Christmas is my favorite time of year at Walt Disney World, and also for Early Entry at Magic Kingdom. There’s something special about the crisp air, low wait times, and atmosphere. On rare mornings, you can even enter the park while it’s still dark, seeing the wreaths, tree, and garland aglow.
As this blog has discussed breathlessly, there are dozens of dates from August through December when Magic Kingdom closes to day guests at 6 pm, moving forward official park opening to 8 am and Early Entry to 7:30 am as a result. We highly recommend doing MK on one of these days, especially if there’s 7:30 am Early Entry.
This step-by-step rope drop run-through from Christmas 2025 should clearly illustrate the why of that. This date had a 1/10 crowd level, as has pretty much every day that’s hosted Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. It was a slow day, but completely consistent with all other 6 pm closing dates I’ve done this year or last year. In other words, you should have success replicating this strategy on similar dates in 2026.
Average wait times on party days are often under 20 minutes, and sometimes as low as 15 minutes. This particular day was 19 minutes. This doesn’t mean every ride was a walk-on, but even attractions like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and TRON Lightcycle Run had very manageable wait times that were under an hour at times.
Wait times are low throughout the day, typically until mid-afternoon, on these Party Season dates. Once mix-in for the parties starts at 4 pm, all bets are off. Accordingly, the best strategy is to arrive and leave early, Park Hopping from Magic Kingdom over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios (or if you’re really aggressive, Animal Kingdom followed by DHS) at around 2 pm.
This is true of all days with 6 pm closings, but the best of the best are those with park opening moved forward to 8 am. When park opening is at 9 am, there are a ton of people taking advantage of 8:30 am Early Entry. It’s a different story entirely when moving that forward to 7:30 am, especially for the families with small children. If you can swing 7:30 am Early Entry, that’s a game-changer. But even if you can’t, these days are still highly recommended.
The biggest twist to Early Entry on this particular day was a delayed opening of the park entrance tapstiles.
It’s usually the case that Walt Disney World starts letting guests into the park at least 30 minutes before Early Entry starts. There’s no hard and fast time that entry begins; I’ve been let in as early as 6:45 am and as late as 7:05 am in the last couple of years.
The entrance didn’t open until 7:12 am on this morning. That’s easily the latest (only 18 minutes before Early Entry started) that I’ve ever been allowed into Magic Kingdom on one of these days. Maybe there was an issue or pre-park opening commercial filming?
Or perhaps the new procedure of allowing guests to proceed directly to their first attraction allows for the turnstiles to open later? I’ve done Early Entry a number of times since the policy change and haven’t experienced quite this tight of a timeline, but it might be something that Disney is tweaking.
Our normal recommendation is to arrive at Magic Kingdom at least 30 minutes before the start of Early Entry if your plan is to do Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. If this does become the new-normal (as opposed to a one-off), that could be tightened to 20 minutes.
The tapstiles move quickly first thing, there are a lot of them, and there’s a long distance between the front of the park and Fantasyland or Tomorrowland. Accordingly, there isn’t really as much of a need to be a dozen people forward at the actual tapstiles. How quickly you move once in the park matters a lot more, so showing up 60 minutes early vs. 30 minutes early makes almost no difference whatsoever.
Honestly, I don’t move quickly to Fantasyland or Tomorrowland even once inside the park. My first priority is photos of Main Street, Partners–the usual suspects.
This is a great opportunity to get a Cinderella Castle photo devoid of people, and the “cost” in position on one of these 7:30 am days is negligible.
Once done with that, it’s time to head to the right of the East Plaza Garden for Early Entry. There’s a row of Cast Members stationed to scan MagicBands or room keys to verify eligibility. This is the only checkpoint at Magic Kingdom–there isn’t a secondary one at attractions.
After you’re done here, you can now proceed to your first attraction of the morning. There are also no longer any secondary holding points on the bridges to Tomorrowland or Fantasyland. It’s right into line for rides!
My first target this morning was Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, as is the conventional advice for 7:30 am Early Entry. (It’s also now our recommendation for most normal days–see Magic Kingdom Rope Drop & Early Entry Strategy.)
