Starlit Magic vs Magic Planning
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Starlit Magic
This Walt Disney World companion app offers real-time wait times, park maps, and planning tools. Discover dining options, resort recommendations, and trip deadlines. Explore attractions, hidden gems, and create lasting memories with a digital scrapbook.
- Live wait times
- Dining and resort search
- Trip deadline reminders
- Park maps with custom pins
- Hidden Mickey and Golden 50 guides
- Digital trip scrapbook
- Dish and drink search
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The Walt Disney World companion app built by a fan, for fans. Pay once, own it forever. No subscription, no ads, no account needed. NEW • Drink search: in Dining, search any drink by name to see every place that pours it. • Dish Search: search 20,000+ verified Walt Disney World menu items, with prices. Allergy searches match the items Disney itself labels allergy-friendly. • Your Trip Deadlines: every date your trip has to hit, from dining reservations and Lightning Lane to package payments and MagicBand+ orders, worked out from your dates and hotel. Starlit Magic reminds you; it never books. • A new light look, with refreshed art throughout. PLAN THE TRIP • Dining Oracle: narrow 355+ restaurants to your best 3, with prices. • Resort Oracle: answer five questions and narrow all 33 resorts to your best 3. • The Essentials: how Walt Disney World works, explained plainly and kept current. 48 articles in 9 chapters, each checked against Disney's official site and dated. • Today's Plan: your whole park day, time-stamped, with the reasoning behind every pick. • When to Go: a month-by-month guide to which weeks win, which weeks bite, and why. • Top Picks: 2,000+ ranked picks. • Trip countdowns and booking-window reminders. IN THE PARKS • Live wait times for all four parks. • Park maps that show where you are, with custom pins. • The Golden 50: find Disney's 36 golden character sculptures, grouped into stops across the four parks, and check them off as you go. • Hundreds of Hidden Mickeys, with directions. • 10 self-guided bar crawls. Drinking Around the World is free for everyone. • Pin trading boards, park trivia, and the 10 best spots to watch Luminous. REMEMBER IT • Storybook: a page for every day of your trip, with your mood, a note and up to 10 photos, synced through your own iCloud. Share any day as a Story card, and keep every past trip in Your Stories. FREE FOR EVERYONE Live wait times, park maps, Storybook, Your Trip Deadlines and booking-window reminders, The Golden 50 list and check-offs, a free preview on every Dish Search, Drinking Around the World, the top 3 picks on every Top Picks list, and The Essentials chapters on families, dining needs and accessibility. PREMIUM: $12.99, ONE TIME Dining Oracle, Today's Plan, all 33 Resorts, every Dish Search match, every pick on every Top Picks list, all of The Essentials, Hidden Mickey directions, all 10 bar crawls, exactly where to find each of The Golden 50, and every future Premium feature. No subscription, ever. Starlit Magic is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by The Walt Disney Company.
Magic Planning
This app simplifies group vacation planning, especially for Disney trips. It allows real-time collaboration on park days, dining reservations, and travel details, with timely notifications for important windows. It also includes features for tracking attractions, packing, and even playing games together.
- Group trip planning
- Real-time collaboration
- Dining reservation tracking
- Lightning Lane alerts
- Shared trip calendar
- Packing list management
- Trip and queue games
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Planning a Disney World trip with your group has never been easier. Magic Planning keeps everyone on the same page — from park days and dining reservations to flights, tickets, and Lightning Lane purchases. Built for groups. Invite your travel party and plan together in real time. Chat with your group, share your location at the parks, and make sure nobody misses a reservation. Assign roles — owners, members, guests, viewers, travel agents, and kids — to keep the whole party organized. Child accounts include guardian attribution and age-appropriate safety settings so the whole family can participate safely. Friends & Family. Connect with fellow Disney fans using your unique friend code or QR code. Add friends to trips directly from your friends list, and optionally share a read-only trip summary so your group can stay in the loop — even those who aren't on the trip. Friend requests are push-notified the moment they arrive. Community Stories. Share your Disney trip experiences with the Magic Planning community. Write a trip story, add a cover photo, and inspire others planning their own adventure. All stories are reviewed for safety before going live. Never miss a window. Get push notifications the moment your dining reservation or Lightning Lane purchase window opens — down to the second. Magic Planning does the math so you don't have to. Everything in one place. • Organize park days with a shared trip calendar • Track dining reservations with countdown reminders • Add flights and open FlightAware with one tap • Manage park tickets and annual passes for every traveler • Log hotels, activities, and anything else your group has planned • Track your snacks and attractions, including for special park events • Browse Magic Planning merchandise in the in-app shop • Play queue games: Trivia, Timelines, and Word Search • Manage your packing list and wellness goals for each trip • And much more! Premium features unlock even more. • Day Planner: AI-powered park planning that builds an optimized itinerary for each day of your trip and helps you rethink on the fly when plans change. • World Traveller: Explore EPCOT's World Showcase pavilions, log your meals and drinks, attach photos, and challenge your friends to see who has explored more of the world. Complete with a cinematic photo slideshow with music. • Budget Tracking: Split trip expenses with your group, track who paid what, and settle up without the awkward conversations. Try it free for 48 hours. • Games: Play premium trip games — Park Hopper (navigate the parks and earn achievements) and Trip Magic (customizable scavenger hunts for your trip). All future games included with subscription! Premium is available as a 1-month or annual subscription. Individual features are also available as standalone purchases (budget now has a 48-hour trial!). No auto-renewal. Pay once for the period you need. Reminders that work for you. Choose exactly which notifications you want: dining windows, Lightning Lane alerts, reservation reminders, payment due dates, trip countdowns, friend requests, and more. Control everything from Settings. Magic Planning is an independent app and is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Walt Disney Company. https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Starlit Magic at 17.0 against Magic Planning's 26.6. On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Starlit Magic sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Magic Planning sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Starlit Magic against 5.0 for Magic Planning. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively.
Starlit Magic ships an update every 10 days, Magic Planning weekly. Both last shipped on November 5, 2026.
| Parameter | Starlit Magic | Magic Planning |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 26.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 124 MB | 66 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Daniel Schieferstein | Chris St Pierre |
Customer experience
Starlit Magic
Magic Planning
In-app purchases
Starlit Magic
- Starlit Magic Premium$12.99
Magic Planning
- Showcase Snackathon - Per Trip$0.99
- Park Hopper - Per Trip$0.99
- Magic Guesser Pack$0.99
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- Magic Credits Top Up$0.99
- Magic Planning Budget - Per Trip$1.99
- Magic Planning Park Hopper$1.99
- Magic Credits Initial Purchase$4.99
- Magic Planning Tip Develoeprs$5.00
- Magic Planning Premium - Life$14.99
- Magic Planning Annual$49.99







