The Bear and the Bow: Christmas with the Mouses - Update 9/11

[marDgreen88]

I just can't believe that in the most popular section of the park that the seats would be too small/awkward for some people. Seems like poor planning!

On the other hand, Seuss Landing looks adorable!

 

[Merida]

Whoops, thought I’d get this up this morning, but better late than never right (actually, I rarely hold to this philosophy and hate being late. I’m punctual to a fault)?

Anyway, we had just gotten off Spider-man (aka one of the best rides in the park) and didn’t really know what to do. We hit the bathroom quickly and then just kept walking. There really isn’t much to ‘discover’ in Islands of Adventure; there’s one main path that winds through the park and not many things that truly ‘branch’ off.

Toon Lagoon​

Toon Lagoon was a quick pass-through for us; we don’t get the newspaper and thus don’t read many comics. And while I’m at least familiar with everyone in Toon Lagoon, none of them are sentimental favorites. Unless they decided to amp up the Rocky and Bullwinkle concentration by, like, a thousand, that is.

Toon Lagoon Deco​

But still, somehow I managed to miss Dudley Do-Right growing up (being content with Jem, Captain Planet, Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, and Batman).

Toon Lagoon - Ripsaw Falls​

Mr. T tossed around the idea of going on Ripshaw Falls, but it was a cool, ‘tut tut, looks like rain’ sort of day and Bear and I hate getting wet on rides. He decided against riding by himself (possibly the seats? I’m not sure) and, as we neared the Jurassic Park entrance, had an excellent idea.

Jurassic Park Lamp​

He steered us towards the big drop from Jurassic Park: the ride (they need better name differentials here) to try and convince Bear he wouldn’t get wet at all. We in Chez Bear and Bow greatly enjoy dinosaurs in all shapes and forms and it didn’t take much to nudge Bear towards the queue. Unfortunately the line for the lockers was immense – and I was pretty sure Mr. T wanted to do something by himself with Bear – so I headed into the dump shop while the two boys ran into line, barely beating out the bag line groups.

Jurassic Park Tree​

They only had about a ten minute wait + ride but the gift shops in Islands of Adventure are boring. I know that there’s lots of diversity in the merchandise, but they’re still boring. The trees were distractingly fake-looking (not that Disney puts real pines everywhere, but these were bad quality trees) with just normal ornaments.

Jurassic Park Gift Shop​

I didn’t particularly care for any of the merchandise either, but my parents never encouraged souvenir shopping on our vacations so it may just be me.

Jurassic Park: The Ride​

I wandered outside to the ‘dock‘ and watched the boats come in; I did spend about five minutes trying to figure out the dryer that is placed there. For some reason, I missed the directions and was positive it was some sort of piece of theming. It’s not, for those who are wondering, and it costs like $5 for a really quick dry.

T-Rex​

Eventually – after about a year of waiting – Bear and Mr. T came back and I dragged them over to the educational section of Jurassic Park. There’s an impressive amount of stuff down in there, including a simulation ‘dig’ and a ‘machine’ to splice your DNA with a dinosaur’s. It was fun and indoors and not very crowded – all add up to a winner.

Jurassic Park​

After finishing there was another entry in the endless series of ‘What do you want to do next?’ Seriously – that was how boring our day went after leaving Seuss Landing. I’m not sure if it was the weather or trying to figure out the dynamics of the three of us or whatever else, but this part of the trip didn’t really gel for Bear and I. Since we were close to Harry Potter, and had nothing better to do but unwilling to call it quits at 3PM, we headed back for butterbeer.

Signpost​

Thank goodness for the butterbeer carts – our day would’ve been a good hour, hour and a half shorter if they hadn’t been there. Mr. T asked if we wanted to go on Forbidden Journey again – no – and if not, would we mind stopping in Ollivander’s?

Hogsmeade​

The line wasn’t too bad and we duly shuffled in. It seemed as though quite a few people weren’t sure why they were in line (Bear included) and Mr. T and I gave a quick overview of the experience. We did get a very nice glimpse of Ollivander as he ducked out in between sets.

And then we finally got in Ollivander’s. And then – despite having two cameras, two iPhones, and Mr. T’s camera phone in their possession – neither Bear nor Mr. T decided to photograph what happened next.

