You guys, Disney World is CROWDED. If you go in May during graduation season, maybe you’ll get lucky and your longest ride wait time will be 30 minutes. But Christmas or spring break? Fuggedaboutit!
But I have found the secret to being in the Magic Kingdom ALONE. That’s right, alone. Not surrounded by 100,000 other guests.
Want to ride the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train without waiting in line for two hours?
The secret password is “Be Our Guest.”
Be Our Guest restaurant is located in Magic Kingdom’s newly expanded Fantasyland. Open as quick service breakfast and lunch, or sit down dinner, you enjoy your meal in the Beast’s (from Beauty & the Beast, duh) ballroom.
Now the trick is that Be Our Guest opens at 8 a.m. for breakfast, and Magic Kingdom opens at 9 a.m. (unless there are Extra Magic Hours that morning). The Main Street area opens at 8 a.m. but in order to go past the castle, you need a breakfast reservation. Crystal Palace and Cinderella’s Royal Table also offer 8 a.m. reservations. So you won’t be completely alone but there will be maybe 200 people instead of 100,000!
Take a look at the crowd size before the Magic Kingdom was officially open and then in the afternoon before the parade.
And check out the difference in front of the castle before and after our 8 a.m. breakfast reservation!
How It Works
My group made a reservation for 8 a.m. during our early February trip to Disney. The monorail and buses to the parks start at 7 a.m. despite what your hotel tells you! A cast member at our hotel said the buses wouldn’t start until 7:30 a.m. but they actually started at 7. So you will have a way to get there if you have an early reservation!
Note that it was difficult to make a reservation. When we first looked about two weeks out from our trip, there were no reservations. But we were able to snag one last minute two days before on the Disney World app. So continue to check back daily! Cancellations happen.
To check in, go through security at the park as you normally would. You need an active park pass to eat at any of these restaurants. Walk down Main Street toward the left of the castle. You check in next to the popcorn cart before the bridge to Liberty Square. Your reservation should be attached to your Magic Band so you just have to scan it with the cast member there and you are free to walk behind the castle toward Be Our Guest.
There is a cast member standing guard just by the Mine Train and by Peter Pan so you can’t really roam anywhere you want in the park. But you can hang around the Beauty & the Beast area and the carousel.
Because the Mine Train has such a long line, the cast members allowed us to start a line at 8:30 a.m. after breakfast. And they let us ride at 8:45. Fifteen minutes before the Magic Kingdom was officially open! They’re reallyyyyyy trying to crack down on those crazy wait times. I would not have ridden the Mine Train if I didn’t do it this way. That’s how long the line was the whole time I was at Disney!
Side note – the Mine Train is a very short ride and kind of lame. Not worth a two hour wait!
Peter Pan is also notorious for long wait times and while cast members didn’t allow us to ride it early, they did allow us to start a line for it by the carousel. So after riding the Mine Train at 8:45, we got in line for Peter Pan. There were about 8-10 people ahead of us. There was also a line for It’s A Small World next to us. We were done with Peter Pan and on our way to Haunted Mansion by 9:05 a.m.!
You do miss out on the opening show in front of the castle if you get in these ride lines. But if you want to see that instead, you’re free to go back to the front of the castle after your breakfast. You’ll have a great viewing spot!
Photos of an empty Fantasyland behind Cinderella’s Castle:
So What’s Be Our Guest Like?
For breakfast, Be Our Guest is a quick service restaurant. You stand in line just inside the Beast’s castle and then order on a computer screen. Robots are taking our jobs! Sorry, I digress. There are cast members there to help if you need.
Once you order, you’re given a receipt and you choose any table in the ballroom. A cast member will come by and check your receipt ticket number so they know where to take your order when it’s ready.
Soft drinks and coffee are self serve inside the ballroom.
You are definitely paying for the experience and atmosphere more so than the food. Although the food was surprisingly not bad for quick service food! The inside of the ballroom really does look like the movie. Damn Disney! You gooooood.
What’s On The Menu?
For breakfast, I had the Feast A La Gaston which was scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage and a side of fruit. Our meal came with either a soft drink or a coffee as well as a tray of pastries. It was $24 + tax. Bottled water or additional beverages and food are extra. The pastries were pretty good for quick service! The eggs tasted like cafeteria eggs but that’s to be expected with quick service food. You can see the full Be Our Guest breakfast menu here.
Heads up, you won’t find any of these little beauties on the menu. Not even the kid’s menu:
I would 100% recommend making an early reservation at Be Our Guest. It is the cheapest option of the early morning breakfast spots. Even though you’re not completely alone in the Magic Kingdom, it did help us knock out rides quickly by being in the park, and in line, before most other guests. The food was pretty good for what you pay and it really felt like being inside the Beauty & the Beast movie.
Overall, you’re really paying to ride that damn Mine Train without a two hour wait. With a side of microwaved bacon and a mini muffin of course!
How was your early breakfast experience in the Magic Kingdom?