crowds are still very light.

 

[Accident]

I haven't been interested in early morning adrs at all. Never really liked character meals even as a child. I am rather interested in the idea of this new attraction breakfast. This one, if I hadn't been to WDW to see the new fantasyland and mine train I probably would have done it. I hope it's a trend and they can find other attraction combos. I'd pay to get into pandora opening day before everyone else just to see it and experience it without the crowds for example. same with the new HS lands..

 

[TJDisneymama]

Id consider this. We dont love any of these rides and would likely only go on each 1x (DS might do MT a couple times), but to me its kind of like getting an extra 3 FP since we always FP these rides. Plus getting to be already back in FL when the park opens. Plus breakfast. Plus the photo ops with no crowds. We'd probably be done riding by 8:15, eat breakfast, then spend the last 20ish minites taking photos. So for me the value is not so much the actual rides, but all the other factors.

 

[coolbrook]

This is the first I have heard about the wrist band acting as a fast pass for those three rides until 10am. That makes it even better.

 

[lucky978]

How much does this cost?

 

[rwdavis2]

How much does this cost?

I believe it's $69 plus tax.

 

[Mikie]

Just got back from a week at Disney and I bought the Early Morning Magic event that was held at Magic Kingdom on Friday. They have 3 rides opens (Dwarf Mine Ride, Peter Pan, and Winnie the Pooh) and they serve you breakfast. The event runs from 7:45 to 10:00. We arrived at 7:30, were given an "Early Morning Magic" sticker to wear and a pink wristband. We were let into the park at 7:45. We headed back to the Mine ride and rode it about 4 times in a row. You can pretty much pick where you want to sit so we tried front, back, and middle. There were no lines and usually the cars were only half full if at all. The attendant said the record is 17 times in a row for Early Morning Magic. I don't think I could have handled that many times in a row but we did get a bunch in. We also rode Peter Pan and Pooh but not as much as the Mine ride. The breakfast was good, eggs, bacon, french toast, croissants, yogurt, milk, apple juice and water. The cast members working the breakfast were very nice and made sure everyone was having a good time. The down side was that the park opened at 9 so from 9-10 you had to deal with longer lines. They told us that the wrist band works as a Fastpass till 10 on those 3 rides. We got back on the Mine ride OK but the FP line was longer than when we were in the park by ourselves so we had a wait. When we went to ride Pooh the attendant said that our event ended at 9. We told him that it went until 10, he let us through the Fastpass but didn't believe us that the event wasn't over. If you love the Mine ride and want to get on it a bunch of times then this is the event for you. Otherwise probably not worth the price.

Susan

Thanks for the review! What time did you choose to eat breakfast? I wondered what would develop as the "right" time to eat: before 9 when breakfast is probably not crowded (but you're giving up some of your exclusive time); OR after 9 when you've crammed in as many rides as you can but I guessed foo lines would be getting longer.

 

[redsbe]

I haven't been interested in early morning adrs at all. Never really liked character meals even as a child. I am rather interested in the idea of this new attraction breakfast. This one, if I hadn't been to WDW to see the new fantasyland and mine train I probably would have done it. I hope it's a trend and they can find other attraction combos. I'd pay to get into pandora opening day before everyone else just to see it and experience it without the crowds for example. same with the new HS lands..

My only concern is that WDW will expand these early morning events to the point where EMHs included now with resort guest park passes will be effectively eliminated. Yes I know Disney has repeatedly said that would not occur, but their history with parties is to expand both number and tickets as the cash rolls in. I am not a big fan of being forced to gain access to busy attractions, lower crowds by needing to pay extra for it while reducing park hours for regular tickets. Limited events with fixed number of tickets I understand, but the experience with the seasonal parties makes me suspect that Disney will start to roll out many more of these types of extra fee morning and evening events to all WDW parks, especially when the new lands in DAK and DHS open in the coming years.

 

[Raya]

Was the rest of the park open? While I'm not a fan of Pooh, I'd gladly pay extra to walk around the Haunted Mansion taking photos and generally soaking it in without crowds. (Even if the HM wasn't open at the time.)

