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This is our recommended itinerary for seeing the highlights of the Magic Kingdom. It makes a few assumptions: You're traveling with small children, you don't care whether you ride the rides your children can't ride, you've got one day and one day only to see the best of what's there, and you have no prior experience with the Magic Kingdom.
Oh—and that you have the exact same tastes about everything as we do. But since we have perfect taste, that won't be a problem, right?
Note that there's a lot of descriptions of stuff in amongst everything here, so if you want just the itinerary, we've summarized it at the end. But anyway, enough with the intro. On to…
We might as well start with the bad news: It is not possible to see the Magic Kingdom in one day. Therefore, part of what you need to do is to decide what really counts as a must–see.
The Magic Kingdom's hours change day to day. This is particularly important in the weeks approaching Halloween and Christmas, when the park closes early (as in early evening) for Disney's Halloween and Christmas events. (And yes, you need to buy a separate ticket for those. Even people holding annual passes have to buy tickets for them.) However, there are occasional special events other times during the year that the Magic Kingdom closes early for, so be sure to check ahead of time and avoid those days—you'll be wanting as much time in the park as you can get.
Anyway, the Magic Kingdom is divided into seven different "lands": Main Street USA, Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, Fantasyland, Mickey's Toontown Fair, and Tomorrowland. When you enter, you enter into Main Street USA, and Cinderella's Castle anchors Fantasyland. Fantasyland has more of the big-name rides than any other land, and that will figure into your itinerary.
First bit of important advice: Get to the park before it opens. Actually, you'll want to get to the parking lot at least a half hour before the park opens—arriving at the Magic Kingdom's parking lot is simply the first step in the extended adventure that is getting into the Magic Kingdom. (The rules are entirely different, of course, if you're staying on Disney property—but you'll still want to be at the park entrance before the park opens.) After parking, you'll get on a tram (unless you somehow got a space that's really close to the front) that takes you to the Ticketing and Transportation Center. This is where tickets are sold, ticket vouchers can be exchanged, &c., and also where you have to catch a monorail or a ferry to the Magic Kingdom itself.
Yes, that's right—you're far enough away from the park at this point that you have to take a boat or a train to get to it.
It doesn't really matter if you take the monorail or the ferry. The ferry carries more people at a time, and you can tell when it's about to leave, but the monorail's quicker once you get on it. Unless there's a crowd waiting for the ferry that's longer than a full ferry load (a rare occurrence, but one that would mean the ferry will be slower by a lot) or the line for the monorail is very short (which means the monorail will be notably quicker), it's pretty much a wash—we'd say to pick one to take to the park and then take the other one back. Note that you will probably have to show your tickets to get to the line for either of them—they don't want people to get all the way to the park entrance only to find out that they need to go all the way back and get their tickets before they can come in.
One further note about the monorail: There is room for up to four people to sit with the monorail driver at the front of the train. You have to know to request these spots from the person working at the station, and they're not always available—in fact, they're almost never available as the parks are opening or closing—and you may have to wait for a couple trains to go by before there's an opening. If you can swing it, though, it's an interesting perspective on the trip. Don't let your desire to sit in the front of the train delay your arrival at the park gate until after the park's opening, though.
Anyway, eventually you will arrive at the park entrance. You can't get in before opening time, but you can get in line to go in, and you may even be able to go through the security check ahead of time. You will also be able to pay for stroller rental—and if you have kids under six (maybe eight) and you didn't bring a stroller, rent one. (You should probably rent a double stroller even if you only have one child, because then you'll have space to put whatever you get tired of carrying. A stroller's not as much a necessity for young children at the Magic Kingdom as it is at Epcot, but it's still $15 well spent.) Anyway, if you pay to rent a stroller before you go in the park, you'll get a voucher for a stroller that you can exchange for a stroller right after you go in the turnstiles without having to stand in yet another line. (This is good, because—as you'll see below—once you get in the park, time is of the essence.)
