Magic Kingdom - afternoon
After lunch we decided to hop onto the Haunted Mansion, since it was right across the way! Now, this may seem silly, but I've always been really afraid of haunted houses. I know HM isn't so bad but I'm still a little nervous when I go on it. However, when I visited in February I rode with a friend who told me all sorts of interesting details and backstory about it, and now I don't really find it scary anymore!
After that ride we headed back over to Fantasyland to use our Little Mermaid fastpasses. I don't know exactly why, as Little Mermaid isn't my favorite movie or anything, but I really enjoy that ride. It's just feel peaceful and fun. On our way there I noticed they had "hoofprints" in the ground by the Tangled bathrooms - and they even said "Maximus" on them! I thought that was a really neat little detail. One of the things that I love about Disney.
Once we rode Little Mermaid we decided to head into Frontierland. I had my eye on Splash Mountain, my favorite ride. We passed the Country Bear Jamboree and thought about going in - see, there's a bit of back story that we like to tease my dad about. The first time we went together as a family my dad's boss told him the one attraction he absolutely must see was the Country Bears. I don't know if his boss genuinely believed that or was playing a joke on him (I honestly think it's the former), but there we were at rope drop of the Magic Kingdom, rushing with everyone toward Frontierland... and then we stopped at the Country Bears and everyone else hurried past us toward Splash Mountain!
We still like to tease him about that all the time. In the end we decided to pass on the country bears for now.
We did spot this lovely fellow as we made our way over:
Splash Mountain is my absolute favorite, and it had been down when I visited in February (not to mention much too cold!). DH was coming on with me, but my dad opted not to - I was a little disappointed, but he didn't want to get wet! It was just slightly on the chilly side, I think around 68 degrees or so and the sun wasn't out, so it would be a little uncomfortable to be wet. I tried to convince him to come on in his poncho but it was a no-go.
DH purposely made an extremely exaggerated face for the photo. Mine is all natural, though! And now that I look at it, it seems like the man in front of us is ripping his shirt open... weird!
We hardly got wet at all, just a few drops that dried quickly! Last time I had been on Splash Mountain in September 2011 it was looking a little sad - some of the animatronics had fallen over. We made jokes when riding through about the ones that had "died." It got that three month refurb so I think they were able to fix a lot of that.
On our way over to Adventureland everyone stopped for some ice cream. DH and my dad got Mickey bars and my mom got a strawberry bar. I didn't have anything except a bite of DH's Mickey bar because I was still full from my waffle sandwich!
We went on Pirates next. My dad sat on the edge, and in the part where the cannonballs go off it splashed into our boat and he got more wet on that ride than we did on Splash Mountain! Haha, karma.
Also, my dad can never resist trying on hats:
My dad really wanted to do the Jungle Cruise (He loves corny jokes), but the line was kind of long so we got fastpasses. In the meantime we headed back to Main Street so I could get some Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom cards.
Random picture time:
I got my cards and then we decided to go meet Mickey and Minnie. We waited around 20 minutes, but for some reason we only got to meet Mickey. It was good though, you can't go to Disney without a Mickey picture, right? They took a shot of the "birthday" people first, then everyone, and then couples.
As we came out of meeting Mickey the parade was passing by, so we decided to stop and watch it for awhile. I don't usually stop to see the parades but since it was right there we did, and I enjoyed it!
We headed back toward Jungle Cruise and on the way I decided to actually test out my Sorcerer's cards for the first time. I had gotten a pack and "training" in February, but it had been so crowded I never actually played. I found my first spot and a little kid was just finishing up so I waited and then went to do it. For some reason I couldn't figure out how to make it work and I had forgotten my training! The little kid was nice enough to help me out, lol. It took me awhile to get the hang of it, but we finally realized that you have to hold the card up quickly and suddenly, not slowly like I had been doing. We just did the one location before heading back to Jungle Cruise.
Random castle pic:
We also stopped for some photopass shots on our way:
And then it was on to the Jungle Cruise! It's so corny, haha. But cute.
The backside of water:
Another random castle shot (Am I the only one that feels the need to take a picture of the castle every time I walk past it??):
We had an early dinner planned at Be Our Guest. I am in love with this place:
It's so gorgeous, and the food we had an absolutely phenomenal. If you want to see food pics and a full review of that, check out my dining review:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=48278377
Also, since we were celebrating birthdays, we got the gray stuff!
Then it was time to meet the Beast! We were waiting on line and were about half way through, when the Beast, in between pictures, suddenly left. He headed right toward us, and we thought he was trying to get through so we stepped aside... but he walked right up to DH, shook his hand, and then went back to taking pictures! It was the weirdest thing. The Beast was a funny character. When we got up there he was trying to mime ask us if we enjoyed our dinner by rubbing his belly, but we totally weren't getting it haha.
(My face in this one, haha - it's like "Beast, what on earth are you trying to say to me??")
We took a few pictures with the stained glass before heading back out into Fantasyland!
Kudos to your uncle!
