Early Entry at Magic Kingdom is a mixed bag. In theory, the on-site perk gives hotel guests a head-start to do headliner attractions with shorter lines and lower wait times to beat the crowds. As we’ve covered repeatedly, it doesn’t always work this way. But the thing is, Early Entry at Magic Kingdom has actually improved a lot lately, at least if you know what you’re doing and don’t make an easy mistake.
We’re big fans of Early Entry, and enthusiastically recommend it in dozens of planning posts. It’s an underrated perk, with many guests dismissing it as “only” 30 minutes and inferior to the hour-long Extra Magic Hours. While I’d obviously rather have double the time, Early Entry is a lot less busy than EMH was.
Having the perk at all 4 parks every single day makes a huge difference, to the point I’d argue EE is better than EMH at 3 of the 4 parks. The exception, as regular readers are no doubt aware, has been Magic Kingdom for a handful of reasons we’ll touch upon here. Honestly, after recent experiences doing Early Entry at Magic Kingdom, I’m now ready to say that it’s also superior to Extra Magic Hours at MK.
I’ve done Early Entry at Magic Kingdom well over a dozen times in the last few years. It’s far and away my least favorite park for Early Entry, but I keep returning for the sake of research. Ironically, I’ve probably come close to doing Early Entry at Magic Kingdom more than the other 3 parks combined, as it seems to be the most “interesting” to readers. (I also do EE often at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for similar reasons, but that one is also a lot of fun for me, personally.)
There are a couple of reasons for my change of heart this holiday season. For one thing, it’s the time of the year. As we’ve said countless times, Early Entry at Magic Kingdom during Party Season is great. This is the one time of year when I really enjoy Early Entry and have done it for fun.
Early Entry is great during Party Season from August through December (plus a few other dates) because Magic Kingdom opens to the general public at 8 am and is typically less busy. See this post about why 7:30 am Early Entry at Magic Kingdom is a game changer. We highly recommend it on Halloween or Christmas Party dates.
It all comes down to timing. Few guests have the necessary desire and determination to be out their hotel room door by ~6:30 am, which is pretty much what’s necessary to arrive at Magic Kingdom in time for the start of 7:30 am Early Entry. By contrast, tons of people can make it for 8:30 am Early Entry, which is the main reason why Magic Kingdom is normally the worst park for Early Entry.
While I’ve lamented the lack of midnight closings at Magic Kingdom, the flip side is that the park has been very good about 8 am openings–including on many days that are not party shortened. In fact, since September, I have not done a 9 am opening at Magic Kingdom–it’s all been 8 am openings. Part of this is luck and timing of my visits, as they definitely have happened.
In any case, this is not a new thing. It’s also not a permanent thing. As soon as the calendar rolls over into 2025, it’s safe to expect more frequent 9 am opening times, meaning 8:30 am Early Entry at Magic Kingdom. So this is not the reason for my change of heart this holiday season when it comes to Early Entry at Magic Kingdom.
The real reason, as you might’ve guessed, is TRON Lightcycle Run.
In case you missed it, Walt Disney World introduced a standby queue at TRON Lightcycle Run, retiring the virtual queue during the early fall off-season. It’s now been over a few months since the standby line debuted and we have been able to conduct extensive on-the-ground field testing. Early Entry has been a big part of this.
I plan on doing a full post on the when to do and avoid TRON Lightcycle Run, but wanted to start with Early Entry as a standalone entry because of how it defied expectations in a few ways that struck me as worth covering on their own. And because it’s worth covering the impact on the alternatives during Early Entry and rope drop, which isn’t quite as applicable to other times of day.
Also because I’ve spent dozens of hours “working” on this (and honestly, I don’t even like TRON that much), so I wanted to get more than one post out of it. For now, it’s worth consulting How TRON Lightcycle Run’s Standby Line is a Gamechanger for Magic Kingdom Touring Strategy. Just be advised that isn’t 100% accurate–or even 85% accurate.
In terms of Early Entry basics, our normal recommendation is to be there roughly 30 minutes before the start of Early Theme Park Entry. If your plan is to do Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, you want to arrive 30+ minutes in advance. Less time is fine for Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, or the other options.
Arriving earlier also gives you time for fun photos on Main Street with empty backgrounds. Once done with that, head to the right of the East Plaza Garden for Early Theme Park Entry. There’s a row of Cast Members stationed to scan MagicBands or room keys to verify Early Entry eligibility.