Food is expensive at all of the Disney parks. Unfortunately, parking is so far from the park that you'll lose at least an hour, probably more, if you try packing food in a cooler in your car and eating lunch from that. (If you try to leave Disney to eat lunch, you might as well give up on seeing much of anything that entire afternoon.) This means that, even if you bring a decent amount of snacks (which you should do, by the way), you're going to need to buy food at the park, at least for lunch. (You'll want to eat a late–ish lunch, by the way—going during the lunch rush will kill a chunk of your day. You think the line for Splash Mountain gets long on a hot day? Try the line at the Pinocchio Village Haus when all you want is a cheeseburger for your starving child—now that's a line!) What you'll have and where depends on where you are when you're hungry enough to pay what Disney charges for food, but we recommend the vegetarian chili at the Columbia Harbor House—filling, relatively inexpensive, and more flavorful than you'd expect from a basic vegetarian chili. The lines at the Columbia Harbor House are very long during peak meal hours, but it's a pleasant enough place off-peak. (In addition, there are stands that sell fairly large smoked turkey legs for relatively little cash, and we've seen people eating them, but we've never been brave enough to try them.)
Along with food comes water. You should bring some—no, make that: You should bring a lot. The Magic Kingdom has lots of water fountains, but the taste of the water at the park is, to put it mildly, nasty. If you have ice and can make the water cold enough to freeze your tongue—and you drink it down really fast—it's bearable. Mostly. Therefore, you should bring at least a bottle of water for each person. Preferably, bring two per person. If you can, bring bottles of frozen water, since then you'll have cold water as it melts through the day. You may end up eventually buying horribly overpriced bottles of water anyway, but why do that more than you absolutely have to?
One final bit of serious advice: Bring and use sunscreen, as well.
Anyway, we'll say that you've gotten into the park right at opening time. This drops you right into…
When you enter the Magic Kingdom, you find yourself at one end of Main Street USA. This is the commercial center of the Magic Kingdom—if it's a Disney collectible, you can find it here at a higher cost than anywhere else. Do not go into any of the stores on the way in—it will only slow you down—except to pick up a stroller. Stroller rental pickup is to your right as you go through the turnstiles.
What you do need to do is function according to plan. If there is more than one adult in your group (or if you have one adult and at least one very responsible older child), this is much easier. You can pull it off with only one adult, but it won't be as smooth. Either way, your first area of the park to deal with will be…
Here's the deal: There are a few must-do rides in the Magic Kingdom for small children, and they're mostly in Fantasyland. Unfortunately, everybody else seems to know this, and so they get in line for these rides. At the other Disney parks you can use this to your advantage by going in some other direction to start the day, but that doesn't work here—there's so many people packed into the Magic Kingdom every day, and so many people trying to ride the popular rides at all times of the day, that the lines on the must-rides get long very quickly and never go down. Therefore, your only way around this problem is to get on at least a couple of the rides before everybody else does.
If there's only one adult in your group, after you enter the park you need to go exchange your stroller voucher for an actual stroller (assuming you're getting a stroller) as quickly as you can, get a map (don't skip this step!), and then head back with your kids as fast as you can to nearly the very back of the park, to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. If there's more than one adult, like we wrote earlier, it's easier—everyone should hand their tickets to the fastest walker among you, and that person should grab a map and head directly back to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Meanwhile, everyone else should go get the stroller if you're getting one, get a map, and then head back as quickly as reasonable to meet the one with the tickets. Given what follows, the best place to meet is probably at the Cinderella fountain between Cinderella's Castle and Mickey's PhilharMagic, or at the sword in the stone between Cinderella's Golden Carousel and Cinderella's Castle. (Do you get the feeling that they're selling the idea of Cinderella pretty strongly here?)
Our recommended way to get from the park entrance to Fantasyland, facing the minimum amount of traffic: Head down Main Street USA (which will be horrifically crowded) until you get to the traffic circle in front of Cinderella's Castle (further landmark: there's a statue of Walt Disney—yes, you can stun your children by letting them in on the secret that that was actually a real person's name—hand-in-hand with Mickey Mouse in the middle of the circle). Veer left around the traffic circle, and take the second path, which takes you on a wooden-looking bridge toward Liberty Square. (If you pass by the stairs to Cinderella's Castle before you turn off for the bridge, you've gone too far.) After you cross the bridge, take the first path to the right; this will take you directly past Cinderella's Castle into Fantasyland. To get to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, proceed into Fantasyland, with Cinderella's Golden Carousel and Dumbo the Flying Elephant to your left and the Scary Adventures of Snow White on your right. Turn right (you'll have to choose right or left), and the ride will be on your right.
