Early Entry Morning Meltdown at Magic Kingdom
Early Entry at Magic Kingdom offers on-site guests of Walt Disney World hotels a head-start on long lines, and the ability to accomplish attractions with lower wait times…in theory. This photo report shares my step-by-step morning on an average day (crowd level 6/10), but that felt far worse due to a meltdown of many rides in MK.
We’re big fans of Early Entry, and have enthusiastically recommended it in dozens of planning posts. In large part, this is because we think it’s an underrated perk, with many guests dismissing it as “only” 30 minutes and inferior to the now-defunct, hour-long morning Extra Magic Hours. However, it’s also typically a lot less busy than EMH was, since it’s at all 4 parks every single day, thus diluting the crowds.
As explained in our various Extra Hours Photo Reports, the perk is a great way to knock out Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, Avatar Flight of Passage, and other headliners with minimal waits via the standby lines before Lightning Lanes clog up queues. However, you’ll notice one conspicuous omission from our emphatic praise about Early Entry: Magic Kingdom.
I’ve done Early Entry at Magic Kingdom over a dozen times in the last 2 years. It’s my least favorite park for Early Entry, and frankly, it’s not even a remotely close call. I still do Early Entry elsewhere “for fun,” whereas Magic Kingdom is strictly for the sake of research and reporting at this point. When it comes to enjoyment, I’d only do Early Entry at Magic Kingdom during Party Season.
This is because Operating Hours at Magic Kingdom are still reduced, with the park opening at 9 am most mornings–even on the busiest days of the year! Only during Party Season from August through December (plus a few other dates) does Magic Kingdom open at 8 am. The good news is that Party Season is right around the corner, so many of you planning Walt Disney World trips will have precisely this opportunity.
Suffice to say, the 7:30 am Early Entry at Magic Kingdom is a game changer. We highly recommend it on Halloween or Christmas Party dates. Very few guests have the desire and determination to be out their hotel room door by ~6:30 am, which is pretty much what’s necessary to arrive at Magic Kingdom in time for the start of Early Entry. By contrast, tons of people can make it for 8:30 am Early Entry, which is the main reason why Magic Kingdom is the worst park for Early Entry.
For this Early Entry at Magic Kingdom trial run, I stayed at in the New ‘Under the Sea’ 5th Sleeper Rooms at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort. While I’ve praised the location of these Little Mermaid-inspired rooms when it comes to Early Entry at DHS or EPCOT, the same is definitely not true for Animal or Magic Kingdom.
I was out the door of the room with plenty of time to make it to Magic Kingdom on time and the bus was scheduled to arrive in only 5 minutes. Perfect. Then that got delayed by a few minutes, and then that bus skipped our stop entirely. We’ve had that happen a couple times due to buses filling up at earlier stops at Caribbean Beach.
Another bus bound for Magic Kingdom arrived in 8 minutes, amounting to a total wait of a little over 15 minutes. That’s certainly not awful, but it’s the longest wait I’ve had for Early Entry in a long time–and when you’re on a tight schedule, that 15 minute wait feels like 45!
My issues didn’t end there. After arriving to Magic Kingdom, my bag was flagged while going through security. This is a bit tangential, but for the last year, I was breezing through bag check by holding my camera bag out in front of me (far off my body) if I only had lightweight mirrorless lenses.
In the last couple of months, I’ve been flagged every single time I’ve gone through the security scanners. I’ve also noticed many more people in line with me at secondary screening. So I’m pretty sure it’s not a “me problem.” (My biggest pro tip for those packing a lot for the parks: use a lightweight backpack with a single main compartment. Not only is it a lot more comfortable to wear, but it’s way more efficient at bagcheck.)
My guess is that Walt Disney World turned up the “sensitivity” of the Evolv scanners (or something like that) after incidents about them started making headlines. Normally, this doesn’t add too of a delay, as I have an ‘efficient’ single compartment camera bag. On this particular morning at Magic Kingdom, the line for secondary screening was a dozen people deep and amounted to another 12 minute delay.
