Evaluate my Ambitious(?) 1-Day MK Plan

Walt Disney World Touring Plans
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Hello! This is my third trip to Magic Kingdom, but my last visit was in 2007. I know there have been SO many changes since then (I miss Mickey’s Toontown!), but I’m excited to see the new rides. I am traveling with three others. The ages range from 15 to 23, all can keep a good walking speed with minimal interruptions. I set our pace to relaxed to allow a little wiggle room though.

The character meets I have listed are all non-negotiable, with the exception of Ariel. I do NOT want to ride things two times in a row, but am finding it difficult to move the rides around and not have our wait times skyrocket. Best case scenario, we get one ride in the morning, one in the evening.

I tried to allow ample times for meals and breaks, not hitting peak meal times. We are bringing most of our snacks and a dinner meal to save some money, so waiting to order and etc is not an issue except for lunch (which can move around a little).

We have yet to purchase our tickets (waiting to hear about a discount), so no Fastpasses+ have been selected. We might get to select them the previous evening but that would be the earliest. If you have any more questions or need any more details please let me know.

Any help or feedback would be greatly appreciated; not afraid to dream big with our day!

http://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=1864806

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You’re plans look good. I would put in your expectations longer wait times for any rides you do between 10:30 a.m.and 4:30 p.m., especially Space Mountain. I have been there several times this past winter during good crowd days and the wait times have been more than an hour each day. I would also expect Haunted Mansion in the middle of the day to be 30 minutes. As far as the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train plan 40 minutes as a plan B for the morning ride. We were there two weeks before Spring Break on a Tuesday and we darted to the ride and had a 40 minutes wait. Just about everyone darts to that ride as soon as the park opens.

Now that being said, you can maybe cover that and Space Mountain with a Fast Pass and then you will be good to go. Also, I have never seen Winnie the Pooh to be less than 30 minutes after 9:30 a.m., except in the evening when the parades are going.

In summary, I think you have padded enough time for your plans, but you might have to adjust 15 minutes here or there, and get a fast pass for at least Space Mountain.

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Would you recommend rushing to 7DMT in the morning and trying to secure a Fastpass+ for the afternoon? Or try to get a Fastpass+ for the morning and wait in the afternoon? The optimized plan originally had me go to Winnie the Pooh and then 7DMT, but I thought the wait would skyrocket if we waited that long. If I take out meeting Ariel should that help cover any extra waiting times? We will be in the park until after midnight (since we can shop a bit after park close).

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i hate to be negative but I think those afternoon wait times are grossly underestimated. here is how TP’s did yesterday, https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/crowd-calendar/date/2016-04-10
check out the individual wait times for the rides in MK.
What discounts would possibly come out for MK tickets in the next week? I would buy tix asap and book your fpp. having 3 prescheduled fpp will make or break your mid afternoon in MK. I would almost consider skipping SDMT in the AM unless you are at the very front of the RD pack. if you’re not at the front you are looking at wasting the first hour in line for that. You could get a ton done in fantasyland in that first hour instead. I think the line for Gaston can get kind of long since he is a popular character so you may need more than 15 min for that.
I would consider: pooh first, then meet ariel, UTS, then line up for Gaston (looks like his first meet starts at 10 and I am sure there will be a line for it), then proceed with plan as laid out except i really don’t see any of those waits b/w 11:45-5pm being under 30 min. with the advent of people now being able to book the 4th fpp from their phones, which started yesterday I believe, the fpp are going to be gone crazy fast. if you get tix now and book fpp asap you will really be able to plan your day out better. you do all have the advantage of being young adults and not having little kids with you so I am sure you will make this day work out and be a blast anyways but sometimes these personalized touring plans set up for unrealistic wait times and disappointment. I definitely used them on our trips but I just feel that those mid afternoon times look low. please post any more questions and have a super fun time!