Here's the trick: The first ride you go on should not be The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Instead, you should get FastPasses for each member of the group (each park ticket will get you one FastPass—that's why you needed to all hand your tickets to one person) for that ride. Do this even if there is no waiting yet for this ride—it's a long enough ride that the lines for everything else will have built up by the time you get off of it. Make careful note of the time printed on your FastPass—you'll want to aim for relatively early in your time window, if possible. Therefore, whenever it works to go on it, just insert it into this itinerary as needed.
Once you have gotten your FastPasses and all met up as necessary, it's decision time. (Well, it's time to put a decision into action—hopefully, you've already made this decision. Remember, time is of the essence—you're trying to beat the crowd relentlessly following you to these rides.) Your decision: To ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant or not. It's an amazingly popular ride, and so the line gets long very quickly, and it moves horribly slowly. (Each of the elephants only takes a maximum of two people; later similar rides Disney built—The Magic Carpets of Aladdin in Adventureland, for example—take up to four per vehicle, which helps the line move about twice as fast.) Therefore, if you want to ride the Dumbo ride, this is your one and probably only chance. If you skip it you'll get to other stuff faster, but a lot of people have their hearts set on riding it (let us all praise the power of Disney marketing!)—so, your choice. For our part, if we only had one day to spend at the Magic Kingdom, we'd skip it, but it won't do any irreparable harm to go on it, especially since the line should still be short.
After either going or not going on Dumbo the Flying Elephant, your next stop should either be Peter Pan's Flight or "it's a small world" (yes, the quotation marks and lower-casing are part of the name—and they're silly, so we won't be using them any more). Go on Peter Pan's Flight first unless It's a Small World has no waiting, in which case you should go on that one first. (David has horrible childhood memories of It's a Small World—his family took him on it five times in one day once, which you should not do to your children—and Jeanne has horrible childhood memories of Peter Pan's Flight—she got stuck for quite a while on a part of the ride with very annoying sound effects once when the conveyor stopped for some reason—but don't let that worry you too much, they're both decent rides.) After going on one of the rides, you should cross the street and go on the other one.
You are now about halfway done with Fantasyland, and you haven't even broken a sweat. Congratulations.
And with that, it's time to leave Fantasyland. You'll come back, but you've hit all the rides there that would have taken hours out of your day later in the day. So you'll want to head off on the street between Peter Pan's Flight and It's a Small World, away from Cinderella's Golden Carousel. This will take you out of Fantasyland, and into…
There is only one must-see attraction in Liberty Square: The Haunted Mansion. Therefore, you should now go on the ride. As you go in, pay attention to the tombstones on your left before you enter the mansion—especially the one very near the entrance that has a woman's face carved into it. (In fact, sometimes this ride is more fun when there's a bit of a line than when you can enter really quickly, since you get to see more of the care that got put into the design of the mansion and its grounds.) The line outside the mansion isn't the only line you'll stand in—the initial line leads to a pre-show (be sure to look up at the ceiling at the end of it, when the lights drop)—which then puts you into a second line for the ride itself. This really is one of the most well-crafted rides in the park—a lot of imagination got put into the details. The build-up to it can freak out children, though, so you may have to reassure them. (If nothing else, you can point out that the ghosts aren't allowed to touch you. It helped our five-year-old to touch the sorta-glowering-face-looking things carved into the wall along the line between the pre-show and the ride, so that she could tell they weren't actually faces, but were just carvings.)
Also in Liberty Square is The Hall of Presidents. Consider this an optional show—if you're doing good for time, and you're interested in US history, and the next show starts soon (there'll be an attendant who can tell you how long 'til the next show), go ahead in. If any of those aren't the case, though, skip it.