Anyway, I finally entered Magic Kingdom at 8:05 am for the 8:30 am start of Early Theme Park Entry. By this time, Magic Kingdom’s turnstiles had been open for probably at least 30 minutes. A crowd had already built up on Main Street, there was a line for Starbucks, and so forth.
Our normal recommendation is to arrive around 30 minutes before the start of Early Theme Park Entry. If your plan is to do Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, you want to arrive 30+ minutes in advance. Less time is fine for Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, or the other options.
After snapping some photos around the Central Plaza and Cinderella Castle, I headed to the right of the East Plaza Garden for Early Theme Park Entry.
Here, there’s a row of Cast Members stationed to scan MagicBands, resort room keys, or whatever appropriate identification you might have if staying at one of the participating third party hotels. You can’t access Tomorrowland or Fantasyland without scanning here. Once you’ve done that, you’re good to go for the morning. This works exactly the same as morning Extra Magic Hours.
From there, you proceed on to either the Tomorrowland Bridge or Fantasyland Bridge.
As always, the crowd is significantly smaller for Tomorrowland. This is the entirety of it–the rope is under the archway, and there’s decent breathing room among parties.
By contrast, here’s a portion of the crowd for Fantasyland. It would end up extending all the way out past the other side of the Fantasyland bridge.
There were probably 10-15 times as many guests waiting here. Approximately 90% of those people are planning on doing Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
Normally, we would take a divide and conquer approach with Sarah getting stuck doing the SDMT Shuffle while I run around taking pictures and assessing lines throughout Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. Sarah wasn’t able to join me, so I had to decide which path to take: practical plan testing or research. I chose the latter.
The idea of doing the SDMT Shuffle is always unappealing to me, but doubly so when I’m at the back of the pack and elbow-to-elbow with a bunch of tired and fellow under-caffeinated guests on a morning when Florida ‘feels like’ temperatures are already approaching the triple digits.
Without even doing it, I can tell you that the SDMT Shuffle would’ve been stressful, generally miserable, and I would’ve been halfway into a 75-minute long line. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train alone would’ve been the entirety of my Early Entry time at Magic Kingdom. (With the benefit of hindsight, that actually wouldn’t have been the worst possible outcome this particular morning!)
Instead, I headed to the Tomorrowland bridge right as Early Entry started to check out Space Mountain.
As is always the case, the experience getting into Tomorrowland is downright blissful as compared to Fantasyland. However, a long line did form immediately at Space Mountain.
Guests were stacked outside the queue, and funnel down from a bit of an amorphous blob into an actual line closer to the entrance. This might look bad, but keep in mind that there’s no one inside the building yet and is purely standby at this hour.
It likely would’ve been about a 10 minute wait, with most of that being a matter of walking through the interior queue. That would’ve made Space Mountain a strong starting option for Early Entry, just like most mornings in Magic Kingdom. However, I was here for research–not fun–so I kept on going without blasting off into space.
Going it alone, my goal was to make it back to Peter Pan’s Flight before all of the guests who bail on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train head that direction. This happens every morning as some of the back half of the SDMT Shuffle participants realize they’re in for a 45 minute or longer wait.
At this point, the posted wait time for Peter Pan’s Flight was only 15 minutes–not bad at all. That meant it would’ve been a walk-on for anyone who headed directly to Peter Pan’s Flight at the start of Early Entry. I was curious as to how it would look ~10 minutes later, so I headed back towards Fantasyland.
On my way back, I noticed that Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin was down.
Then I passed the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and saw that was also experiencing the dreaded delayed opening. So I checked the My Disney Experience app again…
Sure enough, half of the Early Entry attractions in Magic Kingdom were down.
Astro Orbiter, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, Mad Tea Party, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, and the Little Mermaid dark ride were all ‘temporarily closed’ according to MDX.
