Magic Kingdom- Part 1

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I am already planning on having more than one post about the Magic Kingdom because I know I will get tired of typing partway through this. I’m just in that kind of mood. But I wanted to post about this park first, because in my opinion it’s the most exciting!

There are a few important things to know about the parks when you are booking a trip to Disney World.

1. The more days you stay, the cheaper it gets per day. Like for us to add a sixth day to our tickets, it was only three dollars more per person. So taking a long vacation doesn’t really cost a WHOLE lot more, except for lodging. It’s feasible to take a long trip to Disney World and it will let you do everything at a much more relaxed pace.

2. The park tickets are called Magic Your Way tickets. The first level is a Magic Your Way Base Ticket. This allows you to visit one park per day, either Magic Kingdom (MK), Epcot, Hollywood Studios, or Animal Kingdom. The next thing to add to that is a Park Hopper option. This costs a flat rate of about $60 per person regardless of how long your stay is. The Park Hopper lets you visit as many parks as you would like in one day. That makes it convenient if you want to have breakfast with Cinderella, then go to Epcot later because they have extended hours, or something like that. The next option is to add waterpark privileges to your tickets. The two waterparks are Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach. Although I have been to TL in the past and I think it’s an amazing park, we didn’t have this option on our trip. It adds about $50 per person to include waterparks on your tickets.

3. Fastpass- These are great! You can go to a popular ride and insert your card (called Key to the World, it’s like a credit card and works as your room key, tickets, and meal plan). The Fastpass machine spits out a little ticket stub with a time printed on it- usually a one hour range- and if you go back during that time then you go through a separate Fastpass Line and walk almost right to the front of the other line. You can only have one Fastpass at once so you have to either use it or let it expire before printing another one. Also, they only print a certain amount of Fastpasses for each time period and they can run out partway through the day. This happened to us on one ride.

4. Eat meals slightly off of the normal mealtime. You’ll have a short wait to get your food and then while everyone else is eating, you can do the more popular rides or shows and have shorter lines for those. Sounds simple, but obviously most people don’t do it!

5. Find out before your trip which parks have Extra Magic Hours which day. Each day, at least one park opens one hour early or stays open up to three hours late. Only guests staying at Disney Resorts can stay in the parks during the Extra Magic Hours. It allows you longer in the park, which is nice because the temperature drops quite a bit in the evening and its much more pleasant. Also, the lines are shorter.

Okay, about Magic Kingdom. When you first enter the park, you are on Main Street U.S.A. There are not any rides on Main Street, but it’s a great place to shop. The stores along each side of the street almost all connect to each other. If it’s hot out, walk through the stores instead of down the street. Main Street is also the path for various parades and shows. This was part of a morning parade.

We watched a group called the Dapper Dans perform. I thought it was going to be boring, but they turned out to be really interesting. They played musical instruments and tapped danced and sang.

One thing that is definitely not to miss is the Main Street Bakery. Yummy pastries! If you time it right you can eat breakfast while watching the 10 a.m. parade, if there is one that day. Or have a snack around 3 and then catch the afternoon parade. Another place on Main Street that we ate was the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor. We each got a double scoop cone (Edy’s) and it was more than we could eat. Well, Jonathan finished it, but he was even struggling by the end.

Here we are standing in the middle of Main Street, with Cinderella’s Castle behind us. By the way, you can now stay in the Princess Suite in the castle! It’s only like 8 million dollars a night, though.

A view from the back of Cinderella’s Castle

Right after you walk through Cinderella’s Castle, if you look to the left there is a store called Tinkerbell’s Treasures. This was my favorite store in the MK. It’s really girly and fun. All kinds of princess costumes, hair pretties, jewelry, etc. I actually bought a set of hair clippies there because my bangs wouldn’t stay back in my ponytail and they were driving me crazy. So I sported a Disney Princess clip in my hair most days during our trip. I figured at least Bailey could wear them once we were home. Check it out-

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