Okay, this is ready to post, so I'm just gonna go ahead and put this up. The photos are STILL uploading, so once they're done, I'll put them up.
Saturday, October 23, 2010 - Magic Kingdom, Evening EMH
Despite wanting to sleep in, I somehow woke up around 8:30am
I couldn't get back to sleep, though. I work night shift, so once I'm up, I'm up, which is very annoying and makes naps nearly impossible. I got up and got ready to go, then ran to Everything Pop to get MORE things I'd forgotten. The night before, I'd forgotten a bottle of lotion and something else I don't remember right now, but the next day, I realized I'd brought my contacts and the solution... But not the case or my eyedrops or my sunglasses. So there went about $30 just on that. The sunglasses alone were $25. Ah well. Such is life, right?
After that, I went to the ticket desk and picked up my
MNSSHP tickets before heading out for Magic Kingdom. I got on the bus just after 10 and was walking into the park around 10:20.
If anyone's wondering why I have times, it's because I was keeping a detailed trip journal for the first few days... Then I forgot about it
I walked through the park, looking at everything and taking pictures, and eventually wound up on Haunted Mansion. This is my favorite ride in all of WDW. When I was working at MK, my old manager took a group of us on a brief tour of it one night after hours, which was awesome. I don't think he was really supposed to, but he did things like that all the time. I loved that manager
After Haunted Mansion, I went through Fantasyland and bought a hot fudge brownie sundae at Mrs Potts. After eating it, I made my way back up to Main Street and sat down near the Exposition Hall to wait for my ADR at Tony's. It was for 12:25, I checked in at 12:10, and was seated at 12:15. I had a table in the corner of the porch overlooking Main Street, and had a great view. I was even able to see the beginning of the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It Street Party thing from my seat.
The server was Kim and was very good. I knew what I wanted, so I ordered right after I was seated. I guess they get orders for the chicken parmigiana a lot, since I was served at
12:19. The portion was huge, though, and I couldn't eat all of it. It was good, except for the garlic bread, which if I'd hit you over the head with, you would have been knocked unconscious. I only took one bite, since I lost one tooth recently and didn't need to lose any more.
After lunch, I watched the end of the Move It parade, then hopped on the railroad over to Frontierland. I walked through it and Adventureland, across the hub, and into Tomorrowland. Now that I'm re-reading that, I have no clue why I didn't just take the train to Tomorrowland
Anyway, the line for the TTA was
insane for some reason, so I went on Carousel of Progress instead. When I got off, the line for the TTA had just about disappeared, so I went on that. It was a nice ride. After exiting that, I got in line to see Chip and Dale, as I was ordered by my mom to collect as many character pics and autographs as possible for my niece, who just turned 4 last month. Chip and Dale were cute. I have pics on Photopass with them, so that'll come later.
I went up to Main Street then to find a spot for the 3:00 parade and wound up sitting in front of the Bakery.
I spent a couple hours after the parade just wandering around. I'd been texting with HeatherBelle614 (known as Heather from now on) and we just kept missing each other. I watched the castle show (aka, Dream Along With Mickey, which I never actually call it), then sat down in the hub under a tree for a bit to write in my trip journal. I texted a picture of the castle to my sister (my niece's mom) and not two minutes later, my cell phone's ringing. It's my niece, and she's saying, "You're at Barbie's house, come and get me!" She doesn't quite understand distance yet, nor can she say Cinderella. She calls the princesses Pink Barbie (Aurora), Blue Barbie (Cinderella), Yellow Barbie (Belle), etc. Part of that is because my sister isn't really into the whole Disney thing, and they live in Boise, ID, so I don't really get to influence her
Anyway, I promised to take her here one day, which works out because we're planning a family reunion at WDW in 2012.
Finally, I wandered into Liberty Square and was contemplating getting on the Riverboat when I got a text from Heather. We managed to finally meet up outside the Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe, although neither of us remembered what the other looked like
She found me because of the lime green Mickey head in my lanyard holder. After that, we proceeded to head to Pirates.
After Pirates, we went to Haunted Mantion and went on that and I gave them trivia about that. Did you know that if you linger in the stretching room, you can hear the gargoyles whisper to each other?
