Jan 12 - What do you mean we don't have tickets?! First day at MK
Mr Mouse and I did not sleep well Tuesday night. We both woke up in the wee hours, sweating. Our room was boiling and in our sleep deprived, jet lagged stupor we couldn't figure out how to fix it. We ended up opening the balcony, hanging out there for a bit, then leaving it open while we went back to bed. I woke up around 1 and didn't get back to sleep until close to 5!
Even so, when the alarm went out we were up. Our plan was to be on the boat to Magic Kingdom at 7. Early Entry was 8:30 and we wanted to be there to ride 7 Dwarfs. When we got up, Mama Mouse was also up. She'd already made coffee, but told us that she and Papa Mouse hadn't slept well because their room was so cold! Papa Mouse was still sleeping, so they were going to rest some more and join us later in the day. No problem, Mr Mouse and I would go rope drop and then meet up with them later.
We got ourselves ready, had breakfast in the room (love those
Amazon Fresh deliveries!) and headed out. We were a little later than we intended to be, but we got right on a boat and were on our way to Magic Kingdom for the first time ever!
(Outfit for today - Dinglehopper Hair, Don't Care shirt, Ariel 30th Anniversary ears, Ursula mask)
We really enjoyed the boat ride, and were excited to get to MK. We headed straight for the tapstiles (picking the wrong line - turns out Mr Mouse has a knack for picking the slowest moving lines). We tapped in and...
(photo borrowed from All Ears)
The cast member called over a higher up cast member, who scanned us with a portable scanner and told us we didn't have tickets. Ummmm, WHAT?! So we headed over to Guest Services, where they confirmed that we didn't have tickets. We'd worked with a
travel agent to book and they booked our rooms at CBR and our tickets as a package. The decision to stay at Wilderness Lodge was a fairly last minute decision, after I'd already made park reservations. When we decided to stay at Wilderness Lodge the first two nights, the TA adjusted our room at CBR but either didn't know or forgot to tell us that our tickets wouldn't be valid our first day because they were tied to our CBR room and wouldn't be activated until the day we were scheduled to check in to CBR. I didn't realize there was anything amiss; had I needed to make park reservations it would have triggered something, but since I'd already made them I didn't realize the tickets weren't valid that day. I thought for sure we were stuck. I was nearly in tears, Mr Mouse was getting angry with the TA (who of course wasn't there), and we were both really glad my parents had stayed back so they weren't there to worry about this too. The cast member at Guest Services called CBR, who declined to activate our tickets a day early. She then told us she would help us out by issuing us one day tickets for use that day. After nearly 30 minutes, it was resolved and we were finally on our way.
Back to the tapstiles and this time it turned green! Hallelujah!! It was now past 8:30, past Early Entry, but we decided to head for 7 Dwarfs anyway.
We got there and saw the line go on...and on...and on...where the End of the Line said 75 minutes. We have a personal rule - no lines longer than 45 minutes - but before the trip I'd done a ton of research and most of the vloggers agreed that 7D is usually about half the wait time that's posted, so we decided to go for it. It did end up being long, but only about 40 minutes instead of the 75 posted.
We had a good time on the ride, though Mr Mouse and I both agreed it was far too short! My favorite part is the house at the end where you can see Snow White dancing with the dwarfs, and the witch outside.
At that point we walked right over to Little Mermaid, one of my favorite rides in
Disneyland. The two rides themselves are identical, but the theming of the queue at WDW is far superior. I was almost sad that it was a walk on because I didn't get to enjoy the queue as much as I would have liked!
Then we headed to Haunted Mansion, but the line was longer than we wanted. It also threw us - we're Disneyland people, so for us HM was in entirely the wrong place! We knew this going on, but it was more jarring than either of us expected it to be, I think. We decided to skip HM for the moment, and as we left we ran into my aunt and uncle on their way to use their
Lightning Lane at HM! This was the first of the family we'd seen in the parks. We chatted with them for a bit and continued on to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
BTMRR had a 25 minute posted wait, Touring Plans said 20, and our actual wait was about 30. This is another of my favorite rides, and while the one at WDW is fun, I think I prefer the one at DL. I really missed Dynamite Goat!
When we got off BTMRR, Mama and Papa Mouse called to say they were on their way. We arranged to meet them at Country Bears. While we waited, we got a treat - First the band, then a Cavalcade!
After the cavalcade, we got in to Country Bears, which we hadn't seen in years since it was removed from Disneyland in 2001. Mr Mouse had never seen it! It was a fun trip down memory lane.
By that point everyone was hungry, so we went to Casey's Corner for lunch. While eating, we got to see the Princess Cavalcade. After lunch we went to the Hall of Presidents. The show was good, but our favorite thing was the artifacts on display, and talking with James, the Presidential Historical Scholar. He was amazing to talk with!
At this point it was time for a break. Most of our family had arrived and were at Carribean Beach, so we decided to head there for a break and to visit with them. We took the bus, wandered around the resort a bit, and met up with our family at Banana Cabana. While we were there we discovered the ping pong table!
After a nice long break (so needed - I didn't realize just how overstimulating the park was), we went back to the park for our Liberty Tree Tavern reservations.
Dinner was DELICIOUS! The chef came out to discuss with me, and it was pretty clear that my sugar intolerance was going to be problematic since they use some amount of sugar in all of the marinades. I told him not to worry about it, I would be fine! The gluten-free bun I got was delicious, and the gf mac and cheese was ok (I'm not a big one for homemade mac and cheese anyway). But the pot roast and potatoes? YUM! The whole family agreed the pot roast was the best of the meats. If we were to ever go again, I would tell them to just bring me that!
For dessert, Mama Mouse and Mr Mouse had the sticky toffee pudding, Papa Mouse asked for just ice cream with chocolate syrup and they brought me the most delicious sorbet. I'm still trying to find out the brand, it was absolutely incredible!
After dinner, we hit up some more rides - Pirates (way too short, but the queue is awesome!), Haunted Mansion (a walk on during fireworks), and another ride on Big Thunder
By this point it was Extended Hours for Deluxe guests - one of the main reasons we decided to stay at Wilderness Lodge. We hadn't been on Jungle Cruise yet, so we went there, only to learn that it isn't operating during extended hours. Sad! At that point Mama and Papa Mouse decided they were done for the night, so they headed back while Mr Mouse and I did more rides.
First - Space Mountain, during which Mr Mouse's phone apparently called 9-1-1! Then the Tea Cups, another ride on 7 Dwarfs (15 minute wait, and that was only because the magic band scanning was only being done by one person), and then Peter Pan.
On our way out, I noticed how gorgeous the castle looked with the reflection, so I had to stop for a photo. Several other people stopped too - it was too stunning to pass up!
And with that, we headed to the boats and went back to Wilderness Lodge. It wasn't quite the day we'd hoped it would be, what with the rough start and not doing as many rides/attractions as we're used to doing in a day, but it was still fun and lots of memories were made.
We had so much fun at Whispering Canyon when we went years ago.