I was chosen to find a wand!

It was actually kind of weird, because Mr. Ollivander’s spiel is lifted pretty much directly from the book and I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to do things improv-style or supposed to do what was in the book as well. (Mr. T later informed me that I was not as entertaining as I could’ve been. It definitely would’ve been helpful to see the show before I did it). But we got through it and a 15.25”, yew (yessss), phoenix feather (yesssss again), rather bendy wand chose me. I didn’t end up buying it because this thing was the Big Baby Vinylmation of wands, through no fault of its own. Perhaps fewer skeletons at the bottom and more phoenixes? I do wonder who designed the wands and why they put skulls or skeletons on all of them (no lie).

We browsed through the connecting (jampacked) gift shops for awhile, discussing wands and Ollivander’s (we figured that I was chosen because I had waved at Mr. Ollivander while in line, in case anyone was wondering. I think he scopes out the line in between groups).

It was still an excellent way to end the day and definitely improved our (okay, mine. Bear still insists that he didn’t take any pictures because he was too focused on me being famous. I think he likes the park better now too, if only because he likes when other people think I’m special).

Seuss Landing Tree​

We browsed our way out of the park, being much more inclined to find small pretty details. Our primary focus was Seuss Landing since we had covered the Lost Continent pretty well earlier in the day – Seuss Landing was also, coincidentally, much closer to the exit.

Seuss Landing - Lorax trees​

The Whovians were out in full force, having all apparently come from Who-Mart and were now ready to meet new people. I seriously think almost the entire character budget are spent on these guys; they’re certainly of a much higher quality than the superheroes.

Croissant Moon Bakery​

I really wanted to stop in the Bakery when we got back to the Port of Entry but Mr. T wanted to stop at the restroom again and, well, I didn’t want to spend any money when we had Deluxe Dining and Disney Rewards dollars waiting for us at Port Orleans.

We only got lost once getting back to the car (this would soon become our record for quickest return to car) and exited (after about 30 minutes of driving) the massive parking garage.

We were going back to Disney!

 

[Merida]

I just can't believe that in the most popular section of the park that the seats would be too small/awkward for some people. Seems like poor planning!

On the other hand, Seuss Landing looks adorable!

Yeah, there's really not much space in Islands of Adventure in general (except Toon Lagoon, we found). They're expanding Harry Potter into Universal which should help with some of the crowds, I think. They did the best they could with their space (ironically, having Walt Disney's problem with Disneyland! )

It is! I love Seuss Landing, it's so cute and done very well. It's definitely faded a bit from what I remember but it still works. I wish Disney had done something similar for the Muppets (I know there was stuff planned that never got realized).

 

[Merida]

We parked behind Magnolia Terrace in what would soon become our special parking space and tried to figure out where our room was, exactly. Past a quiet pool, up a flight of stairs, around a corner and – [i[abracadabra[/i] – our room! Bear and I were reenergized by finally being in our vacation spot (this trip had actually been delayed six months so we were more than ready for vacation) and didn’t want to hang around in the room

Riverside Refurbed Room​

I convinced Bear to come with me to pick up our refillable mugs; I was really really excited for the possibility of citrus white tea whenever I wanted and as much as I wanted. Mr. T turned down the offer – he was more tired and sore than Bear and I and had no reason to see how far our room was from the Mill.

We had never checked out the room view or anything, so to our great surprise, if you walked the away from the parking lot side, there was the Sassagoula River. We technically had a river view room (plus lots of trees) that had pretty much direct access to the bridge to the main pool and Riverside Mill. Our check-in cast member, Darrell, was pretty much the most awesome person in the entire world and, as we crossed the bridge, literally started singing his praises.

Inside the Mill, we wandered around a bit before finding mugs and drinks and getting everything settled. Bear, having finished before me, checked out some of the DVC pamphlets on the omnipresent DVC stand in the lobby. There still wasn’t someone manning it (he also looked when I was checking in, which lead to the Abbot and Castello routine of Bear asking a question, me answering it, and then Mr. T, in all his infinite Florida Resident wisdom, promptly repeating my answer with slightly different wording. To be fair, I do tend to hedge my answers as to not sound like a know-it-all (adding in lots of ‘I think’ or ‘If I remember correctly’) but not-so-deep-down I really am a know-it-all and do not need other people to validate my answers). So remembering this morning, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to our room yet and suggested heading down for beignets.

This hadn’t exactly been the plan originally and I hadn’t bothered to bring my camera to the Mill with us. But Bear agreed with me about needing a break (and beignets) so our walk to French Quarter went unphotographed. This turned out to be a good thing because that walk was probably a highlight of our trip. Maybe just because it was so nice to be by ourselves after Islands or because the weather and sunset were so lovely, whatever it was, we really fell in love with Port Orleans during that walk.

French Quarter was nice, in a different way from Riverside. Funnily enough, we explored French Quarter more than Riverside during the trip due to our frequent beignet excursions. I don’t think there’s one we necessarily like better than the other, with the exception of Alligator Bayou. Just not our style. And French Quarter’s food court has those scary statues/deco (not even sure what to call them) hanging up, but the cobbled streets more than make up for that!

We picked up two orders of beignets, figuring Mr. T would want some, and power walked back to Riverside. Beignets, Bear assured me, were not as good cold. We had each tried one in the food court (delicious) and did not want the others to go to waste.

In the room, Mr. T was on the phone (like always) and we hustled him through finishing the call, eating his beignets (I helped by eating one of them) and getting ready for dinner at Downtown Disney. We were meeting one of Mr. T’s friends at Earl of Sandwich for dinner and I wanted some time to look through the shops beforehand.

Boatwright's​

Camera bag repacked, we headed down to wait for the boats. These boats are the best idea ever and I’m now hardpressed to choose a resort to stay at that isn’t on the river.

Riverside Mansions​

The views, the nice captains, the relaxing rides, the excellent music (which changes according to where you are, which I found adorable. Bluegrass for Riverside, jazz for French Quarter, and then more “traditional” once we headed towards Saratoga Springs) were all wonderful, especially when you consider the nightmare stories about DTD buses.

Downtown Disney Carousel​

I had never been to Downtown Disney before and wasn’t exactly sure what was there. I was dragged past an art store, a Christmas store, and a kitchen store because the boys didn’t feel like ‘shopping’ – they were too hungry. Given that I had suggested Earl of Sandwich, they sat down on a curb with menus to decide while I watched the carousel.

Carousel Horses​

I was fairly confident we would end up going to Earl of Sandwich anyway, so I tuned out the discussion. I love carousels; we still have a few originals near my hometown. Bear doesn’t appreciate them the same way so I rarely have a chance to ride one.

Carousel Horses​

I still didn’t ride one that night; I wasn’t sure if you had to pay to ride or anything and the boys’ discussion was winding down. Bear wanted to go to the Lego store and I wanted to go to World of Disney and our time was running short.

Carousel Horses​

So I said goodbye to the ponies (the carousel was starting up again anyway) and followed Bear and Mr. T. They had decided on Earl of Sandwich (like I had figured) and were eager to see the Lego statues.

Lego Dwarf​

The Lego store and surrounding area were packed. There was a dance party thing going on nearby and people on stilts and all sorts of exciting things going on, so I’m not sure if that’s normal?

Bluebird​

Or is it always really difficult to take pictures of the statues? With other people using flashes and walking in front of me and the poor lighting in the area, I spent more time admiring them than photographing.

Lego Dwarf​

My favorite was the Maleficient dragon followed by the Toy Story rocket. But the Toy Story rocket was obviously held up with poles/other means (based on the center of mass) so I think the dragon fight was more skillfully done.

Lego Heads​

Bear headed off to go search for a keychain the moment we stepped in the store, taking Mr. T with him while I went around more slowly.

Lego​

It took forever to realize that these are set up as Lego bricks. I’m not very proud of that but I do like them! I miss having all my old Lego sets around; my parents weren’t into the model type of Lego so I had mostly free range Lego.

Lego Store​

I was glad that they didn’t have those silly “girl Legos” that just came out. The ones with the different people shape? The only purpose of Lego people is to have them all be the same so you can make up wacky outfit and body combinations. Also “regular” Lego are plenty girly enough without changing around the sets and everything.

Lego Gringotts​

I do have to say that Lego Harry Potter was better set up than Wizarding World of Harry Potter – how awesome is the Lego goblin?

After admiring the sets (Bear was particularly enamored with the spaceships; I liked the trains), we headed out.

Pumpkin Carriage​

World of Disney is close by, so we headed in. I secretly wanted to get Bear interested in Vinylmations

Stitch​

Instead we got stuck in the stuffed animal section.

Mickey​

Which is not always the worst place to be stuck in.

Technicolor Mickey​

Everything is soft and squishy, though I tend to stay away from Toy Story toys. I can’t bring myself to buy anything from Andy’s gang because, well, they’ve been abandoned already – especially Jessie. Like, she had a song about it. I couldn’t in good conscience buy a Jessie and then – as is inevitable – misplace or get rid of her.

Figment Pin​

I asked Bear if he wanted to do pin trading (Figment!), but that was a no. Honestly I didn’t really want to do pin trading, I’m not good at interacting with people. I dragged him over to show him Vinyls but he wasn’t quite convinced of the process. The women who were in charge of the trading box were busy helping another customer so I didn’t have a chance to put the best Vinylmation foot forward for Bear – yet.

Ornament​

We found Mr. T and quickly ran through the Christmas section, trying to find T-shirts. I wanted to show Bear the Up-themed castle shirt as a hint that this was a souvenir I wanted.

Ornament​

The shirt was too big for me but I loved this ornament. Mr. T’s friend – Sara? Maybe? We’ll go with that – called him, saying that she was just going to park and then meet us at Earl.

Earl of Sandwich​

We waited outside of Earl of Sandwich for a few minutes until Sara arrived. Honestly, she was a very nice person but she was insistent on giving Bear and I Disney advice. And it was stuff like ‘Go to Toy Story Mania first!!’ Which I don’t really need.

Bear and I finished up our sandwiches quickly – I had the meatball one, which was excellent! It was just crowded in there – and said our goodbyes to Mr. T and Sara. It was probably close to 9PM at that point and we had had a busy day. It also seemed more polite to let Mr. T and his friend have some time by themselves.

Just in case Mr. T came back late, we made tentative plans of getting up between 6:15 and 6:30 the next morning for our Grand Floridian Café reservation. Mr. T assured me that this would be plenty of time for him, so don’t worry!

Mickey Head​

One boat ride, a quick trip to refill our mugs, and a shower (for me) later, Bear and I were tucked in bed, enjoying a Phineas and Ferb marathon. I honestly don’t know what time Mr. T got in that night; within an episode, I was asleep.

 

[Nermel9]

I'm sorry I missed so many updates, I'm so far behind!

IOA looks, well...not really like my type of thing! We always say we're going to go and then we don't, and I think there's a reason for that! I don't care about Spider Man, I know nothing about Harry Potter, and comic strips? Does anyone read those anymore? I do think the Seuss section is cute, and the Jurassic Park ride looks fun, but anything else seems like it would annoy me quickly! That's awesome that you were chosen to get a wand though, even I know what a big deal that is, knowing nothing about HP!

I love the new rooms at POR, it's about time they changed them! I loved the boat ride from POR to DTD, it sounds like it's really nice at night! We only used the boat once and it was during the day.

I love all of your DTD pictures! I haven't been in the Lego store in a while, but the displays look really cute! I love World of Disney, I could spend hours in there!

Isn't EoS the best place ever? There are so many places I want to eat at DTD, but I can't bring myself to not eat at EoS! Ugh, I can't stand Disney advice from random people...DIS'ers, yes, but random people no. There are times when people at work find out I'm going to Disney and they'll tell me things to do and I can't deal with it, I just have to smile and nod and try to escape!

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

I STILL have not been to EOS! Maybe someday...

I love all of the structures and colors around the Lego store. It's so fun there! I think the new Toy Story Buzz and Woody structure is so cute!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm here! Going back to catch up!

 

[archdandy]

It looks like I missed quite a bit while I was in disney! It's always hard to be somewhere on vacation and be with other people. DH and I have thought about going with his brother and his wife to disney before but we don't always get along on non-stressful theme park days so it probably isn't a good idea! I hope you got the chance to go back downtown because there is so much there to see!

 

[Merida]

I'm sorry I missed so many updates, I'm so far behind!

IOA looks, well...not really like my type of thing! We always say we're going to go and then we don't, and I think there's a reason for that! I don't care about Spider Man, I know nothing about Harry Potter, and comic strips? Does anyone read those anymore? I do think the Seuss section is cute, and the Jurassic Park ride looks fun, but anything else seems like it would annoy me quickly! That's awesome that you were chosen to get a wand though, even I know what a big deal that is, knowing nothing about HP!

I love the new rooms at POR, it's about time they changed them! I loved the boat ride from POR to DTD, it sounds like it's really nice at night! We only used the boat once and it was during the day.

I love all of your DTD pictures! I haven't been in the Lego store in a while, but the displays look really cute! I love World of Disney, I could spend hours in there!

Isn't EoS the best place ever? There are so many places I want to eat at DTD, but I can't bring myself to not eat at EoS! Ugh, I can't stand Disney advice from random people...DIS'ers, yes, but random people no. There are times when people at work find out I'm going to Disney and they'll tell me things to do and I can't deal with it, I just have to smile and nod and try to escape!

It's okay! I've been bouncing around other trip report, I'm super behind on some and have read others like twenty times! It's weird how some times certain writing/photo styles are more interesting (or type of trip! I read like all the recent Disneyland Paris trip reports this past weekend).

Probably the one failure of Islands of Adventure was that it couldn't get me to care about anything in the park! Like, I'm not normally all about the Wild West and mining towns in real life, but I still really like Big Thunder Mountain. There's just something missing from IoA that keeps it from being a vacation destination for us.

Yes, Port Orleans is so nice and peaceful. They're even making Alligator Bayou much more palatable! It's a Disney miracle! I do wish Disney would update the website with new room pictures, I had to go searching the Internet to figure out that places like Yacht/Beach Club aren't entirely outdated with ugly bedspreads.

I liked Earl of Sandwich pretty well, but it wasn't my favorite sandwich ever. Maybe if it hadn't been so crowded (and I had picked a better sandwich! The Cannonballs was good but not what I was feeling that day). I do really want to go back but there's just so many good places in Downtown Disney! I definitely liked it a lot more than I thought I would and I'm pretty sure I will always get lost in World of Disney. There's just so many different kinds of stores to look in; I actually can't imagine what Disney was like in the souvenir heyday. To me, a souvenir novice, there's WAY more choice/variety than I could ever deal with and I can't believe there used to be more.

I STILL have not been to EOS! Maybe someday...

I love all of the structures and colors around the Lego store. It's so fun there! I think the new Toy Story Buzz and Woody structure is so cute!

Earl was nice, but really crowded and I have had better sandwiches (I mean, the bread was good but not, like, amazing. I was pretty tired so it's not an objective review though!)

I know! I really wanted to play at the little tables outside but they were always swarmed with kids. Plus I wasn't really certain of the hygiene there... I wish they would add some labels to the statues; I can't remember which dwarf is which one was which!

I'm here! Going back to catch up!

Yay! There's really not very much yet (esp. Disney) because, well, I'm slow and easily distracted by things like wedding photography (why are they all so pretty?!).

It looks like I missed quite a bit while I was in disney! It's always hard to be somewhere on vacation and be with other people. DH and I have thought about going with his brother and his wife to disney before but we don't always get along on non-stressful theme park days so it probably isn't a good idea! I hope you got the chance to go back downtown because there is so much there to see!

Haha, not really! School and our impossible foster kittens have really slowed down my efforts of going through pictures and such. Yeah, after talking with my boyfriend we've agreed that other people can come with us but a) they don't interrupt our morning routine/mornings in the parks b) OWN ROOMS and c) we don't spend all day with them.

We did go back to DTD a little on our last day, but just to grab some last minute souvenirs (my castle blanket!) and ended up getting lost after parking by the movie theater. So we definitely got to see more accidentally!

 

[Merida]

Okay, I've fallen really far behind in the past week! School started and since both Bear and I are entering the last stretch of our masters' program, we've had a lot of talking to do about future plans and sort of mapping out the next few years (vacations included ). It took us a lot longer than we had thought because, well, we're scientists and will research everything! I've got the next batch of pictures edited and uploaded and will try and get the next post up tomorrow/before the weekend.

 

[ZehnJahren]

Really enjoying the pictures along with the story so far. You've got a lot of great pics but my favorite is probably all those lego guy heads. Looks like a tiny toy massacre.

 

[Merida]

I did mean to get this up earlier but last night was the (election year, no less!!) State of the Union. It’s like the Super Bowl and the Oscars all in one! For me, amateur political nerd and West Wing aficionado , at least. And Elizabeth Warren and Maurice Sendak were on the Daily Show/Colbert Report as a perfect follow up. Tomorrow I'll start editing my poor neglected table of contents and subscribed threads folder! Thursday is, by all intents and purposes, Friday anyway. Perfect time for some trip report reading.

But back to December:

I had set up a wake up call, hoping I’d finally get to hear Stitch. Mr. T had assured me that getting up at 6:30 for our 7:30 reservation (ed. note: on further reflection, the reservation has to have been for between 7 and 7:15AM based on the when I got to the Magic Kingdom. I don't know why I keep thinking it was 7:30. Any time before, like, 9AM is roughly the same time anyway.) at the Grand Floridian would be just fine.

It turned out he was partly right; I jumped out of bed around 6 and, moving slowly to not wake anyone up, was finished pre-6:30. Bear woke up shortly after and stumbled around, gathering things up to take a shower. By the time he was finished, Mr. T was still not awake and ready. The Grand Floridian Café is a tradition for Bear and I and I had moved this reservation because of Mr. T and now I was going to miss it.

I was thoroughly grumpy by the time I had hustled everyone out to the car. Bear fussed with the GPS, trying to find the quickest route. Mr. T was definitely not helping, chatting away in the back seat as my anxiety level was quickly ramping up. Bear knew this, of course – we had talked about changing around reservations again because of this exact scenario, and managed to drop me off at the Grand Floridian before driving off with Mr. T to park. I managed to get lost in the lobby – there’s a reason Grand Floridian isn’t my favorite resort – before checking in ten minutes late to Grand Floridian Café.

I had a few minutes to wander around the lobby – keeping the correct exit in the corner of eye the whole time. Bear and Mr. T weren’t very far behind me, though I’m pretty sure this is mostly Bear’s doing.

GFlo Lobby​

Or possibly the fact that I was starting to call every thirty seconds practically, trying to give him completely unnecessary and overly complicated directions. However, despite my best effort to the contrary, we all made it back to the restaurant.

Like pretty much always, the GFC was pretty empty. Just us, some older gentlemen, and a young family (the little girl had killer sparkly striped shoes). I’m assuming that everyone else was staying was at the Grand Floridian because they would meander in and out, coming back with extra things at random.

Still, one French toast and two citrus pancake orders later, I was starting to get jumpy again. Mr. T was such aslow eater and I was missing valuable park time on my own and with Bear later in the day, since Bear still had to drop Mr. T off at the airport.

Gingerbread House​

But I managed to contain myself until we came to more organic end to the meal and then again while Mr. T had to check out the restrooms. The lobby was slowly becoming more crowded.

Swan Ornament​

I’m not sure if it was for the monorail or the Grand Floridian Café, as neither were very full yet still.

GFlo Christmas Tree​

In fact, most of them seemed to just want to stand around the lobby and walk into all of my pictures. But we were finally corralled into one area in the lobby, right next to the main tree. While I may not be able to find a restaurant, I am always able to point the way to the nearest monorail station. It’s a gift.

The Monorail​

I also tend to have good monorail timing as one was just pulling up as I dragged Bear and Mr. T outside. It may have been the ugliest monorail possible – brown – but it was there. And there were empty cars! Yay!

Lagoon


GFlo
​

Does anyone know what that boat is? Is it one of those Speed Racer (Mice? Drats, I forget the name) that you can rent? Or is it just possible to yacht up to the Grand Floridian?

Based on some reports, I half-expected the monorail to fall off the beam on our trip to the Magic Kingdom. But it didn’t! We all survived with no delays and a super quick trip in to the station.

Monorail Station​

And it was only 8:30. Thirty minutes after rope drop, but still earlier than we had planned with our original Crystal Palace reservations. Bear and Mr. T were making plans to ride the monorail after dropping me off but I wasn’t really paying attention.

Why should I? I was maybe thirty seconds – more probably since there was a little girl in front of me – from one of my most favorite places. In the early morning! All by myself!

MK Entrance​

The weather wasn’t the best, still overcast, but it didn’t seem like a rain-y cloud cover (technical description) and it was a good temperature. Bear pulled me back to direct me into the bag check line.

MK Entrance​

“No rides until I get back, remember?”

“No problem!”

Famous last words.

Clock Tower​

I’m sure we broke a million rules, but Bear entered the park with me, thus activating his ticket before he left. I had a half-formed plan of running around the Magic Kingdom for about an hour – maybe 90 minutes – grabbing fastpasses and taking pictures while waiting for Bear to get back.

Clock Tower​

It would be no problem to wait to ride something until Bear came back. The not-quite-as-wonderful breakfast had already melted away as I walked through the turnstiles.

“Hey, we’re leaving…” Bear tapped me on the arm. “You want my ticket, right?”

“Oh yeah, love you too, bye.”

And finally – finally! – I had some time to myself. Bear and Mr. T went off monorail joyriding.

My vacation was starting.

 

[Merida]

Really enjoying the pictures along with the story so far. You've got a lot of great pics but my favorite is probably all those lego guy heads. Looks like a tiny toy massacre.

Ah, I love those heads! Apparently so does every small child in the vicinity of the LEGO store as I stood there, rather naively, waiting my turn for a good 5+ minutes. When I was younger, LEGO people were always my favorite toy people to play with because - unlike with Barbies, American Girl dolls, etc., etc. - I could enact crime scenes (or dastardly heists) with ease. There were a LOT of serial decapitators in my LEGO towns (what no I did not read too many mystery novels as a kid).

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Ugh, how frustrating that you were afraid you were going to miss your breakfast! I've never seen the GFC packed that early though, I'm sure it wouldn't have been a problem if you were a few minutes late! How fun that you had some MK time to yourself!

 

[marDgreen88]

Being late is one of the worst feelings, isn't it? Very frustrating. Glad everything worked out though! Okay, so was the date the 16th? I was at Epcot that morning and yeah, it was definitely overcast. Anyway, YAY for the Magic Kingdom! Ahh so beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing what you did with your alone time.

 

[Merida]

Ugh, how frustrating that you were afraid you were going to miss your breakfast! I've never seen the GFC packed that early though, I'm sure it wouldn't have been a problem if you were a few minutes late! How fun that you had some MK time to yourself!

It totally wasn't a problem, it was more the fact that I had been assured that we didn't need to follow my timetable and we would be okay getting up thirty minutes later! And then we were - surprise, surprise late. I'm just a very punctual person and Mr. T is much more flexible with time and other people's routines, so we tend to clash on these things. If we would've had a longer combined vacation, I would've brought it up but it wasn't really worth it so I just had to be grumpy privately and nice publicly and then complain to Bear afterwards! And because that took waaaay too much effort for a vacation, the guys just got loads of private time to catch up while I went on and did my own thing and everyone won! Yay!

Being late is one of the worst feelings, isn't it? Very frustrating. Glad everything worked out though! Okay, so was the date the 16th? I was at Epcot that morning and yeah, it was definitely overcast. Anyway, YAY for the Magic Kingdom! Ahh so beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing what you did with your alone time.

I know! It was partly my fault because I had gone over the schedule a lot with Bear and we both had agreed on important things (i.e., the Grand Floridian breakfast) but I don't think we ever made that very clear to Mr. T. In our defense, this was our first time traveling with someone so now we know for next time.

I think that was the 16th! I like overcast mornings because they're usually a nice temperature. Bad for pictures but at least I was able to wear all the layers I wanted to bring in for the Christmas party! And Magic Kingdom is always pretty so it doesn't really matter (though Bear keeps asking me why the sky is so grey in my pictures; apparently he didn't look up until he came back from the airport! )

 

[Merida]

Okay, this is kind of short because I really need to go through more pictures. Kittens and research and housework never seem to be very conducive to a picture-editing mood though!


I was finally by myself and I had a plan – hit up as many Fastpass machines for when Bear got back to Magic Kingdom. I had a camera, our tickets, and only slightly behind schedule. What could stop me?

Magic Kingdom Tree​

Apparently the mass of people that were all stopped right in front of the train station.

Who knew that Pooh and Tigger were that magnetic, drawing everyone into their little hub in front of the tree. We had waffled on what week we were going to come down to Disney; I had pulled for this one (which was, honestly, the earliest we could come) due to “low crowds.” Had I been wrong?

Main Street -> Castle


Main Street Arcade​

Honestly the trip down Main Street to the main ‘hub’ of Magic Kingdom was not my best moment of the trip. Everything wasn’t quite how I had imagined it would be – and all during our awkward breakfast I had been imagining the most awesome, crowd-free, super fantastic photo opportunity morning possible.

Cinderella's Castle​

That.. was not quite the case.

Cinderella's Castle​

Even ‘in the moment’ (and especially now, comparing that day to others), that morning’s crowds were not that bad at all. People were just bottlenecked on Main Street. Yes, there were no empty street pictures for the Castle. And people kept walking in front of me. But I would take so many Castle pictures later on that day (and our other MK evening) that the dismal first morning didn’t even matter.

But I was still slightly panicky – I had flippantly promised Bear mounds of Fastpasses by the time he got back and what if I didn’t have them?? He probably hadn’t taken me seriously but my poor old social anxiety/Asperger’s riddled brain wasn’t thinking very clearly with all the crowds.

Magic Kingdom Bridge​

So my previous early morning Magic Kingdom went out the window and I snapped some pictures nervously while trying to come up with a new plan.

Except I tend to come up with awful new plans that are based entirely on my instincts – instincts that are not always grounded in real life.

So on this prime Magic Kingdom early morning, I headed past Crystal Palace (wishing I was in there eating puffed French toast instead of having to deal with the burden of collecting prime Fastpasses)

Adventureland​

Adventureland!

Primarily because no one else was going in there (obviously no one was willing to enter into a battle royale with me for the crème de la crème of Magic Kingdom prizes: Jungle Cruise Fastpasses).

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

I hope that you were able to score some FP's!! It seems like there just isn't a time anymore with low crowds! We were surprised at how busy the parks were during our trip too!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Ugh, everyone always seems to get bottlenecked on Main Street. I think people are just so distracted by the castle that they don't know what to do.

I hope you're able to succeed in getting some primo fastpasses.

 

[Merida]

I hope that you were able to score some FP's!! It seems like there just isn't a time anymore with low crowds! We were surprised at how busy the parks were during our trip too!

I mean, the crowds were technically low, especially compared to around Christmas. And once I got used to them, they weren't a problem, but I think people have selective memories of these things? Like, I clearly remember being all by myself in Adventureland and looking through some pictures, there was a decent crowd in front of me! I have no idea where they went after that sign, though. I know people complain about pricing but I honestly wouldn't mind paying more if there were fewer people in the parks (I am clearly not one of those generous souls who want all children to experience Disney World many times. I would actually prefer them to be far away from me, especially in the "off season"! ).

We actually came home with FPs. Once I get worried about something, I go into overdrive fixing things.

Ugh, everyone always seems to get bottlenecked on Main Street. I think people are just so distracted by the castle that they don't know what to do.

I hope you're able to succeed in getting some primo fastpasses.

But it wasn't the castle as much as Winnie the Pooh? Like, Winnie the Pooh is everywhere, we can all keep moving people!! I understand why Main Street is set up the way it is (big castle reveal and all) but sometimes it's very frustrating when you're trying to get into the actual park as quickly as possible.

I did pretty good today, but nothing can really beat our AK day with our ultimate FP mission. (I don't even know what this supposed to be an emoticon of, but there's no sly ones... so.. I've just started to use random ones).