Day 3, Part 1 - Magic Kingdom
Well folks, after a long day and late night at DTD, morning came a little too soon!
Today was our day to meet up with relatives at MK! Joining us today would be my mom's cousin, his wife, and their three year old daughter.
They live in the Orlando area, but don't have a car, so they were going to be taking the bus to the park.
My grandmother realized at this point that she'd be better off with a
scooter instead of trying to do another day of walking. Plus, my mom's cousin has a very bad ankle to do an old injury, so we wanted to get to MK early not only do take advantage of EMH, but to get two scooters rented before they were all gone.
We actually did really well and got to MK at 7:15am. We were REALLY close to the front for rope drop:
After they dropped the rope, Brian ran ahead a bit to get a picture of Main Street with hardly any people on it:
We had enough time to run over to Space Mountain and ride it with hardly any wait. My grandmother also sat this one out (along with my dad.) My mom decided she would brave it, though!
After that, we checked out the Monsters Inc. Comedy thingy. It was very cute. I like how the animation on the screen was able to interact with the audience.
By this time, we had to start heading back to the park entrance to look for our relatives.
In that relatively short amount of time, this is how the crowds looked on Main Street:
After much confusion, we finally found our relatives and began a very crazy day. Their daughter was very cranky (as three year olds can get.) But every time someone tried to talk to her, she would try to hit them. Made for a fun morning.
We headed to Fantasy Land, which surprisingly was not very busy. Alisha (the 3 year old) got to ride Dumbo, then several of us went on Winnie the Pooh, then the Carousel, then Snow White. Then It's a Small World. (oh yes, we did it....) Followed by Peter Pan. I did all of the rides except for Dumbo, but Brian and my dad were feeling a little antsy in Fantasy Land, so they headed out to look around and take pictures. Here's a few fun random MK shots:
When we met up with Brian and my dad, they told us that the line for Haunted Mansion was almost non-existent. This is one of my fave rides at MK. We decided to head over. Brian, my parents, my mom's cousin and I all got in line. (The other two stayed behind with Alisha.)
Now I had already announced that I was going ride this one with Daddy. Why? Well, on our very first trip in '84, I rode this ride for the first time with Daddy. My little 8 year old self was SO SCARED by the hitchhiking ghost at the end of the ride, that I left nail marks in my dad's arm from grabbing onto him so hard.

So I wanted to ride with him for old time's sake.
After that, it was just across to Columbia Harbour House, where we had a lovely short wait and got a great quiet table upstairs. (Thanks Disboards!)
This is when we had to plan the rest of our day, since the relatives actually had to be back at their bus by 6pm. (And I had made ADR's for all of us at Cape May Cafe that night for 5:30pm)
We decided we'd check out some more attractions and leave by 3pm.
We were then off to Adventureland for some Pirates!!!