Time for part 3! Random side note - Caleb lives right next door to me at school, and last night he screamed very loudly in the middle of the night in his sleep. Well, naturally this alarmed his roommate, who bolted upright in bed at the alarming noise and frantically asked what was wrong. Waking from his sleep, Caleb said that he had a dream where the villain from Mulan tried to kill him. lololololololol
Anyway, now back to the regularly scheduled program:
I answered the phone to hear the wake-up call at All-Star Movies, and to my surprise on the other end was the familiar voice of
Olaf from Frozen. I loved the old Stitch wake-up call, but it was time for a change, and Olaf's excited tone is a great way to start a day in Disney!
We ate breakfast at the All-Star food court (the shock value of being there still settling in!). I had a Mickey waffle, some grapes, yogurt, and a container of
Chip & Dale orange crackers (tasted like Cheese Nips). They were an absolute bargain and lasted the entire day. They were perfect for munching on something quick when I was kind of hungry but didn't want to stop to sit down somewhere as we toured the park.
And before we knew it... it was time to go to the MAGIC KINGDOM!
Something that I have always been a firm believer of:
Getting to the park earlier than necessary and waiting outside the park gates. The time stamp on my pictures say that we got in the All Star bus line at 7:35 and were fully in front of the MK train station by 8:04. I would MUCH rather do this than get in line for the bus at, say, 8:00, when you would face a longer bus line and then risk making it to the park in time for the opening show. I'd rather wake up 20 mins earlier and just chill in front of the park guaranteed than prompt that extra stress. (This way, the food court is much less crowded when you eat, too.)
We were SO EXCITED!! When the opening show began, that's when it really hit me how surreal of an experience this whole trip was. This was really happening. We were here.
Something kind of neat, from Town Square we saw Magic Kingdom Vice President Phil Holmes standing with a tour group at the backside of the train station. You know leaders generallly have a firm grasp on what they're part of, but it's always cool to actually see them being part of it and putting themselves in the shoes of the people they serve.
The next moment was something I looked forward to from the moment we decided to take the trip, and something I never really thought I'd get to witness personally: Walking into the Magic Kingdom with someone who had never been there before, and sharing the experience with them of
seeing Cinderella Castle for the first time. Holy freakin crap. Wow.
We didn't have a set agenda for the day other than our Fastpass+ reservations, but we knew we wanted our first attraction to be Space Mountain. We took a longer route so that Brody could have the experience of walking all the way down Main Street and then through the Castle.
Space was fantastic as always.
Getting off, we went to obtain Fastpasses for later. Space was one of our Fastpass+ ressies, but we figured we'd also go ahead and grab physical FPs too while we were there. But to our surprise and disappointment, we learned the most primary fundamental of Fastpass+ that somehow we failed to realize until then:
Fastpass+ replaces physical FPs rather than working in conjunction with them. This meant that our 3 Fastpass+ ressies were the only FPs we could get all day. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.
This was a real bummer to us. If you work the system well, you can get way more than 3 FPs the old way. We asked the CM if we could exchange our MagicBand privileges to just use FP the regular way, and he said no. (We later asked this same question at Guest Services and they said yes, you are allowed to trade, but at that point the day was halfway over so we didn't.) I wish there was a happy medium where you could reserve FPs on your phone, but you did it as you went about your day, you know? Oh, well.
So, with all that confusion out of the way, we hopped back in the standby line for Space Mountain to ride it again (just 10 minutes, which we came to find all day means walk-on in Disneyspeak). Getting off, we ran into someone wearing an Elevation Church jacket - our home church! Crazy! Small world. (See what I did there.) We chatted with him for a few minutes and then took the quiet pathway from Tomorrowland to Storybook Circus. I adored Toontown to death, but I must say I absolutely LOVE Storybook Circus. The landscaping, the rustic feel of everything, the background music, and especially the way is still retains some of the main aspects of Toontown but does so with a classy, vintage style rather than loud and in-your-face. The Imagineers did a fantastic job.