Everyone is allowed to enter Magic Kingdom and hang out on Main Street, taking photos or waiting for rope drop over on the Frontierland and Adventureland side of the Central Plaza. But you can’t access Tomorrowland or Fantasyland without scanning here. Once you’ve done that, you’re good to go for the morning.
From there, you proceed on to either the Tomorrowland Bridge or Fantasyland Bridge.
My first “prediction” that was wrong in the aforementioned ‘TRON Gamechanger’ post is that Early Entry would be about a 50/50 split between these two bridges. From what I’ve seen thus far, it’s more like 60/40 in favor of Tomorrowland. Maybe even two-thirds to 75% of guests on the Tomorrowland Bridge.
It’s really tough to eyeball this stuff, but the bottom line is that there’s a huge difference as contrasted with before, when most guests went to the Fantasyland side. One thing to keep in mind here, though, is that I’ve only done Early Entry in the last couple of months on 8 am park opening days. I strongly suspect parties with younger children who skew towards Seven Dwarfs Mine Train are less likely than TRON-skewing guests to make it to the park in time for 7:30 am Early Entry. Things could look very different on 8:30 am days.
In the past, the crowd on the Fantasyland side has been exponentially larger, with about ten times as many people.
Of that much larger number, approximately 90% of those guests are planning on doing Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. That’s why we long ago coined the term the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Shuffle. Guests are revving up their double-wide strollers, preparing to do some serious damage to the ankles of anyone walking too gingerly. The slow-sprint-slash-shuffle to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is a high stakes, eat-or-be-eaten game.
I’ve made no secret of my hatred for the SDMT Shuffle over the years. Not only is the experience itself unpleasant (and it really is!), but it offers little upside. On normal mornings, the only people breezing on and off Seven Dwarfs Mine Train stress-free were those at the front of the pack. And the only way to get at the front of the pack was to arrive really early…and wait.
One way or another, guests were waiting for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
If they rolled up in mid-afternoon and found a 60-90 minut wait time, their time commitment was more straightforward: it was whatever they actually waited in line. Early Entry is deceiving, though, because it’s not just the posted wait (or more accurately, actual wait once in line). It’s all the time before that, standing around waiting for Early Entry to begin, too. Consequently, the “all-in” total for guests at the front of the pack might’ve been ~75 minutes.
Not only that, but there’s the opportunity cost. Instead of an unpleasant shuffle to an above-average wait for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, they could’ve pleasantly breezed through Tomorrowland and knocked out 2-3 rides with below-average waits. Or they could’ve slept in and simply done SDMT at the end of the night (when it’s more pleasant). You get the idea.
Well, I hope you get the idea. Because I’ve been harping on this for a while, and the title of this was still almost “Magic Kingdom Early Entry Report: It’s All About Opportunity Costs.” But Google has suggested I start making more “catchy” titles, and I guess people don’t know what ‘opportunity cost’ means, so here we are.
Anyway, as you’ve probably also guessed by now, the titular attraction is not Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. There wouldn’t be much of a point if it were, as we’ve done that topic to death over the last few years.
Also, there’s a reason why the above is mostly past tense–that Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was a poor option during Early Entry and the SDMT Shuffle was unpleasant. Because a new ride has taken its place. Spoiler alert: it’s not the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover.
It’s TRON Lightcycle Run. A ride that is not even open during Early Entry!
My expectation before doing any field-testing was that Tomorrowland’s Early Entry crowd would increase, and along with that, so too would the line for Space Mountain. This is because it’s possible to be in and out of Space Mountain in under 30 minutes during Early Entry (our average is about 15 minutes–it takes a bit to walk the queue), which puts you at the entrance to TRON ahead of the rope drop crowd.
We also expected that “a lot” of guests wouldn’t do anything during Early Entry. Paradoxically, they’d race to Tomorrowland to do nothing but rope drop TRON Lightcycle Run. (“Hurry up and wait” as my military-man father loves to say.) I’m quoting my own “a lot” there because I didn’t offer a precise prediction, but I’ll admit this now: the number of guests doing this is way higher than I ever expected.
