Planning your day- Magic Kingdom

You're probably wondering what your plan of action should be when you get to Magic Kingdom. This is going to be a long post, so bear with me! What everyone wants to do is ride all the rides! That can be a daunting task for one day.

Here is a list of all the rides in Magic Kingdom:

Astro Orbiter

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Spinning, Classics

Tomorrowland

The Barnstormer

Height: 35in (89cm) or taller; Small Drops

Fantasyland

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Height: 40in (102cm) or taller; Small Drops, Thrill Rides, Classics, Interactive

Frontierland

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Spinning, Indoor, Interactive T

omorrowland

Country Bear Jamboree

Height: Any Height; Classics, Indoor, Stage Shows

Frontierland

Dumbo the Flying Elephant

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Spinning, Classics, Interactive

Fantasyland

Enchanted Tales with Belle

Height: Any Height; Disney Princesses, Indoor, Interactive

Fantasyland

Frontierland Shootin' Arcade

Height: Any Height; Indoor, Interactive

Frontierland

The Hall of Presidents

Height: Any Height; Classics, Indoor

Liberty Square

Haunted Mansion

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Dark, Classics,Indoor, Interactive

Liberty Square

"it's a small world"

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Classics, Indoor

Fantasyland

Jungle Cruise

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Classics

Adventureland

Liberty Square Riverboat

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Classics

Liberty Square

Mad Tea Party

Height: Any Height; Spinning, Classics

Fantasyland

The Magic Carpets of Aladdin

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Spinning, Disney Princesses

Adventureland

Main Street Vehicles

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides

Main Street, U.S.A.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Indoor, Interactive

Fantasyland

Mickey's PhilharMagic

Height: Any Height; Classics, Disney Princesses, Indoor, Stage Shows

Fantasyland

Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor

Height: Any Height; Indoor, Interactive, Stage Shows

Tomorrowland

Peter Pan's Flight

Height: Any Height; Small Drops, Slow Rides, Classics, Indoor,

Fantasyland

Pirates of the Caribbean

Height: Any Height; Small Drops, Slow Rides, Dark, Classics, Indoor

Adventureland

Prince Charming Regal Carousel

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Spinning, Classics, Disney Princesses

Fantasyland

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Height: 38in (97cm) or taller; Small Drops, Thrill Rides,

Fantasyland

Space Mountain

Height: 44in (113cm) or taller; Big Drops, Thrill Rides, Dark, Classics, Indoor, Tomorrowland

Swiss Family Treehouse

Height: Any Height

Adventureland

Tomorrowland Speedway

Height: 32in (82cm) or taller

Tomorrowland

Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides

Tomorrowland

Tom Sawyer Island

Height: Any Height

Frontierland

Tron Lightcycle/Run

Height: 48in (122cm) or taller; Big Drops, Thrill Rides, Dark

Tomorrowland

Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Disney Princesses, Indoor, Interactive

Fantasyland

Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress

Height: Any Height; Slow Rides, Classics, Indoor

Tomorrowland

Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room

Height: Any Height; Classics, Indoor

Adventureland

Splash Mountain

Height: 40in (102cm) or taller; Big Drops, Thrill Rides, Water Rides,

Frontierland

Walt Disney World Railroad - Fantasyland,Frontierland, & Main Street, U.S.A.

Height: Any Height

As you can see, there is A LOT to do. This doesn't even include the Festival of Fantasy Parade, the Happily Ever After Fireworks, or any of the other entertainment offered throughout the day!

There are many (and I mean MANY) different ways to approach this. I can give you a basic day for us, and give you some options to tweak it.

We try to have breakfast before we get to the park for a couple of reasons. Breakfast options are slim. You either have to 1) Have a table service reservation either at your resort or at the park, and spend a good amount of time sitting down and eating breakfast 2) Go to Starbucks on Main Street and spend a good amount of time waiting in line just to have a mediocre quick breakfast or 3) Snag an early breakfast reservation in the park to maximize your time. There are a couple other quick service breakfast options in Magic Kingdom, but you have to walk a bit to get there.

We would always get to Magic Kingdom at or near "rope-drop." There may look like a big crowd, but when the crowd goes their separate ways, everything thins out. Wait times are significantly shorter, and you can get a lot more done. If you have an early breakfast reservation, you can try and finish before rope-drop and you may be able to ride a popular ride before the crowds kick in. When the park officially opens, most people go towards either Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or Space Mountain. This gives you a few options. You could either get a genie+ time slot for your preferred ride of these two (SDMT or Space Mtn) then go towards another favorite ride where the wait times tend to be less in the morning (like Thunder Mountain), get a genie+ for one of these two then ride the other at rope drop, get a genie+ for one of these two and ride it once by using the stand-by line where the wait time is shorter then come back later and use your genie+, OR not worry about any of these rides and do whatever you want! The top two genie+ selections that sell out the fastest at 7am are Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan. If either of those rides are on your "must-ride" list, then be sure to grab that first. If not, you will be waiting in a lengthy line (especially for Peter Pan). If you are planning on riding Tron, you can try to get in the free virtual queue at 7am or 1pm or pay for a lighting lane + (7am for WDW Resort guests or park-open for other guests). At this time, there is no regular "stand-by" queue. Our choice is to do a virtual queue at 7am, grab a lightning lane for the earliest ride available, and then rope drop to 7 dwarfs.

When our son was younger and we had more limitations on what we could ride, our day looked a little different. We could utilize the child-swap program, but my husband and I like to ride rides together. With a baby, we would still eat breakfast before we get to the park, and select genie+ rides that would follow a circle around the park. This avoids having to walk back and forth across the park multiple times. We aim for as many selections back to back in the morning. We would then do lunch around 11:30/11:45, then it was naptime in the stroller for our little man. We walk around, eat dessert, shop a little, and relax while he sleeps. Some go back to their resorts while their little ones nap, but we drive in from Tampa for the day. Once in a while, we would choose a genie + ride that our son couldn't go on, and ride them one at a time while he slept.

These two plans may or may not work for you. Some prefer to have less of a plan when they go, although I don't feel like you get as much done. My natural way is to plan, so this is easy for me, but others hate to plan so I can understand why they might choose to "wing it." Whatever you choose to do, just remember to enjoy the day and not stress too much about seeing it all.