The day is Saturday, November 10th. MK was supposedly a 9/10 crowd day. Did I listen?
I thought about fixing things up after the Fantasy Land expansion and 3AM EMH popped up, but we had an ADR at Tony's this night and that's my favorite restaurant in all of WDW and since the rest of that week was also busy, we couldn't find a new ADR to replace it
A lot of the night was bad, but some of it was so magical that when we finally got back to the hotel that night, we were happy we went out that night. So I guess that's all that matters!
So we boarded the bus sometime in the 5 o'clock hour, with low expectations and an empty stomach.
One of the main things that made this night worth it, was seeing Magic Kingdom at night with the Christmas decorations. It was BEAUTIFUL. I cried, literally!
We noticed the castle wasn't lit up yet so we assumed there would be some kind of special show. I'd seen the castle lit up before since my first trip was the first week of January, but I didn't know there would be a show.
I looked at my lines app and saw something about Cinderella Castle show at 6:15PM so we decided to plop down on main street and wait for that. Our reservation was for 6:25 so we figured we'd have plenty of time, especially since we were watching from the fence where the character greetings are, right outside of Tony's.
And to our surprise, a parade drove by! That was nice because it really cut into the ten minutes of waiting on Main Street doing nothing.
The castle show started about 5 minutes late and it was making me nervous. Not as nervous as mom though. I don't think she understood that we'd still have our reservation if we were 5 minutes late!
The show finally started and it was pretty cute! It could have been a tad shorter but that might have just been our anticipation at the time! And then they lit the castle up and I cried again. It was BEAUTIFUL. For the rest of the night we just could not get over how beautiful the castle was. We'd just stop and stare all the time!
We made it to Tony's with a minute or two to spare and checked in.
Well, so much for worrying, apparently my reservation was at 6:15, not 6:25! The hostess said that was actually better considering how busy they were. I'm glad I got the time wrong, otherwise we would have missed the castle lighting, and that was definitely a highlight!
If Tony's could be any better, it would be half as busy all the time. Even slow season it's PACKED in there. And they yell your name when your table is ready instead of having a buzzer so the whole time I was anxious about missing our name being called!
There was a family that was kind of a wreck waiting next to us. The 2 year old was just bawling and the mom was frustrated and I heard them say they would have over an hour wait and the dad was pissed and the mom "just wanted 1 nice meal this trip!"
Just like I don't understand the people that wait in a 170 minute line for TSM, I don't understand waiting over an hour to eat somewhere. Depending on how long you're there that day, that could be $10 worth of time just waiting!
If sit down meals are that important, that's what ADRs are for! Oh well, hopefully they eventually got sat and enjoyed their, meal. Because I know we did!
After about 15 minutes they called our name and led us out onto the porch! I was so excited! It was SO beautiful out there. Nice and quiet compared to the craziness inside and there were only about 4 other tables. We could look at all the lights and listen to the Christmas music and it was just so pleasant!
Our waitress was so nice. Just the right amount of not rude but not super chatty. My favorite.
We both decided to get salads to start and some coffees so we could last longer that night! And we were ready to order as well, I got the spaghetti and meatballs (I'm a sucker for spaghetti and meatballs) and my mom got the mushroom ravioli.
Mom got the house salad
She thought it was perfect
and I got the Caesar! I'm a sucker for caesar salad
This was one of the best Caesar salads I've ever had! I love it when they have fresh shaved parm instead of the powdery stuff (although, I love the dry powdery stuff on pasta more

