The Resorts Gal Guide to Magic Kingdom (2024)

This guide shares our most popular planning articles for Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We start with a brief overview, highlighting Magic Kingdom’s history. Then, we look at lands, attractions, and other planning aspects.

After the initial specifics, we’ve listed every article we have for Magic Kingdom. These articles detail each land and what to expect in terms of rides, dining, and shopping. Magic Kingdom is a significant park, and we make it simple by breaking it down into areas.

Our attraction articles come next. These articles provide specifics for each attraction, including eligibility for early theme park hours, extended evening hours for deluxe resort guests, and height requirements. We also provide tips and walk-through experiences with photos for each ride.

Lastly, we have our entertainment, character, and planning articles for the Most Magical Place on Earth. We hope you’ll find these resources useful in planning your Walt Disney World vacation.

Magic Kingdom History

Magic Kingdom opened on October 1, 1971, as the first theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. Disney’s Contemporary Resort and Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort opened simultaneously with the park. At the time of its opening, Magic Kingdom had twenty-three attractions, with the promise that more would debut in the years to come. Walt Disney World celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021. Some notable events over the years include:

• The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction opened in Adventureland in 1973.
• In 1975, Space Mountain and the Carousel of Progress opened as part of a Tomorrowland Expansion.
• The Main Street Electrical Parade made its Florida debut in 1977.
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad opened at Magic Kingdom in 1980.
• The first-ever Christmas party (Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party) was held in 1983.
• Splash Mountain opened in 1992. It closed in 2023 to be re-imagined into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
• Walt Disney World celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1996. To celebrate, Cinderella Castle was covered in a giant pink birthday cake.
• In 2012, New Fantasyland and Storybook Circus opened with new attractions and restaurants, including Be Our Guest.
• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened in 2024.
• Tron: Lightcycle /Run opened in Tomorrowland in April 2023.

Magic Kingdom Lands

Magic Kingdom is home to multiple lands with attractions, dining, entertainment, and shopping. Those lands include:

• Adventureland
• Frontierland
• Liberty Square
• Fantasyland
• New Fantasyland
• Storybook Circus
• Tomorrowland
• Main Street U.S.A.

Further down, you’ll find our Magic Kingdom by Land series. They go into detail about specific attractions, entertainment, dining, and shops you’ll find in each area of the park.

Magic Kingdom Attractions List

Here is a list of attractions and entertainment Disney highlights on the park map.

*Our Magic Kingdom Rides Guide provides a brief description of each ride in the park. It will tell you the need-to-know details without all the extras for each ride. But if you want to learn specifics about a ride, our individual attraction articles are a good place to start. They are listed further down.

Happily Ever After is the evening fireworks performance. Times for each night’s performance are listed in the entertainment section of the My Disney Experience app. Let the Magic Begin is the castle stage show held on the Cinderella Castle stage each morning before the park opens to regular rope drop guests. Walt Disney World Resort and select other hotel guests can participate in early entry each day at Magic Kingdom. The park opens 30 minutes before the scheduled opening time. We have a list of eligible hotels for early theme park entry.

Click Here for Disney’s Ride Refurbishment Calendar

Attractions with a Height Requirement at Magic Kingdom

The following Magic Kingdom attractions have a height requirement.

• Tomorrowland Speedway (32″ to ride and 54″ to drive.)
• The Barnstormer (35″)
• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (38″)
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (40″)
• Space Mountain (44″)
• Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (40″) (Coming in 2024)
• Tron Lightcycle / Run (48″)

Attractions with Individual Lightning Lanes or Part of Disney Genie+

The following attractions are individual Lightning Lane purchases.

• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
• TRON Lightcycle / Run

*Tron Lightcyle / Run is the only attraction at Magic Kingdom that requires a virtual queue at this time. This attraction does not have a standby line. So you must obtain a virtual queue at 7:00 a.m. or at 1:00 p.m. in order to ride it at no extra cost.

The following attractions have Lightning Lanes with Disney Genie+ service:

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
• Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• Enchanted Tales with Belle
• Haunted Mansion
• “it’s a small world”
• Jungle Cruise
• Mad Tea Party
• Meet Ariel at Her Grotto
• Meet Cinderella and a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall
• Meet Mickey at Town Square Theater
• Meet Princess Tiana and a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall
• Mickey’s PhilharMagic
• Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
• Peter Pan’s Flight
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Space Mountain
• The Barnstormer
• The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Tomorrowland Speedway
• Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid

Where Should We Head First?