Unsurprisingly, Peter Pan’s Flight was no longer a 15 minute wait when I arrived.
In the span of a few minutes, it had skyrocketed to 65 minutes, and had Cast Members directing traffic into an outdoor overflow queue. This was probably just because the interior queue was still filling with people, but I wasn’t about to find out.
Heading back the other direction a few minutes later, the line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train already wrapped around the mountain and was back by the Little Mermaid dark ride.
The posted wait time for SDMT was 75 minutes. That might’ve been inflated a bit, but it would’ve been long regardless. Certainly worse than I had seen it during other Early Entry mornings, including many that would end up having higher crowd levels.
I headed back to Tomorrowland, where the lines had also built up.
Here’s a look at Space Mountain, now with a 60 minute wait and a line that leads all the way back near the corridor leading into the land. (It was almost to Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor.)
Even though it was still down, the PeopleMover had a decent number of people (probably a few dozen) simply waiting for it to open.
This type of thing happens in these ‘meltdown’ situations when numerous attractions are ‘temporarily closed’ to start Early Entry. The fewer attractions that are open see their wait times skyrocket and have visibly long lines (that are frankly a bit deceptive), so people start waiting around for the down attractions to open. A lot of people were also simply sitting around the Lunching Pad.
Back at Peter Pan’s Flight, the overflow queue was gone and the posted wait time was “only” 50 minutes at 8:50 am.
Around this time, the attractions with delayed openings also started to open. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Mad Tea Party were both up. By 8:58 am, everything except Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and the Little Mermaid dark ride were up and running. This would be great news for actual rope drop crowds, but a sour start for many of those doing Early Entry.
All in all, I would’ve been able to accomplish either Space Mountain or Peter Pan’s Flight with minimal wait had I started with one of those two attractions. If I arrived earlier, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train also would’ve been an option. But that was it–one ride with a short wait–on this particular morning.
I wandered for a bit, checking out other attractions in Fantasyland before heading to the Tangled Toilets™️ for regular rope drop of Frontierland and Adventureland. Had I been really strategic, I would’ve headed back through the hub to start from there.
There wasn’t much of a crowd here and I moved quickly to make my way over to Jungle Cruise, but speed didn’t matter. The distance is far longer from this point than it is from the hub, and I was behind the rope drop crowd.
I had actually planned on doing Jungle Cruise, but it also was experiencing a delayed opening, so I bounced immediately. In checking MDX, it looks like it opened about 2-4 minutes after I left. Can’t win ’em all.
Absolutely no crowd over in Frontierland.
A bit surprised that a colossal crowd hadn’t gathered outside Magic Kingdom’s UNESCO World Heritage Site, Country Bear Jamboree, waiting for it to open.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad still had a 10 minute wait.
I did this, and my actual wait time was however long it took me to walk through the mostly-empty queue. Trains were being dispatched about half full. Even as I exited, the wait time was still 10 minutes, and didn’t look any worse than when I arrived. This has been the rope drop dynamic (at least in my experience) since Splash Mountain closed.
Honestly, I was expecting larger crowds with only one attraction to absorb guests instead of two. Instead, it appears that people are avoiding this corner of Magic Kingdom completely. That’s why we do field-testing rather than simply make assumptions about what we expect to happen. Sometimes crowd dynamics surprise us!
From there, it was back to Adventureland for Pirates of the Caribbean.
This was also a walk-on, which is completely unsurprising.
Back at Jungle Cruise, the line is entirely inside the queue but the posted wait was now 40 minutes. Frankly, that’s not too bad and I didn’t notice many people heading into the Lightning Lane.
I’m guessing the actual wait time would’ve been under 30 minutes–maybe under 20 minutes. I was hungry and disinclined to find out for myself, though. Sorry.
In general, Frontierland and Adventureland were not busy at all.
