Magic Kingdom FastPass+ Advice and Tips

FastPass+ Attractions at Magic Kingdom

This page accompanies our FastPass+ Overview for Walt Disney World Resort.

FastPass+ is Walt Disney World's ride and show reservation system. On this page you will find FastPass+ tips and strategies, how and where to make FastPass+ reservations in Magic Kingdom, and FastPass+ rules and restrictions.

Ticketed guests can generally make a maximum of THREE initial FastPass+ selections, and more (based on availability) once they have used those they have booked.

Magic Kingdom has a tiered FastPass+ system, meaning that the park restricts the number of FastPass+ reservations guests can make for its headliner attractions. Of the three FastPass+ selections that can be made in advance for each day, a maximum of ONE can be for an attraction in Group A below.

There are currently more FastPass+ attractions in Magic Kingdom (26) than in any other Walt Disney World theme park:

Best Use of FastPass+ at Magic Kingdom

Each of our 50 Magic Kingdom Touring Plans shows the attractions and FastPass+ start times that will save you the most time in line, like this:

Suggested start times for FastPass+ reservations:
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train = 9 AM
Peter Pan's Flight = 10 AM
Enchanted Tales with Belle = 11 AM

Each touring plan also gives our recommendations for day-of FastPass+ reservations, those you can get at the Magic Kingdom's in-park kiosks after you've used your original set:

You should be able to get day-of FastPass+ reservations starting around lunchtime. Here's what we suggest:
Buzz Lightyear = 3:30 PM
Pirates of the Caribbean = 7 PM

When updating the plans, we kept count of how many times each attraction was identified as needing FastPass+. This is a prioritized list of the attractions for which you should use FastPass+ to avoid long waits in line:

While Magic Kingdom offers FastPass+ for more than two dozen attractions, our free touring plan software only identifies ten as frequently needing FastPass+:

• Peter Pan’s Flight
• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Splash Mountain
• Enchanted Tales with Belle
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Jungle Cruise
• Space Mountain
• The Haunted Mansion
• Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin

Why You Might Need FastPass+ for Magic Kingdom

Why is Peter Pan’s Flight listed? Probably three reasons:

1. Peter Pan isn’t going to be anyone’s choice as the first attraction to visit. If you’ve got small children, you’re probably headed to Enchanted Tales with Belle or the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. If you’ve got older kids, you’re probably headed to Space Mountain or Seven Dwarfs. And no matter where you go first, you’ll probably visit at least one other attraction nearby next. That means you’re not getting to Peter Pan within the first 30 minutes the park is open.
2. Peter Pan appears on virtually every Magic Kingdom touring plan. It appeals to every age group and demographic, and has no height requirement. It’s a classic, if simple, Disney ride.
3. Although it’s not a headliner attraction, Peter Pan develops long lines throughout the day. Peter Pan’s wait times over Christmas often exceeded 150 to 180 minutes. Peter Pan’s hourly capacity is around 1,100 guests, or a little more than half Buzz Lightyear’s capacity, and far less than half the capacity of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, in the second spot, is usually the first FastPass+ recommendation our software suggests, often with a start time between 9:00 and 9:30 AM. If you're doing a comprehensive tour of the Magic Kingdom, that Seven Dwarfs FastPass position allows you to visit Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear as soon as the park opens, then ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train with little wait. It also puts you in a good position to ride a couple of secondary Fantasyland attractions before a 10:00 AM Peter Pan's Flight FastPass+ reservation, which helps cut down on how much walking you have to do in the park.

Big Thunder and Splash Mountain are on the list, too. While they don’t normally get a huge influx of guests immediately at park opening, lines of 20 to 40 minutes can develop around mid-morning at Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, as crowds make their way to Adventureland after early stops in Tomorrowland or Fantasyland.

Enchanted Tales with Belle makes the top five because it usually doesn’t make sense to visit it first thing in the morning. Counting walking time to Belle and the elaborate pre-show process, you’d be committing about half an hour to that one attraction, whereas you could probably visit 2 or 3 other attractions in Fantasyland or Tomorrowland in the same amount of time.

Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise are interesting additions to this chart, because our software usually recommends these as day-of FastPasses, not one of the three to get in advance before you arrive at the park. Take a look at the chart below and you'll see that most of our Jungle Cruise recommendations are for late afternoon, day-of FastPass+ reservations. Why? These aren't in the top tier of popular attractions in the park, and they've got enough capacity to move a lot of people per hour. Those two things help moderate waits, so other attractions are generally more important for your first set of FastPass+ reservations.

Space Mountain appears on the list probably because of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. The new-ish Mine Train is still a hot attraction in Magic Kingdom, and it also has a shorter height requirement than Space Mountain (38 inches vs 44 inches), meaning more families want to ride it. That means visiting Space Mountain in the afternoon, when FastPass+ is needed.

That said, many touring plans list Space Mountain as the first attraction to visit, and it’s usually followed by other Fantasyland attractions to minimize how much you have to walk.

Attractions In Our Touring Plans That Never Need FastPass+

Some FastPass+ attractions seem never to require FastPass+, either because the touring plan gets you to them before long lines develop, or because the attraction rarely sees long waits:

• Ariel's Grotto
• The Barnstormer
• Dumbo
• Mad Tea Party
• Magic Carpets of Aladdin
• Mickey’s PhilharMagic
• Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor

Magic Kingdom Attractions In Our Touring Plans That Rarely Require Advance FastPass+ Reservations

These include:

• it’s a small world
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Tomorrowland Speedway
• The Mickey Mouse meet & greet
• Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid

The Best Times for FastPass+ Reservations at Key Magic Kingdom Attractions

Now that you know which attractions most need FastPass+, the next question is when you should make your FastPass+ reservations. Here’s a chart showing the times our Magic Kingdom touring plans use FastPass+ to avoid long lines (yellow=morning times, orange=afternoon times):

In the chart above, yellow times indicate morning FastPass+ reservations, and orange is for afternoon reservations. Times with no highlighting represent day-of FastPass+ reservations, and all of these are made in the afternoon, after you've used your initial set of advance FastPass+ reservations.

Our touring plan software tends to recommend Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan, Big Thunder Mountain, and Enchanted Tales with Belle a lot in the morning. All of the other attractions tend to have their FastPass+ recommendations in the middle to late afternoon.

What To Do If You Have Other FastPass+ Attractions or Times

If you can get a FastPass+ reservation for the attractions shown, anywhere near the times listed, the touring plans will work exactly as shown, and your waits in line will be minimized. If you need to choose other FastPass+ attractions or times, our free computer-optimized touring plan software will incorporated those.

Here’s the process I usually follow to create an optimized touring plan with low waits in line:

1. Select all the attractions I want to visit during the day, and enter in all of the meals and breaks I want to take. I don’t enter any FastPass+ times at this step, because I first want to see what the Optimizer identifies as the attractions with potentially long waits.
2. Click the “Optimize” button and wait for the touring plan to be optimized.
3. Find the first attraction with a wait over 30 minutes, and see if a FastPass+ reservation is available for that attraction around that time. If I find one, I enter in the FastPass+ time that’s available, and re-optimize the plan.
4. I repeat Step 3 for the two FastPass+ eligible attractions with the highest wait times throughout the day. I re-optimize the plan after each attraction, because saving a bunch of time on one attraction may allow the Optimizer to uncover other ways to save you time throughout the day.

Another great resource for optimizing touring plans is our Lines Chat forum, where lots of folks are happy to offer suggestions.

Magic Kingdom FastPass+ Kiosks

If you don't want to, or can't, make day-of FastPass+ selections on your phone via the My Disney Experience app, then use one of the the in-park FastPass+ kiosks. Magic Kingdom's FastPass+ kiosks are located throughout the park, including:

• Adventureland / Frontierland: In the covered pathway that connects the two. The entrances are across from the Swiss Family Treehouse and next to the Diamond Horseshoe.
• Adventureland: Next to the Jungle Cruise entrance
• Fantasyland: Outside Mickey’s PhilharMagic
• Storybook Circus: In the tent to the right of Pete's Silly Sideshow
• Tomorrowland: Next to the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin entrance
• Tomorrowland: Near Stitch's Great Escape

Other Tips and Advice for FastPass+ at Magic Kingdom