The last ride in this section of the park is the Liberty Square Riverboat. It's fun, but takes way too much time for an itinerary like this one—skip it and continue walking along the path to…
Frontierland contains two very, very popular rides: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain. Both of these are worth taking, if your children are tall enough for them. (Well, and if it's not a very cold day. If it's a very cold day, Splash Mountain really isn't ever worth it.) If it's a hot day, the line for Splash Mountain will be insanely long—we've seen wait times posted in excess of three hours (and we don't care how good a ride may be, it's not worth three hours of standing in line). If both lines are long, you'll need to pick which one to take and FastPass it; on the other hand, if one or both of them has a short line (in this context, twenty minutes or less of posted wait time), FastPass the one with the longer line and wait in line for one with the shorter line. Note that if you have some children who want to go on one of these but other children who don't or who aren't tall enough (and you have adults who can split up with two groups of children), the children who don't want to go on these can go to the Country Bear Jamboree (also in Frontierland), or play on the play yard set up near the beginning of the line to Splash Mountain (bonus: that one is shaded!) while the taller or more adventurous children go on Big Thunder Mountain and/or Splash Mountain—just be sure you decide on a place to meet up afterward.
Whether you go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad or not, it's worth pointing out that, from certain angles, the peaks of the "rock" formations providing the scenery of the ride imitate the spires of Cinderella's Castle. (The spires of Space Mountain, in Tomorrowland, do the same thing.)
Having mentioned Country Bear Jamboree above, we'll recommend it as a most excellent show for young children—bears, songs, and bad jokes apparently make an unbeatable combination for the under-seven set. Therefore, if you have children that small, we'd call it a must-see; if you have older children, consider it worthwhile only if you're desperate for air conditioning and the wait's pretty short.
By now, unless the lines have been way short, you're at or past lunchtime. Since the Columbia Harbor House restaurant (which we recommended earlier for the vegetarian chili) is in Liberty Square, you can easily backtrack and eat there now.
Frontierland also has something that essentially functions as a large park—Tom Sawyer Island. This is a most excellent place (and it has shade!), but sadly, we'll have to advise you to pass on it, simply for time reasons. If you have a second day to spend at the Magic Kingdom, though, we'd very strongly recommend it for a couple hours of the second day. Instead, you should take any of the several paths from Frontierland to…
Adventureland used to be very, very different than it is now; for those of you who haven't been there in a couple decades, a large chunk of it now has a Middle Eastern (as in the movie Aladdin) theme. However, it also has some of the park's most venerable rides.
The first place to head in Adventureland is not Pirates of the Caribbean, as you might expect, but the Jungle Cruise. (The reason for this is that the Jungle Cruise has FastPasses, and Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't.) If the line for the Jungle Cruise is long, FastPass it to come back later, and go to the Pirates of the Caribbean first. Both of them are worth going on, though the Jungle Cruise is our favorite (even if the much-praised "backside of water" line in the script isn't funny even in its unfunniness) of the two, so if time is tight we'd skip Pirates of the Caribbean.
Sidebar: As we write this, Pirates of the Caribbean is being rehabbed to include bits from the movie of the same name. Who knows what it'll be like once that's done—we may actually prefer it to the Jungle Cruise. We'll see.
From these rides you should head to The Magic Carpets of Aladdin. This one may have a long line, so you should be prepared to wait a bit. It's like Dumbo the Flying Elephant, except that there's a couple wrinkles—people in the front and back seats control different aspects of the ride, and a very tall camel may spray water at you. (Our three-year-old took great pleasure, as we got off the ride the first time we took it, in scolding the camel for spitting at her.) Right across from The Magic Carpets of Aladdin is a new version of a classic, The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management). It's a nice air-conditioned break, but it's not really that necessary. See the show only if you feel like you're doing really well for time.
At this point, you should head up toward the Swiss Family Treehouse. If you feel up to tromping up and down countless stairs (and possibly carrying children up and down countless stairs), and certainly if you or your kids are fans of the movie The Swiss Family Robinson, then you might as well walk through it—we've never had to wait to go in. We've often thought that walking through the Swiss Family Treehouse two or three times a day for a few months would make for a most excellent fitness program.
