One of the questions we get asked most often is about how we get all of our empty Magic Kingdom pictures. I totally understand the question – we talk often about how our favorite time to be in the park is when it’s empty, but we realized yesterday that we never talked about HOW we do it (we’re such jerks). Today, we fix our oversight, and beg for your forgiveness.
Option 1:
There’s two ways that we get our empty Magic Kingdom pictures, and you can do one of them FO’ FREE. (And free is my favorite number). The easiest way to get empty park pictures is patience. Just wait after the park closes for people to leave. It usually takes about an hour after the park officially closes (which means you will get to see two Kiss Goodnights!), but you will be rewarded with an empty Main Street USA. Shortly after park closing, security will want you to leave other areas of the park, and confine your lingering to the hub and Main Street, but we’ve never had a problem with staying an hour or so after the park closes on Main Street. We’ve also never had a problem getting transportation back to our hotel at this time – occasionally the monorail or boat has been closed, but the bus has always still been running! (Plus, I highly doubt Disney is going to leave you stranded).
Option 2:
We understand that staying up this late isn’t a viable option for everyone so there IS a second option that is much more family friendly. You can make breakfast reservations for The Magic Kingdom before the park opens – therefor allowing you to be some of the first people in the park. We did this for Be Our Guest (for the sole purpose of empty park pictures, to be honest), and spent the half hour they let us in the park before our reservation skipping around a virtually empty Magic Kingdom, taking pictures. Nothing was open, but for us, the park isn’t really about attractions, as much as its about the beauty of everything.
Those are the two ways we’ve discovered to get those coveted empty park pictures. The only other way we can think of us to somehow discover a secret singing talent, and shoot to Justin Bieber level fame – then maybe they would open early or stay open late for us. But until that happens, we only have two real options. We hope you enjoy having The Magic Kingdom (almost) to yourself as much as we do.