Early Morning Magic-MK Strategy

Crystal824

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 23, 2008
We are doing EMM next Sunday at the MK. It is myself, my mom who is disabled and uses a scooter, my husband, and our three kids (8, 4, and 1). As a group, we move slowly...very slowly. Really many days we only do a few attractions between the bathroom stops and snacks. It just takes a while for us to get from place to place with the scooter and the double stroller.

I booked EMM in hopes of doing some of the attractions more quickly with less of a wait. I hope with fewer people, it will be a bit easier for us to navigate.

I was wondering what order we should do the attractions. I was thinking Princess Fairytale Hall, 7DMT, Winnie the Pooh, then move on to Peter Pan and Small World, finally on to Little Mermaid and then the Tea Cups and back to 7DMT if there is time. I wasn't planning on going to breakfast until around 9:30.

For those of you that have done EMM at MK, what was your strategy?
 
That is kind of what I was thinking too. I am hoping to get them all in during the EMM. We will see.
 
We won’t be there till September but I’ve read to save 7dmt for your 2nd or 3rd attraction since most people will run to that first. We will have 3 small kiddos too and I think we’ll do PP, princesses, 7dmt (2x), and Pooh, in that order. If we have more time we may try to hit teacups but are thinking we’ll try to RD space or buzz instead before hitting the breakfast.
 


We won’t be there till September but I’ve read to save 7dmt for your 2nd or 3rd attraction since most people will run to that first. We will have 3 small kiddos too and I think we’ll do PP, princesses, 7dmt (2x), and Pooh, in that order. If we have more time we may try to hit teacups but are thinking we’ll try to RD space or buzz instead before hitting the breakfast.

That is what I read too, which is why I said the Princesses first. I was thinking 7DMT next, but I might do Pooh next and then 7DMT. Then head over to PP and Small World. Then swing by Ariel and the Mad Tea Party.
 
I haven't gone yet but we are doing this May 5th. It will be me, DH, DD (4) and DS (2). My game plan is to do PP (maybe 2x), Princesses, Pooh, then Mine Train (probably a few times with switching off parents between the 4 and 2 yr old, probably take the 2 yr old on Pooh a few extra times during this time). Those 4 are my priority. Then try to hit up Tea Party since it is close by.

Depending on time and what the kids want to do I might try mermaid and/or small world after. I'm a little on the fence because these are longer rides and I feel like the lines don't get too terrible during the day....I am kinda playing it by ear here. I don't want to spend like 12 mins of our precious hour on Small World but my daughter really wants to do it at some point.

I'm hoping around 9 to maybe quick hit up dumbo, meet ariel and maybe buzz before breakfast around 9:40. Then I booked our FPs around 10,11,12 for Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle cruise. Then go back to the hotel to nap until evening.

Maybe I'm being a bit ambitious. Hoping we can accomplish a lot using the EMM.
 
I haven't gone yet but we are doing this May 5th. It will be me, DH, DD (4) and DS (2). My game plan is to do PP (maybe 2x), Princesses, Pooh, then Mine Train (probably a few times with switching off parents between the 4 and 2 yr old, probably take the 2 yr old on Pooh a few extra times during this time). Those 4 are my priority. Then try to hit up Tea Party since it is close by.

Depending on time and what the kids want to do I might try mermaid and/or small world after. I'm a little on the fence because these are longer rides and I feel like the lines don't get too terrible during the day....I am kinda playing it by ear here. I don't want to spend like 12 mins of our precious hour on Small World but my daughter really wants to do it at some point.

I'm hoping around 9 to maybe quick hit up dumbo, meet ariel and maybe buzz before breakfast around 9:40. Then I booked our FPs around 10,11,12 for Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle cruise. Then go back to the hotel to nap until evening.

Maybe I'm being a bit ambitious. Hoping we can accomplish a lot using the EMM.

I think you have a good plan -- no need to do Small World, Tea Cups or Little Mermaid during EMM. You can get all of those in after 10 AM after breakfast with minimal wait time (although not sure you want to spin after eating :) ).
 


It’s a Small World is such a long ride itself that it eats up those precious minutes even without a wait. You may want to do an additional turn on another ride and save it for later...same day FP are always easy to get for it too
 
That is what I read too, which is why I said the Princesses first. I was thinking 7DMT next, but I might do Pooh next and then 7DMT. Then head over to PP and Small World. Then swing by Ariel and the Mad Tea Party.

It’s a Small World is such a long ride itself that it eats up those precious minutes even without a wait. You may want to do an additional turn on another ride and save it for later...same day FP are always easy to get for it too

Agree with Mango. Small World is a long ride and really not a good one to do during your 60-70 minutes of exclusive EMM time. Touring Plans says it's 14 minutes long.
 
I would not do small world until the end of the EMM window at the earliest, it’s such a long ride that it could really eat into your time for the other attractions. It won’t instantly build a wait at 9, either, the way PP and 7DMT will.

