Magic Kingdom One Day Itinerary [2024]

Welcome to our Magic Kingdom One Day Itinerary post. In this post we walk through a day at Magic Kingdom, from waking up early to make your Lightning Lane reservations (if you’re going that route), to arriving at the park, rope drop, meals, fun things that aren’t rides, parades and cavalcades, the nighttime show, some late night strategy, and everything in between! Let’s get to planning the most Magical day possible!

About This Post and Our Recommendations

Putting together a single, perfect, do-everything day at Magic Kingdom is…probably impossible. It’s at least very challenging. There’s too much in the park to easily do in a single day. It’s probably more of a one-and-a-half or two-day park. That said, this is a one day itinerary post, and there are a few approaches you can take to have one very good nearly perfect day at Magic Kingdom.

You can open your wallet to buy Genie+ and maybe an Individual Lightning Lane (or two). Purchasing these paid extras keeps the park closer to a one-and-a-half-day park, and if crowds are low to moderate, you might even feel like you’ve seen it all in a single day.

You can skip Genie+ and/or the individual Lightning Lanes and take it easy, accepting that you won’t do everything, setting a list of a dozen or so “must-dos” and building a strategy around that. Or you could still go go go all day long to try and have a very good, or at least exhausting, day.

This post keeps these approaches in mind throughout, and you’ll hopefully get a sense of how your approach—whatever it is—can work at Magic Kingdom.

In the past we gave a single example day at the backbone of our itinerary post. With the variety of options you’ll have (Early Entry / not, Genie+ / not, Individual Lightning Lane(s) / not) that’s a little unfeasible, particularly at Magic Kingdom.

Instead, we’ll give some examples of how days might look in different scenarios, but mostly this post is about acclimating you with the more general aspects of touring Magic Kingdom (of course, it “generally” does that in about 3000 words, so there’s still some detail I suppose).

I get into some weeds on some specific decisions from my example day(s). That’s not necessarily because I think you’re likely to run into these exact issues, but because I think it’s helpful to see how someone who does this professionally thinks through some of the issues you’ll encounter in the park.

At Magic Kingdom, we recommend buying Genie+. We still visit the park occasionally without it, but having it removes a handful of stressors. Yes, the service includes over 15 rides at the park, but it’s only about 5-10 rides that you’ll use it for if the rest of your strategy is sound.

Finally, the times and strategies given in this post reflect park hours of 9AM to 9PM with Happily Ever After playing at 8PM and Early Entry beginning at 8:30AM. If I say “9:30AM”, usually I mean “30 minutes after the park opens.” If the park is open until 11PM when you visit, you’ll have much more time for rides after Happily Ever After than I did. If it opens at 8AM, you’ll get more done before lunch, or maybe you’ll take an extra mid-morning break. And so on.

Magic Kingdom Overview

This post covers five categories of things to do at Magic Kingdom—rides, other attractions, entertainment, characters, and dining. Dining is pretty straightforward and generally not a major topic on this site, so let’s talk about the other four categories.

First, there are just over twenty rides. I’m not going to list them all here, but in this post I’ll refer a few times to “major” rides, and when I do that I’m talking about Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Jungle Cruise, and Space Mountain (TRON is a major ride in the park, but it’s handled entirely separately from the rest of the park strategy, as we’ll discuss below). These tend to have some of the longest waits in the park.

Second, there are nine other attractions we’re calling “gap-fillers”: Carousel of Progress, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, Enchanted Tiki Room, Swiss Family Treehouse, Country Bear Jamboree, Tom Sawyer Island, Liberty Square Riverboat, The Hall of Presidents, Mickey’s PhilharMagic.

Note: Country Bear Jamboree is closed for a reimagining until summer 2024.

These are attractions that usually have no or low wait—or a wait that just depends on how long the show takes or when the boat will be back—and that are good for filling midday time when waits for all the rides are high. We love several of these and consider them must-dos, so don’t think just because they’re filling gaps between rides that they’re less worthy than the rides themselves.

Third, there are five major character greetings—Mickey at Town Square Theater, princesses (two greetings of two princesses each) at Fairtytale Hall, Ariel at her Grotto, and Enchanted Tales with Belle. These waits can be among the highest in the park—don’t expect to just wander in to say “hello” without any planning. There are other character greetings throughout the park, too.

Finally, there’s the entertainment. Check the app for today’s listings, but generally you’ll have the Festival of Fantasy parade, the Royal Friendship Faire stage show, streetmosphere (like the Dapper Dans), and the nighttime spectacular, Happily Ever After.

