Tips and Tricks: Pre-Park Opening Dining Reservations
“Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.”
Walt Disney
Why you should get a pre-park open dining reservation?
Is the perfect castle 🏰picture or rope dropping a ride 🎢on your Disney list?
While the parks are becoming more and more crowded there are still ways to get a relatively empty castle picture at Magic Kingdom. 💕
The best way to do this is a pre-park dining reservation at The Plaza, Be Our Guest or Cinderella’s Royal Table.
The parks begin letting everyone in an hour before the park opens, however if you have a dining reservation before the park opens you will be let in about 15 minutes before all the other guests.
*The morning we were there they let in anyone who had a reservation before the park opened up until 15 minutes after park opening. (e.g. The park opened at 9am if you had a 9:15am or earlier reservation you entered at 7:45am).*
When you arrive you will be directed to check in with a cast member to the of the left ticket scanners. They will verify your reservation and allow you to scan in and wait just before the archway to the Magic Kingdom. Around 1hr and 20 minutes before the park opens a Cast Member will come out and make an announcement 📢. At 1hr and 15 minutes they will drop the rope and you can enter the park! 🙌
You will have 15 minutes to get your less crowded castle pics. (The Photopass photographers will be lined up on Main Street.)
In addition, You may be able to use this extra time before your reservation to line up for your favorite ride beyond the official rope drop.
Once everyone begins to be let in to the park, everyone will be kept in front of the castle and not be able to enter the lands until official park open.
If you have a reservation at Be Our Guest or Cinderella’s Royal Table you will be beyond the barrier AND be able to get in line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (or any of your favorite rides) before the other guest are able to pass the barrier.
*The Plaza is on Main-street and BEFORE the Castle so this reservation won’t provide this benefit, however we really enjoy having breakfast there and their prices are reasonable for a sit down restaurant in Magic Kingdom.*
Be Our Guest will be a quicker dining experience because it isn’t a character experience, plus your seating and food delivery will be faster.
This was our experience at Be Our Guest:
We checked in at the stand in front of the castle at 8:00am, we pre-ordered our meal and were able to go straight to the cashier to verify our order and were sitting at our table at 8:05am. Our food arrived about 10 minutes later after we finished our breakfast we headed out to get in line for Seven Dwarves’ Mine Train. (This particular morning they were also doing extra morning magic and we were kept from entering Adventure Land until 8:50am.) The group of us waiting to enter Seven Dwarves’ Mine Train walked in a line to the line for the ride and we were on the ride at 9:05am.🥰
We have eaten at Cinderella’s Royal Table and finished just before park open. We could have probably gotten in line for Mine Train, however we were unaware of this trick, and I wouldn’t suggest rushing this type of experience for a ride.😃
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