My guess is that the attractions with delayed openings came back up just in time to keep the Early Entry crowd in those lands longer than expected, while also drawing in rope drop guests who saw the lower wait times for all of the rides coming online between 8:45 and 9 am. I don’t know how else to explain the chaos of those two lands contrasted with the calm of Adventureland and Frontierland.
Ultimately, this experience with Early Theme Park Entry at Magic Kingdom was not great. It still would’ve been decently productive had I been at the front of the pack for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, or started with Peter Pan’s Flight or Space Mountain. But the wheels would’ve fallen off after that. I could’ve only done one of those rides with a short wait before having to figure out what to do about the ride breakdowns.
This kind of morning meltdown at Magic Kingdom is hardly unprecedented. It’s been a while since we’ve experienced anything to this degree firsthand, but there are days when a half-dozen attractions are down due to power outages or who knows what. When that happens, you can either try to wait it out or head in the other direction and hope for the best.
In the end, my morning at Magic Kingdom could’ve gone worse, but it also could’ve been better. My biggest misstep was being impatient with Jungle Cruise, but I probably wouldn’t have given up so quickly if so many things weren’t broken down during Early Entry. Still, a subpar day for the worst Early Entry park at Walt Disney World.
It’s also worth emphasizing that my best results would’ve come after rope drop, regardless. I could’ve done Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Haunted Mansion all with low waits. After that, continuing into Fantasyland to do mid-tier dark rides with short waits would’ve been viable. I could’ve arrived almost an hour later than I did, and simply saved the headliners for after Happily Ever After. (With that said, transportation and security likely would’ve taken longer or been worse had I waited to depart my resort.)
Even on a good day, Early Entry at Magic Kingdom requires a relatively decent time commitment, larger crowds, and far less payoff than the other parks at Walt Disney World. As we’ve cautioned before, don’t let Magic Kingdom be your first Early Entry experience, as it’ll unduly prejudice you against the other parks, despite Early Entry being far superior in EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. Speaking of which, if you want strategy for the other three parks, check out our Guide to Early Theme Park Entry at Walt Disney World.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you experienced the dreaded multi-ride morning meltdown at Magic Kingdom when many attractions start out temporarily closed? Thoughts on Early Theme Park Entry at Magic Kingdom? Have you experienced this 30 minute jumpstart to the day at Magic Kingdom? What’s your preferred approach to Early Entry? How would you have done things differently? Any other feedback on arriving early to the Walt Disney World theme parks? Agree or disagree with our advice or approach? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Hi Tom. This question is about Universal Studios Hollywood – I had asked this question in another post, but never saw any replies. Why aren’t their hours posted for August? We’re traveling from NJ to CA and would like to know park hours to plan accordingly when we’re in LA area. Any ideas? TIA.
All I have to say is what a mess as well as ‘A bit surprised that a colossal crowd hadn’t gathered outside Magic Kingdom’s UNESCO World Heritage Site, Country Bear Jamboree, waiting for it to open.’ made me laugh my head off! 🙂
I’m assuming they’ll be changing the name of the SDMT ride to the “Seven Magical Creatures’ Mine Train”….
Tom: Quick question about your comment above re 8am opening during party season and 7:30 early entry at MK. We go in September (first time as a family!) and I haven’t seen hours update from 9am to 8am opening yet. Think they will get around to it? Thanks in advance (and congrats on your family news)!
I expect that to happen as those dates draw nearer–that’s what happened last year.
With that said, if September is really slow, they may not extend.
Thanks for taking the time to respond!
Staying a Rock N Roll first week of November. What is the fastest way to get to MK for early entry? We will have a rental car and everything I’m hearing is the bus system is very unreliable in the mornings.
Wow, seems like a nightmarish morning! Thanks for all that you do in the name of research. We’ll be there towards the end of August and planning to do early entry on a party day at MK and then hop to Epcot to enjoy Food and Wine. Hopefully, we won’t encounter a morning like this, but as you say even the worst day at Disney World….
Hope Sarah is feeling great!