If you continue in the direction you've been walking, you will find yourselves on a bridge out of Adventureland, headed toward Cinderella's Castle—and, depending on the time you go by, you may discover some sort of play going on in front of the castle, which leads us to a couple thoughts about…
There are some things in this world that are simply not worth the effort that they obviously take. A common adjective to describe such things is "pointless".
In some future utopian day, people will refer to things that are pointless beyond the point of imagination and call them "as pointless as Cinderellabration".
Yes, it's that bad—and yet, in testament to the power of Disney's marketing machine (and to the evil genius of whoever came up with the "Disney princess" idea), gobs and bunches of people will show up to watch this open-air stage show each and every time it plays. To save you the trouble, we will give you a plot summary:
Lots of princes and princesses show up. Cinderella gets crowned as a princess.
Yep, that's it. Nothing interesting happens, except that the old king gets in a couple lame jokes early in the script. The first time we went by when it was playing we watched the whole thing, waiting for a wicked witch or something to show up, or one of the guests to get lost on the way, or even for Cinderella to lose one of her shoes or something to at least lend an aura of drama to the whole thing, but no such luck—it was time that we will never get back.
The one good thing about it, though, is the aforementioned lots of people who watch it when it plays. You can be grateful that they're currently not standing in any of the lines you're heading toward as you skirt by the castle on its left, cutting through the edge of Liberty Square (taking the same path you took first thing in the morning), as you walk into…
When you last were in Fantasyland, you went through about half of the rides there. Happily, you went through the half with the slowest lines, which means that your second visit to Fantasyland can still be quite productive, even though the crowds have grown in the meantime.
As you enter Fantasyland, your next three targets will quickly surround you: Mickey's PhilharMagic (which everybody, even some of Disney's marketing, calls just PhilharMagic, so that's what we'll do for the rest of this) on your left, Cinderella's Golden Carousel straight ahead, and Snow White's Scary Adventures on the right.
PhilharMagic is the Magic Kingdom's 3–D movie, and we'd say it's the best of the four parks' 3–D movies. Make sure that at the end of the movie you turn and look at the back wall—the end of the show occurs behind you.
Cinderella's Golden Carousel is just a carousel, but it's a nice one (and the horses are actual antique, restored carousel horses). If you ask our children what their favorite Magic Kingdom ride is, they'll respond that it's the carousel as often as not. (Of course, the monorail into/out of the park is a close second, so I'm not certain you can trust their judgment completely.)
Snow White's Scary Adventures is the entire Snow White movie—with many appearances by the wicked stepmother—in a single, fairly short ride. It's actually geared slightly more to adults than children, we'd say; there were some early negative reviews of the ride, but the ride has been tweaked to be less of a horror ride since then. This is one of David's favorite rides at the Magic Kingdom (of course, he says it's a close second to The Haunted Mansion, so he's obviously into the dark rides—you may or may not be able to trust his judgment completely). In any event, it can be a bit intense for small children, so make sure that you're available for hugs as necessary during the ride. One detail note: Each of the cars that goes through the ride is named for one of the seven dwarves (dwarfs?—neither looks entirely right); the name is on the front of the car.
Anyway, your goal is to ride these three in as short a time as possible; to do this, you'll need to know what the estimated wait time is for PhilharMagic and Snow White's Scary Adventures, and how long the line for Cinderella's Golden Carousel is. From this, you can develop a plan for what to do. Since the trickiest ride of these three to time getting into is PhilharMagic (it's a show in a large theatre, so you can end up waiting anywhere from the entire length of the show to no time at all), that's your first check—so if PhilharMagic's wait time is ten minutes or less, head straight in and check the other two rides when you come out. If the wait time for PhilharMagic is longer than that, you should try to get on Cinderella's Golden Carousel first, since that line will get long very quickly when PhilharMagic lets out. Therefore, if the line for the carousel is short (i.e., it doesn't extend out past the turnstiles), get in line for it. Otherwise, compare the wait time for PhilharMagic and Snow White's Scary Adventures; if the wait for Snow White's Scary Adventures is less than the wait for PhilharMagic by ten minutes or more, go on that one. If the waits for all three are depressingly long, start with the carousel, and then try for PhilharMagic.