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I am (hopefully) purchasing tickets from a former Disney cast member who gets them at a discount. I’ve read other feedback and they have followed through on all the tickets they said they would purchase. The discount is not from Disney itself, as in, I’m not waiting for a price drop from them. If the discount wasn’t so significant ($80 vs. $117ish) I would go ahead and purchase today. Just contacted them to try and get the ticket numbers to link them to my account.

Do you think the crowds will drop back to more manageable levels withing the next few days? I guess I’ll just have to watch expected vs. actual times… I just went along with what was scheduled for the wait times. I’m seriously considering taking out meeting Ariel with all that has been said about expecting longer times. Is wanting to ride 7DMT, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, and Big Thunder Mtn twice each too ambitious? I could try to cut one of them out in order to give even more time.

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I think riding all of those 2x is possibly overly ambitious unless u can get some fpp soon. I doubt crowds would drop much unless the weather is bad that day. I think MK has 2 crowd levels: busy or insanely busy. If u drop meeting Ariel that could help in the first hour for sure.

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Do you think there will be NO FPP+ left the day before/day of? I did take out Ariel but I really want to hit the other rides twice. Honestly, the only one I would consider taking out is Big Thunder Mtn.

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A 24 minute wait for 7DMT at 9:30 AM seems totally wrong - EVERYONE is rushing to that ride. Why not hit up either PP, Space Mountain or BTMRR at RD to reduce wait times.

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I am sure there will be something left in the morning of in regards to fpp but i can’t imagine it would be anything all that desirable. check out this post from Kenny the pirate who was in MK yesterday trying to get fpp as a solo traveler:

Also, i think BTMRR is one of the funnest rides there. I suggest the following tweaks to your TP if you can’t get fpp until night before or day of which means little choices:
at RD head straight to BTMRR and splash, there will be less than 5 min waits at these right at 9am. i think that’s a funner start to the day for the ages of your party then Winnie the pooh or UTS. Then stop at HM on your way back to fantasyland. if running behind though, go straight to gaston’s meet for 10am and then go back to HM. then Cindy and Rapunzel. use the mid part of the day to do low wait attractions/shows like UTS, IASW, philharmagic, carousel, hall of presidents, tiki room, country bears, Monsters’ laugh floor, and carousel of progress in any order that you please. then save the other headliners like space, buzz, SDMT for late at night. or if you want you could do Space, and winnie the pooh first at RD and save the frontier land headliners for night time. sorry if that is long and rambling!

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my guess is that the best things you could possible get same day fpp for and this is if you did them right in the morning would probably be evening choices for HM, JC and maybe buzz. but that is a total guess. but even those fpp would still save you tons of time!

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Totally agree with mjsmomma. We rode BTMRR 5 times and splash in less than 1 hour at RD (Thanksgiving day no less!!!). Can hop on Pirates and HM while you’re on that side as well. Not to disuade you but 7DMT might be a little disappointing for the wait times - it is cute bot not really much of a coaster. I’d try for PP fastpasses if you can get them.

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that’s a good idea to do POTC and Hm after splash and BTMRR. That would all take from about 9-10:30am. you could meet gaston after that and move to Fantasyland afterwards.

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I agree with mjsmomma on the afternoon wait times. I have been to MK on all various crowd level days and the afternoon wait times are always high. Here’s how it worked for us…

On Tuesday, March 15th, we got to through the entrance at 9:10 a.m. because the park was quite busy that day, and the ferry took longer than expected. As soon as we got through the entrance we walked very quickly but not running because I have a bad foot and went directly to the 7DMT. We got there at 9:20, and the line was out past the queue line. We asked a cast member how long the wait would be and he said it would be 45 minutes. I just asked my son who times the lines with a stop watch how long the wait was and he said it was 38 minutes.

You can pretty much bank on that as being a constant for a crowd six level day.

We have been to MK five times since December and have noticed the trend that the afternoon wait times are unbearable and we have only been able to take advantage of the less popular rides, People Mover, Laugh Floor, Country Bear, Tiki Room, Philharmagic and any FP we have for the that 10:30 to 4:30 window.

