Happy 4th of July!!!
I am on my way to my MIL's house today, so I thougt I would squeeze in a quick post.
Wed. June 17. This was our first full day at WDW and we headed to MK. From the WL you have 2 options. You can take a bus or a boat. We decided on the boat. We headed down at 8:00 to catch it. However, when we got there, the sign read that the boat to WL doesn't start running until 8:30. (30 minutes before the park opens) As luck would have it, the Contemporary boat was sitting at the dock. We decided to take the boat and grab the monorail. We have not ridden the monorail a lot in our previous trips. So, this was a treat for us. Here is a pic of WL from the water.
Here is a pic of the family on the boat.
Arrived at the MK gates with no issues. Let me throw something in here. I have a friend that I teach with who was visiting WDW with his family during the same week as us. I helped his wife plan their trip. We saw him and his son this morning waiting for rope drop. Everyone now... It's a Small World After All!!!!
This opening of the park is by far and away my favorite! Here are 2 pics of the opening.
Ok you are thinking, "Why did she post this pic?" Well, because I think she is so pretty, and this is one of the jobs I would have wanted to do when I was a young person.
And, Of course, the Big Cheese Himself!!!!
Finally we were allowed into the Greatest Place on Earth. We headed down Main Street. Now there was no need to run, because Space Mountain was closed. I figured that everyone else would spread out evenly, and I was right. We headed to POC. My daughters loved the movies, so I thought we would start there. NO Line!! Then onto BTMRR. NO LINE
Here is a pic of DD 13 on the coaster. She is such a ham.
Haunted Mansion... No Line Are you seeing a pattern?? We really meandered through the lands. We were on the first raft to TSI and checked out the island. This is the first time the girls have been there. Sadly, we did not find any paint brushes.
I did find a rocking chair and sat in the shade for awhile. The girls really liked exploring. They said that they felt like they had the whole island to themselves. Yes, we did the barrel bridge. I love that thing. This is my favorite Hidden Mickey.
You can see it best on the raft back to FronteirLand.
We went and got a FP for Splash Mountain, rode the railroad to Toontown. Walked over and rode Stitch. I just don't get the attraction to this attraction?
But I went on because.... No Line!
From here we headed to Tony's for Lunch. Now, I know this place gets some lousy reviews, but we really liked it. First of all, we were really hot at this point and this place is very cool. And when I say cool, I mean COLD!!! It felt great. The service was outstanding. The girls had spaghetti with Meatballs. I had the spaghetti and sausage. I really liked the sauce. It was a little spicy. DH had salmon on a salad. He really liked it. His favorite thing of all was the Tiramisu (sp?) He made us all taste it. He said it was the best one he had ever tasted.
From Tony's we headed to Splash Mountain to use our FP. Ok here the line was about 90 minutes for standby. Did I mention that it was hot. We rode and got wet. We decided to head back to WL for a break. When we got back this was waiting for us.
We had a towel animal everyday!!!
We went to the pool. HINT COMING UP!! Bring water shoes. The concrete around the pool gets very hot. I just had on
crocs and burned my feet on the way to the pool. I was really worried at the severity. It turned out not to be as bad as I had thought. This time I stayed and watched the pool party. There was dancing and a hula hoop contest. I liked the fact that the hula hoop contest was done by ages. There might have been more but I can't remember. The kids that joined in had a great time.
After our break, we headed back to MK for the evening. We went to Monster's Inc... No line
Got a little rain here but not enough to stop anyone. Had dinner at Peco's Bills. Good food. Longest line of the day. Got a FP for Jungle Cruise. Went in the Tiki Room, rode POC again...still No Line... Rode Jungle Cruise. Very funny. The young lady we had as our tour guide was very funny.
Went on the Swiss Family Treehouse. Here is a pic of the girls from the top.
Now my girls and DH did not like this attraction. They thought it was just a line for a ride with no ride at the end. I liked it. Maybe they needed to have seen the movie first so appreciate it.
But as everyone knows the real attraction is what is at the end..... Can you figure it out.....
DOLE WHIP!!!! No pics because we had to eat them so fast before they melted!!!
We headed over to the Carousel of Progress singing its song, but was turned away because of technical difficulty.
We found a great place to watch Spectro and Wishes. If the castle is 12:00, then we stood at the rail at 4:00. It was perfect. We got there at about 8:00 for the 9:00 parade. There was a very nice family from Chicago standing next to us. We chatted for an hour. Everyone was so nice about making sure all the kids could see. We are tall, so we were towards the back, but had no trouble seeing. I'm glad most of the action is up on floats. Here is a pic of the castle changing colors.
The parade was great. We were all set. There was one big family that tried to weasle their way in once the parade started. No one budged. They seemed mad that their kids couldn't see. They weren't speaking English, so I have no idea what they said. The father kept taking pics and showing the kids. There was absolutely no room to squeeze them in. My family chose to ignore them and just enjoy and we did. Here is Cindrella.
Then we had to wait the little while for WISHES. I have never seen this before, so I was very excited. YES, YES, there were tears. I love this pic of the clock on the castle.
After the parade a lot of people left the area. The pushy family did not, but now there was plenty of room so it didn't matter.
OK I feel foolish but I did not know that Tinkerbell was a real person.
I assumed that it was going to be some kind of special effect. I was absolutely amazed. My family was speechless. All they kept saying was did you know about Tinkerbell???
We loved Wishes. I can't say that enough. I am so glad I forced them to see it. They are glad too.
We made our way down Main Street. DH led us through the shops, so we got out fairly quickly. Headed to the boat dock where we go to watch the EWP while waiting for the boat. We headed back to WL after a wonderful, hot, surprising, relaxing day... I love this place.
Up next DHS and the heat gets worse.
I will leave you with this pic...
Suprisingly, we have very few accidents on campus, considering how many teen drivers there are.
I've seen pictures of the skillet and it looks delicious.
and Thanks, It is a great view, and I'm not a fan of heights. 
and 
I remember that Tuesday night storm too. We were in France hoping to finish up Kim Possible before the skys opened up. And we were at that same rope drop on Wedensday morning. It really was a relatively uncrowded morning at MK that day. Can't wait to hear more!
We decided to ride the single rider line. Now, I am here to tell you, this is well worth it. We waited maybe 20 minutes all inside with air conditioning. If my kids were younger, I would not try this. However, with them being teens, I saw no problems. We were all seated with very nice people, and it's not like you really talk to anyone on this ride anyway. Our plan was DH goes first, then the girls, and then me. This way he is waiting at the exit to gather us all as we get off. The girls and I ended up in the same car anyway. 
This was not a good beginning to this ride, and it only gets worse. We headed through the line and was amazed by the amount of people waiting. We did not get to see Mr. PotatoHead because only those people in the stand-by line get to see him. We finally made it to the front of the FP line. The girls wanted to ride together, so DH and I sat behind them. On this ride a family of 4 sits back to back. After the "practice session" our car no longer worked. 
