3. Getting into the park is straightforward

Walt Disney World transportation isn’t perfect, but its infrastructure of busses, friendship boats, ferries, walkways, monorails, and the brand new SkyLiner provide fairly reliable means to travel between resorts and parks. If you use Walt Disney World transportation, most parks have relatively simple drop-off procedures, or they have nearby parking lots serviced by trams for guests traveling with personal vehicles. It's not too complicated.

Except for Magic Kingdom.

If you’re coming by bus or walking from the Contemporary Resort, getting to the Magic Kingdom isn’t too difficult since these all get you to the front gate. Monorail service from the Magic Kingdom resorts is also fairly convenient for the same reason. The problem is if you try to drive, ferry, or use the Epcot monorail to get to the Magic Kingdom.

The Transportation and Ticket Center might be the most UnMagical place at the Most Magical Place on Earth. Guests who park at the Magic Kingdom or come in via Epcot’s monorail have to make an unavoidable stop at this hub. If you’re driving in on a busy day, getting in can take long enough, but the real time-suck is getting from the TTC to the parks. You can’t just walk there. Instead, guests are presented with three ominous options for getting to the Magic Kingdom proper—a ferry, an “Express” Monorail, and the Resort Monorail.

Cast members will confirm that the ferry is almost never faster. Most guests congeal into a slow-moving line for the Express Monorail which rarely has walk-on access. On bad days, getting through the TTC can dredge a good hour off your day. To save a little time, cast members recommend taking the Resort Monorail if the line is short. You’ll have to make a few stops on the way to Magic Kingdom, but you’ll still probably get there before the Express Monorail.

4. The park has a city of underground tunnels

Image: Disney

This is usually treated as the gold standard for Walt Disney World behind-the-scenes facts, but the statement that Magic Kingdom sits atop an underground city is only half-true. For one thing, it’s not really a city so much as a network of tunnels and some employee facilities. More important, however, is the fact that Magic Kingdom’s “Utilidors” aren’t actually underground.

Florida is a notoriously soggy place with a very temperamental water table. Rather than literally building build a castle on a swamp (who would be daft enough to do that?), the Magic Kingdom is actually built on a second story above the tunnels. This helped serve Walt’s vision so that cast members from different lands aren’t seen in the wrong locations, and the extra elevation also protects the Magic Kingdom from literally sinking into the aforementioned swamp. As an interesting point of trivia, the dirt they used to create this second level came from the construction of the Seven Seas Lagoon.

5. All double strollers have been banned from the park

Image: Joe Shlabotnik, Flickr (license)

Due to ever-increasing crowd levels, Walt Disney World introduced a (surprisingly) controversial policy change in 2019: along with banning smoking, vaping, and open ice in coolers, all Disney US parks also banned strollers wider than 31” / 52” long. The media exploded that Disney would surely take a hit for this egregious inconvenience to families, while parents used to using double strollers blasted the company for what sounded like a ridiculous ban.

Only the thing is, double strollers aren’t banned.

Strollers traffic has been a long-time issue at Walt Disney World, one that quickly gets fans worked into a lather. Most regular Disney guests have experienced a crazed parent who decides to use their child’s stroller as a battering ram, a behavior that has even led to some injuries. At the same time, parents with stroller-age kids know the frustration of trying to navigate a stroller through park crowds, especially when people insist on repeatedly coming to a sharp stop right in front of the wheels. It’s a messy situation all around, and double-wide strollers exacerbate both issues.

Extra-large double strollers and stroller wagons are notoriously difficult to maneuver, and they often block walkways and slow traffic flow. Disney didn’t ban double-wide strollers outright— they just limited the max size for double strollers. There are double-wide strollers that fit the requirements, and families with special needs children can also make arrangements with the parks by contacting them directly. The company didn’t take a hit at all for the change—indeed, many long-time fans were thrilled with it since it helps with ongoing crowd congestion problems. Trust us— whether you opt for a lightweight double stroller or divide single-stroller duty between multiple adults in your party, you’re probably better off without a monster stroller at Walt Disney World.