Pre-Park Opening Breakfast at Disney World Strategy
There are two advantages of pre-park opening breakfast reservations that make these some of the hottest ADRs at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. In this post, we’ll cover how to use those ADRs for empty park photos and beating the rope drop dash at some of Walt Disney World’s most popular attractions.
Let’s start with the basics. A pre-park opening (PPO) advanced dining reservation (ADR) is a breakfast reservation prior to the opening of a given park, beginning at 8 a.m. on days when the parks open to regular guests at 9 a.m. While there is some fluidity to those times during busier seasons, that hour is almost always the window of time for pre-park opening ADRs.
No matter what (reasonable) time you intend upon arriving at Magic Kingdom or the other parks, Walt Disney World transportation will be running. Buses to Magic Kingdom usually begin running around 6:30, and buses for the other parks usually enter service around 7 a.m., as do the monorails and boats. This is more than enough time to arrive in time for your pre-park opening ADR. Security has been a little hit or miss in our experience, but usually opens by 7:30 a.m. at the latest.
Guests who have a pre-park opening breakfast reservation are (obviously) allowed into the parks early, with the ability to enter the park at around 7:45 a.m. This is true regardless of whether your ADR is for 8 a.m. exactly, or as late as 8:55 a.m. So long as your ADR is before official park opening, you’re “on the list” and allowed entrance via the turnstile for breakfast reservations.
Despite the fact that all guests with pre-parking opening ADRs are allowed to enter as early as 7:45 a.m., we’d encourage you to snag reservations closer to 8 a.m., if possible. This is because you’re going to be given priority in terms of seating if you have an earlier reservation, rather than a later one.
In actuality, we’ve never had things play out that way. We’ve done pre-park opening ADRs numerous times, and almost always get “stuck” with ones around 8:45 a.m. because we aren’t quick to the draw on the earlier ones.
Most times we’ve done this, we’ve spent around 12 minutes taking photos (and walking to the restaurant), and made a point of arriving at the podium to check-in by 8:00 a.m. By doing this, you should have around 45 minutes from the time seated until you need to leave to enjoy your breakfast. That’s a pretty narrow window once you factor in meeting characters (where applicable) and paying, but it’s doable most places.
If you’re not so concerned with racing through breakfast to get to an attraction by 8:55 a.m., we’d encourage you to go slower while entering the park. Soak up the ambiance and take as many photos as you can, because this is a rare experience that should be savored.
We did the unDISCOVERed Future World tour on our recent Walt Disney World trip, which also provides pre-park opening access to Epcot, and we had nearly 30 minutes to wander around. Here’s a quick walk-around video we posted to Facebook of the experience:
Another reason for taking your time is because most people who book pre-park opening ADRs–at least the ones entering at 7:45–are doing so in order to have a quick breakfast and finish in time for rope drop. They are in a hurry to get to the restaurant podium, be seated, and get on with their meal and day.
If you slow down and take your time, you’ll find there’s a bit of a “pocket” right after that initial rush into the park, and the next wave of guests who arrive. This is ideal for empty park photos and will also reduce your wait time to be seated at the restaurant podium.
In Magic Kingdom, it should be noted that this pocket is short-lived. Due to the new opening procedure, regular day guests start entering the park at 8 a.m., and even that time can be moved forward slightly on particularly busy days. (Park ops wants to avoid congestion at the turnstiles and security, which is why the opening procedure was moved inside the park.)
With that said, empty pre-park opening photos are still possible in Magic Kingdom. You just don’t have a full hour, and your chances of truly empty shots are dramatically lower. It’s still a nice experience, but nowhere near what it was a few years ago. If empty park photos in Magic Kingdom are your main motivation for this, staying late at night is probably the better option.
While any pre-park opening breakfast reservation will get you the advantage of empty park photos, not all offer the same in terms of rope drop strategy. For example, Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom is located outside the Fantasyland “rope,” meaning that if you finish there at 8:55 a.m., you’re behind a large horde of day guests who have been arriving since 8 a.m. In that case, you’re actually at a disadvantage for rope drop.
By contrast, if you do Cinderella’s Royal Table or Be Our Guest Restaurant for breakfast, you’re inside the rope, giving you free rein of Fantasyland. These are the only two Magic Kingdom restaurants that offer such an advantage.
We’d recommend Be Our Guest Restaurant for breakfast. Although we weren’t particularly keen on it in our Breakfast Be Our Guest Restaurant Review, it’s a significantly cheaper option (great as a Disney Dining Plan credit use, too!).
