[amandaw]

We are planning a trip to Disney World the third week of June. I bought 3 books to prepare for the trip (Fodors, Birnbaums, The Unofficial Guide to WDW), as they have been helpful in previous trips. But of course, they are outdated in many ways, post-September 11th. I know Early Entry Days are gone. The books say that during the busy summer months, The Magic Kingdom would often open an hour and a half earlier than its published opening hour. Does this happen anymore??? MK is not scheduled to open until 9 a.m. in June and that seems late to me. I would take a chance and get there earlier if anyone knows if they still open the gates early on days it will be especially busy. One more question: What is security like now getting into the parks?? Thanks!

[mickey]

amandaw, welcome to disneycentral!

Magic Kingdom routinely opens its gates between a half and hour and an hour before official park opening hours. The rides aren't open, but the shops are. You can usually only access the main street area, and the rest of the park is roped off at the main hub of the park. You can get as close as the entrance to each land, but that is it. They usually drop the ropes at park opening, and you get a mad dash to the mountains. We have only done this once, and it was so we could ride Dumbo once and we wouldn't have to do it again. We got right on, and were on Peter Pan five minutes later. I would suggest you take advantage of going early, and taking a break in the afternoon. You will enjoy your trip much more.

At each park, they have a check station to check all bags of any sort. If you don't have a bag, you can walk right through. It depends on the time of day. Last October, there wasn't much of a wait, maybe a minute or two. During the summer, I would expect as much as a ten minute wait if you arrive at the parks right at published opening until about two hours later, or right before scheduled fireworks.

[DisneyHog6]

Welcome to DisneyCentral. I'm pretty new here myself, but I really like it so far.

I was in WDW in late January, early February of 2002 and the security checkpoints weren't too bad. I did have about a 15 minute wait in a line to have my backpack checked. Mickey is correct above, if you don't have a bag, you can bypass the line. I did see something I had never seen before though. I noticed uniformed security personnel actually walking around the parks. That was new to me. Hope this info helps. Have a great trip.:D

[tinkerbell]

first the bag check is before you get to the ticket gate .. and here is an idea that I tried. Let one person take all the bags through the security .. have them unzipped/snapped, open for the guards to look through. they will not touch anything in your bags but may ask you to move things around.

we noticed alot of mouse cops around the parks which werent there before ..well they were there I know but they were dressed normal ..its our theory that you see so many in uniform now to help the guest feel more secure and to sorta let anyone that might think of pulling something know that they are there and ready ..to me this was a bit sad but to others I guess it will make them feel safer to see all the mouse security around.

this may change ..but as of now Epcot doesnt have a charactor breakfast so the bus to Epcot is suspose to run only 30 minutes before the parks open.. (it ran at 9:20 the day we went) the other buses all run an hour before because of the charactor meals in the other parks.


Now .. let me say Welcome to DC !!! glad to have you here !!