Magic Kingdom One Day Touring Plan with Small Children

Early morning at the Magic Kingdom is one of the most magical times of the day.  If you get there early and enjoy the sunshine and the opening show, you can get a head start on the crowds.  Getting through the big attractions early is what we’re all about here at TouringPlans.com.    So, on my recent trip to the World, I decided to take the wife and kids through the Unofficial Guide One-Day Touring Plan for Small Children.

The Guide plan is recommended for children ages 2 to 8 and my kids are ages 5 and 9.  Despite this difference, I felt this was the best plan, since the 9 year old is just old enough to enjoy Splash Mountain and Big Thunder, but not quite old enough to like Space Mountain.  Since he and his sister are still big fans of the Fantasyland craziness, we decided to follow this plan and start there.

The plan calls for an early arrival at the park, so despite a late night the evening before, we got up and planned to grab breakfast at the kiosk outside the monorail.  It was surprisingly good stuff, and we downed the apple fritters and cinnamon rolls while boarding the monorail to go over to the Magic Kingdom.  I highly recommend this for a grab and go breakfast, because the pastries are great and it’s real coffee!

Queuing up at the Magic Kingdom, you have to wait through the opening show and then skip down Main Street to your first stop, Dumbo the Flying Elephant.  If your family is like mine, you enjoy Dumbo as the iconic ride that it is.  It’s a challenge to get into the ride most of the day, though, so hitting it first makes a big difference.  Plus, the views first thing in the morning are great.

The opening few rides are what we refer to as the Chinese food order:  Dumbo-Pan-Pooh.  Peter Pan is the most popular ride in Fantasyland, so it’s the next stop on the tour.  Peter Pan’s line got very long, very quickly when we were there.  From the opening of the park to the time we got in line was only about 20 minutes, which allowed the Peter Pan line to swell to 15 minutes.  That’s still a good length, and we enjoyed the ride quickly, finishing up by 9:40.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was next, and it was where we hit the first snag in the commando touring plan.  Disney is smart.  When they design a queue line, they want to make you feel like you are not waiting in line.  The new interactive queue at Pooh is fantastic for when the line is long.  When the line is short, as it was the morning that we went, it serves as a slowdown for your kids.  They wanted to play in Pooh’s house, pull on the gopher rope and slide their hands up and down the honey walls.  The adults wanted to spring onto the ride, because we had more rides to go!  You can guess who won that debate.

Finishing Pooh took us to around 9:55, so we had hit the big three Fantasyland rides in the first hour the park was open.  After a quick bathroom break (always a consideration for kids) we headed over to Small World, the next stop on the plan.  This was a walk on attraction, as it usually is in the morning, and we were through in no time, out in the park by 10:15.  This is where we hit our two biggest snags in the plan: a scaredy-cat 5 year old and some rain.

The Haunted Mansion is the next attraction on the list, but my 5 year old girl is terrified of it.  Despite the fact that she’s been on the ride multiple times, she refuses to go back.  Meanwhile, the 9 year old loves it.  You see the conundrum?  While trying to defuse this heated debate, it began to rain.  And rain.  And rain.  It was like the opening of the old Living Seas movie.

The downside of the rain is that everyone ran for cover in the closest covered queue, which happened to be the Haunted Mansion.  A posted wait time of 13 minutes ballooned up to 30 minutes in no time, and the little girl and I waited nearby in the doorway of the Columbia Harbor House.  When the rains ended and my wife and son finally emerged from the Haunted Mansion, it was nearly 11:20, and everyone was hungry.

The next step on the plan was to get on the Jungle Cruise, but we grabbed a snack first.  The plan states to get a FASTPASS if the line is longer than 30 minutes for the Jungle Cruise, but it turned out to be only 15 minutes.  In fact, we didn’t even wait that long, and we were in and out of the Jungle Cruise just in time for everyone to be REALLY hungry, at around 11:50.

We stopped for lunch at Pecos Bill’s, beating the lunch rush slightly, but it was still very crowded.  After filling our tummies with burgers, salads and fries, we were ready to move on to the next step of the plan.  Pirates of the Caribbean was next, and it was a quick 5 minute posted wait time.  It turned out to be more like 15 minutes, so it was close to 1:00 before we got out of there.

The next step on the plan was Tom Sawyer Island, and we ended up making that the last step.  Getting to the island, playing around and getting back took almost an hour.  According to the touring plan, this was the time we should have been doing lunch, but the plan had not taken into account my bottomless pits I have been raising.  We finished the island by 2:00, grabbed yet another snack on the way out (popcorn from the Main Street cart) and headed out for a break.

So how would I evaluate the touring plan?  It works, with some slight deviations.  We never waited longer than 30 minutes for anything, and that was the Haunted Mansion because of the rain.  Other than that it was 15 minutes or less.  No one got bored, no one got too cranky.  With kids, that’s a major accomplishment.  Although we couldn’t get through the entire plan, we were running a little behind because of our extra time in the Pooh queue line and the rain.

My suggestion if you have kids and are planning to do this plan is to make sure you follow things to the letter by getting there early.  I think some of our hunger problems were caused by not having a big breakfast, so if you can get up early and eat well, I recommend it.  Also, make sure you have the Lines app on your phone, so you can call audibles if inclement weather heads your way.  All in all, though, the plan worked really well.

What about you?  Have you tried the Magic Kingdom Plan for Small Children?  What do you think of it?