Plus, racing through breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table is more impractical…and honestly not recommend given the high price you’re paying. In fact, while this post assumes that you’ve already made your mind up on doing a pre-park opening breakfast, we have a tough time justifying the out of pocket cost of any of these character breakfasts–but that’s just us.
Once done with breakfast, the attraction to which you should race in Magic Kingdom is Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Other Fantasyland attractions are options (Peter Pan’s Flight is an alternative to consider), but Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is the hot ticket.
In Epcot, the attraction you’ll want to target depends upon your location. If you did Akershus, Frozen Ever After is it. If you did Garden Grill, it’s Soarin’ Around the World. It’s not possible to criss-cross the park to do the other attraction, so plan accordingly.
We shared our experience doing a pre-park opening Akershus breakfast and finishing that in our Frozen Ever After Tips & Strategy post, so I won’t regurgitate that here. Suffice to say, we were able to meet every princess (barely) but it was a rushed experience, and for the price we paid, I would’ve rather had a slower paced, relaxed meal.
We’d only recommend this approach as a last resort if you’re unable to score Frozen Ever After FastPass+, and doing it at the end of the night is not an option.
We can’t speak to Disney’s Hollywood Studios as we have no personal experience on that front, but the advantage to doing Hollywood & Vine pre-park opening is likely going to lie with being able to sign-up for Jedi Training Academy: Trials of the Temple. (We’ve heard you can do this before breakfast, but again, we have no experience. Perhaps someone who has done this can clarify in the comments?)
Over at Animal Kingdom, Tusker House offers a potential advantage for early access to Kilimanjaro Safaris. The bigger deal is that it currently offers a disadvantage for access to Pandora: World of Avatar. Under no circumstances should you book Tusker House if you plan on rope dropping Flight of Passage.
That could change once the dust settles with Pandora, but don’t hold your breath. We’re nearly a year into Pandora’s existence, and it’s still incredibly chaotic at rope drop, so the procedure is not likely to be anytime soon.
Actually, outside of Be Our Guest Restaurant, we have a very difficult time recommending pre-park opening breakfast reservations as an ‘alternative FastPass+.’ The cost of these character meals is simply too high, and even if you’re able to make it out in time, you’ll feel rushed and pressured throughout the entire meal.
Another thing to consider is that many of these breakfasts are buffets. When we do buffets at Walt Disney World, we put on our game faces, pretending we’re Crazy Legs Conti downing six hot dogs at once. Usually, we spend around 90 minutes at a Walt Disney World buffet: 60 minutes stuffing our faces non-stop, followed by 30 trying to recover from our waking food comas and trying to get up from our seats.
Plus, if you’re planning far enough in advance to make an ADR at the 180-day mark, there should be no reason that you can’t make a FastPass+ at the 60-day mark. Even the most coveted of these FastPasses (Frozen Ever After and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train) are not too difficult to score at that point.
One thing we would highly recommend is making two separate pre-park opening breakfast reservations for the park of your choice on different days. The reason for doing this is because ADRs can be made before park calendars are typically released, meaning morning Extra Magic Hours can be scheduled after you’ve already made your ADR. Morning Extra Magic Hours effectively undermine your early entry advantage, so avoid breakfast on those days.
The problem with waiting to book ADRs until the park calendars are released is that some of the more popular restaurants will already be fully booked. Booking reservations on two different days sidesteps this problem, and so long as you cancel the other reservation, there’s no penalty.
Ultimately, pre-park opening breakfast reservations are something we really enjoy for the sake of experiencing an empty park first thing in the morning, not having to deal with the chaos of rope drop crowds, and fun photos. There also can be an advantage in beating the crowds to popular attractions, but that’s less of a sure thing. In the end, we would not recommend booking a breakfast you otherwise would not want to do (given the cost), but these advantages are certainly icing on the cake for a meal that already interests you!
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Your Thoughts
Have you done a pre-park opening breakfast at Walt Disney World? What did you think of the experience? Any strategical tips to add? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
What about consideration of just not showing up to the earliest reservation you can make, and take the hit for $10 per person. And give yourself all that time in the park ahead of people? Or is that too much of scamming the system?
“Or is that too much of scamming the system?”
That’s for you to decide. It’s certainly an option, but one I deemed too ‘controversial’ to include in the text of the article. I wouldn’t do it, but my perspective is that if Disney doesn’t want people gaming the system, they are situated to close this loophole.