Opening Summer 2024: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

Moved up from “late” 2025 to “summer” 2024 is the debut of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. This is a remodel of the old Splash Mountain ride in Frontierland. If you’re looking ahead to summer or later (say, May or later) read this section. Otherwise, feel free to skip to the next section “Before Going to Magic Kingdom.”

The debut of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will impact this itinerary in two ways. First, you’ll have to plan how you’re going to get on that ride. We assume it will use an Individual Lightning Lane (paid, limited availability) and a virtual queue (free, even more limited availability). If we’re right, fitting it into your day is pretty easy—either pay for a specific time or roll the dice on the virtual queue, and go when it’s your time.

The bigger impacts are likely to be on other rides, specifically on the Lightning Lane setup at Magic Kingdom. As of this early 2024 update, Magic Kingdom has two Individual Lightning Lanes—TRON and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train—and one virtual queue—TRON. It’s safe to say something is going to change when Tiana’s debuts.

Will Seven Dwarfs Mine Train join Genie+? Will TRON lose its virtual queue? Or is there any change TRON joins Genie+? Okay. TRON probably doesn’t join Genie+. But as for the other two questions, that’s up in the air. And this will trickle down in this strategy. If TRON has no virtual queue it becomes more important for rope drop. If Seven Dwarfs Mine Train joins Genie+, it becomes less important for rope drop…unless it’s impossible to get on Genie+, in which case maybe it’s more important at rope drop…

To pile it on, we actually don’t know that all these changes will happen at once. Lightning Lane changes very well could precede the debut of Tiana’s. In any case, stay tuned for updates to this and all related posts as we head into summer 2024.

Before Going to Magic Kingdom

The items in this section are discussed in more detail in our Magic Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lane Strategy.

If you want Genie+, you’ll need to purchase it either as part of your vacation package or just same-day between 12AM and 7AM. I usually wake up at about 6:45AM and buy it when I’m using it.

At 7AM (regardless of park operating hours), the virtual queue for TRON Lightcycle / Run opens for the first time, just for guests with a reservation for Magic Kingdom. The virtual queue also opens at 1PM for guests who have tapped into Magic Kingdom. If you are not planning on paying for the Individual Lightning Lane for TRON, our recommendation is that you join the virtual queue right at 7AM.

It’s worth noting that if you also have a Genie+ pick to make, starting with the virtual queue at 7AM will push you into a worse time on your first Genie+ pick. The 1PM virtual queue drop can see wide availability, so you might opt to roll the dice, starting with Genie+ at 7AM and then (assuming the 7AM virtual queue is immediately closed) hope to get into the TRON virtual queue at 1PM.

As we said, also at 7AM (regardless of park operating hours), all guests with Genie+ can make their first Lightning Lane selection. Peter Pan’s Flight is a fine first pick, though in certain cases something else will make sense. You can read more about this topic in our Lightning Lane post, linked to above at the start of this section.

If you’re a guest of a Disney resort or select partner resort, you can make your individual Lightning Lane purchases at 7AM, too. At Magic Kingdom the Individual Lightning Lanes are TRON and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Generally, we don’t recommend either. Again, more discussion is in the Lightning Lane post.

If you’re not a guest of a Disney hotel, you’ll be making your individual Lightning Lane purchases at the time the park opens. As noted above, you’ll still make your Genie+ selection at 7AM with everyone else.

Arriving at Magic Kingdom

It’s necessary to take a few minutes to talk about how you’ll arrive at Magic Kingdom. Guests who travel from their Disney hotel by bus, monorail, resort boat, or walking path will arrive directly at the park gates. These guests will want to research how long their travel time will be, but arrival is otherwise straightforward.

Other guests have a longer journey. Guests who drive their own car will have to park and (unless the trams are running again), walk to Transportation and Ticket Center. From there, they’ll take the monorail or ferryboat to the front of the park.

Guests who are dropped off by Uber/Lyft or a bus from a non-Disney hotel will be dropped off at Transportation and Ticket Center and again, have to take the monorail or ferryboat to the front of the park.

Minnie Vans—Disney’s rideshare service—can pick you up from Disney property and bring you to the entrance of Magic Kingdom. Because they have this advantage over Uber/Lyft, Minnie Vans can be worth their extra cost if you need to get to Magic Kingdom.