We walked through Fantasyland to Tomorrowland, then went on the TTA again before going on Pooh. I bought a stuffed Piglet in the shop for a friend of mine and he basically became one of the trip mascots for the evening, along with Heather and Brad's safari Eeyore. We walked through to Liberty Square and sat down in front of Liberty Tree Tavern to watch the parade. We got there about 8pm and the parade was at 9. There was this super annoying kid there who kept waving his glow sword in our faces and then finally smacked Brad (Heather's husband) in the knee with it. Anyway, I honestly like Spectro better than MSEP. I don't know, it just seemed boring to me, although I liked the Pete's Dragon bit.
After the parade, we dashed
back to Tomorrowland. This is where the bouncing ears come in. Now, as I mentioned, I'm a former MK CM. I worked in custodial, so going to MK with me is like being with a walking information desk. I can give directions around MK without even
being there. As I'm sure some of you know, the custodial costume is one of the most noticeable in the parks because it's all white, so I
had to learn as much as I could about the park. As such, I know MK like the back of my hand. I know DHS almost as well, but I don't know Epcot or DAK that well because those were the parks I spent the least amount of time in. So when we were dashing across the hub, as I'm sure you all know, it was packed with people waiting for Wishes. As such, I lost Heather and Brad a couple times and the only way they saw me was the Minnie ears I was wearing. So if they lost me, it became a game of "Follow the bouncing ears". That's where the title comes from
We popped into Cosmic so I could grab dinner, as they'd had an early dinner at Harbor House before we met up. I got a cheeseburger, fries, chocolate cake, and a lemonade, and then we found an interesting seat to watch Wishes from. It's also known as the handicapped ramp into the restaurant
It was an odd little view, but kind of nice. Both Heather and I had been texting with Simba22 (here on known as Ali) all night, and I'd also been texting with Nermel9 (Jen) and therussells08 (Joni), but right before the fireworks, PrincessInOz (Sharon) texted me to say that she and her husband had landed in Orlando and were on DME.
After the fireworks, we decided to check on Space Mountain again, but the wait was still outrageous, as was the wait for Buzz, so we walked down the Toontown path to see if the train was still operating to cut around to Frontierland. It wasn't, so we went to go see Mickey and Minnie's houses instead. After Mickey's house, we decided to go ahead into the Judge's Tent and see Mickey, since the line wasn't too long. Minnie was there as well, so that was nice. When I went up, I thought I was done after a few pictures, but Mickey pulled me back and I'm like "Oh, I thought I was done!" Heather and Brad have a funny story about their meet, though
While we were in line, Alie had texted us that she was on her way to MK, so we told her we were in Fantasyland, since that was where we were headed next. We were going to go on Small World, but we weren't sure if we'd be out in time to meet her and Lumar (her boyfriend), so we instead went on into Liberty Square and rode Haunted Mansion again. After we exited, Ali texted again to say she was on Main Street, so we sat in front of Harbor House to wait for her. Once we'd all met up, we went on Haunted Mansion again and I told Lumar all the trivia I know about the ride, since it's his favorite ride as well. We then headed into Adventureland so they could all get Dole floats. I didn't get one, as I don't like pineapple. Once the ice cream was done, EMH had started, so Ali handed out glow sticks and we went on Jungle Cruise. We had an excellent skipped.
We then went to Frontierland and rode Splash, and Ali bought the photo. Speaking of which, I need to PM her my address
After Splash, we went on Thunder Mountain, then headed for Fantasyland. We went on Small World and then went to Tomorrowland to see about Buzz and Space again. Space was still outrageous, so we went on Buzz. I sucked and only got 1800 points. After Buzz, we went on the TTA again and then headed up Main Street in search of a snack for Lumar and Ali. On the way there, we stopped to do a couple Photopass shots. One of them is
awesome, and I won't tell about it until I get the picture to show it. We wound up in the Bakery and they got these enormous ham sandwiches, and I got an apple juice, since I was thirsty and didn't want water.
Once we were done there, it was almost 3am, so we continued up Main Street, stopped to watch the Kiss Good Night, and then headed for the buses. The first thing I did when I got back to my room was take my contacts out and wash my face.
Then I passed out.