Oh wow, please don’t do this. It is horribly unfair to the server who you have effectively stiffed of a tip by no-showing your reservation.
Would something like this work on the other side of the country? What restaurants would you recommend for DCA or Disneyland?
I love to read your tips! I did not realize you could do a pre-park opening breakfast. I appreciate your honesty with the pros and cons. Not sure when we are going to go back to WDW but I will definitely be using your posts as a resource for sure. As always, I love all your photography. Gorgeous!
Thanks Tom, I got heaps of great info from that article. We live in NZ so going to WDW is a huge cost and we don’t usually factor in these breakfasts because of the cost vs qty we can eat dilemma! .
I have a passion for photos with less people in them as well so now I can plan accordingly.
Love your work.
Thanks
C
I was wondering that too! We were just there over New Years (which was super busy, btw) and my friend did exactly that. She wanted to get on Flight of Passage and she found a last minute Tusker House breakfast res the night before. She did have to stand in a little bit of a line, but she did get on it in under an hour.
Sorry, this was meant to go under wwcpd’s comment.
“The bigger deal is that it currently offers a disadvantage for access to Pandora: World of Avatar. Under no circumstances should you book Tusker House if you plan on rope dropping Flight of Passage.”
Poop! We have an 8am ADR at Tusker House in April for this very purpose. Can you please explain why it’s a bad idea? Thanks!
I was wondering that too! We were just there over New Years (which was super busy, btw) and my friend did exactly that. She wanted to get on Flight of Passage and she found a last minute Tusker House breakfast res the night before. She did have to stand in a little bit of a line, but she did get on it in under an hour.
Perhaps “under no circumstances” is a bit strong. Normally, the problem you have is that Animal Kingdom opens earlier than its published hours (so if it’s officially a 9 a.m. opening, expect the turnstiles to open around 8:35 a.m.) because crowds are already forming. Unless you can finish breakfast at lightning speed, you’re often going to find yourself behind the rope drop crowd upon finishing up at Tusker House.
It’s a huge gamble to book that ADR and race through that pricey breakfast only to find out that you’ve already been ‘beaten’ by the rope drop crowd because those turnstiles opened early.
If things change with Animal Kingdom and it no longer opens before the scheduled time (there’s a decent chance Toy Story Land will draw away a big chunk of that rope drop crowd), the calculus certainly changes.
Question? We went about a year ago (late January, early February trip 2017) and they were letting everyone in MK early regardless of reservations. You simply had to stay on Main Street and couldn’t enter other lands or the castle without a reservation. This is where the cast members with lists were standing. It was this way with both of our early morning ADRs this trip. Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed as we didn’t get the pictures on Main Street as we had the trip before in 2015.
I’m guessing this was short lived? Early morning ADRs are only a must for us if we can get the Magic Kingdom almost to ourselves. Thanks!!
They let everyone into MK around 8am these days and they just have to stay on Main Street/the hub area. (At least that is my understanding)
Currently, the new opening procedure allows all guests into Magic Kingdom at 8 a.m. Guests with breakfast ADRs are allowed to enter at 7:45 a.m.
I’m not sure how things were then (at that time, the new opening procedure had just debuted), but that’s how it is now. In other words, you’ve got a very narrow window for those empty Main Street photos.
We just went in December. I had read several bloggers say that they let you in a hour early on mainstreet but this was not the case. All three days we went at rope drop the park opened at eight and all non reservation guests were let through the ticket line at 7:30 and held just before the entrance until 7:50 one day and 7:55 another. So you basically had to run to see the welcome show. Needless to say I was disappointed.
Was this Christmas or NYE week? What you experienced is most definitely not the norm, at least on days when Magic Kingdom opens at 9 a.m.
We stayed at Fort Wilderness last October and had to be a little creative to make it to our 8:10 AM Crystal Palace breakfast without being rushed. We found out as we walked up to the dock that since Magic Kingdom didn’t open until 9 AM that morning, the direct boat to MK would not start running until 8 AM.
Since I am super nervous about missing reservations, thankfully the boat between Fort Wilderness and the Contemporary was already running. We were able to ride over to the Contemporary and walk to the Magic Kingdom in enough time to snap a couple of pictures in front of the castle and make it to our reservation on time.
I wish we would have asked the day before about the boat schedule so that I wouldn’t have been panicked for those 5 seconds before realizing we could still make it on time!