Exact travel times when arriving via the TTC will vary, but here’s an example morning:

8:07AM – Arrive at parking booths
8:09AM – Park car
8:18AM – At TTC
8:30AM – Inside Magic Kingdom (via Monorail)
8:34AM – Inside Magic Kingdom (via Ferryboat)

The ferryboat can take a little longer than the monorail (as seen in this example), particularly if you just miss one. I actually just missed the monorail this day (Emily was taking the ferryboat), and I still made it to the park faster than the ferryboat. That said, we’ve always been comfortable taking the ferryboat, and it’s actually our preferred way to get to the park because of the nice views along the way.

Timing Your TRON Visit

If you ride TRON by joining the virtual queue at 7AM or 1PM, you can’t pick your time slot. You’ll get called when you get called and have an hour to return. We know in some (most?) instances Disney has strictly enforced this hour window for TRON, a departure from how some past virtual queues were handled, so do plan to be there on time.

If you buy an Individual Lightning Lane, you can pick your time slot. Times generally run out from earlier to later, which we think is fine because we prefer later times anyways. Our two preferences for TRON are after sunset and between noon and 4PM.

The outdoor portion of the ride, which to be fair is not very long, is a much better experience at night. We think it’s generally worth riding at night if possible. We would not risk missing Happily Ever After just to ride TRON at night though. This approach works best if the park is open after Happily Ever After.

Alternatively, ride in the afternoon when waits in the rest of the park are highest. Just make sure you leave yourself a window to watch the Festival of Fantasy parade, which runs once or twice a day.

The rest of this post won’t touch much on TRON because there’s no other strategy involved. Once you have your time slot via virtual queue or Lightning Lane, you just ride during that slot.

Rope Drop at Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom has the most complicated rope drop of the four parks, but with some help you should be able to see it as more opportunity.

All guests, even those without Early Entry, are allowed onto Main Street and into the park’s hub once the gates open. If you don’t have Early Entry and want to get some photos, drink some Starbucks (Main Street Bakery), or shop, this is a good time.

Guests who have Early Entry will begin their park touring 30 minutes before the park opens to other guests.

Rope Drop Part 1 – Early Entry at Magic Kingdom

As of this update, guests with Early Entry have access to Fantasyland and Tomorrowland as part of Early Entry. If you have Early Entry, you’ll probably want to start with Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, or Space Mountain.

We discuss the details of these rope drops in more detail in our dedicated Magic Kingdom Early Entry and Rope Drop post. As you’ll read in that post, your rope drop strategy will depend on what combination of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes you’ve purchased (including the option to purchase none at all).

A good example of how Early Entry might go on a perfect day is:

7:30 Arrive
8:30 Early Entry begins
8:36 Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
8:59 Peter Pan’s Flight
9AM Park Opens

Realistically, just getting one of these two rides done during Early Entry is going to be fine, too. It’s very rare to get two popular rides done during Early Entry, which is why we often recommend Peter Pan’s Flight for our first Genie+ pick even for guests with Early Entry.

Rope Drop Part 2 – Park Opening at Magic Kingdom

The opening of Magic Kingdom is celebrated with a short welcome show, “Let The Magic Begin,” in front of the castle, five minutes before the park is scheduled to open.

If you’re heading into Tomorrowland or Fantasyland you should feel fine grabbing a good spot for the welcome show because most of the people who will be in line in front of you on rides are already there (they’re the Early Entry guests). If you’re heading elsewhere (Frontierland, Adventureland, Liberty Square), securing a better spot to watch the welcome show might add 5-10 minutes or so to your first ride wait on busier days.

The welcome show is only 2-3 minutes long, so the park opening will start just before the scheduled opening time (though it’s common that you’ll then be held outside some lands or attractions until the exact opening time).

Park opening time means three things:

Fantasyland and Tomorrowland will open to non-Early Entry guests
The rest of the park will open to all guests
Non-Disney resort guests can make individual Lightning Lane purchases.

If you have Early Entry, you want to beat the crowds heading into the lands other than Fantasyland or Tomorrowland, essentially doing a second, regular park opening, rope drop once you’re done with your Early Entry rope drop.

If you don’t have Early Entry, you can get in line for a major ride (Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain) behind the Early Entry guests, but that’s only really going to be beneficial in the sense that you’ll have the satisfaction of checking off that box. It will likely cost you time in the long run as waits for other rides in the park go up.

We don’t advise that, instead recommending you take advantage of the low waits that rope drop has to offer.

