Our second full day in the parks, and we were off to the Magic Kingdom. It ended up being a really good choice, as this was our best/warmest weather day of our entire vacation. (Well at least the best/warmest day while I was still down there). It was still unseasonably cold while we were in Disney, but for one day at least it wasn't too bad in the middle of the afternoon.
While we were waiting for my father to return our mugs to the room after breakfast my mom and I wandered around the grounds and took a few pictures.
The flowers were looking beautiful out in front of the main entrance.
Like our first day at DHS we wandered around completely without a plan of any kind. The parks weren't really empty, but there was never any real kind of line for any of the attractions. It was a bit odd. I found it incredibly liberating to explore the parks with no plan. What we saw we would see, and if we missed it - so what. It was wonderful.
As we wandered into Fantasyland the Fairy Godmother was just coming out, so my mom and I had to stop for a picture. I think this is the only character picture I stopped for this entire trip.
I spotted a hidden mickey in the queue for Snow White.
My mother spotted a trash can blowing bubbles. I got the biggest kick out of it.
My father and I decided to take advantage of the somewhat warm day, live dangerously and ride Splash Mountain.
I hadn't ridden it in December because of the weather, and I'd been missing it. My mother thought we were nuts and waited patiently for us by the exit. She may have been the smarter one. Once we were on the ride, and were moving into the shade you could feel that it was cooler than we had thought. Neither of us got wet on the drop, but right after we made the drop and our log turned the corner we got drenched by the water cannons shooting "display" water as the next log dropped down. Had I been smarter I would have taken off my long sleeve jacket before I had got on the ride. I ended up taking it off and hanging it on the wheelchair to try to dry it out over the course of the day. Still it was fun, and I'm glad we rode.
As we were drying out we stopped for the requisite family shot with the castle in back of us -
We stopped to watch the mini afternoon parade. I love that the Give a Day/Get a Day promotion led Disney to bring out Kermit and Miss Piggy. I love the Muppets!
Love the stepsisters too!
This trip was my first time eating at the Liberty Tree Tavern. It was a pleasant surprise. We had dinner there, so it was the set family style menu. Everything was delicious. I particularly loved the salad and I'm a sucker for turkey and stuffing. Nothing fancy, but lots of good basic American classics. It would be a great pick for a place to eat with my nieces. Sorry again about the lack of food porn. You'll have to wait for my Oct. report for some photos from here. I liked it so much I had to add it to our October trip. I definitely liked it better than Tony's as a table service option at the Magic Kingdom.
After dinner we did some more wandering around, and got stuck in line for Buzz Lightyear for over an hour. I'm going to offer this piece of advice to anyone thinking of riding Buzz in the evening. Think twice about it if you want to see Spectromagic or Wishes. The wait time they show is never right. This is the second time in as many trips that I've gotten stuck in line on Buzz in the evening. The wait time was reading only a 20 minute wait, but it was soon apparent to us that we weren't going to be getting on any time soon. The regular line was barely moving and there seemed to be a crazy amount of people going throught the fast pass line. Once your in there, it's nearly impossible to back track out of the line. This has happened to me twice now. I've learned my lesson, and from now on I'll be avoiding Buzz in the evening. 20 minutes my foot.
We were afraid we were going to miss Spectromagic, but we hustled our way up to the hub. It was already packed and it was obvious we weren't going to get anywhere near a decent spot, especially with the wheelchair. We wandered over to our favorite Wishes viewing spot, and even that was starting to fill in already. We found the next best spot and watched Spectro from there. It wasn't a great place to watch Spectro, but it wasn't horrible. After Spectro, my father was going to hold our spot, while my mother and I went off to ride the Jungle Cruise. We tried valiently to get over to Main Street, but we turned back when after over 20 minutes of fighting the crowd we hadn't made it to the road yet. It seems no one was leaving between the parade and the fireworks, so we changed course and fought our way back to my father.
The temps were dropping again, and we all bundled up to keep warm.
I borrowed my father's gorilla pod and attached it to the railing in front of me to snap a few pictures. Using the timer it worked pretty well.
I don't know if it was worth it though. My father's shots came out just as good and he was holding his camera.
We took our time getting back to the buses and capped off our night with some beignets at POFQ. I love the festive food court at POFQ.
With one glaring exception. This one float/prop scares the bejesus out of me. It's just so wrong on so many levels.
We got back to the room, cranked up the heat, and found this little guy on top of the tv.
Two days in the parks, and I could feel the Disney mojo/pixie dust coming back to me. What would our day at Epcot bring?