We just took a trip to Disney in December, and for the 4th time we did an 8:00 ADR at Hollywood and Vine to ensure that our son got to be in Jedi Training Academy. The strategy is still valid. I have absolutely no problem with the food at this Buffet (unlike others); however, I would still agree that if your kid isn’t obsessed with Disney Junior Characters or you don’t need to ensure a Jedi Training Academy spot that there are better uses of money.
Note: Hollywood and Vine will not help at all for getting on to things like Toy Story Mania early. There is a chance that in the future it might help a little with the new Star Wars stuff as you’re past one of the ropes on the correct side of the park; however, if the way lines are handled for Pandora is any indication, it won’t help at all.
We have also done the Tusker House early ADR many times, and you can get right onto Kilamanjaro Safaris afterward. We’ve never waited more than 5 minutes, and then you can get a Fast Pass over at Flights of Passage for later in the day.
I’m not sure if this has been discussed yet, but we couldn’t get a pre-openjng breakfast to magic kingdom while planning, so I kept checking, even while we were there on vacation (we didn’t go MK until Tuesday and arrived on a Sunday) and during the 24 hour “cancellation” period was able to snag one for 8:30 am the next morning! This also worked on the app for allowing me to reschedule a Cinderella’s table later in the week.
Also-I’m sure some would have an issue with this, but we went in 2015 and were staying Boardwalk club level at the time. Breakfast was included. Therefore, we really only wanted the breakfast ADR to get in the park early for pics and the Frozen line. So we entered early and I just ate the 30 dollar “no show” fee they were charging at the time. We had 45 min to roam and then get in the line early (Frozen was under the Castle at that point) and saw them in under 5min, allowing us to have a huge head start on the lines for the rest of the Park. By 11 am we had finished the Liberty side and were sitting comfortably in Columbia House eating lunch. (All our fast passes were in the afternoon on the Fantasy side) That pre-opening ADR made our entire day amazing!
Quick question: Do you need to stay at a Disney Resort to be able to make a PPO ADR?
No, you do not.
If you had to choose between an 8:30 or an 11:25 at tusker house what would you choose? I’ve never eaten there so I don’t know which is better. I had a 10:35 but ended up getting a FP for fop at 10:50.
I’d chose the 11:25. 8:30 would eat into the best park hours of the day, plus I like the lunch food better and my stomach can handle a buffet at brunch/lunch better than at breakfast.
We did Hollywood Studios for the Jedi Training this past fall. Hollywood and Vine was decent for food*, however, the characters that you met during the meal were focused on Disney Jr. (*We were gifted the deluxe dining plan, which made the food easier to overlook. Not sure we would go again if paying OOP.)
We were able to get a great empty park family photo. The time also allowed for a more leisurely walk and an ability to look around at the details of the buildings.
Tom, don’t give away the photog’s secret!! 😉
We did breakfast ADRs every day of our 3-day Christmas WDW trip, and it was the best money I spent all trip! We did Be our Guest, Tusker House, and Garden Grill. The kids could not contain their excitement about being the very first to get on the rides, and I got some cute photos of the golf ball and the castle and enjoyed seeing the parks in their pristine state. In the case of Tusker House and Garden Grill, it was a wonderful opportunity to see all the characters. I also saw the huge Christmas rope drop crowds that had already accumulated an hour before park opening, and was so relieved that I didn’t have to take part in that insanity (we headed to Soarin at 8:50 with zero wait, and by the time we exited at 9:04am, the wait was already 45 minutes)!
The only breakfast ADR I cannot recommend is Cinderella’s Royal Table. We did that on a prior trip, and found the breakfast food very subpar and overpriced compared to lunch and dinner (which are the also expensive but better value in terms of what you get). The photos also came out terrible with the dim morning light. And even though our ADR was for 8am, we couldn’t get to Seven Dwarves Mine Train because that is a LOOONG meal (between the pre-meal photo-op, slow a la carte service, and meeting the princesses).
Hello great tip!
Disney will allow adults to order a kids meal?
CM’s won’t tell you “no” when you arrive?
Thanks 🙂
On our November 2016 trip, my daughter (13) wanted to order a dessert off the children’s menu at Via Napoli and the CM had no problem saying NO to her! We were paying out of pocket. So, she didn’t order anything and just waited until we returned to the Beach Club and got a cone at Beaches & Cream.