Again, our dedicated Magic Kingdom Early Entry and Rope Drop post offers the full analysis here, but our preference is the following ride order: Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Haunted Mansion. On a good morning, this looks like:

9:15 Jungle Cruise
9:37 Pirates of the Caribbean
10:02 Haunted Mansion

You might squeeze Big Thunder Mountain Railroad into that second or third slot. Since that ride is located in a far corner of the park (nothing else there now that Splash Mountain is closed), it can be preferable to take care of it early while you’re in the area, before heading back to the middle of the park.

Late Morning at Magic Kingdom

Late morning is when your day will really start to take shape. While rope drop was about going in with a plan and taking care of business, late morning is a bit more flexible and requires you to figure out what’s best for your family. There’s a few different approaches you can take here.

First, if there are still short waits to be found, you’ll probably want to take advantage of them. This might be true even if you have Genie+. A 5-minute wait for most rides is basically the same as using a Lightning Lane, and if you can free your afternoon Genie+ planning to focus on Peter Pan’s Flight, Jungle Cruise, and anything you want to ride twice (only once using Genie+, though), then you’ll have a more enjoyable day.

Typically, if these short waits exist, you’ll see them in Fantasyland where rides like Barnstormer, Dumbo, Mad Tea Party, and Under the Sea can carry 5-minute waits into the late morning even on busier days. These are also convenient because they’re relatively close together.

Second, if you’ve got a few major rides left on your list—Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, or Jungle Cruise—you might want to buckle down and wait in line for one of them. Are you catching it at the shortest wait of the day? Probably not, but the longer your list of major rides is, the more pressure you’re under to start getting them done.

Third, you can slow down. If you have Genie+, this is definitely a fine option. You can take this time to visit Starbucks or Joffrey’s, view the first runs of the cavalcades, or start visiting some of your gap-fillers.

Lately I’ve had success in Fantasyland, and I have a toddler, so that’s my favorite option. A good late morning looks like (this can be with or without Genie+, depending on how long waits are):

10:19 Under the Sea
10:36 Mad Tea Party
10:46 Dumbo
10:55 Barnstormer

Next, it’s about the time to start thinking about lunch, but you can often get one or two more rides in before lunch, maybe even a major ride. There’s a wide range of options nearby at this point—Space Mountain and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train are major ones, even Peter Pan’s Flight isn’t too far.

But Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Tomorrowland Speedway, PeopleMover, and Astro Orbiter are all fine options too. If you’ve got Genie+, you might be able to use Lightning Lanes to get through more than one of these before lunch.

Lunch at Magic Kingdom

We generally don’t recommend table service for lunch at the parks because we like the flexibility of a quick service meal. At Magic Kingdom we have a semi-exception—if you can have a late lunch, about 2PM, then your table service lunch basically serves as a way to pass the high waits and high temperatures, although it means you’ll likely cut something else from your day, particularly if you don’t have Genie+.

Zoe watching Sonny Eclipse at Cosmic Ray’s

We wind up at Cosmic Ray’s a lot. Our morning touring typically ends in Fantasyland or Tomorrowland, our toddler loves Sonny Eclipse, they have a veggie burger, and they have a water bottle refill station.

Overall, I think Magic Kingdom has the worst quick service food of the four Disney World theme parks, so I don’t put much thought into this. I’ll usually put together my mobile order while I’m in line earlier in the day.

Only thing I’d add is that while Casey’s is an iconic / good option, you might want to save that for the evening since it’s located on Main Street, where you’re likely to try and watch the fireworks.

If at all possible, I recommend someone in your group spend a few minutes looking at showtimes / attraction closure times / etc. in the app and start planning your afternoon.

Afternoon at Magic Kingdom

The six-hour period from 12PM to 6PM is when waits at Magic Kingdom tend to plateau. This is tough because it means if you need to get things done, you’ll be looking at the longest waits of the day.

With waits at their peak, your strategy shifts from finding the lowest waits to mix-and-matching a few rides with “gap-filler”, entertainment, and whatever else in the afternoon. You can basically assume the waits you see at 1PM are similar to the waits you’ll see at 4PM, though from 4PM to 6PM you’ll start to see some rides—particularly those geared at the youngest kids—drop a bit.

The most important thing in the afternoon (schedule dependent) is the Festival of Fantasy Parade. The parade occurs once or twice a day and times vary (check the app). The parade is 10 minutes long and takes about 20 minutes to get from Frontierland, through the hub, down Main Street, and to Town Square at the front of the park.

The other major thing you’ll probably want to fit in is Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire, the stage show held at scheduled times in front of the castle. It will sometimes make sense to watch the show and then stay in the hub for the parade.