But this is coming from someone whose kid used EMM to ride th carousel three times because that’s what he loves, so obviously everyone is going to have different ride priorities! If your goal is to maximize rides, though, save small world.

If it’s a busy day it will have a long line by after breakfast, but others are right, even on a busy day it’s an easy same day FP, so if you don’t get to it during EMM that’s probably ok.
 
Here's what we ended up doing. We are a party of 6 including a scooter and a stroller. We got to MK early and were at the front of the pack going in. Even so, we got easily passed on Main Street :)

We parked the stroller in Fantasyland and didn't use it during EMM. Our 4 year old can walk fairly fast and we carried the baby. We did both sets of Princesses first. No wait. Then we did Winnie the Pooh. No wait. Then we rode 7DMT 2x. There was probably a 5-7 min wait for both rides on 7DMT. My mom opted not to ride this one. Then we did Peter Pan and Small World both attractions had no wait. We then went over to Journey Under the Sea also no wait. The park opened while we were on that attraction. After that, visited Ariel with no wait, Then we went to breakfast and it was about 9:20 when we got there. We didn't get on the Teacups or the carousel during EMM. I had intended to hit the teacups on the way to breakfast, but it had quite a line already so we skipped it and just went to eat. I think most folks could easily hit everything during EMM. You have to remember for each attraction except 7DMT we were parking the scooter and then my mom was getting back on the scooter before moving on. All in all, I think we did really well hitting all the attractions we did. We all actually really enjoyed EMM. I would do it again.

I agree with you about Small World. I considered skipping it. If we had, we probably could have hit both the carousel and the teacups. However, my kids love it so we opted to go ahead and do it during EMM even though it is a long ride. With my mom on the scooter, it can be difficult to get on the attraction during normal operating hours. You have to go in through the handicapped entrance and there is often a longer wait going that route.
 
I haven't gone yet but we are doing this May 5th. It will be me, DH, DD (4) and DS (2). My game plan is to do PP (maybe 2x), Princesses, Pooh, then Mine Train (probably a few times with switching off parents between the 4 and 2 yr old, probably take the 2 yr old on Pooh a few extra times during this time). Those 4 are my priority. Then try to hit up Tea Party since it is close by.

Depending on time and what the kids want to do I might try mermaid and/or small world after. I'm a little on the fence because these are longer rides and I feel like the lines don't get too terrible during the day....I am kinda playing it by ear here. I don't want to spend like 12 mins of our precious hour on Small World but my daughter really wants to do it at some point.

I'm hoping around 9 to maybe quick hit up dumbo, meet ariel and maybe buzz before breakfast around 9:40. Then I booked our FPs around 10,11,12 for Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle cruise. Then go back to the hotel to nap until evening.

Maybe I'm being a bit ambitious. Hoping we can accomplish a lot using the EMM.

You will likely be able to do this. Without the scooter, we could have done more than we did. The only thing we had to wait for was 7DMT and it was only about 5 min wait. With the scooter and/or a stroller, it take time to park it and then get back on/in it. I would park your stroller and carry the 2 year old. You can definitely take the baby on Pooh while the others do 7DMT and then switch. It was a lot of fun. I would do it again.
 
I haven't gone yet but we are doing this May 5th. It will be me, DH, DD (4) and DS (2). My game plan is to do PP (maybe 2x), Princesses, Pooh, then Mine Train (probably a few times with switching off parents between the 4 and 2 yr old, probably take the 2 yr old on Pooh a few extra times during this time). Those 4 are my priority. Then try to hit up Tea Party since it is close by.

Depending on time and what the kids want to do I might try mermaid and/or small world after. I'm a little on the fence because these are longer rides and I feel like the lines don't get too terrible during the day....I am kinda playing it by ear here. I don't want to spend like 12 mins of our precious hour on Small World but my daughter really wants to do it at some point.

I'm hoping around 9 to maybe quick hit up dumbo, meet ariel and maybe buzz before breakfast around 9:40. Then I booked our FPs around 10,11,12 for Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle cruise. Then go back to the hotel to nap until evening.

Maybe I'm being a bit ambitious. Hoping we can accomplish a lot using the EMM.

Seems like a good plan. You definitely want to do the popular rides during EMM when its not crowded. Then ride the less popular rides when the masses enter the parks and head to the popular rides.
 
We just did the EMM last week (3-19).

As you can expect there was a mad rush for 7 Dwarfs after they let us in.

Our strategy was to hit the Tea Cups, Winnie the Pooh 1st. By the time we rode both of these, 7 Dwarfs was a walk on. We rode it twice before heading to Peter Pan and Small world. We got off small world at 8:35 and hit 7 Dwarfs one more time.

My 7 year old and I headed to Space Mountain at 8:55 and got on right away. We ended EMM with Breakfast.
 

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