A Day at Magic Kingdom

While Magic Kingdom has the most coasters of any WDW park, in some ways I felt too old here.

Recap of my Previous Visit

I visited Magic Kingdom over multiple days back in 2006 on a family trip. I rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad several times, which I preferred to Space Mountain. I loved the ambience and fireworks.

Overview

I "started" my day at Magic Kingdom at 7:00:00AM in the MDE app by locking in an early afternoon Lightning Lane for Jungle Cruise. Throughout the day, I reserved additional Lightning Lanes for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Barnstormer, and Big Thunder. I visited the park from 9AM-9:30PM, and took the monorail from and to the transportation center. Magic Kingdom visitors should budget an extra 30 minutes each way for this extra step if they are not staying on Disney property. My coaster totals were 2 on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, 2 on Big Thunder, 1 on Space Mountain, and 1 on Barnstormer. Overall, this park was packed; mostly with very young children. I spent a considerable amount of time dodging strollers, scooters, wheelchairs, and children whose heads only came up to my waist. Magic Kingdom guests should prepare for getting bumped into, hearing fussy kids, and searching for suitable places to sit and eat. Although this Disney park has the most rides by far, none were super thrilling. I hope that the upcoming TRON coaster will boost the attraction lineup here and bridge the gap between family rides and thrill rides.

Coasters

My favorite coaster at Magic Kingdom is still Walt Disney's own Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It has surprisingly forceful laterals, and a couple airtime moments. I appreciate its long duration and impressive rock work. It feels faster than 36mph! Big Thunder's finale was intense enough to make me slide around the bench seat as a single rider. The standby queue is deceivingly long, but at least it's mostly covered. This coaster had several hours of downtime on my visit.

Space Mountain was about how I remembered it. It has abrupt turns, banks, and a little bit of airtime. I can't decide whether being in the dark helps or hurts this coaster. The seat was hard for me to get in and out of, but the inline seats do make riders feel more exposed. Personally, I think that Cosmic Rewind makes Space Mountain irrelevant now.

Vekoma's Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was the only new coaster at the park for me. After waiting 70 minutes in the morning to ride, I purchased a $12 Lightning Lane for a re-ride in the evening. This coaster feels short but smooth. It's a tamer Big Thunder with different theming and swinging cars. The swinging actually looks more intense off-ride. During the ride, I barely noticed that I was swinging. The suspended Arrow coasters are much more thrilling and have pronounced swinging action. I am not sure why this coaster always has such a long line. It's not that special. However, it is probably my favorite coaster that has "mine train" in its name.

I have no comment on Barnstormer.

Other Rides

My favorite ride at Magic Kingdom, even beating out the coasters, is Splash Mountain. Obviously I knew about the big drop at the end, but I had no idea that it features many other drops. The dark section in particular caught me by surprise with its coaster-like dip down and back up. The dark section and the final drop were my favorite parts, but didn't get me very wet. I had two bad experiences operations-wise: the first time I rode, I was seated with two other girls. There's nothing like waiting an hour to be packed in like sardines into a car that is clearly meant to seat 2-across. The second time, I was duped. The posted wait was an hour, and I ended up waiting 1h 45 min. I also rode Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and "it's a small world". I enjoyed them all, but once again these rides weren't very exciting to me.

Food & Merchandise

I had an average lunch at Pecos Bill for $17 and another okayish dinner at Cosmic Ray's for $16. The food I ate on my Magic Kingdom day definitely wasn't as good as the previous day.

Cost

I spent $392 on a two-day park hopper ticket with Genie+ and one IAS purchase. On this day, I saved about 5.5 hours of queueing for 6 rides with Genie+ and IAS. For me, skipping the lines at Disney World was very helpful and worth it. While it is extremely expensive to pay nearly $200/day for an individual to visit theme parks and skip a few lines, it took me 16 years as it was to get back to Disney World. It will likely be at least another 5 years before I return to Florida. While not packed with thrill coasters, the Disney parks are special...and worth every penny in my opinion. The variety of attractions paired with amazing theming justifies the cost of attendance. Check out the cost breakdown of my entire trip here.

Photos

These photos were taken by me. Please credit this website if used. Check out my photos page for pictures of Disney World from 2006.