Want to be the First on Main Street USA? — Magic Kingdom Opening Timeline

by Shannon

My daughter and I recently stayed at the Contemporary for a little girl’s trip! If your preschooler is anything like mine, they love to wake up before the sun… and wake you up too!

A very happy little girl!

Since we were up and awake we figured we would head over to the Magic Kingdom bright and early! We’re always Rope Drop-ers but this was a new level of arriving early! Let’s take a look at the Magic Kingdom park opening schedule that we experienced.

6:45 am – Left our room and started walking to the Magic Kingdom from the Contemporary

Walkway from the Contemporary to Magic Kingdom.

7:00 am – Security opened and checked our bags before allowing us to proceed to the Magic Kingdom entrance

7:10 am – We arrived at the entrance and were directed to a specific set of turnstiles because we had pre-park opening dining reservations at Be Our Guest. If you did not have a dining reservation or a tour reservation, you would be directed to another set of turnstiles

An empty Magic Kingdom park entrance!
It’s early but let’s dance!

7:20 am – We were allowed to scan our Magic Bands and proceed to the entrances under the train station where we were held. Initially there weren’t many people waiting.

No lines… yet!

Over the next 20 mins, the line started to grow.

Guests waiting to enter the Magic Kingdom before opening.

7:45 am – We were able to enter the park.

Hoards of people entering the park right at opening
The empty park did not last more than a few seconds.

Things to note and keep in mind:

We were one of the first families at the turnstiles and at the front while waiting at the train station but as soon as entrance to the park was allowed, so many people began pushing to run to the castle. Within seconds an empty Main Street was filling with people. Were crowds still minimal? YES but, in my opinion there is no point in queuing at the entrance prior to 7:45 am.

I recommend arriving at the Magic Kingdom entrance around 7:50 am so you can miss the crazies/pushing as well as the waiting in line.

My daughter and I casually strolled until about 8:00 am while taking photos and we still were able to get a lot of nice shots without crowds behind us (even at the castle).

Even though many guest rushed into the park, it still felt very quiet and the low crowd levels were perfect for photos and strolling the happiest place on Earth!

Magic Kingdom photos before park-opening.

Empty castle photo before park opening.

Don’t forget you can follow us LIVE at the parks on Instagram stories @brbgoingtodisney 🙂

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1,060 comments

Sara Grote August 24, 2019 - 8:16 pm

Hello,

First, I have to say your Instagram and blog are by far my absolute favorite I follow! I love Disney and live vicariously through you while patiently waiting for our next vaca. Thanks for all you do!

With that said, my family and I are going to Disney next June. There will be 10 of us so I wanted to, as we all do, make vacation run as smooth as possible and have heard rope drop is a great idea. I have a rough plan to do rope drop at magic kingdom, but worried even if we head from our resort AoA early the bag check and travel to the park will take a long time. Do you have any advice on how early we should leave AoA to head toward magic kingdom? Will it take 20-30 min or longer from parking our cars to front gates? Are the crowds huge at this time and packed down mainstreet?

Thanks so much for the help! I tried to search for the info on your other blog post for the info I may have missed it though.

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