Early Morning Magic - Fantasyland

[kingphil]

So in a little under four weeks time (14 April) me and the family will be experiencing Early Morning Magic - I really CANNOT wait for this.

I'm interested on people's thoughts/advice who may have done this event before so I can get maximum enjoyment out of it.

Planning to arrive at the parking lot about 7am and then make our way to the MK entrance. As entrance is scheduled for 7.45am would you recommend the monorail or the ferry ?

I'm guessing the event is limited to around 500 - 1000 people and we are all herded to Fantasyland and let loose to do whatever we want for the 75 minutes ?

There are the seven rides that should be open, so will ensure we ride all of these at least once. Then at 9am when the park officially opens I'm thinking of moving to the other rides within Fantasyland (such as Barnstormer, Dumbo and the Carrousel) as expect these to be fairly empty for the first half hour).

Breakfast is at Cosmic Ray's (served until 10am) - so if I plan to arrive there about 9.30 would that give us enough time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, or should I plan to arrive earlier ?

Got my FP's sorted for all three mountain rides from 12:30 onward, so kind of thinking what would be the best thing(s) to do between 10am - 12:30pm ?

[Mexy02]

We did it 31/10/17 . There were about 40-50 people doing it . It’s mega quiet. We did mine train 10 times on the trot , Winnie and Peter Pan but they’ve extended what you can do now and all will be walk ons so just choose your favourites. It’s all roped off so just you and your early morning magic band to do what you want
You can go for Breakfast up to 10am they don’t just stop serving and will get you what you want but we were starving by 9:30 but it was at pinnochio back then.
We just walked onto buzz and space after breakfast but space isn’t advisable on a full stomach lol then went for a sit down as the morning had been full on. Enjoy it’s a great thing to do

[mickeyismybff]

If you’re at Cosmic Rays for breakfast from 9:30-10ish (and yes, I think that’s plenty early personally! They won’t kick you out at 10 sharp, they just won’t be serving more), then I’d do an hour in Tomorrowland then head to Main Street or the hub for Move It Shake It at 11, providing that’s the same showtime for your day. Stay in the hub if you want to dance and do the whole thing, stay on Main Street if you just want to see it go by and then get moving again.

With all of the early entry or rushing somewhere ways Of starting the day at MK, Main Street gets missed and I like to make sure we go back and actually take it in. I know it can seem like a race track to run down to get everywhere else, but I’m a nostalgic fool for design and really believe the park wouldn’t be right without Main Street setting the scene. You can check the wait time to meet Mickey and Minnie in the Town Square while you’re there too, as that’s probably a photo you want for your extra super MK day.
Also worth remembering about Main Street: there is coffee.

Then head to the Mountains! And watch the times for Haunted Mansion on the day - it goes up and down a lot, so it’s one of the only rides I find I’m checking on my phone throughout the day.

If you’re heading from Main Street to Big Thunder or Splash, go via Liberty Square, partly because it tends to be quieter and therefore quicker, and partly because the Great Moments in History muppet show that you might happen to catch is such a different take from all the patriotic stuff in the parks. But you’re not in a theatre or anything so you can just keep walking if it’s not your thing, so everybody wins.

[Shifu]

It’s a great experience. You are not hearded over to Fantasy land now as such, just let in onto main st with everyone else since the new style of opening, but you are allowed to continue on further so you just follow the cm’s standing along route checking wrist bands and pointing the way.
This was one of our most memorable parts of our last holiday (The event, not the checking of our wristbands! )
We travelled by monorail as we were staying at the Poly. We arrived at around 7:20am , got wristbanded up , then stood in our separate lines ( adr’s, standard day tickets, EMM, until 7:45am then in!

[kingphil]

So it's nearly time for our Early Morning Magic experience and think I have overdosed on Vlogs all about this.

I'm still not 100% clear as to what time to arrive as we will be driving, but kind of hoping that the parking lot will be pretty empty so we should be able to park pretty near TTA and therefore a little walk rather than waiting for one of those trams - would that be a correct assumption ?

How frequent would the monorail be and is it still about a 10 minute ride to MK entrance?

I'm guessing once off the monorail we scan our Magic Bands and then enter security to have any bags etc checked ?

Once we have navigated that, my understanding is that we head off to the left side of MK entrance to obtain our Early Morning Magic wristbands and wait there until 7.45am before we are gently led towards the hub with the rest of the crowd.

So if I plan to arrive at the parking lot at 7am - would 30 minutes be sufficient to park car, walk to monorail, catch monorail and clear security - or is it better to try and arrive earlier ?

[neatfrk]

I did this twice last trip (mostly to avoid rope drop) and really enjoyed it.

My advice...swim against the greatly-reduced stream. 90% of all EMM guests will head straight to SDMT. Pick a different attraction (like PP) and head there. You can hit PP (a few times), Pooh, and take pictures in an empty Fantasyland then head over to SDMT as the first wave of folks who have already ridden it several times are heading to other rides.

Really not stressful at all...you are paying for the low stress and low crowd perk...so slooow down and enjoy.

Last piece of advice - at PP they will send you through the FP queue. You can ask to go through the regular queue if you like. We went through the interactive PP queue all by ourselves...it was pretty cool. You can enjoy it all so much better when not crowded in with other guests.

[kingphil]

Originally Posted by neatfrk

swim against the greatly-reduced stream. 90% of all EMM guests will head straight to SDMT. Pick a different attraction (like PP) and head there. You can hit PP (a few times), Pooh, and take pictures in an empty Fantasyland then head over to SDMT as the first wave of folks who have already ridden it several times are heading to other rides.

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Sounds like a good plan.

We had briefly discussed this, but got a feeling we would just follow like lost sheep and head straight to SDMT with the rest of the pack.

[rafjen]

I might try to squeeze buzz or haunted mansion in prior to breakfast as these will get busier quicker than dumbo and barnstormer. We also love meeting Ariel in her grotto.