I'm a big fan of meeting characters, but it isn't a huge priority for the others. That's why I was really glad Pete's Silly Sideshow literally had about 2 other families inside it--it would be an easy sell! We met Goofy and Donald, and Goofy's encounter was really fun. I explained to Goofy that it was Brody's first time in Disney, and asked what's the #1 thing he should do today if he doesn't do anything else.
At first Goofy told us the Barnstormer (his ride!), but then made a cancelling motion, getting ready for a different suggestion. He stuck his foot out in a pose, but we didn't know what that meant. A show? Nope. The Laugh Floor? Nope. The cars? Nope. Goofy was getting frustrated and kept doing the same thing, but we just couldn't get it. Finally he went to his Character Attendant, grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote on it "Princesses." Ohhhhhhhhhh. Meet princesses! You were doing a princess curtsy pose thing. Ok.
Next up, Dumbo! There is a symbol on many Disney ride vehicles that indicates not to move around like a crazy person while you're experiencing the attraction. Someone on the DIS a while back posted that their family calls this the "No Dancing" symbol. I thought that was the funniest thing, and that's all I think of every time I see it now.
We strolled through Fantasyland, but passed by everything because we wanted to save those until the very end of the day (tradition
). Haunted Mansion time!! Entering the line, we gave Jeremy a hard time. The night before when he had been looking over an MK Guidemap, he suddenly shouted, "THE HAUNTED MANSION! I FORGOT! THE HAUNTED MANSION IS IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM! YES!" Caleb and I glanced at him like what planet have you been living on and joked with him about how excited he was for the Haunted Mansion. I sat with Brody, and his reactions were great. He's a web developer, and he loved all the special technical effects, especially the ghost projections in the graveyard room. He was turning around in his seat a lot trying to figure out how everything worked.
We ventured into Frontierland for the mountain ranges. Big Thunder had a posted 20-minute wait, but it was more like 10. Always a fun one. Then Splash Mountain was a straight-up walk-on because it was so cold. We were hesitant to get on because of the low temperatures, and because Brody isn't a huge fan of water. But Caleb assured us that
they turn the water levels down in the wintertime... YEAH RIGHT. Goodness gracious. We got soaked!
The first of several waves in Tropical Storm Splash came at the very beginning when we passed in front of Chickapin Hill. We saw the water spraying. But surely it was censored and when it felt our log coming, it would die down. Lolnope. Dang it! Wet wet wet! Well, that was ok, it was just one jet, the hills won't be as bad. Lolnope. The first hill (you know, the really small one that if someone were to tell you you'd get wet on, you would ask why they are insulting your intelligence), our log pummeled down that thing and (we could see it coming, almost like a horrific slow motion tape in our mind) the tidal wave rose from the depths, soared above us, and crashed down upon us like nobody's business. And that was just the baby hill! It was the wettest I've ever gotten on Splash Mountain, but it was also the funnest ride I've ever had on it. The cold (rather than the sweltering heat) meant we wanted to avoid water (rather than embrace it), which added a new level of play to the attraction.
Brody's favorite Disney movie is Aladdin, so next we went to create a little magic moment.
We entered Adventureland toward the Magic Carpets - he'd get to live the most iconic scene from his favorite Disney film! On our way, I noticed Aladdin and Jasmine had just come out for a meet & greet. Perfect! We hopped in line to meet them, and as we did, the Character Attendant closed the line. That was weird, I thought. There weren't that many people in line ahead of us, so why was the line already closing? But then we realized the line was closed even though it was so short because Aladdin and Jasmine were spending a good whole 1-2 minutes with every family. If we'd be the end of their set, we're looking at about a 20-minute line. The attention Aladdin and Jasmine were giving was really neat and I'd imagine very memorable, but we didn't think it was worth waiting that long, so we got out of line and went to the Carpets.