There are certain times when skipping SDMT still is the best–or easiest–course of action. This is especially true if you’re visiting on a busier day or want to knock out several ‘singles & doubles’ as opposed to one of the headliner attractions.
By the time I took photos and everything, I was not front of the pack heading to Fantasyland for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
I’d also add that I noticed heavier crowds this Early Entry than on past days during Party Season. Despite the aforementioned 1/10 crowd level, it didn’t feel that way at the start of Early Entry. Part of that could’ve been the concentration of guests due to the delayed opening of the front entrance.
It’s also been my experience that Christmas-time guests are generally more knowledgeable, and motivated to get up and ‘beat’ the crowds. This time of year is incredibly popular among fans who visit annually, and one result of this is that more people arrive early, stay late, etc.
It didn’t matter at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. I lined up at 7:27 am and was on the ride by 7:40 am, for an actual wait time of 13 minutes. It was an easy and stress-free experience, nothing like the SDMT Shuffle days of yore.
This is completely normal now. If anything, it’s slightly above-average of a wait. I was towards the front of the pack at the entrance, but was passed by later-arriving guests due to my photo stops.
Had the tapstiles opened earlier, I could’ve captured the photos and still made it over to SDMT before some of those later-arriving guests made it into the park. Oh well. We’re talking a 1-3 minute difference. Hardly the end of the world, and “worth it” to me for the photos.
From an objective perspective, any actual wait time of under 30 minutes is great for SDMT.
From a subjective perspective, doing this attraction first thing in the morning or later in the day will always be preferable. When the sun is high in the sky and it’s hot out (not a factor on this day), the outdoor queue gets unpleasant.
When I exited, the line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was even lighter. I almost certainly could’ve done it again with a wait time of under 15 minutes (the posted wait).
Next up was Peter Pan’s Flight, where I entered the line at 7:43 am.
The posted wait time for Peter Pan’s Flight was 5 minutes; the actual wait was walk-on. I was off the ride before 7:50 am and on my way.
On a busier day, I would’ve stuck around Fantasyland to quickly knock-out other dark rides before regular rope drop. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (etc.) are all quick wins that have longer wait times later in the day.
I also could’ve done Seven Dwarfs Mine Train again as a near walk-on this morning, which is not normally the case. You either do it first thing during Early Entry or not at all. But again, these 7:30 am Early Entry days are a different beast.
I like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train more than most fans, but I don’t really have a personal desire to loop the ride. It’s not really thrilling nor is the dark ride something I feel the need to see repeatedly. I actually prefer SDMT to TRON, but the latter is something I could ride endlessly for the exhilaration alone. Perhaps actions speak louder than words, and I do favor TRON?
On a 7:30 am Early Entry day, it’s usually the case that doubling back to Tomorrowland makes more sense.
Once there, you can either queue up for TRON Lightcycle Run, which may or may not already be operating, or knock out Space Mountain and secondary attractions with minimal waits.
My preferred approach is pre-queueing for TRON. Or so I think.
Unfortunately, every time I’ve done 7:30 am during Party Season, Space Mountain has been down to start the day.
That probably should be air quotes around “unfortunately,” because the indirect consequence of this (I suspect) is that they start running TRON Lightcycle Run ahead of official park opening. Meaning TRON is already running when I’ve arrived over here, and processed whatever backlog might’ve existed.
Earlier during Party Season, I had an almost identical rope drop run up to this point, and managed to do TRON Lightcycle Run in the span of 36 minutes. (That’s correct–13 minutes, all-on, on each ride-through.)
Frankly, I didn’t even know this was possible and kind of wish I had kept looping TRON on that morning just to see how many times I could’ve knocked it out. I know a fourth time with a <20 minute wait would’ve been feasible, as there was still no line out the door at 8:31 am.
My first run-through of TRON Lightcycle Run was a walk-on. Or would’ve been, had I not stopped repeatedly for photos. Unfortunately, that’s where I reached the ‘end of line,’ as the outdoor line was filling up by the time I exited.