This is a tough question, and your first ride choice will largely depend on the composition of your group. Most guests head straight to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at rope drop. Others visit Space Mountain and Peter Pan’s Flight as soon as the park opens. As of this update, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland are the only lands open during early entry for resort guests.

This advice could change when Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opens. However, we do not know if it will require a virtual queue yet or if it will be open with the rest of the park.

Characters

We cover character meet-and-greets extensively at Magic Kingdom in our Magic Kingdom Character Guide. That guide lists every character who meets in the park on a regular basis. We update it often. With so many character meets, we can’t list them all here. But a few highlights include:

• Meet Mickey Mouse at Town Square Theater
• Meet Ariel at Her Grotto
• Meet Disney Princesses at Fairytale Hall
• Meet Winnie the Pooh and Tigger at the Thotful Spot

Again, these are only a few of the characters who meet in the park. Make sure to check our guide listed above for in-depth details. Characters can also be seen in the daily Festival of Fantasy Parade, and many participate in Mickey’s Magical Friendship Faire, the castle stage show that’s offered multiple times per day.

Dining at Magic Kingdom

This is my least favorite subject at Magic Kingdom. The dining options are pretty generic throughout the park, and many of the places have reputations for selling cheap food. We usually leave the park to dine at one of the resorts on the monorail. However, that is not feasible for most guests. When we do eat in the park, we often enjoy Columbia Harbor House for quick service.

Table service restaurants include:

• Tony’s Town Square Restaurant (Town Square)
• Jungle Navigation Co. LTD Skipper Canteen (Adventureland)
• The Crystal Palace (Main Street USA, Character Dining)
• The Plaza Restaurant (Main Street USA, Casual)
• Be Our Guest (New Fantasyland)
• Liberty Tree Tavern (American Thanksgiving)
• The Diamond Horseshoe (Same Menu as Liberty Tree Tavern)
• Cinderella’s Royal Table (Character Dining in the Castle)

We have reviews of the following restaurants:

• The Crystal Palace Breakfast Review
• Be Our Guest Review
• Skipper Canteen Review

*We used to enjoy dining at Skipper Canteen fairly often. However, our last experience was overly salted, so we haven’t returned. But I wouldn’t necessarily let that deter you from trying it.

Tickets, Transportation, and Parking

Tickets for Magic Kingdom can be purchased online or through an authorized travel agent or reseller. We useFirefly Travelsfor all of our reservations. If you’re staying at a Walt Disney World Resort Hotel, you might prefer to book a room + ticket package instead of purchasing individual tickets.

Bus, monorail, or boat transportation is provided from Disney World Resort Hotels to Magic Kingdom. Bus service is also offered from Magic Kingdom to the other theme parks (Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom) after 10:00 a.m. For Epcot, you will need to take the Express Monorail to the Transportation and Ticket Center. Then, you’ll transfer to the Epcot monorail.

You cannot take a bus from Magic Kingdom to Disney Springs. We would take the monorail or walk to Disney’s Contemporary and then take a bus to get to Disney Springs.

Annual Passholders and guests staying at a Walt Disney World Resort can enjoy complimentary parking at Magic Kingdom. Other guests will have to pay for parking. You can read more in ourguide to parking at Walt Disney World.

When visiting Magic Kingdom by car, you will have to park at the Transportation and Ticket Center. Courtesy trams are provided from the parking lot to the Transportation and Ticket Center. From there, you’ll have the option to board the monorail or the ferryboat to Magic Kingdom. If you’re staying at a Disney World Resort, it’s much easier to take a bus to Magic Kingdom instead of dealing with parking.

If you park at the Transportation and Ticket Center, you’ll want to remember the row where you parked. The My Disney Experience offers a car locator service if you would like to use it. You can also take a photo of the row. After a long day in the parks, it can be easy to forget where you parked.

Seasonal

Throughout the year, guests visiting Walt Disney World are privy to seasonal decorations, overlays, and, in some instances, special events. Here are a few things you might encounter based on the season.

• For Halloween, expect extensive decorations on Main Street, U.S.A. From the park’s entrance to the Cinderella Castle hub, you’ll find shades of orange and yellow with Mickey-shaped pumpkins galore! On select evenings in August through Halloween, the park will close earlier for an extra-ticketed event, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party! If you would like to know more about the cost of the event and details, we have a 2024 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Guide that details everything you can expect.

Browse All of Our Magic Kingdom Articles