When we did a Be Our Guest breakfast ADR at 8, we were able to ride Seven Dwarfs before the park opened! I don’t know if this is typical, but other families members have also had success getting on the ride at 8:45. We were able to ride twice and hop on the line for Peter Pan before 9. Definitely worth it!
I’ve heard of this happening, but we’ve never had quite that good of luck. Definitely a your mileage may vary type of thing!
We also did that the one time we did BoG at breakfast.
I’m planning our trip for later this year and making an early Be Our Guest reservation is a great suggestion. Does this mean that you checked-in at the restaurant at 8 AM, or earlier? And what time did you start heading to the park? 7 AM? 7: 15?
I had a Mother/Daughter trip with my 4 year last March. I didn’t have much advanced notice as it was a surprise trip. I had less than 3 months. I hadn’t been in about 10 years so a LOT had changed. I took to a Facebook group to learn as much as I could. I stayed on site so I began the almost 3 month journey of gluing myself to the Disney app trying to get those coveted ADR and Fast Passes. After checking many many times every single day, I managed to snag some AMAZING spots. I had an ADR at Be Out Guest for pre park opening and a late night (directly following the firework show) ADR at Cinderella’s Royal Table. Those were by FAR the best! The breakfast at BOG got us to the back of the park before rope drop. We were able to ride the Mine Train and go over to others before the park even opened. Plus we got those great “empty park” picks. And the late reservation got us to be able to be in the park still AFTER “closing” so MOST of the people were gone. Plus, because our reservation at the castle was immediately following the firework show, we were able to stay on the walk path going up to the castle even after it was roped off to guests. We had such a great view of the park, the castle, and the show. Once in a lifetime kind of feeling. 🙂
I just don’t get it. I didn’t think the priority is getting an empty park photo. You wrote several paragraphs emphasizing this benefit. Little mention about getting on rides at this time. Perhaps you don’t need to have the breakfast to get on rides because you are stuffing your face. Just get there early on rope drop. Just enjoy the breakfast for what it is.
Without the advantage of the empty park photos and/or getting a jump on rope drop, we don’t recommend these breakfasts. That’s why.
We loved getting empty park photos! Not something we would need to do every single trip, but when we went on our honeymoon, our early ADR was well worth it for pictures in front of the castle without a single person in the background
We love hitting be our guest for breakfast before the park opens! This past trip a few days out there were so many breakfast ADRs the day after the marathon, and our stupid selves booked one. We’re both runners and even though this was our first full marathon thought we would be fine, bad decision. But anyway this time around we just got cupcakes and coffee and as soon as we got our cupcakes we took them to go to open our table for another family. We have done the pre-opening ADRs here a couple times, but only if we can snag an early one, and we tend to think the price is worth it to hit the mine trains and peter pan with minimal wait times. Another nice thing about this breakfast option is that adults can pre-order the kids meals, which is still enough food, and not have to spend $60 for breakfast for 2 people. We never order more than 1 kids meal, but that’s about how much food I eat and we have never had an issue! This ADR is always on your wish list when booking a trip.
“Another nice thing about this breakfast option is that adults can pre-order the kids meals, which is still enough food, and not have to spend $60 for breakfast for 2 people.”
I don’t know why it never dawned upon us to do this (since it’s possible everywhere else), but this is a very good idea. Definitely “worth it” to do BOG for breakfast this way–great tip! 🙂
Hi, just a bit confused as someone else was commenting their 13 yr old was not allowed to order a icecream from the children’s menu, but here is saying adults are allowed to prebook kids meals to get in…. is that for all restaurants? Thanks
Does this strategy work at Disneyland too? I’ve been eyeing the Minnie and Friends Breakfast at the Plaza Inn, but I’m always reluctant to spend one of those early morning low crowd hours on eating.
As of early last year, it worked the same way. It’s a really narrow window (same as Magic Kingdom), but it does work–and there’s a separate turnstile.
Can I put in a request for a ‘best table service/buffet breakfasts at Disney world’ ranking (I can’t see one currently.) If I ever convince my boyfriend to come along we’lll definitely be doing fewer rope drops and more leisurely breakfasts!
That’s a good idea. It’s something that has been on my “list” for a while, with the idea being that I’d wait until we had tried everything. We drag our feet so much on breakfast at WDW since it’s so pricey, so I should probably just rank what we’ve done thus far, adding the caveat that we haven’t done them all.
I agree! Just add a section for Not Yet Eaten!