Once you've got one of the three out of the way, you should be able to get through the other two fairly efficiently, after which you can head past The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (take a moment, if you wish, to be amazed at how the line has grown and feel properly smug) to the Mad Tea Party, perhaps better known as "The Teacup Ride". Yes, this is the ride on which teenagers get to spin as fast as they can and try to make their parents sick. If you don't like spinning around, feel free to skip this ride; otherwise, do go on it—it's one of those simple little rides that can be more fun than the really complicated ones. You should be warned, though, that the line tends to move pretty slowly.
That's it for Fantasyland. You will notice that this itinerary did not have you go to the Fairytale Garden or Ariel's Grotto. The reason is that these are insane timesinks, and all you get is the chance to get your kids' pictures taken with, respectively, Belle or Ariel. If you've got a second day for the Magic Kingdom and your child is really into one of these characters, feel free to go—or you can take what in our opinion is a much saner parental route, and never let your children know of the option.
This leads to a sidebar about one of the ways Disney World keeps its lines manageable: It keeps people out of the lines for rides and shows by sending out costumed characters to "greet" people. (We will now define "greet" for you: To get people to stand in line so that they can have their pictures taken with a character, or to get the character's autograph.) If you have five days to spend at a park, feel free to get sucked into this. Otherwise, avoid these "opportunities". (We won't bother to define what "opportunities" means in this context.) Maybe you can make a single exception for your child's favorite character in the whole world, but you should avoid the urge as much as possible, or you'll never get more than a quarter of the way through the park.
This is actually a fitting warning to bring up, because after you leave the Mad Tea Party, you can head straight into the newest of the Magic Kingdom's lands, and the single biggest example of character greetings…
Most of Mickey's Toontown Fair is a collection of tent-looking buildings where different characters, most notably Mickey and Minnie Mouse, greet—remember the definition of greet, above—people. These are permanent enough that they actually have names, and on the map they look like they might be rides: Judge's Tent (Mickey Mouse), Toontown Hall of Fame Tent (other characters), and Mickey's Country House and Minnie's Country House (part of the lines for the other two). Don't go to these.
In fact, if you don't want to go on The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm (let's just write Barnstormer from now on, yes?), you can skip Mickey's Toontown Fair entirely, heading straight to Tomorrowland. Feel free—it'll save time.
The Barnstormer, though, is a fun little roller coaster—and its height limit is lower than any of the other roller coasters in any of the Disney World parks. If you go on it, note that there is a part where you "crash" through a barn. As you go through, look to your left to see the chickens, our three-year-old's (yes, she was tall for three) favorite part of the ride.
There are a couple of options for children who are too small to go on the Barnstormer. There's a water playground called Donald's Boat, which is fun even for adults on a hot day. (On a cold day, of course, you don't want to run the risk of getting soaked. Your children might, though, so be careful. On really cold days, the play area is closed, so that decision gets made for you.)
For even smaller children, there's a (shaded!) toddlers-only play area between Donald's Boat and the train station, which as far as we can tell does not have a name.
You have now completed Mickey's Toowntown Fair. It's now time to finish up the whole thing by heading to…
The best way to get to Tomorrowland from Mickey's Toontown Fair is the back way—there's a path that starts at the train station and drops you out next to Space Mountain. This is nice because it's less crowded than any other way into Tomorrowland. If you're skipping Mickey's Toontown Fair, of course, you just keep walking past the Mad Tea Party and you end up in Tomorrowland next to the choking clouds of exhaust that signal the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway—which, by the way, we advise you to skip (too little fun for too much line).
In some ways, Tomorrowland is somewhat disappointing—it almost seems to have been paid less attention to than the rest of the park, which is odd for the part that is supposed to be this futuristic view of a utopian tomorrow. As it is, though, it's more of a slightly faded view of what the futuristic utopian tomorrow was thought to be in the late 60s—so feel free to enjoy it for the kitsch.
Anyway, that said, there are certainly some rides worth going on. There are two (well, three—we'll get to the third in a bit) rides in Tomorrowland that have terribly long lines at times: Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (which we'll just call Buzz Lightyear). Space Mountain has height restrictions, Buzz Lightyear doesn't, so which one you go on may be decided by that. Otherwise, you should decide which one to go on—there's not enough time to do both, and to be honest they're not as much fun as the pair of Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain Railroad. Whichever you pick, you should get a FastPass for it (unless the line is very short, in which case you should just take it) and skip the other one.
