Magic Kingdom Tour Plan for August Trip

[adventurer1971]

Hi folks. We'll be taking a family vacation in August to Walt Disney World and on one of our days plan to go to the Magic Kingdom. I've been reading a lot about strategies to get the most of your time in the park and I wanted to see what people thought of my hypothetical plan to MK. Our group consists of six adults and four children (6,7,8,13). I want to get a lot of attractions in but want to avoid a) having to run through the park and b) waiting in too many long lines (say greater than 45 minutes). We'll be staying on property, Yacht Club Resort.

Here's my plan. Tell me what you think. At 60 days out I want to try to grab fast passes for two attractions in Fantasy Land for the afternoon (probably Seven Dwarves and another) and then grab Pirates of the Caribbean for mid morning. Enter MK and immediately board the train for Frontierland. Ride Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain and then ride our PotC FP+. After that go to Adventureland and ride Jungle Cruise and whatever time allows. Have a bite to eat somewhere (counter service) and then do Hall of Presidents and Haunted Mansion before going to Fantasyland to do our FP+ and other rides until we get to dinner time when we'll eat at Be Our Guest. After dinner, finish up in Fantasyland and do Tomorrowland attractions until it's time to leave.

Thoughts?
Jim

 

[Newsies]

Sounds like a great plan! If you're going to be in the Adventureland area for lunch, I recommend Tortuga Tavern or Peco's Bill. And don't forget to schedule some Dole Whip time in there

Hope you and your family have an awesome time!

 

[Puffy2]

Can you board the train before rope drop? I have no idea. And does the train leave right at 9am. Or will you have to sit on the train 20 minutes without it going anywhere?

Just wondering. If this is an issue, I'd probably just walk.

 

[mimi'sgirl]

Sounds great but I believe POTC is being refurbished during the summer and will be closed. My family plans to visit in August also.

 

[Tomh]

I have a bit of a different approach to MK.

First off, the train is a fun ride, but by no means is it fast. I would forgo the train first thing in the morning, and walk to Big Thunder and Splash. You could perhaps hop a ride on one of the Main Street vehicles. They aren't terribly fast either, but it is a fun ride, they are only there in the morning, and they won't slow you down as much as the train would.

Big Thunder, and Splash certainly are two to get out of the way early, as they generally have quite short lines for the first hour give or take a bit.

As for scheduling FP+ in the afternoon, I wouldn't do that. I would schedule them all for the morning, which gives you the chance to pull a 4th, and maybe even a 5th pass later in the day once you have used the first 3.

For sure, you need FP+ for Seven Dwarves. If you don't hit Fantasyland directly after Splash and Big Thunder, then you will want to have FP+ for Peter Pans Flight as well. The line for that gets to be a beast quickly. Try to get to Pooh early, and the Tomorrowland Speedway as well. Enchanted Tales With Belle often gets a long line. If that is a must do for any of the younger kids, you might want to use your 3rd FP+ there.

Tea cups are generally a short line later in the day, as is the carousel. Small World is often under 15 minutes. Haunted Mansion . .. watch the time app for it, you can often catch it with less than at 20 minute wait. Country Bears, Hall of Presidents, Carousel of Progress, Philharmagic and even Buzz Lightyear can often be done in the afternoon / evening with a relatively short wait.

 

[adventurer1971]

Thanks for all of the replies so far. I appreciate the guidance.

mimi's girl - I'm curious where you saw the info about Pirates being closed in August. I don't see it on the rehab page here. I hope this isn't the case since PotC is one of my favorite attractions. I guess if it's planned to be out of service I won't see it as an option for my FastPass+ when I get 60 days out.

One of my goals is to avoid crossing the same ground twice to the extent possible. One of our party has trouble with her knee sometime so might consider getting a powered scooter. I assume if we get the scooter we wouldn't be able to use it on the train and it would have to wait at the station you board the train versus being able to pick up a different one at one of the other stations.

I've been doing some rethinking especially if pirates is closed and leaning towards getting a Big Thunder fast pass, riding Splash after that, skipping Adventureland and getting my afternoon fast passes for Seven Dwarves and Peter Pan, skipping the meet & greets and assuming the standby lines will be tolerable for Small World, Under the Sea and Philharmagic.

Quick FP+ question: since I will be coordinating three reservations (one for each resort room, I take it that's how it always is versus one booking number for all three?) how hard is it to manage booking the FP+ reservations to try to synchronize them and get the same time slots for all 10 of us? Any tricks of the trade?

 

[michellelovesthemous]

We do August too but come from a different angle being that we book our FP+ in the am for the opportunity to get more after the last one used. We were averaging 5 last year. But your ideas definitely have merrit!! We also go to BOG but I prefer lunch and normally do it at 10:30am. So 3 rides before and then 2+ after!! Have an awesome time.

 

[adventurer1971]

My dining reservations opened up today and I wasn't able to get Be Our Guest but did book Cinderella's Royal Table at 6:55pm This shouldn't impact my touring plan much. I might still keep an eye out for BOG openings but I suspect that it will remain very unlikely to get one for 10 people going forward.