By contrast, the number of guests doing Space Mountain–or literally anything else in Tomorrowland–is way, way lower than I expected. (Above is the entire crowd for Space Mountain at the start of EE before the line had opened. This is nothing compared to what it used to be.)
If I had to go back and elaborate on my prior prediction, it would’ve been that TRON Lightcycle Run would’ve made Tomorrowland a bigger draw for the sake of proximity to the attraction. Sure, many guests would ‘hurry up and wait,’ but just as many others–if not more–would take advantage of Early Entry in Tomorrowland by doing another attraction or two, and then lining up for TRON Lightcycle Run.
This was my expectation based on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland, Radiator Springs Racers at Disney California Adventure, and to a much lesser extent, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Jungle Cruise at Magic Kingdom. For the most part, guests do things and then try to be front of the pack and beat the rope drop crowd to those attractions.
Not so with TRON Lightcycle Run.
I would estimate that on the several mornings I’ve done Early Entry at Magic Kingdom, 95% of the guests starting on the Tomorrowland side are immediately racing to TRON Lightcycle Run. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised by this.
Keep in mind, this makes their total time commitment their actual wait time once the park officially opens + 30 minutes + however long they stood around before Early Entry even began. Given the wait times we’ve been seeing for TRON Lightcycle Run, this is a very questionable use of time (to put it charitably).
The big winner here is people who like to loop Space Mountain.
Contrary to my expectations, the real outcome is that lines for Space Mountain have become non-existent. On every single morning of my testing thus far, Space Mountain has been a virtual walk-on. It starts with a bit of a backup, but that’s less about high demand and more it taking a bit of time for guests to make their way through the long queue.
Even with that lengthy queue (and exit), I’ve been able to do Space Mountain roughly 3 times during Early Entry this Party Season. To be honest, I never tried looping Space Mountain before, so I can’t speak to what was possible in the past, but I’m pretty confident that this was not. As a big fan of Space Mountain, I view this as a huge win. It’s also great for anyone trying to maximize their efficiency.
Had I wanted, I could’ve done Space Mountain 2-3x on these mornings and still beaten the rope drop crowd to TRON Lightcycle Run.
I did not want this, as it still would’ve put me behind the entire Early Entry pack that had just been standing there, growing slightly in size (albeit more slowly) since 7:30 am. That happened, I might remind you, as the attraction did not process a single guest…since it was not operational.
Here are some photos showing the growing line at TRON Lightcycle Run during this half-hour:
The second two photos were taken as the rope drop crowd arrived at TRON Lightcycle Run.
At this point, we’ve been seeing TRON Lightcycle Run post a wait time of 50 to 75 minutes immediately upon opening for the day. At least, on the mornings we’ve done testing, all of which were 8 am park openings. I’d expect that to be higher on 9 am mornings, assuming at least moderate crowd levels.
Suffice to say, TRON Lightcycle Run is also a bad option at rope drop. It’s slightly less bad, though, because at least the ride becomes operational. But there’s still that line in front of you and, equally as important, the opportunity cost of not being able to rope drop Adventureland or Frontierland.
So what is a good option during Early Entry at Magic Kingdom–aside from Space Mountain?
I’m cautiously optimistic about Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
This was a fantastic alternative on the mornings I did Early Entry, but again, these were all 7:30 am dates. Even in the past, I’ve had good luck with SDMT on these mornings so long as I was near the front of the pack.
Because I was attempting to simulate results for future Early Entry dates when the schedule would shift to 8:30 am (and also because I needed to race around getting photos), I made a point of doing Seven Dwarfs Mine Train after the initial rush.
Although the posted wait time was 35 minutes when I did it, my actual wait was under 20 minutes.
The line moved smoothly the entire time, and a good chunk of the wait was just walking through the lengthy queue.
Another more obvious option is Peter Pan’s Flight.
I was able to do this after Seven Dwarfs Mine Train when the posted wait was 30 minutes. My actual wait was less than 10 minutes. I wasn’t done by regular rope drop, but that didn’t really matter. Big Thunder, Jungle Cruise, etc., all still have short lines at 8:10 or 8:20 am. Arguably shorter ones, since the initial rush is over. (This only applies to 8 am park opening–not 9 am.)
Peter Pan’s Flight has always been a fantastic option during Early Entry–especially as contrasted with later in the day when the line can move slowly–but it’s even better now. My guess is that TRON is pulling people from SDMT, which in turn is pulling people from PPF. Trickle down wait times, or something to that effect.