I forgot how fun that ride is! I like it much more than Dumbo. "A Whole New World" is my favorite Disney song, so that might have something to do with it, but I had just forgotten how enjoyable of a ride it is, and Brody loved it. And I had COMPLETELY forgotten about the safety spiel.
Artsy hipster vscocam #notreally
Brody had to do some work at this point, so he split from us while Caleb, Jeremy, and I rode the
Jingle Cruise. This was another thing that was kind of surreal. I had been surprised and delighted when Disney announced they were giving the Jungle Cruise a Christmas overlay, but of course I didn't expect that I'd get to experience it. I don't think it was until I got to the park that I realized I'd get to see it! They did a really nice job with it. I don't really think some of its criticism is warranted, and the partial negative buzz it got came from too high expectations. But
if you go in expecting a fun little overlay rather than a completely different ride, it's a start-to-finish pleasure. It was the longest line we waited in all day at 35 minutes. Looking back, I'm glad we had to wait for it, though, as it gave time to soak in the Christmas props in the queue as well as the special Christmas-themed "radio station" playing in the background. It was a perfect amount of time to take in all the details but not wait an overbearingly long time.
My favorite joke this time, from when the rhinos chase the explorers up the pole: "That explorer's name is Hontas. So you know what the rhino decided to do today? Poke a Hontas."
At the end, Jeremy volunteered Caleb's head to be sold to Trader Sam to be shrunk. Caleb was not amused.
Swiss Family Treehouse next. I'm glad that that's still there.
Now, let's split up and look for clues. Caleb and Jeremy went to go grab a table for lunch at Casey's Corner, and I went to go find Brody, who texted us saying he was watching Move It Shake It Celebrate It in the Hub. So I went searching for him, and I will tell you that task is easier said than done. Somehow I ended up in the conga line. I never did find him, and eventually he texted me saying he went to go explore some of the park and that he'd catch up with us later. Well, we had done our job right. It had happened: He was experiencing the magic on his own accord and wanted special time to soak it all in.
They grow up so fast. [Tear.]
So while I was still in the Hub, I went ahead and stayed for the rest of Move It Shake It, and unexpectedly got a bit misty-eyed when all the floats made their exit and "Celebrate You" started playing. I've seen this show several times, so it really surprised me that I got emotional. Nothing hysterical, just a brief tearing up. I could feel it coming on. The song started and the floats started moving. Then Mickey waved right at me. Well there you go, that about did it for me. I guess it's the whole nature surrounding this trip: Being so spur-of-the-moment, happening so fast, one minute taking final exams and the next minute being in my favorite place in the world. It didn't feel real, and realizing that it actually WAS real prompted several similar out-of-nowhere, brief waterworks at how glad I was to be there. I couldn't be happier.
Continuing our video version of the TR (for you, my friends, only the best), here is Jeremy's vlog of part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySfTSgZlcnA
But I'm right there with you, there are a ton of resort things I'd love to do. I had forgotten about the DTD boats and Bob... excuse to go back, right?
Hi, everyone. What did everyone think of that big Disney announcement yesterday? There's going to be a FIFTH PARK called Austin & Ally Land! 
) And, low and behold, who should show up in the castle show than Captain Hook! Caleb was shaken again. 
At about the same time, Pluto chased Marie (the Aristocat) around the flagpole lol.
A few floats later, the Queen of Hearts strode right over to Caleb and just stood there staring at him. She then turned to the rest of us, and indicated the "crazy" hand signal 
! This was the 2nd time I rode it since the mermaids were added, and I liked them better this time, probably since I knew what to expect. They hyped them up waaaaay too much. Kind of like the Jingle Cruise - might've been better for them to just be added without much fanfare.
Then Brody split up to make a few phone calls, Jeremy and I went to Country Bear Jamboree, and Caleb went to Splash Mountain again. He said he was the only person in the entire line because it was so cold. When he got to the front, he asked the CM if it was even open, then the CM laughed and said, "Yep, it sure is!" with a face that basically read "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah you are going to be frigid and only an idiot would ride Splash Mountain in these conditions."