If it’s a hot day, the character greetings, Carousel of Progress, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, Enchanted Tiki Room, Swiss Country Bear Jamboree, The Hall of Presidents, and Mickey's PhilharMagic are good escapes from the sun.

This is also the time when you need to start noting when things close or when the last runnings of any entertainment (like cavalcades) are. For example, on one recent visit here are some notable times:

4PM / 5PM hours — Last show of some entertainment
5PM — Tom Sawyer Island closes
7PM — Liberty Square Riverboat closes
8PM — Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor closes

As always, times on your day will vary. If you have Genie+, these times are going to be really important because you’re probably trying to enjoy several of the activities with your spare time. You’d (maybe) hate to get to 5PM having finished all the rides but missed the cavalcades and Tom Sawyer Island when you could have just planned to do a few rides a little later.

If you have Genie+, this is when you’ll get the most out of the service. It’ll somewhat depend on luck and crowds—if all your return times are 3 hours in the future, your afternoon might still be a little slow. If you can find returns 30-90 minutes in the future, though, you’ll basically loop these three steps:

Book Lightning Lane for 45 minutes away
Wait in a line / watch a show / etc.
Use Lightning Lane

Here’s an example afternoon with Genie+ (note, as always, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Lightning Lane is a separate purchase outside Genie+):

12:49PM Winnie the Pooh (LL 7 vs 40 standby)
12:58PM Buzz Lightyear (LL walk on vs 30 standby)
1:21PM Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (individual paid LL 11 vs 60 standby)
1:44PM Small World (LL 7 vs 30 standby)
2:43PM Space Mountain (posted 30 actual 34)
3:06PM Tomorrowland Speedway (LL 6 vs 20 standby)
3:30PM Monsters Inc Laugh Floor (posted 10 actual 16)
Dole whip at Aloha Isle
4:20PM Magic Carpets (LL 6 vs 20 standby)
4:34PM Jungle Cruise (LL 6 vs 65 standby)

You can see I filled time between Lightning Lanes with Space Mountain, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, and snacking on a Dole Whip. (Notably, this itinerary doesn’t include Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire (the stage show) or the Festival of Fantasy parade. Probably doing those in place of Monsters Inc and Dole Whip would be the better use of time in the afternoon for most guests.)

If you don’t have Genie+, you’ll start making decisions about what you have to do and what you’ll probably miss out on. If you have to watch Enchanted Tiki Room, now is as good a time as any because ride waits will only go down as the day goes on. Same with any “gap-fillers” or entertainment.

I don’t like to leave more than one major ride for the evening, so if you haven’t gotten through three of those, you’ll probably want to prioritize them. Here’s an example from an afternoon without Genie+ (but with a paid Lightning Lane for Mine Train):

12:13 Meet Mickey (posted 15, actual 12)
12:32 PeopleMover (posted 15, actual 9)
12:45 Carousel of Progress
1:24 Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (posted 80, 10 via LL)
1:40 Enchanted Tiki Room
2PM-3:15 Coffee, Royal Friendship Faire, Festival of Fantasy
4:57 Peter Pan’s Flight (posted 70, actual 102)
5:04 Prince Charming Regal Carrousel (posted 5, actual 3)
5:21 “It’s a small world” (posted 15, actual 8)
5:52 Dinner

You can see that, except for my paid Lightning Lane for Mine Train, I had no rides between 12:32 and 4:57, instead watching two indoor animatronic shows (Tiki Room and Carousel of Progress) and the parade and stage show, and waiting in line 102 minutes for Peter Pan’s Flight.

Obviously, waiting 102 minutes for a ride is never something I want to do. It’s definitely not something I want you to do. This is partly why I recommend Genie+ at this park. The 70-minute wait for Peter Pan’s Flight—which spent most of this day at or over 50 minutes—actually wasn’t a bad decision for a “must do” ride. You could do two rides with shorter waits (this wouldn’t “save” time—those waits are also still higher than they’ll be later in the day), but here’s one last thing to keep in mind.

Once you get into the later part of the day, you have to make sure you’ll building around the must-dos. In particular, on this day I had to build my night around the firework show, Happily Ever After.

On this particular example day, I already was saving Jungle Cruise for the very end of the day. If I’d gotten to 7PM without Peter Pan’s Flight done and the wait was 50 minutes the rest of the day, I’d have a problem since Happily Ever After starts at 8PM and ends at 8:15PM.

By contrast, if I had two shorter waits, I could do them on either side of Happily Ever After. This is the reason I’m willing to suffer through one long wait at 3PM and save shorter waits for later, when I need flexibility.

