By Pink Diva

We took a trip with my extended family, 12 in total, and did a marathon trip to Disney.  Our plan was to see and do everything in the short time that we had in the parks.  One park a day and do it all!  That was our motto for the week.  It took careful planning, but we were able to see and do almost everything in the parks.

I was voted the head planner for the trip and started doing my research.  I had everyone tell me what was on their “must do”, “would like to do” and “can skip” lists.  This gave me a good idea on where to start.  In our group of 12 we had two sets of grandparents, two parents, a five-year old girl, a four-year old girl, a two-year old girl and a two-year old boy.   The princesses were a top priority for the little girls and the roller coasters were “must do’s” for the adults.

Getting Anna’s autograph after a short wait

Then it was time to get down to the nitty-gritty.  Which park on which day?  Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party was going on three of the four nights we were there.  We knew we wanted to stay in the Magic Kingdom as long as possible to see everything, so we had to pick a day MNSSHP wasn’t going on…  The only night MNSSHP wasn’t going on happened to be a Saturday.  That was the third day of our trip and by default made it Magic Kingdom Day.

The kids wanted to meet their favorite characters, so to save time we did two character meals.  We meet the Fab 5 at Chef Mickey’s (Chef Mickey Review) and we saw several princesses at once at Akershus (Akershus Review).  We opted for Chef Mickey’s the night we arrived, not wanting to waste any park time.  We opted for Akershus over Cinderella’s Royal Table so that we wouldn’t have to take two hours out of our day at the Magic Kingdom to eat lunch.

Here is how our day went:

• Breakfast on your own
• 7am Transportation for Bus
• 8am Open
• 8am Fairytale Hall*/Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride
  •  (Anna and Elsa)
• 9am Carousel/Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride/Fairytale Hall 
  • (Cinderella and Rapunzel* FastPass+ 8:40-9:40am)
• 10am Tomorrowland Speedway*/Teacups
• 11am Barnstormer*/Dumbo
• 12pm Lunch
• 1pm Fantasyland
  • Ariel’s Grotto
  • Little Mermaid Ride
  • Enchanted Tales with Belle*
  • Winnie the Pooh
  • Peter Pan*
  • It’s a Small World
  • Philharmagic
• 2pm Fantasyland/Parade Seats
• 3pm Parade
• 4pm Liberty Square
  • Haunted Mansion
  • Hall of Presidents
• 5pm Frontierland
  • Splash Mountain
  • Big Thunder Railroad Mountain
  • Tom Sawyer Island
  • Country Bear Jamboree
• 6pm Dinner
• 7pm Adventureland   
  • Pirates of the Caribbean
  • Jungle Cruise*
  • Aladdin’s Magic Carpets
  • Tiki Room
  • Swiss Family Treehouse
• 8pm Tomorrowland/Wishes seats
• 9pm Wishes
• 10pm Tomorrowland
  • Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
  • Space Mountain
  • Astro Orbiter
  • People Mover
  • Carousel of Progress
• 11pm Electric Light Parade
• 12am Close

*FastPass+

Anything in Italics we used the Rider Switch option.

This was how I planned our day.  Yes, I printed this out and referred to it all day.  We had lunch close to the FastPass+ kiosk (on purpose) so that we could add FastPasses once ours were used.  (FastPass+ Info)

Hanging out with the two-year-olds while the others used the rider switch

The one ride my neice wanted to ride. She was thrilled to get the front row!

With two small kids who were not able to ride few things, we did use the rider switch option. (Rider Switch Info) While part of our group waited for The Seven Dwarf Mine Ride, some of us took all the kids to see Elsa and Anna.  There were no FastPasses available for these attractions, so splitting up and doing them first thing in the morning was our best option.  While my Mom and I went on Big Thunder Railroad and got the Rider Switch pass, the rest of the group went to The Country Bear Jamboree.  We then watched the little ones while everyone else rode Big Thunder Railroad.

Storybook Circus and Fantasyland were our top destinations, so we made sure to hit those first.  My niece was very excited to ride Splash Mountain.  The schedule helped to let her know when we would be going on it and she didn’t need to worry that we would skip it.  I put Tomorrowland last, not because it wasn’t a favorite, but because almost everything is indoors.  Doing it during the day or at night wouldn’t have any affect.

Did we end up doing everything? No. Did we end up having a great day?  Yes.  We were all starting to get tired at the end, but overall hit almost everything on the list.  By taking the time to plan our day hour-by-hour we were able to relax and enjoy the trip.  We avoided the “What do we do next?” and “What does everyone want to do?” questions and the time it takes to figure it out.  We were able to seamlessly go from attraction to attraction taking in the magic along the way.

How close have you come to doing everything at the Magic Kingdom in one day? Let us know in the comments below!

***Disclaimer – We at Tips from the Disney Divas and Devos hope you enjoy reading our articles, and encourage you to share any you feel may be of interest to someone else. We do ask, however, if you choose to share the photographs attached to our articles, you give credit to the photographer. Thank you for your cooperation and sharing our love of Disney!

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