We’re Truly Shocked Disney World Hasn’t Made This Change to MORE Rides Yet

Disney World is known for being great for people of all ages.

Especially Magic Kingdom — the OG Disney World park has over 20 attractions that all members of the family can enjoy, whether they’re 1 or 100! However, something we see very often in the parks is that waiting in line for your turn to ride is HARD for a lot of people, especially little ones! When you’re older, you can play on your phone, entertain yourself and your group with a card game, or something like iSpy, or just have great conversations with your group. When you’re a toddler though, it’s a lot harder to keep them patient and not running around, which is why we’re surprised more attractions haven’t added THIS into their ride queues!

Dumbo is one of the most iconic attractions in the park, and because of that, they actually have TWO of them! They’re identical to each other and located right beside one another, but one is for the regular standby line and the other is for those with a Lightning Lane Multi Pass reservation.

However, no matter which attraction you go on, you’ll pass through part of the queue that we think is incredibly smart — a playground! In the past, anyone looking to ride Dumbo was given a pager and told to wait in the playground while you waited for your turn to ride. This way, parents and adults could sit down in the AC for a moment and kids could play on the playground to their hearts content until the buzzer went off. One of our readers left a review on our site that says:

“The indoor play area to use while waiting to ride is great for kiddos. The ride itself is great for all ages!”

Now, there’s been some back and forth online about guests being “forced” to wait in the playground area with the pager, while others have always been told the playground was optional. Some have said they’ve seen the pagers used during very busy times, while others have said they’ve never seen them used. Additionally, many families have said that they’ve gone into the play area just because their child wanted to play in the air conditioned playground, and then they could hop in line for the ride whenever they wanted.

We personally have not seen the pagers used very often, if at all, in recent years, so when you go, it’s unlikely you’ll see them used unless it’s a very busy time of year (and even then, you may not).

There’s also a very interactive queue while you wait in line for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh! It’s not the same as a playground, but it’s a great way to keep kids entertained as you move throughout the line. Keep in mind though that some of them are decently loud and repetitive, so if that’s something that may bother you, you may want to bring some earplugs or headphones to block out the noise. An Anonymous AllEars reviewer shared:

“Our young (and old) Pooh fans loved this ride- but the queue even more. The interactive queue made the wait worth it.”

While Peter Pan’s Flight has some pretty cool special effects you can see as you move throughout the line, we think it could really benefit from some more interactive elements (not sure if they could fit a whole playground, but if so, that’d be a huge help), and the same can be said for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (you can spin those barrels of jewels to get some pretty cool projections of the characters from the story — especially if you spin all 7 at once — but that’s about it) and Under The Sea — Journey of the Little Mermaid.

Or, if we can’t add them to existing attractions, we hope we’ll see some implemented in the new Cars-themed area coming to Frontierland, since at least one of those rides will be more friendly towards younger racers.

WAIT! Before you go, we know you have opinions and we want to hear them! Leave a review on Disney rides, restaurants, and more right here on AllEars. Good or bad, let your voice be heard, and be sure to stay tuned to AllEars for the latest Disney World news!

Don’t want to wait in lines? Learn about Lightning Lane Multi Pass, a way to skip the lines at MOST of the attractions in Magic Kingdom, here!

What ride would you love to see get a playground for your kids to run around on while you wait? Tell us in the comments!

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