So what about TRON Lightcycle Run?
Not to spoil my own future article about best & worst times to ride TRON, but what I found consistently during my field testing is that there’s a morning lull about an hour after regular rope drop. This was true even on moderately busy days (some of my testing occurred over a holiday weekend).
Intuitively, this makes sense. TRON’s wait time would spike to around 60-90 minutes shortly after rope drop (~8:15 am) as the Early Entry crowd (none of which was ‘processed’ until regular rope drop, remember) plus the rope drop crowd all converged onto the attraction and created a backlog of guests waiting. Plus the paid Lightning Lane guests who opted to show up right away, for whatever reason.
The result of this is that TRON Lightcycle Run’s wait time would sometimes be almost double the next highest wait time (Seven Dwarfs Mine Train). It would be much, much higher than the other ‘adult’ thrill rides, Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
This likely results in late-arrivers pulling up the My Disney Experience app (or looking at a tip board), seeing how much longer of a line TRON has than anything else, and opting to go elsewhere. I was honestly surprised that the ‘elsewhere’ seemingly does not include Space Mountain. I thought surely it would see a spike as guests saw a too-long line for TRON and did that instead. Nope.
Basically, anyone who placed a high priority on TRON Lightcycle Run is doing it ASAP–either lining up at the start of Early Entry or start of regular rope drop. Everyone else is balking at the longer line, and opting for alternatives.
Zig when they zag.
If you’re going to do TRON Lightcycle Run in the morning, the best time to line up is towards the end of Early Entry, after you’ve already done 2-3 Tomorrowland attractions but before the regular rope drop rush. I don’t love this option (or even like it), but if you’re dead-set on doing TRON early for whatever reason, it sure beats the ‘hurry up and wait’ approach of being at the front of the pack.
Better yet, give it an hour and let the initial two waves of people get processed by the attraction, and slip into line for TRON Lightcycle Run an hour after rope drop. This was my approach, and my maximum wait was 27 minutes.
Early Entry guests might boast that their wait was less than that–that once the clock struck 8 am (or 7:55, since TRON does sometimes start operating slightly earlier), they breezed through the line and walked onto the attraction.
However, there is no conceivable way they waited less than 27 minutes…because they also stood around for however long before Early Entry started, plus that 25-30 minutes of time during which they did nothing prior to regular rope drop.
I don’t know what, exactly, their minimum ‘all-in’ time was since I didn’t put myself in their shoes, but I’m guessing it’d be 60 minutes for many of them. That isn’t all that impressive–we’ve seen times throughout the day when TRON has an hour-long wait!
More importantly, it fails to account for the opportunity cost! Space Mountain, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight–and literally every other attraction in Magic Kingdom (except the Joffrey’s Revive coffee stand and probably the Main Street Starbucks)–have far below-average wait times during Early Entry.
While standing in line for an attraction that was not open, guests could’ve been doing any of those rides. That’s why we strongly recommend skipping TRON Lightcycle Run during Early Entry and at the start of regular rope drop. You could literally pick a time at random to do it later in the day and achieve better results.
We’ll continue this testing in 2025 once Early Entry returns to its regular 8:30 am start time and (maybe, hopefully) TRON Lightcycle Run is actually included in the ride roster for the on-site perk. Regardless of what changes, we’re much more positive about Early Entry at Magic Kingdom.
TRON Lightcycle Run has displaced Seven Dwarfs Mine Train as the #1 attraction, and though it pains me to retire the oh-so-clever SDMT Shuffle moniker, I’m very pleased with how much of a game-changer this has been for morning strategy. Speaking of which, if you want strategy for the other three parks, check out our Guide to Early Theme Park Entry at Walt Disney World.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Do you skip Early Entry at Magic Kingdom or take advantage of the perk? If you did skip it previously, will you take advantage now that TRON has shifted to standby and eliminated (or mitigated) the SDMT Shuffle? Would you opt for the ‘hurry up and wait’ approach of starting at TRON Lightcycle Run, or is the opportunity cost of waiting for a ride that isn’t open too high for you? How would you do things differently to start the day at MK? Any other feedback on arriving early to the Walt Disney World theme parks? Agree or disagree with our advice or approach? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