 

[lovethattink]

My only concern is that WDW will expand these early morning events to the point where EMHs included now with resort guest park passes will be effectively eliminated. Yes I know Disney has repeatedly said that would not occur, but their history with parties is to expand both number and tickets as the cash rolls in. I am not a big fan of being forced to gain access to busy attractions, lower crowds by needing to pay extra for it while reducing park hours for regular tickets. Limited events with fixed number of tickets I understand, but the experience with the seasonal parties makes me suspect that Disney will start to roll out many more of these types of extra fee morning and evening events to all WDW parks, especially when the new lands in DAK and DHS open in the coming years.

You're not forced to buy into any of these extra events.

I went to the mk Sunday. There were plenty of rides with 10 minute waits. Of course, the more popular rides had hour waits. But using a FP+ for those works. It's also much easier now that you can make a 4th FP+ on your phone. Rope drop til 10am is still the best times for low waits.

I won't be buying into any of these extras. And definitely not the parties in a party events. I've been priced out. But Disney is still very magical for me without them!

 

[gorkt]

They told us that the wrist band works as a Fastpass till 10 on those 3 rides.

This is interesting - I didn't realize that this was the case. Pretty cool!

 

[lugnut33]

This is directly from Disney's website regarding the hours:

Around 9:00 AM, the theme park will open to Guests with regular Magic Kingdom admission tickets and event-only attraction access will end.

So now there is conflicting information.

 

[Mikie]

This is directly from Disney's website regarding the hours:



So now there is conflicting information.

I'd probably categorize it as vague rather than conflicting. Morning Magic and day guests both have access starting at 9, which is still true even if day guests get the standby line and EMM guests get the FP line (along with people who have early scheduled FP). The ticket itself states that it goes until 10, which could encompass the FP from 9-10 concept OR simply indicate that the breakfast is available through 10.

 

[lugnut33]

The way it's written though, 9 a.m. is when you stop having exclusive access to the three attractions. Their site does not say you can keep using FP+ line until 10.

 

[serenitynow]

Never trust what it says on the website.

 

[JimmyV]

OP: Thanks for the report. Sounds similar to what Kenny The Pirate reported. Nice to see consistency.

We dont love any of these rides and would likely only go on each 1x (DS might do MT a couple times), but to me its kind of like getting an extra 3 FP since we always FP these rides.

This is us. Like, but don't love Mine Train. Enjoy PP, but enough to pay for it? Probably not. And Pooh? Well, 'nuff said. And frankly, we have never been fans of riding the same ride over and over again. Riding the same attraction 17 (or 4) times in a row makes the excitement wane. So if we did this, we would be one and done on each ride. Maybe twice on the Mine Train. So that makes it the equivalent of 4 extra FPs per person for $69 plus tax, or over $17 per FP. With three people in the group, this comes out to over $50 for our family to ride Pooh without a line. If, at 3:00 p.m., I walked past any of these rides and saw wait times of 75 minutes each for 7DMT and PP, and 45 minutes for Pooh, and a guy came up to me and said: "Hey Bub! If you slip me 50 bucks, I'll get you on any of these rides with no wait", I would say "no". So slipping Disney $50 bucks to get on the same ride at 8:00 a.m. makes just as little sense to me. But I absolutely can see how others might enjoy this, especially with the food thrown in. We just aren't that keen on Disney breakfast food to make that an enticement at all. Pretty much hated every character buffet breakfast I've ever done.

This is the first I have heard about the wrist band acting as a fast pass for those three rides until 10am.

Apparently it was the first time some of the CMs heard about it as well!

My only concern is that WDW will expand these early morning events to the point where EMHs included now with resort guest park passes will be effectively eliminated.

As demonstrated in the post I made about reduced hours, for several years now, the total number of EMH(a.m.) per week at the MK is 1. I don't see that this event, as limited as it is, will in any way cause Disney to eliminate the one, single, lonely, solitary hour that it provides to on site guests each week. The backlash would not be worth the effort. Even if they did the Early Magic Waffle Hour six days a week, they could find it in their hearts and wallets to keep the one remaining EMH at the MK. So while there were initially fears that the wave of the future will be for paid events to supplant EMHs, the analytics don't really support that as a viable option just yet. Now, if the paid for event in the morning is expanded to be more of a full park experience, then perhaps. But a ticket that gets you on three rides is never going to be seen as an even-up trade for the single EMH that has survived.

 

[JimmyBean42]

This is directly from Disney's website regarding the hours:



So now there is conflicting information.

I interpreted it as others can also ride the 3 exclusive rides at this time, not just EMM patrons. Your band would still act as a fast pass but there would be non-EMM in the fast pass and stand-by lines as well.