Is it possible to do Disney in a single day? Well you are about to find out. Below is a chronicling of our family's attempt to do just that on April 4, 2015. A few caveats here: (1) by "Disney" I mean Magic Kingdom only. While the other parks have some nice eye candy, Magic Kingdom is definitely the meat and potatoes, especially for the 10 and under crowd; (2) by a single day I mean using only a single day ticket, which with extra magic hours considered can actually extend over two calendar days; and (3) by "doing the park" I mean that at least one member of the family should attempt to ride every ride at least once.
At this point you might be saying, "What is so special about doing Magic Kingdom in one day? Isn't that what most people do anyway, hit one park each day?" Well that may be true, but typically this would involve skipping some rides or splitting up the group, and given the wait times for the most popular rides can climb to over 60 minutes during peak hours, it is much more reasonable to plan at least two days at Magic Kingdom for the typical family. But for a large family like ours, this extra day means several hundred more dollars. So armed with two Disney pros, a little planning, and careful use of extra Magic Hours and Fastpasses, I can say that is possible to hit everything (well almost everything) using a single-day ticket. Here is how we did it:
