A report from last Tuesday's party... we were in Universal for the week, but a side trip for DD11 and I to the party was irresistable, while DW chose to spend the evening at the Spa in Portofino. A win-win for us all
... (incidentally Universal was extremely quiet - our on-site stay Express passes were almost worthless apart from the ziz-zag walking they saved us... early park opening got us walk-on twice for the HP ride, then DD and I walked on as single riders twice more around noon, and I barely waited a minute for her to catch me up).
We had done the Pirate and Princess Party as a twosome on the last night of our nine day stay almost six years ago, so I had a fair idea of what it would be like, and DD and I are seasoned park troopers, Dorney, Hershey, Busch Gardens, several Six Flags parks and now Universal under our belts, as well as Chessington and
Legoland on the other side of the pond... our mission for the evening was unique rides and soak up the holiday atmosphere.
Got to the MK parking lot gates around 4:30pm and got waved through without having to pay!!
walked straight on to a ferry, where my daughter was surprised to hear someone call her name: turned out to be a couple who had sat a couple of rows behind us on the autotrain a couple of nights previously. Getting off the ferry was kind of crowded, but it thinned out a little and we were able to walk straight past the short line for bag check since we did have any...
on showing our print at home tickets, a cast member with an iPad was summoned: he appeared instantly, scanned our tickets and handed us off to a wristband fitter, so we were in and ready to go at about 5pm
On our last visit to WDW DD was 5, just too small for Space Mountain, and when questioned, recalls very little detail of it... but on arrival, given some visual stimuli she suddenly starts to recall a whole lot more... we did head straight to Space Mountain first, but decided that we would do much better than a 30 minute wait later in the evening, so did the TTA PM first to get a sneak peek, walked up past the speedway and got all disoriented by the new castle at the back
(I'd done almost no research for this, and hadn't even picked up a map yet
)
We walked through Fantasyland, feigned despair on discovering IASW was down for maintenance, rejected the 30 minute wait time for Peter Pan and instead waited 10 minutes for HM as our first ride.... line was moving at just the right speed to allow you to enjoy all the line amusements but not having to wait... DD's total recall kicked in as the room started stretching and she was able to anticipate much of the ride... it was still before 6pm and so we assumed splash and Big Thunder would still have lines so doubled back, saw that Philharmagic was about to begin, ("I remember this... doesn't Donald get stuck in the wall?, did the instant walk-in to Cinderella and Aurora at fairytale Hall, moved on to Winnie the Pooh... saw the new rollercoaster being tested and then unfortunately wandered down the way to the dead-end at Ariel's Grotto
Headed back down towards Tomorrowland passed up the 20 minute wait for Speedway , then noticed that Space Mountain was down to 10 minutes so did it... saw a poor little boy in tears being dragged away by his Dad... he was an inch too short... but this struck up a conversation between my daughter and the couple just behind us, and amazingly they turned out to be best friends with a teacher at my daughter's school... quite surprising considering we live in a fairly small suburb of Philly... and when we got to the front of the line the lady in front of us heard us mention the name of the township, and absolutely incredibly it turns out that she lives there too, and her father used to teach at the school as well.
The ride itself was my daughter's favorite, so we did it a couple more times almost walking straight on each time. Then crossed over to Buzz Lightyear, and noticed just in front of us that some people without wristbands were being turned away. It was 7:01pm.
Monsters Inc. next... we'd watched the movies just recently on PPV so DD was keen to do this... then first planning mistake, found ourselves the wrong side of the parade route... using the little walkway down by the lake and the down main street a little we were able to cross as it hadn't actually started... so then Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Splash and BTMRR all walk straight on.... second planning failure had us watching the fireworks from between the Mountains... we've almost always watched Wishes from the hub, so it was quite a revelation to see just how far behind the castle many of them are launched... it certainly wasn't as spectacular from the side, but very pretty nonetheless. A second ride on BTMRR afterwards had a slightly longer wait as we couldn't run as fast as others who had headed straight to the line at the end of the fireworks.
Peter Pan wait was down to 15 minutes at that point so we did it. It had been closed for refurb on our last trip, yet DD was claimed familiarity with it from our previous visit when she was just three. My memory isn't what it used to be, but it all seemed remarkably similar to last time, so I'm guessing it was purely an equipment refurb rather than anything actually new about the ride...
Quick sit down with some cookies and cocoa at Colubia Harbour House and all too soon it was time to find a spot for the second parade... DD squeezed in at the corner outside Sleepy Hollow, I was tall enough to see from the back, although my third and final planning failure I didn't know which way the parade would be going and I was tucked very close to a closed vending stand which obscured the view of oncoming floats... not enough to spoil the fun though.
Followed the end of the parade to the hub, then shot off to do Space Mountain a couple more times (walked straight on the first time, short wait second time, around 11:15pm, when they had apparently closed down the right hand side so everyone was riding the left one
More Cookies and Cocoa at Cosmic Rays then we headed for the exit, stopping to get a new baby Simba to replace DD's rather worn out bedtime companion purchased six years ago on our last visit.
About 11:45pm we were able to walk straight up the ramp to the express monorail, on the first train, just saw a parking tram leave as we were coming down the ramp at the TC, but another arrived in a matter of minutes and we were on our way home.
Fabulous evening, well worth the money... signs at the Chamber of Commerce on the way out did indicate that is was sold out... but we were able to ride everything we wanted to twice, without waiting in any long lines, without rushing ourselves, and apart from the one time having to cross the parade route, and for a short while following the second parade, we were never in any crowd that even approached uncomfortable.
Wish I lived closer