Dinner and Evening at Magic Kingdom

On 9AM to 9PM days, we typically don’t budget time for a table service dinner. If we have until 10PM or later, then it might be more worth it (we’re fans of Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd Skipper Canteen). But we’re always fans of the flexibility a quick service meal affords.

On hardcore touring days, we’ll order mobile order from Casey’s on Main Street and eat hot dogs during the fireworks. You have to place this mobile early a little early and arrive early because the restaurant will be particularly busy during this time, but likely you’re grabbing your spot on Main Street for Happily Ever After 30 minutes early anyways.

The key to your evening is Happily Ever After, which is the can’t-miss nighttime show in the park. We like to watch from about halfway down Main Street, as the show now includes projections onto the Main Street buildings. We’re assuming an 8PM showtime and 9PM park close for this post, but sometimes the show runs at the time the park closes, so plan accordingly.

Happily Ever After can fill Main Street shoulder to shoulder on busier days. I’ve found solo space that would be tight / awkward for a family as late as 5 minutes before the show, but realistically you’ll want to be there at 30 minutes before or no later than 15 minutes before. Some people will arrive much earlier, and crowds can impact these times.

As for touring strategy, you’ve hopefully got very few rides left (or none left, if you used Genie+). The downside is they might be scattered a bit, meaning you’ll spend some time walking, maybe back and forth. You’re also dealing with an awkward schedule, where you have to be at Happily Ever After early and will have limited time after Happily Ever After (or no time at all, some days). We discussed this already in reference to my Peter Pan’s Flight experience.

Generally you can plan to save one ride for the time the park closes, provided three conditions are met:

The park doesn’t close at the same time as Happily Ever After, since you want to watch Happily Ever After
The ride close time is the same as park close time (not earlier)
You understand and accept the risk of the ride experiencing unexpected downtime and not being open

The third is the one you can’t plan for, but if a ride breaks at 8:45PM and they don’t have it running by 9PM (believe me, they will often try, I’ve seen rides start running again a minute before close), you just won’t get on it. This is rare, but it happens.

A fourth condition—you have to be at the ride before the time it closes. There’s absolutely no grace period here. The ride closes when it closes and you have all day to get on it. Will you see me sometimes do risky things squeezing rides in? Yes, including in the sample schedule I’m about to share. But you should be much more careful if something is important to you.

Besides that last ride, you can try and fit in one ride between Happily Ever After and the end of the day, but keep in mind that when you look at your phone at 8:15PM (when Happily Ever After ends) those waits are all about to go up. Find something with a 5 minute / 10 minute wait. It’ll be 15-20 by the time you get there, but that should leave you enough time to get to your last ride.

Here’s an example evening schedule (without Genie+, if you have Genie+ this time should be more free / flexible):

6:19 Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (posted 35, actual 10)
6:40 Hall of Presidents
7:29 Winnie the Pooh (posted 20, actual 21)
8PM Happily Ever After
8:36 Tomorrowland Speedway (posted 5, actual 15)
8:52 Magic Carpets of Aladdin (posted 5, actual 3)
8:59 In line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
9PM Park Close

You shouldn’t plan to do anything once the park closes. Attractions etc. are all closed. In the past, the “Kiss Goodnight” played periodically, but that hasn’t returned as far as I know. You might see a few Photopass Photographers on Main Street and in the hub, and Emporium may remain open, but I’d never count on these.

Conclusions

If I could say one thing about Magic Kingdom touring, it’s “wow, those afternoons are brutal.” Having Genie+ or an individual Lightning Lane will help, but the park is hot, crowded, and whether it’s walking between rides with long waits or air-conditioned shows on opposite sides of the park while waiting on your Lightning Lane return time, it’s just a tough time to get through.

That point aside, the park remains a good place to spend a day with or without Genie+ as long as you have a plan and you’re willing to make compromises. There’s just so much to do that you shouldn’t struggle to fill a full day and (mostly) stay out of long lines.

That “mostly” is where Genie+ comes in. Do you really want to wait in line over an hour midday for one or two rides and plan to be in line for a ride right as the park closes? Are you willing to skip these rides entirely? Or do you want to ride them earlier and risk missing something else in the park?

There’s no right answers to these questions, but for us it seems straightforward that Genie+ is the way to go at this park. In any case, good planning will get you a Magical day, and that’s what’s most important!

All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered

Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.

Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.

When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!

Don't forget to master your Disney World Genie+ and Lightning Lane strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Epcot Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Animal Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, and Hollywood Studios Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.

Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.

Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.

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