Tips about Magic Kingdom and Transportation

We were in Disney World last month and noticed that there are new ways that the MagicBands interact with various attractions. At Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, there is an electronic poster in the queue that displays the name and home city of guests. At Mission: Space, there are video screens in the post-attraction room that will display the names of the guests who finished the ride, along with their hometown and their mission projection. At Space Mountain there are video screens along the moving walkway that display the names of the guests who finished the ride. At the end of "it's a small world," look for the video screen to display the names of the guests on the boat. There may be more attractions that may also implement this technology, so keep your eyes open in the queues and in the post-attraction areas. - Brian Kehoe

We were in Disney World last month and noticed that there are new ways that the MagicBands interact with various attractions. At Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, there is an electronic poster in the queue that displays the name and home city of guests. At Mission: Space, there are video screens in the post-attraction room that will display the names of the guests who finished the ride, along with their hometown and their mission projection. At Space Mountain there are video screens along the moving walkway that display the names of the guests who finished the ride. At the end of "it's a small world," look for the video screen to display the names of the guests on the boat. There may be more attractions that may also implement this technology, so keep your eyes open in the queues and in the post-attraction areas. - Brian Kehoe

MAGIC KINGDOM - When two showings of a parade are offered at the Magic Kingdom in an evening, the second is almost always much less crowded and just as nice! - Timeless Tip o' the Week brought to you by www.themouseforless.com and Mike Boyer

Buy a Disney antenna topper in a bright color (basic black may not work) to help distinguish your rental car from the other 5,000 similar rental cars in the WDW lots. - Timeless Tip o' the Week brought to you by www.themouseforless.com and Catherine Lamey

ALL PARKS - In regards to having bags and whatnots inspected at the parks, the best thing is to have all pockets and pouches opened. Also, if you have a dayplanner or something similar, have that unzipped, too. When we went to Disneyland recently (to see the new Haunted Mansion Holiday), my husband was asked to open his dayplanner for them to inspect. When we park-hopped over to DCA, he was ready for the inspection process and dutifully had everything unzipped and ready to be looked at. - Milady

ALL PARKS - I found that if you get tired of waiting in long lines, and you don't mind splitting up your party ( maybe to 1, 2,or even 3) some attractions offer singles lines. These lines help fill up unused space. I tried this at Test Track and the normal wait time was 70 minutes. It took me 5 minutes on the singles line and I still got a seat with my parents. - Matthew

ALL PARKS - While wandering around Walt Disney World, I like to carry a small plastic tube for paper souvenirs. I use a plastic tennis ball container that has a lid -- other similar tubes will work well. This allows me to store maps, menus, napkins and any other paper items without them being crushed, wrinkled or soaked. I just put them under a few heavy books when I get home. - Brian Brennan

When renting a car you never know if you should prepay for gas, or try to refill it on your own. If you rent an electric vehicle, this won't be an issue. You can return it with a nearly depleted battery. Some electric vehicles can travel about 40 miles on battery power and then an engine comes on to take you another 300+ miles. With more than 150 public charging stations in Orlando, including several within Disney, you'll likely not use much gas, if any. You also won't have to worry about returning the car with a full tank of gas. Enterprise Rent-A-Car at the Orlando International Airport has a number of electric vehicles in its fleet, which rent for the same price as a standard class vehicle. - Sara

ALL PARKS - Be sure to have a group destination while walking around the park -- for example, once everyone in your party has ridden Buzz, decide where your group is headed, just in case someone gets separated. Then the rest of the group will continue on to that spot and wait until you regroup. This happened to us recently at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party -- while heading toward the Haunted Mansion, the first parade ended and it was crazy in front of the castle. Our group of 11 broke up into 8 and 3 and luckily we all headed on to Haunted Mansion and waited until everyone met up again. It took only about 20 minutes to regroup, instead of everyone heading off to a "central meeting place" like in front of the castle! It is also always good to have a specific spot for emergencies, like at the Sword in the Stone, for example. Just stay together! That 20 minutes separated was scary. - Suzanne from Patchogue, NY

MAGIC KINGDOM - Time your ride of Splash Mountain around the fireworks display. Not only is the line usually shorter as everyone rushes to get a good spot to see the fireworks but, if you're lucky, you can emerge mid-ride into the open air, to a sky lit up by fireworks with a fantastic view. It happened to us by chance and we've managed to time our rides to that magical moment since then. Truly fantastic! - Joy Kennedy

ALL PARKS - I thought it might be a good idea to remind people to NOT help themselves to the ice that most WDW shops use to cool the water in the popular "Squeeze Breeze" bottles. We fill the bottles (with potable water) and then place them in a container of ice. That ice came from a restaurant or counter service and most likely started out sanitary. But after being in the container for a while, exposed to the air, bugs, and many little hands, it is no longer sanitary, and should not be placed into any bottles. There was an incident of people getting sick after being sprayed (in the face) with water from a bottle like that last year. Likewise, giving kids some of the ice from those containers to suck on is a bad idea. It's better to go to any counter service location and ask for some ice in a cup. - A WDW Cast Member

ALL PARKS - For those following the "10,000 Steps" type program, I averaged 22,000 steps per day during a four-day stay last week, visiting each park. No wonder we were exhausted! - Michele

MAGIC KINGDOM - My family and I never knew about the "pre-show" done at the Magic Kingdom a few minutes prior to opening. We were anxiously waiting for the gates to open when we were surprised to see the Mayor of Main Street greeting everyone and tons of characters arriving via the Disney Railroad, including the Mouse himself who did a countdown and even had a lucky family sprinkle "Pixie Dust" on everyone! The best part, however, was when the gates did open we were right in front of the train station entrance when ALL of the characters came out, including Mickey and Minnie. We got some great photos and lots of autographs within our first 10 minutes in the park! It was a wonderful way to start our Magical Day! - Carol Holland

MAGIC KINGDOM - We found that one of the best times to meet characters is before the park opens. We had EARLY breakfast reservations at the Crystal Palace (before the Magic Kingdom opened). It was a pain to fight through the lines at the gates to get in for our reservation, but it was worth it. We found most of the characters were beginning to come out and we were able to visit with tons of them while we waited to be seated. We got family and individual pictures with Mickey and Minnie TOGETHER, and that's next to impossible. It was the highlight of our trip! - Suzanne Kadinger

MAGIC KINGDOM - The girls and I bought some glow in the dark nail polish and painted our nails and a glow stick and painted our faces. It was fun to glow in Haunted Mansion and on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. - Beth Ratliff