Magic Kingdom – Tuesday, November 27, 2018
The rain brought a cold front in, and we knew we were in for a chilly day! This was a party day at Magic Kingdom, so the plan was to enjoy a low crowd day, eat dinner at 6:00pm, and then have an early night. I know I over-plan but I had attempted a follow a pattern of long day/short-day all week in hopes of not completely exhausting ourselves (not sure how well that worked out though).
We stopped by The Mara for coffees, bagels and bananas on our way to the park. We planned to take the bus again this day and we were making great time – heading out to the bus just after 8:00 for a 9:00 park opening. We made it to the bus stop and waited less than 5 minutes, but we didn’t make it on the first bus. The family we had chatted with the night before was just ahead of us in line – they were also going to MK this morning. The sign said another bus would come in 10 minutes, but Pat asked, “Why don’t we just drive?” It was cold and the car meant we could be on our own schedule. I also remembered that MK would be the longest drive on the bus from AKL. So we headed to the parking lot.
We were parked at the TTC by 8:23am. Since it was so cold, I suggested that we try the monorail instead of the boat this morning. I thought it might be warmer, and that ended up being a good call. Plus, this was the only day we’d get to ride the monorail! I took some pictures on our way.
We were in the park just after 9:00am and headed for the Haunted Mansion. It felt a lot more crowded than we had expected this morning, but I forgot there were Early Morning Magic hours before we got there. As it was now our tradition, we took a castle picture before heading to our first ride. It was cold but not freezing (yet). Pat and his mom asked me, “Jackets on or off?” My response was, “It’s not too cold to have jackets off for a minute, right?” You’ll notice I was nicer to my children, though!
I knew it was going to get cold during part of our trip, so I had packed cardigans and leggings to layer the girls, plus their jackets. The cold didn’t seem to bother them, anyway!
Our first stop was the Haunted Mansion. DD4 asked, “What’s that? Is it scary?” I described it as an old house with silly ghosts that we could laugh at. When she rode it last year at age 3, she was nervous, but we turned it into a fun ride by finding silly ghosts to laugh at. I thought we’d get away with the same approach this year, but I was wrong.
A CM out front took a few pictures of us before we got to the ride. He was great at getting the girls to look into the sun for a quick picture!
I forgot how scary the stretching room can be – especially when the lights go out. I was holding on tight to DD4 and trying to talk to her the whole time, but she was crying by the end of the pre-show. She still agreed to go on the ride and wanted to sit with me. DD2 seemed fine!
I could tell DD4 was nervous the whole time, but she didn’t cry once we were on the ride. I tried to make it less scary, but she was clutching me and couldn’t wait to get off. When we got off the ride she announced, “That was NOT a nice ride. When we come back, I do NOT want to ride that again!” I had to laugh that she said, “when” we come back and not “if”.
We decided to cheer her up by going to It’s a Small World next. DD2 had been singing “It’s a Small World” over and over the past few days! DD4 was interested in taking pictures with my phone at this point, so we had an agreement that I would hold the phone and she could push the white button. Since this was our third time on this ride, I spent more time taking pictures and video. It’s interesting how you can notice new things every time you ride it.
I forgot that the front part of It’s a Small World is actually a clock! Apparently it was 9:45 when we left.
Here’s some of the video I took on the ride – just in case you want the song stuck in your head for days!
If you hadn’t guessed from the dresses, we had a Beauty and the Beast themed morning planned! Up next, it was finally time to meet DD2’s favorite princess.