Evening Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom

I haven't written in a while about Extra Magic Hours.... We checked out the evening Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom last night, and I'm happy to report that it's still one of the best ways to maximize your time in the park!

The park closed to day guests at 8 PM, and the attractions were open for Disney Resort guests only from 8 until 11 PM. We started the evening by watching Wishes from Main Street, which took until about 8:20. We then went to Tomorrowland and a Fastpass for Space Mountain, and rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority.... perfect timing for our ride into space. Then we took a spin on Astro Orbiter, which had a 20 minute wait.

(In case you haven't heard, no more wristbands for Extra Magic Hours! Cast members ask to see your Disney resort room key as you enter each attraction.)

Next we went to Fantasyland, starting with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh... about 15 minutes in line. Always fun! Then we narrowly escaped from the witch on Snow White's Scary Adventures... seriously.... the ride stopped for a minute just as we were under the big rock that the witch is trying to push down! The wait was less than 10 minutes.

The wait for Peter Pan's Flight was posted at 30 minutes and there was even a line for it's a small world, so we skipped them and headed to Frontierland. 

We walked all the way to the end of the path and got in line for Big Thunder Mountain after noticing that the wait for Splash Mountain was only 10 minutes. Big Thunder Mountain was essentially a walk on... but it probably took the entire 20 minute posted wait time just to walk through the queue. Just joking! But we really did have to walk through a lot of the queue twists and turns to the loading area.... Big Thunder is so much fun at night! We agreed that it seems like an exceptionally "energetic" ride tonight!

Then we walked right onto Splash Mountain. Many of the water features were turned off, probably because of the cooler weather, but that didn't detract from the ride! Of course, it's one of our favorites!

By now, it was about 10:40 PM, so we had time for one more ride. We walked (fast, of course, was the walking speed for the entire evening) back to Fantasyland. Peter's line was still very very very long, so we walked onto it's a small world... an absolutely lovely way to end the evening at the Magic Kingdom. 

Since our ride with the dolls from around the world ended at exactly 11 PM, we got off just in time to see cast members putting up the ropes on the other attractions! No worry... In two and a half hours, we had ridden on the three Magic Kingdom mountains, visited Pooh Bear, rescued Snow White and taken a musical tour around the world. It doesn't get much better than that!

We walked (fast) to the Pop Century bus stop... where the line stretched a loooonnnnnggg way. Three buses came at one and shortened our wait quite a bit... soon two more buses came within a few minutes. We got on board our return bus at 11:40 and arrived at Pop Century just in time to get a beverage refill. 

Yes indeed, evening Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom is still at the top of my list of tips for getting the most out of your Disney World vacation!