It’s possible that this was simply the rope drop rush, and once the roller coaster processed that batch of guests, it’d be a walk-on again. But it looked like a healthy number of people were continuing to trickle in, meaning that any lull might take until after 8:30 am.
With that in mind, I was among guests heading over to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure for regular rope drop. There were dozens of us. Dozens!
Well, maybe one-dozen.
Not that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was busy when I did Early Entry during Halloween, but it was certainly less busy at Christmas. Weather is the easiest explanation for that. This would also explain why TRON Lightcycle Run was so much busier–higher baseline attendance, but also, almost no one heading to TBA.
The practical impact here is minimal. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was a walk-on both times, it was just “more” of one at Christmas-time, to the extent that’s possible. (The ride was dispatching more empty logs the first 30+ minutes after rope drop–that’s how.)
The other explanation is the increased popularity of Jungle Cruise, operating at Christmas-time as Jingle Cruise. To be perfectly honest with you, I totally forgot about the ride overlay when doing this rope drop run. (Blame it on jet lag and late night construction.)
Any day during the holiday season, but especially a cooler one like this, it’s the obvious #1 rope drop pick on the Adventureland and Frontierland side of the park, before Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (#2).
For those keeping score at home, #3 would normally be Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but it’s down for refurbishment until Spring 2026.
After that, Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion round out the top 5. I can say with complete certainty that I could’ve accomplished all of them as walk-ons before 10 am. Character meet & greets are a good move after that, as those tend to have elevated wait times on 6 pm closing days during Party Season. Mentioning all of this in case you’re trying to formulate strategy from this photo report.
However, I was doing this field testing on my own during our family trip. So after a quick pass of TRON Lightcycle Run to visually confirm my (correct) theory of a shorter line after the rope drop rush was processed, I headed out to help Sarah get Megatron ready for the day.
When we returned ~90 minutes later for our ADR at Crystal Palace, Magic Kingdom was still pretty slow. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and TRON had wait times around 60 minutes, but everything else was manageable and the park did not feel busy.
Ultimately, all of this should once again reiterate why we highly recommend taking advantage of Early Entry at Magic Kingdom on days when Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party or other events are being held at night.
This is the most efficient and inexpensive way to experience Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, TRON Lightcycle Run, Peter Pan’s Flight, Jingle Cruise, and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure on those days, the park’s most popular Lightning Lane attractions (Multi-Pass and Single Pass).
It’s also just a flat-out excellent way to start the day at Magic Kingdom. The ambiance is fantastic this time of year, making for a leisurely stroll in the park through Main Street and beyond. And it actually is a leisurely stroll now that Magic Kingdom has changed the Early Entry protocol to eliminate the literal dropping of the rope on the bridges to Fantasyland and Tomorrowland.
Honestly, I’ve had a little too much fun and success pulling from this playbook with Early Entry lately. It doesn’t feel “right” to do Early Entry at Magic Kingdom without anything going wrong and actually being enjoyable, but these experiences have been excellent and efficient lately.
Magic Kingdom better be careful–it’s going to lose its crown as the “worst” park for Early Entry if it’s not careful! Maybe to spice things up, I’ll just loop Tomorrowland Speedway next time until I got stuck in a toddler traffic jam.
It’s really tough to screw up this extra Early Entry at Magic Kingdom, though. The 7:30 am start time coupled with the lower crowd levels at Magic Kingdom during the daytime hours of party nights makes Early Entry and rope drop even more advantageous than normal.
If you use savvy strategy for Fantasyland and Tomorrowland during Early Entry and follow-up with a reasonably efficient run of Frontierland and Adventureland, you can have a solid start to your morning at Magic Kingdom. Even with the 6 pm closing, it is possible to accomplish a full day’s worth of Magic Kingdom attractions without buying Lightning Lanes.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on Early Entry at Magic Kingdom with the 7:30 am start time? Have you experienced this 30 minute jumpstart on a day of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party? What’s your preferred approach to Early Entry and regular rope drop at Magic Kingdom? How would you have done things differently? 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!