I often get caught by the second security point. They tell me it is likely because of the spare phone charger. However, WDW is no longer easy to manage without a working phone. I just expect to be tagged now, and like you I have a bag with one compartment to speed it up.
I’m glad to see you address this, as ride closure in the mornings has been our experience. Early entry stresses me out because I feel like you get one shot at something, right at 8:30, and if that ride is down you’ve blown your advantage. And it seems like most of the big rides are down (RoR and Test Track seem to always be down) most of the time. I’ll follow your advice next time and “rope drop” the 9:00 opening of frontierland instead.
Yowzer. This would test my patience.
On the secondary security checks: I usually head to a park straight from the airport, with a day pack and a backpack carrying three people’s clothes/tech/etc (packing light can still be done with kids!). Understandably, we get always pulled for a legendary secondary screening, where I watch my carefully compressed packing cubes get deconstructed while I whisper my apologies to the bewildered guest behind me. The screenings are thorough and usually as efficient as possible, but I recommend taking Tom’s advice and minimize the zippered pockets/packs!
Just to clarify, what’s presented here is not a plan or recommended approach to Early Entry. For that, see this post: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/magic-kingdom-early-entry-morning-versus-genie-plus/
Since I didn’t have Sarah with me, I was simply racing around to “research” how lines looked, crowd dynamics, etc. That’s why I checked out the line at Space Mountain rather than actually riding it.
You couldn’t–and shouldn’t–bounce between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland during Early Entry. You pick one, and stick with it.
Sorry for the confusion!
Good God Tom, this seems so stressful. Ain’t one supposed to relax while on vacation? With your plan, my family would need a vacation after our so called Disney vacation…
If you like to relax on vacation in Orlando I highly recommend Discovery Cove. They are running a pretty good sale right now too. If you do the combo ticket with Sea World and Busch Gardens it’s usually cheaper than Disney overall, even though the one-day tickets are more.
Well, no. You aren’t supposed to “relax” on vacation. You are supposed to do what is fun for you! For some that might be relaxing, for others it’s hiking 15 miles in the mountains, and for others, it’s getting up at 6AM and riding theme park rides. All of those can be fun!
“I need a vacation after my Walt Disney World vacation” is a pretty common refrain, actually! It might even be why there are land & sea trips pairing WDW with Disney Cruise Line afterwards!
We like to draw a distinction between traveling and vacationing. We like to do the former and not so much the latter. Whether that means hiking, walking 30,000 steps in a day criss-crossing some international metropolis, or “attacking” Disney theme parks with military precision. To each their own, though! 🙂
The funny part is that, based on previous estimates of his speed through theme park traffic, Tom probably went from Space Mountain to Peter Pan’s Flight and back without thinking about the mileage! For pedestrians of normal speeds, I’d suggest trying one or the other and sticking with it; Tom actually cut bait earlier than I’d suggest twice during Early Entry and at the Jungle Cruise.
“Honestly, I was expecting larger crowds with only one attraction to absorb guests instead of two. Instead, it appears that people are avoiding this corner of Magic Kingdom completely.”
Walt Disney’s thoughts about “weenies” aren’t as fun as some of his quotes, but they’re 100% true. If having an unweighted amount of draws keeps people off the west side of the park first thing, I’d love to try a rope drop to Jungle Cruise, then a Main Street Vehicle from the Hub to Town Square and take the Railroad to the Railroad. (The Vehicles basically run from 9 to 10 at Florida, so this would be the only way to “efficiently” work them into a MK day.)
We’ve had this experience, but during the extended evening hours at Epcot. I don’t see many of those dates any more. Three of the last four times we’ve done the evening version, at least two of Test Track, Ratatouille, Soarin, and Frozen have been down the whole time. Also on multiple occasions, the path between Norway and France has been shut down. No food offerings in World Showcase other than the Mexico quick service. I tolerate just about everything, but the late hours at Epcot are a dud and it’s so frustrating not to be able to amble around Epcot at night eating and riding.
