Going to Disney World: Magic Kingdom

So you’ve made the arrangements, you made all of the hard decisions… congrats!!! You are ready for the fun part, going to the parks! But how do you decide which to go to? What order? What should you look out for? I’ll give you some of my insider tips to help guide your magical adventure!

I played around with a few different ways to do the parks and I even changed last minute when we got there. I think you have to think about a few things when planning your days: where your child will have the most fun, the rides and entertainment and the characters/character meals.

I think the one thing I regret is doing a breakfast meal instead of a lunch time one day. I think the best strategy is: get to the parks at rope drop- bolt to the first thing you want the most and genie+/standbyskipper the thing that has the longest wait.

So for example, DAY 1:

We decided to do Magic Kingdom for the first day and just took a break for nap. When staying at the Polynesian, it’s super easy to do because you can either walk or take the monorail to Magic Kingdom. Also, if you stay on Disney property, you get early entry so you get to go in even earlier. Lucky for us because of the time of the year we went, it wasn’t that crowded all day, but that’s definitely not always the case.

So in the morning, Josh went down to the restaurant and got us coffees and the girls some Mickey waffles. They had the waffles and some of the items I got at the grocery store the night before and we enjoyed our coffees on the way to Magic Kingdom. Oh and before that I got the girls “princess ready.” We booked a princess lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table so I got them ready for the occasion.

I found some dresses for them to wear and ordered eyeshadow, nail polish, lip gloss and glitter spray to make it extra magical. You can find the glitz and glamour items here. I decided not to do the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique (princess makeover at Disney) for a few reasons: I wanted to spend that time at Magic Kingdom since it was their first there, Serena wasn’t old enough because you have to be at least three, and I thought it would be a special thing for their Mommy to do for them!

Once we got to the Magic Kingdom, we decided to go to Tomorrowland first. When you go into Magic Kingdom early, only Tomorrowland and Fantasyland are open and then the rest of the park opens at the regular park hours. Our first ride was Buzz Lightyear because we had so much fun on it at Disneyland when we went. Well now that Serena is 2 and a little older and more aware, it was not the best first choice. She was terrified. I felt horrible because I wasn’t expecting that, but I completely understand why. It’s dark, loud, shooting and the alien/monsters are terrifying to look at. If you have a little, maybe skip this ride in the beginning. After we went on that, Emilia’s princess wand broke so Mommy and Daddy did a new wand surprise for both girls- the famous bubble wands.

Now a lot of people buy these ahead of time, so you can definitely do this because they’re not cheap! We didn’t buy the wands ahead but I bought a bulk bubble pack at Walmart beforehand that definitely came in handy. The girls were in the stroller for most of the day, with the wands on lol. It was really pleasant for the person pushing haha, but these girls were so happy with them.

After the wand purchase, we headed over to Fantasyland. We attempted to ride Dumbo, but then discovered the best indoor playground! It was kind of misty outside so we decided to stay there and the girls didn’t even want to ride the ride anymore. We had to drag them out of the playground, it was so cute!

After that, the Barnstormer (toddler friendly roller coaster) had a very short wait so I took Emilia on her first rollercoaster! It’s short so you can definitely go on it a few times if there’s no wait.

We then all went on the Little Mermaid ride which was super cute and if you want to get her autograph, she is right next door! After that ride, we went to Sir Mickey’s. This is where you can get “pixie dusted” for free and is right near the carousel.

And then we went to our lunch with the princesses. This is a hard lunch to get and you need to pay ahead so it’s a commitment. It’s located behind the castle and is quite the experience! You’re greeted with Cinderella at the bottom/lobby with a Disney photographer so you can get some nice photos to your memory maker. And then they take you up to the top where you have a nice view of Fantasyland. You’re seated and choose from the prix fixe menu (which by the way was really good) and then one by one the princesses kind of “announce” themselves and come to your table! The princesses that we met during the meal were: Jasmine, Aurora, Ariel and Merida. It was really special for the girls. Because lunch took a little longer, we decided to go back for an early nap so we would have more time in the evening.

We came back to rest via monorail and Serena napped and Emilia watched some TV and hung out in the room for a little. And then Josh and Emilia went back and we realized we hadn’t even used our genie+ really for the day yet. If it’s a low crowd at Magic Kingdom, I honestly don’t know if you need it. If you have kids that don’t meet the height requirements for the bigger rides and they don’t like roller coasters, may not be worth it depending on what you want to do. Anyways, Emilia and Josh went back mid-afternoon and they were able to go on a few rides while they waited for us. They went on Peter Pan (Josh said it is not worth the hype) and It’s a Small World which Emilia really liked.

Side note about Peter Pan- so everyone says to genie+ that first thing in the morning because Disney says it’s the highest wait time. But something interesting I saw- the reason it’s the highest wait time is not because of it’s popularity but because the ride moves slower than others and they can’t load as many people per hour as others. So long story short, if you’re not a Peter Pan fan, I think it’s okay to skip.

We then met up with them and we did genie+ with a character meet! If you decide to do genie+, this is another great way to use it. I feel like people don’t take advantage of this enough. I definitely appreciated the character meals because we got to knock out a lot of the favorites, but Emilia was dying to meet Tiana and she fortunately had a meet and greet in Fantasyland.

Her “princess guest” was Rapunzel so it worked out well with meeting so many princesses that day! What I loved about this meet and greet is there is a camera on the wall so it just takes continuous pictures of you with the princesses, lots of fun candids. And all of these photos go to your memory maker!

By this point, Serena had gotten really comfortable with the characters (she was a little nervous at first) and they had the best time meeting these two princesses!

After we finished the meet and greet, we went on tea cups and did genie + with Winnie the Pooh. Not to be a “Disney downer” but I feel like a few of these rides could use an update after going on Frozen at Epcot (more on that later!), maybe that will be in the future! While we were on on Winnie the Pooh, we mobile ordered our dinner at Pecos Bill in Frontierland. It was an easy way to fit dinner in quickly for two hungry kiddos! Food was fine, nothing to write home about, but I like the location. There was an ice cream cart across the way so the girls got ice cream and then it was nighttime and the girls were wiped! I was hoping to make it to Tom Sawyer Island and the Swiss Family Treehouse while we were over there for dinner, but I didn’t realized it closed so early in the day.

Here are some of the things I wish we did that we didn’t have time for:

Tom Sawyer Island

Swiss Family Treehouse

there’s also a mini playground right where they’re building Tiana’s ride

Magic Carpet Ride

More things by Dumbo- I feel like there’s a ton to do over there

Enchanted Tales with Belle

Tomorrowland Speedway

Rides that I think are too scary for my girls still:

Pirates of the Caribbean

Big Thunder Mountain

Haunted Mansion

Astro Orbiter (this one is really high up- Disneyland isn’t like this)

Buzz Lightyear (Serena)

Space Mountain

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

After dinner and our fun filled day- on our way out, we took photos in front of the castle. I have to say, I looooove the photos in front of the castle at night. So if your kiddos are not completely exhausted yet, take the photos! We added these to our memory maker as well and it’s my favorite photos we got.

We went home and put Serena to bed and then Emilia and I stayed up and watched the Magic Kingdom fireworks from our hotel. The fireworks are at 8 PM and at the Polynesian they play all the music and you feel like you’re there!

We sat on the beach and cuddled while enjoying the show. It was the perfect ending to the perfect first day at Disney! Want to know more about our trip? Make sure to check out our other posts about Disney World.