Magic Kingdom!
We finally pulled up to the place we love so much, and I was excited to shake this funk and enjoy every second of our vacation. Elsa and I kept giving each other sideways glances, hoping the one of us was feeling more into this than the other. Don't get me wrong. I was totally stoked to be at the Magic Kingdom. I couldn't wait to cross under the train station and make my way down Main Street, but I wasn't bubbling up with unbridled excitement like I usually am.
We snapped these pics and moved on inside, to the best place on earth! It was a little odd not to walk in here with Michael, but I knew he was in very good hands at home! The weather was exactly as predicted, chilly and wet. We were ready for the rainy, high of 50 day and moseyed on our way to Space Mountain where our first Fast Pass + was. I was pretty excited to see how well this all would work. We had FP+ for Space Mountain, Laugh Floor, and the new Little Mermaid ride. We were disappointed it was limited to just three, but we were optimistic that it wouldn't matter too much with how slow it was supposed to be this week.
We were walking over to Space Mountain and everything was falling right into place. It was cold, but we were prepared. We were on our way to Space Mountain, and on time for our FP+. We were totally ready for this vacation, but we were still in a funk. Elsa hinted a couple of times that maybe we were burned out from coming yearly, but I was banking on the fact that we started the day off at 4:30am and were just tired. So we journeyed on! When we got to Space Mountain the wait time was 10 minutes, and seeing as I am not supposed to ride it because of my previous back surgeries, we decided not to use our FP+ on this ride, and save it for later! Elsa went ahead and got in line for Space Mountain while I went to my stand by, The People Mover. Sadly, it was down.
I parked myself at the Space Mountain exit to wait for Elsa, and eagerly opened up the My Disney Experience app to see how easy it would be to swap out FP+ reservations. I am happy to report that it was VERY easy to use in the park. I grabbed a couple of Buzz Lightyear FP+s for later and finished waiting for Elsa to come out. She loved it! I hate it that she had to ride it by herself, but she loved it anyways!
We got in line to see Buzz, for the boys of course
, and were anxious he might be as rough and gruff as he was last time we saw him. He made everyone uneasy and scared the little kids. Thankfully, this time he was great!
I took these with my cellphone so I could easily text them to my mom, so she could show them to the boys ASAP. I recognized after our trip the only pics I was even remotely pleased with where the iPhone pics I took on this trip. I am used to my nice DSLR at home, and my point and shoot here just didn't cut it. I think next time I will leave the camera at home and only use my iPhone.
It was time to use our Buzz Lightyear FP+s and I was starting to finally feel like I was really here! The funk was starting to lift!!!
Maybe it was my second wind, or maybe I had just settled in, but either way I was feeling it! WOOT WOOT!! We rode Buzz Lightyear (I won), and then we were ready enjoy more stuff. We were scheduled for The Laugh Floor FP+s later in the evening, but the wait was only 5 minutes now, so we decided to ride it now and try to find something else to use our FP+s on later. We love The Laugh Floor, and had promised Michael that we would submit a joke in his honor. They used it (yay!), and they highlighted me for the mind reading portion of the show. I have been chosen 4 times while doing The Laugh Floor, and every time for that bit.
We moved on to Fantasyland so we could use our FP+s for The Little Mermaid ride, but had a little bit of time to kill, so we rode Goofy's Barnstormer. We have never ridden it before...it was short and sweet, and we liked it. I took a video, but I'm not sure how to post that here. Apparently when I am tired I don't take a ton of pictures. My photo count seriously increases as the days go by, I promise! We looked around the New Fantasy Land and were a bit underwhelmed.
I guess I could weigh in better once the 7 Dwarfs Mine Ride opens, but there just wasn't much that caught our attention. Seems like we waited an awful long time for them to officially open this part of the park, and it feels like they could have added more meat to it. Anywho, it was time for our Little Mermaid FP+ and we made our way over there. It felt so odd to be walking through the Magic Kingdom and pass completely unfamiliar places. We went to enter the FP+ line for The Little Mermaid and were denied.
We scanned our bands again, and it was still a no go. The Cast Member checked on his computer screen and directed us to the
real entrance. Ha! We were trying to enter the Little Mermaid meet and greet. In our defense, they look almost identical.
(we actually did the very same thing again on our last day of our vacation...you think we would have learned from this experience).
We loved the walk-thru and the ride is fantastic!
This was worth the wait! The colors and the atmosphere were right on. I give it two thumbs up, and Elsa loved it just as much as I did!
We ventured on to its a small world, but I missed most of the ride trying to swap our unused Laugh Floor FP+s using the My Disney Experience app. I found early evening Pirates of the Carribean FP+s and snagged them. It was nice to be able to move them around, but I'm not sure how easy this process would be if the parks were full. We were having great success, but I hear it's near impossible to switch around during the busy season.
Elsa promised Meema that she would hug Eeyore for her, and this was the best we came to all vacation:
We watched Mickey's Philharmagic in the back row (new to us) and we decided that Disney doesn't have a bad seat in the house! We hustled over to Pirates and used our last FP+ of the day, followed by Country Bear Jamboree, and Haunted Mansion. After, we wandered over to Peco Bills for grilled chicken wraps...one of our most favorite meals at Disney, and they removed it from the menu. What?!! Boo. I threw a little internal fit, and after not seeing anything we wanted to eat, we decided to go to Starlight Cafe for burgers.
I love, love, love their condiment bar. The mushrooms are my favorite. Yum! And the best part? After dinner we checked and the The People Mover was up and running! It's such a nice ride. I like sitting back and enjoying the corniness of it all! We traveled back to Fantasyland. I wanted to re-ride its a small world with full attention and Elsa was a good sport! We rode Peter Pan's Flight and then Winnie the Pooh:
We finally re-rode its a small world and I really enjoyed it. I snapped this picture as the ride was ending and asked the Cast Member why 3 of the signs have been replaced with LCD monitors.
He explained that in the very near future the monitors will be personalized with the names of those in each boat, giving goodbyes in each person's personal language, with everything being triggered by the new Magic Bands. Wow! I love technology!
We made our way to Main Street, just in time to see Wishes, but it was so foggy that it was near impossible to see the fireworks. We decided to forgo it and head back to the resort. We were tired, and happy for our half day at The Magic Kingdom, but we were tired.
My dad was slated to arrive around 10pm, so we boarded the bus to Pop Century and let Disney do the driving. Elsa was itching to go swimming once it was warm enough, so we looked for a suit to purchase at the gift shop at Pop. They had a cute black one piece, but not in her size. Pop called over to The Art of Animation, but was on hold for over 10 minutes. We decided to just walk over and see what they had. This was my first time over there and it was very cute! Nothing in her size though. Elsa and I parted ways when we got back to Pop Century. I went to wait for Peepa, and she went to go to bed.
Before long, my dad arrived and we ordered a cot to be delivered to our room. It was great to have him there and we were pleasantly surprised that the cot fit in our room with tons of room to spare. I thought we would have to fold it up each morning, but there was no need. Elsa was asleep by the time we got to the room, and we didn't want to wake her, so we did our best to follow her lead and go right to sleep. It didn't take either of us long to fall asleep!
