So today was both the day I had been dreading and looking forward to immensly. Today was July 4th. And today was the day we were going to hit MK.... I know what you're thinking, what an earth were 4 English people doing heading into a hub of American Patriotism surely we would be skinned alive?! Honestly I have idea, we were thinking of wearing England football strips into MK today, but soon figured that idea was both stupid and foolish! I can also see you're thinking why on earth go to MK, that's where everyone goes, it gets unbelievably crowded... well read along to find out!!
We knew the park opened at 8am today, but despite this we decided that this was far too early to be going into a park, especially as we weren't planning on leaving for fear of not getting back in and especially as we had planned to sit around and not do alot today as the queues would be unbelievable. We pulled up to MK at 8:30 and were parked by 8:45, surprisingly the park was pretty empty, 45 minutes after opening!! The forums we had read had it hyped up to be a hell of a lot busier at this time, we weren't holding on to this optimism yet though. It was still early.
We had formulated a plan in our mind to hit the big rides first and so headed straight for BTM, well I have never seen the queue, and indeed the park so empty in my life, it was literally as if we were the only people, it was magic. Withing 5 minutes we were seeing this:
The train was almost empty too, this was a good start!!
After that we headed to Splash, now as we have already discussed I HATE log flumes with a passion, but they begged and begged and begged for me to come with them, I think it was the 5minute queue time which got me, less time to think, just walk straight through and get on. So on I got. Not without my poncho first though. Who did they think I was!!!
I think it was safe to say I was scared out of my mind!! I hated but loved it all at the same time. I guess now is the part of the TR where I tell you all where my title "It's alright I'm still alive comes from", well it was from splash, my first ever ride! It all started when we first set off, you know the tiny little 'drop' right at the beginning when it drops you from conveyer belt into the water.... well as soon as that happened I felt it necessary to inform my parents that I had survived! It became a habit and from then on and after every drop and every single possibility of getting wet was out of the way for the time being I would dutifully inform my parents that I was indeed still alive. I think I had both my family and the couple in the back of the boat with us in stiches by the end. But I was genuinely petrified!!! Still I survived poncho and all and didn't get wet once, and suffice to say I loved it
!
Once my ordeal was over we headed into Future World with a vague possibilty of getting FP's for Space as we figured that with it being 9:20 they would be fairly late by now... they weren't, and neither was the standby queue, a grand total of 10 minutes. I wish you could have seen my face, my jaw literally hit the ground. Where on earth was everybody!? We of course took advantage of this right away and within 20 minutes we were off the ride wiplash and all! Now I don't think I have mentioned my general distaste for this ride.... now before you all get alarmed, I don't hate this ride, far fro it, I just prefer the DLP one wayyy better. WDW's Space is outdated and highly uncomfortable, it's just not, well just not fun. Ok so thats a bit of a lie it's fun to an extent, but when I don't feel safe on a ride, the safety harnessess' scare me, and it involved sharp turns that pretty much break my neck I'm not bound to have fun am I. The funniest part of the ride by far were my brothers comments going round, when we stopped he informed my parents not to expect grandchildren, I think the 'safety' mechanism got to him a bit!!
So recap... within the first hour of MK opening, on the 4th July, one of the busiest days of the calander we had successfully ridden all 3 mountains with a less than 10minute wait time each. We were gobsmacked. Amazed and seriously excited. This was going to be a good day, we could feel it!!
After Space we hopped into the queue for Monsters Inc and transported ourselves to Monstropolis.
The show wasn't as good as the first time we saw it but we knew it would be hard pushed to beat it, we saw a different opening act this time so that was good, and we still laughed ALOT so all is right with the world!!
I saw an opportunity to hitch a ride on the TTA, which I love... "Paging a Mr Morrow, a Mr Tom Morrow your party from Saturn has arrived..." It's such a great ride and relaxing as well. I think my parents were grateful for the sit down, they had invisaged me as being a sort of Nazi dictator today, I had warned them about how busy the park was going to be, and had also warned them about the plan I had made and how we were going to stick to it. Well it's safe to say the plan went out the window!
You get some great views from the TTA, don't be fooled by those crowds on Main Street, Dream Along with Mickey had just started!:
The crowds look normal don't they?!
The CoP was next, another favourite of mine, I had heard that they had revamped it since we were last there so I definately wanted to check that out. I think a little part of me also wanted to hear the song again, there's something about that and IASM going round and round in your head for hours, normally it would drive you crazy but when you're in Disney it's some how all forgotten!!
It was getting to around an hour before parade time, (there were 2 showings today one in the morning and one at 3) so we wandered over through Fantasy land to stake out a spot by Liberty Tree Tavern. As we walked past Mickey's Philharmonic, my mum's absolute favourite despite not being able to see 3D, we double took at the wait time, 5 minutes, you seriously have to be joking?! We even asked the CM to be sure who confirmed that she was as surprised as we were but yes it was indeed 5 minutes. Well of course we went right in and enjoyed the show to its fullest
After being flown through every Disney movie possible with Donald to find Mickey's hat and smelling some of the most amazing food we headed round to watch the parade, I took so many pictures of this parade. I LOVE IT!! The parade music always always always makes me smile and dance. Photos are better than me gushing on so here we go... (I've pretty much documented the whole parade here!)
(continued in next post)