We have also struck out everytime on getting FP for the 7DMT, they go fast and weeks in advance, so we just made a plan this last time to be okay with waiting for 45 minutes and plan around it since it was our first time riding.

Seriously, for me, I got so sick on the ride, it was not worth the wait, but I do want to try it one more time, now that I know what to expect with the swaying cars.

Next time, we are planning two months out and trying to get fast passes. If I get sick again, that will be it for me.

I don’t know about the character experiences or the meals. We never do character experiences and we eat at Sweet Tomatoes in Kissimee to save money to be able to fill up my teenage boys’ stomachs to capacity, so I can’t comment on that.

Our normal plan is to get to the parks at 8:30, hit either Space or Thunder first, and then ride whatever is around those rides in proximity until 10:30 a.m., usually Buzz or Splash, etc.

We usually get fast passes for Space or Thunder, and dart to the one we didn’t get the fp for first off.

At 10:30 a.m. we head off for a big meal either buying a lot of stuff at Liberty Square or going off site to Sweet Tomatoes (we have a car), and then we slug around in our food coma , doing large crowd moving things in cool temperatured places like Country Bear, Philharmagic, Hall of Presidents, Laugh Floor, and/or hit our Fast Passes.

Evening we go back and forth depending on our mood on watching parades or taking advantage of the lower wait times during the parades, and here’s a secret… which no longer is… if you go over and ride Dumbo right before Wishes, you not only get a good wait time on Dumbo, but you get a great view of the fireworks!!!

I will tell you that I have never, never, never gotten on anything with a low wait time at Winnie the Pooh, or Peter Pan anytime after 9:30 a.m., and by the time 9:30 rolls around I can almost guarantee a 30 minute or more wait time for either of those two rides, on any crowd level day.

One time we got on Winnie the Pooh during the Mainstreet Electric Parade, with a 15 minute wait time and then it shot back up to 30 minutes at 9:00 p.m, but that was on a Friday night.

The only time we have ridden either Winnie the Pooh, or Peter Pan is with a FP or light night wait times. We’ve never done Peter Pan without a FP due to the wait times.

So to summarize, if you want to really ride 7DMT, you may have to give up Winnie the Pooh, and ride it first thing and expect at least 20 minutes and probably 40 minutes ride time, or plan way in advance and get a FP.

Being able to ride it (7DMT) twice in one day would be a successful day.

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Yes, it’s too ambitious in my opinion. You might be able to get Pirates and Thunder twice if you have a FP for Thunder.

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I totally agree!

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I agree here too. We’ve been coveting riding 7DMT since we moved here to Florida, and when we finally rode it I wondered what all of the hoopla was about and it took me 30 minutes to recover from the motion sickness. We did get a very cute video out of though.

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Thank you all for these amazing replies! I’ve definitely got some re-configuring and rethinking to do as soon as I get home from work tonight. I’m going to take all this info into consideration and then see what you think of the new plan. Thanks so much :slight_smile:

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The meet and greet for Gaston, I have heard that there are some days that they close the line before he even comes out at 10am because he has become so popular, so maybe more time allotted there and get there well before 10 to get in line. I have not witnessed this myself but it’s what I’ve heard.
Definitely try and get your tickets sooner so that you can get FPP’s all booked.
No matter how it all turns out you are all going to have an amazing day! :blush:

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Okay, so I took out our second 7DMT ride, and moved us to hit Winnie the Pooh first since the lines build so early, and Peter Pan closer to last so the lines have dissipated.

I’m finding it somewhat difficult to schedule things around Gaston and Tiana/Naveen, especially not knowing how long waiting for/meeting Gaston will take.

I also cut out the Jungle Cruise. I heard the enjoyment of this really depends on your tour guide. It wasn’t high on my to-do list anyway, so I figured I could save a little time there.

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Keeping this in mind to try if my current plan doesn’t look good!