It was another early morning of what would be another magical day in the parks. Today would be a park-hop day, starting with Extra Magic Hour at Magic Kingdom, and spending the afternoon and evening at Disney-MGM Studios. After breakfast at the Riverside Mill, it was again off to the bus stop and off to the Magic Kingdom.
The Magic Kingdom was not yet open when I arrived, so I got in line and waited for the park to open. When it did, my first stop would be Tomorrowland and Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. There was almost no line for it. I got my highest score yet on the ride after finding some sort of secret target that gave me a large amount of points. Astro Orbiter had no line whatsoever, so I decided to do this ride. It was fun and the views on the ride are incredible. After that, it was over to the TTA for a ride around Tomorrowland. After that, I decided to walk through Fantasyland to see if anything had a short line.
When I got to Fantasyland, it was about 10 minutes before the rest of the park opened. Most of the attractions had more than a 15 minute wait so I decided to just go to Main Street and wait for the park to open. First, though, I went to see how the construction was going at Mickey's Philharmagic. It seemed to be going pretty well. They had the ign up, but the rest was behind the obligatory green construction wall.
After soaking up some of the atmosphere in my favorite land, I headed towards the Castle. As soon as I reached the Castle, the welcome to the Magic Kingdom announcement started to play over the intercoms. The spiel combined with walking through the Castle made for a very nice moment- almost like something out of a vacation planning video.
After the park opened, my first stop was Splash Mountain. When I got there, though, there were CMs saying that the ride was not open and might be open later in the day, although they werent sure when. I figured I would just go to Pirates of the Caribbean, ride that and then come back to see if Splash was working again. The only problem was that when I got to Pirates, it was closed. Because of the limited hours on most of the attractions in the area, the only nearby attractions opened were Big Thunder Mountain, which because Splash was closed had insanely long lines, and Magic Carpets of Aladdin. I decided on Magic Carpets of Aladdin, which was fun. I really think I like this better than Dumbo. The Camels and the music really add a lot to the ride.
After the ride, I returned to Splash Mountain, which had just opened. I noticed that already the next FastPass time available was past 1pm! Obviously many people had grabbed FastPasses for the attraction when it was closed and ran up the FastPass time. However, there was absolutly no line whatsoever when I got there. The ride was absolutely incredible as usual- lots of fun. After getting off the ride, I ran across Brer Bear. He was another character I had never seen doing greets in the park before so I decided to take a picture which he happily posed for.
Next, it was back to Tomorrowland to see the Carousel of Progress. This was another attraction that I had never done before and since it doesn't seem to be open very often, I decided that this was the perfect time to give it a try. The show was cute, maybe a little corny but still very cute. I'm glad it was open so I could finally give it a try, It was getting late in the morning and I would have to be leaving soon to get to MGM.
As I was walking to the Hub from Tomorrowland the Cinderella show started up at the Castle. I love the music in the show so it was nice to see and hear some of it. Cinderella didn't seem to have as good a voice as she did last time I saw the show so after a while I headed down Main Street to the Expo Hall, Steamboat Willie was playing in the theater in the back so I decided to watch a little. I was hoping there would be a few Princesses doing meet-and-greets back there like usual, but there were none to be found, only a few little girl in Princess dresses evidently waiting for the Princesses to come out. I didn't have time to stay any longer so I left. I did manage to find Max outside, who was actually a character I was looking for. I got his picture and left the park, taking the monorail to the TTC to catch the boat to Disney-MGM Studios.