As for early entry at the Magic Kingdom, we always take advantage but it is solely to grab coffee and get ready for the actual opening of Adventureland at 9:00 AM. We find that while everyone is cramming in (or stuck in cycle) at the attractions that open early, we can pretty much walk on Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Thunder Mtn, and Haunted Mansion in order. It’s so nice to experience those four before it hits 10:30 AM. Low and behold, we find ourselves right next to Sleepy Hallow at 2nd breakfast time. How about that!
So early entry is absolutely worth it, granted you don’t go on any of the rides that open early. 😉
“Low and behold, we find ourselves right next to Sleepy Hallow at 2nd breakfast time. How about that!”
I like how you think!
Completely agree with this. For me, the best part of Magic Kingdom is the west side of the park. Early Entry is just a chance to get ready for those lands to open and then ride everything with minimal waits.
This is great advice, thanks! However, second breakfast at the Magic Kingdom should always be one of Gaston’s cinnamon rolls 🙂
do you think when they say the rides are down, its not really a mechanical issue, but more so staffing? like not enough people to run the ride/monitor the ride etc..
There are a bunch of conspiracy theories about attraction downtime actually being caused by something else, but I think that 95% of the time, it’s an actual mechanical (or comparable) issue.
Maintenance and ride reliability have become bigger issues in the last few years. Both coasts lost a lot of older Cast Members who retired early, and a lot of institutional knowledge was lost in the process.
None of this sounds like fun. And not just delayed openings, but constant ride break downs are a major bummer. In Disneyland, genie is such a poor substitute for Max Pass in that standby lines are a mess. It is clear that they often ‘temporarily’ close rides in order to ‘clear’ genie rider lines. Having a 90/10 ratio of genie/standby on some rides makes for a miserable experience.
I have noticed this also at Disneyland! It’s so frustrating.
You joked about people not lining up for country bear jamboree in the morning but I’m being thwarted by the fact that it doesn’t open til 11 am. I wanted to do an early morning the Wednesday before our august 18 not so scary to catch some rides like country bear that I love but my daughter and grands hate. I wanted to be out by 11 but I read country bears doesn’t open til then
I also will have access to after hours that evening but will get there late cause schedule says fantasmic won’t start til 9:30. I worry that country bears, though on the schedule, won’t actually be open. Or if it is, it will be just me and the bears which feels more than a little creepy. Have you had any experience with country bears at the extended ours on Wednesday?
I always do CBJ in the middle of the day when it’s hot and everything else has longer lines. Unless you’re on a strict schedule, I’d probably do the first showing at 11 am (that also might move forward to 10 am with an 8 am park opening time). You will have the theater largely to yourself, but that’s awesome–not creepy!
Plus if you have Country Bears entirely to yourselves you can join in singing Blood on the Saddle!! Tom claims if he closes his eyes he can’t tell whether it’s me or Big Al!!
Ok, lol you guys are psyching me up for possibly being only guest on country bears. If I ended up experiencing the ride during extended hours in the evening ( they do show that it’s available on the app), it’s hard to imagine them running the whole thing for one person though. Or does the ride just keep cycling even if no one is there , like that famous tree falling with no one to hear it.
We are going to be in Disney World on September 17th. I was hoping to do early entry on a party day, but the Disney World app shows the park hours for that day as 9:00 am to 6 pm with early entry at 8:30. This makes me nervous….do you think with the slowdown at Disney they are making a change to their party day hours? Is there a chance they might change their hours when it gets closer?
Hours are typically extended as dates draw nearer. I’d expect that to happen again this Party Season–it did last year–but the slowdown does make me slightly nervous.