Jeanne points out: There are cool things about each of these two rides, and that may help determine which you go on. Space Mountain is an indoor roller coaster, and it's cool because it's all in the dark. (David's nerd note: It's actually a slow coaster—top speed is about 28 mph—but because it's in the dark, it feels a lot faster.) Buzz Lightyear is cool because it's like a video game, where you get to shoot things from your car and rack up points for it.
Once you've picked one or the other of those rides, you should go to Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress. You should be able to get right on this one—we've never had to wait more than five minutes for it. A lot of people think it's kind of a hokey show, but we like it—and that's even aside from it having air conditioning and comfortable seats. It's a show where you see action on multiple stages, but instead of the stage rotating to present you with different scenes, the audience rotates around the stages. It's kind of a weird feeling the first time you experience it.
If you really like Dumbo the Flying Elephant-type rides, and you think they're at their best when they're amazingly high in the sky in stupid-looking fake rockets that don't have any mechanisms for keeping their left and right sides level, then go on the Astro Orbiter. We don't (which probably surprises you, given the glowingly positive description we just gave), and we recommend skipping it.
If your feet are very tired (and they probably are), and you like the idea of taking a subway to nowhere, you can go on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. To be honest, it's a fun diversion, and you get a glimpse of Walt Disney's (the person's, not the company's) original model of what Epcot was going to be, which is rather different than what it ended up being. It also gives you a chance to review what you might be doing the rest of the day—you can decide whether you want to see something you skipped, hit something again, take the Walt Disney World Railroad all the way around the park, or just take off, all in relatively comfortable surroundings.
You may have noticed that we haven't mentioned Stitch's Great Escape! (the third ride in Tomorrowland that gets really long lines, and yes, the exclamation point is part of the name). There are two reasons for this. The most important is that we never went on it. The second is the reason we never went on it: It's not worth the effort. Lilo & Stitch was an amazingly creative movie, and this is a very non-creative ride—basically, Disney took the ride that was already there (a scary show about an alien escaping in a theatre and attacking the audience) and overlaid Stitch on it. The little dude deserves better—skip it out of respect for him.
And that's it—you've done the Magic Kingdom in a single day. It's all over but for the…
You may well leave before the fireworks start—believe me, we wouldn't hold it against you, it's been a long day, and if you're anything like most tourists, you're planning on getting up early tomorrow morning to do something similarly insanely strenuous. However, if you're around as it's getting time for the fireworks, you might as well stay.
One thing to remember, though: If you commit to staying for the fireworks, you're committing to stay for a good while afterwards—there will be many thousands of people trying to squeeze down Main Street USA, through the turnstiles, into painfully few monorails and ferries back to the Ticketing and Transportation Center, into painfully few trams to their cars, and then into thousands of cars, which then have to squeeze onto the roads away from the park. The longest lines you may face all day might be the ones to get away from the rides.
That said, Disney certainly does know how to put on an excellent fireworks show. We'd advise finding a spot in Fantasyland, preferably between Dumbo the Flying Elephant and Snow White's Scary Adventures—the noise will be really loud, and you'll have to look nearly straight up, but you won't miss a thing. (Sometimes weird things happen to lines as the fireworks approach—once we got on Dumbo the Flying Elephant with almost no waiting, and the fireworks started as our ride started. Watching a fireworks show while spinning around in the air is disconcerting, to say the least.) Note, though, that (most nights, at least) once the fireworks start, they won't let you on any rides—the fireworks show is the sign that the park's about to close.
Of course, if you follow our advice and watch the fireworks from Fantasyland, this spot puts you at the back of the line for getting out of the park. Don't stress about it too terribly, just make sure to keep hold of your children's hands and take the time to enjoy the sights as you leave the park.
Here's the summary of the itinerary we've just outlined for you, then. First you arrive at the parking lot at least a half hour before the park opens, get into the park, pick up your maps and stroller (if applicable) and everything as outlined up above, and then…
This page last updated 21 May 2006.
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