)
The dressing was delicious and creamy and the crouton was yummy and I was really happy right there in that salad!
Mom's ravioli
After the trip, mom would say this was her favorite meal of the trip (food wise) So I assume the mushroom ravioli was super good.
My spaghetti
YUMMM. I know it doesn't look like much, and it's hard to mess up so saying the spaghetti is good isn't saying much about the restaurant, but YUMMM.
It was nice and warm, the spaghetti was cooked so perfectly that it was better than I've ever experienced and the meatballs had great flavor.
I AM A TONY'S ADVOCATE! Lol. I will defend that place to my death. I love it so much. And Lady & the Tramp is my favorite movie so I'm not even biased
We had another cup of coffee and then decided to head to Tomorrow Land. Got some castle pictures on the way
This is the last picture I took of the night so I apologize for the picture-less finish!
Tomorrow Land was PACKED. There was, LITERALLY, a 20+ minute wait for the PEOPLE MOVER! No joke. I was so confused when I went up to it. "what are all these people doing?" And then I overheard a CM say it was the People Mover line and the person just yells "THERE'S A LINE FOR THE PEOPLE MOVER?"
So much for my plan. It's busy so let's do all the unpopular rides that never have waits! Whelp, that's no good.
We grabbed Space Mountain fast passes for 10:45 PM (wishes was at 10) and then decided to head over to the Haunted Mansion to ride in the dark! It was a 25 minute wait and we decided to wait. And then BOOM. Indigestion. It was awful. We stayed in the line but I was not happy. The ride was uneventful but I was ready to get off it at the end and find a restroom.
We're next off!
And....the ride stops. Literally a foot away from being able to exit. And we wait for 10 minutes! Until the wheelchair came. Can't you wait to stop the ride until the wheelchair in READY to get on? We finally got off and decided to spend time wandering around Fantasy Land. I didn't trust rides! We went to the outside of the New expansion but didn't try to get in. It looks amazing from the outside, though, so I'm excited to go back and see it! We really enjoyed sitting and watching all the lights of Fantasy Land and, of course, staring at the castle! It was nearing time for wishes so we headed to the front of the castle and decided to stand close to the bathrooms by Crystal Palace just in case. We were about 30 minutes early and no body was around.
Well, the walk way QUICKLY filled up and about 5 minutes until Wishes a CM comes over and says we can stand in the walk way. Okay, where were you 30+ minutes ago when we stood here? Because there sure as heck isn't anywhere else to watch Wishes from at this hour. We were the least of the problem so we decided that once all the problems left we would too, but if they didn't leave it was pointless for us to leave. And they didn't and the CM gave up trying and just made sure people could get through single file.
The show started and I just had a hard time getting into it because people kept walking by and standing in front of us and it was just so distracting! I cried as usual but it was just less magical. I was hoping we could return our last night and watch when it would be so much less busy.
After the show we realized that we planned very poorly. We had fast passes to use and we were on the opposite side of the hub! And trying to cut across the hub when Wishes on a 9/10 day just ended is hell. Everyone kept telling us we were going the wrong way. Helloooo not everyone has the same plans as you. We were even out of the way, leaning on a fence waiting for the crowds to pass, not like we were pushing through the wrong direction!
15-20 minutes later, the crowds thinned out enough that we could cut over to Space Mountain.
We got in the fast pass line and watched a couple of people turn around and exit and then give their fast passes to some teenagers in the stand by line and they hopped over. Only they brought their whole group and only had fast passes for some of them. I was thinking "HA they're not getting through!" Then she looks down and sees they expired a while ago. HA.
And then they start talking about their plan for if the CM doesn't let them through. They were going to burst through anyway and push the CM out of the way because "there's more of us than them"!

I was pissed. We got up there and the CM let them all through. I was double pissed. I HATE RULE BREAKERS! They're the worst.
Mom hated this ride. She said it was the only ride she was actually afraid of since it was so small and she didn't like how she could look down and see all the metal posts holding her up. I was clear in the back and it was awful back there. So much jerkier than the front and it jerked on my gut and was painful. I usually love Space Mountain so I blame the back of the ride! We both decided that that was it for that ride.
We were tired and felt like crap and were sick of the crowds so we decided to head out before the next parade crowd decided to leave.
The Riverside bus was CRAZY busy but the French Quarter bus was already there and there was no one on it. SUCKERS. We hopped on and decided to walk back to Riverside. It was a great plan but our feet killed when we got back to the hotel. We decided we were just too tired to wake up for DTD the next day and decided we'd rather go straight to DHS. So I had to kill or Raglan Road reservation

I was so looking forward to it but we felt it was more important to salvage our aching bodies!
Tomorrow is Broncos Sunday, sleeping in, DHS and Osbourne Lights! It would be my favorite day.