I am also hoping the party day opening times will change for September, but I specifically posed this question to planDisney (formerly the Moms Panel), and while acknowledging that the schedule is always subject to change, she did not think the opening times would move. ☹️
I know rope dropping has its benefits, but the waiting in huge unmoving packed crowds at the front of the park super early, to avoid waiting in a line on 2-3 rides doesn’t feel like a pay off to me. Waiting is waiting. The ques at least move, have more personal space, and sometimes interactive or interesting. I know people say the wait times at rope drop are while the park is closed and you aren’t missing out on something while waiting. But I’m missing out on sleep! That said, I rope dropped DHS at 445am to score a boarding pass to ROR and when we got in the park we went to RNR and rode it walk on 6 times in a row before we saw a 30 minute line form, and that was pretty sweet. Wouldn’t do it again! But cool to experience.
I hear ya. I’m the type that would MUCH rather wait for 90 minutes in the morning when I’m rested and energetic, then speedrun a few things with a minimal line as opposed to waiting in long lines during the day and sleeping in.
BUT! I’m a morning person. And I’m much crazier than your average theme park fan – this strategy IS “objectively” better from the perspective of how many rides you get on. But the trip is about having fun. Ride total at the end is a huge part of the fun for me, but if that’s not what floats your boat then don’t stress about it!
Totally agree with the sentiment that “waiting is waiting.”
However, there is a version of this–and maybe I should actually do that and show it sometime–that involves enjoying an uncrowded Main Street, empty park photos in front of Cinderella Castle, and showing up at the Tomorrowland bridge 5 minutes before Early Entry starts.
Doing that is a pleasant way to experience the park, and also beat the crowds to all of the pinch-points in the infrastructure (buses, security, etc).
My wife is always up before 6 but me not so much. She usually feeds the cats at that time. However the cats will not be coming with us to WDW. In the past, on our cat free Disney vacations, she has slept as late as 7. More to the point, after reading about your latest experience, I will have second thoughts about being out the door by 6:30 AM. It was still a pleasure reading todays blog. I’m guessing that after the early morning entrance stuff you leave right before or after lunch, if eating at the Park, and head to the pool or the water park.
In our house, 5 am is its own ‘Party Season’ for the cat. That’s when he starts batting at the blinds, running all around, crashing into things. He’s not hungry, he just wants to play.
This time of year, I’ll often leave around 11 am to go back to the room, shower again, eat breakfast/lunch, do some work and avoid the midday heat. When it’s nicer out, I’ll usually just stick around, eating in the park and doing work on my phone/laptop at Tomorrowland Terrace.
Hi Tom,
Do you plan on doing another early entry run later this year on a MNSSHP day at MK? Purely for scientific reasons of course. I’d be interested in reading that report. My son and I went to MK on an early entry on a MNSSHP day during the 3rd week of Sept last year, and we literally rode all of the headliners in the first 90 mins, except SDMT, which we bought lightning lane for. We did go back to the hub Adventure land entrance for JC, which was a smart move I think. We coming back with the whole family the last week of Oct this year, so I expect that it won’t go as smoothly since it isn’t Sept.
Thank you!
“Do you plan on doing another early entry run later this year on a MNSSHP day at MK?”
Yeah. I’m fully expecting it to be 99% the same as last year’s efforts during Party Season, but will nevertheless go through the motions for the sake of ‘research’ and because, apparently, I hate sleep.
Reading this on a ferry on our way back from Nova Scotia. I think I have a form of Disney PTSD from the one time we did the SDMT shuffle for it only to be on a delayed opening, it’s super miserable with kids. It’s been awesome to see the kids enjoy a different type of vacation this summer, and equally awesome for me to not have to deal with the crowds and planning that go with it. Reading your blog all the time, their are some towns (eg Lunenberg – an actual UNESCO site :-)), I think you’d all love up there.
Sounds like an awesome trip!
I’ve loved (literally) everywhere I’ve been in Canada, and want to add Nova Scotia to that list at some point. That along with Quebec City (in particular, the Christmas markets), Montreal, and Ottawa are high priorities among the remaining Canadian cities I haven’t visited.
You can actually combine Disney and Nova Scotia – my brother is taking a Disney Cruise from NYC to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick this fall.