Magic Kingdom- Part 2

In Fantasyland, we then tackled Dumbo and Cinderella's Carousel. Both are classic Disney rides that are practically perfect in every way. :-) Oh, and we ran into the wicked stepmother and stepsisters. Not to be outdone, the fairy Godmother was stationed by the castle.

Our next stop was Peter Pan's Flight. I have such great memories of riding this ride as a kid, and enjoyed it every bit as much the second time. The 6 year old was ENTHRALLED with this ride as well. We stopped by It's a small World. I LOVE it, but it drives JK crazy. haha! I don't care. There is so much to look at as you ride through, how can you pass it up?

After this, we made our way to the Haunted Mansion. For whatever reason, I remember this as a lot funnier than it actually was. In reality, it was pretty scary for the kids. Oops!








After this, we headed to Fronteirland. We all LOVED ThunderMountain Railroad and Splash Mountain. We did not have to wait long at all for Thunder Mountain, but there was quite a wait for Splash Mountain so we got a Fast Pass. Really wonderful decision! We got soo many jealous looks as we passed the line, but hey it's free they could have done it too! The 6 year old was obsessed with the "train ride" and the "boat ride". I think we could have camped out there the rest of the day! We also met Woody in Fronteir Land, and ate at Pecos Bill's?? (I think).







On to Adventure Land! Of course, we rode Pirates of the Carribean (walked right on) and the Jungle Cruise. Of course, Pirates of the Caribbean was awesome. I had read this in the guide book, but the Jungle Cruise que IS very deceiving! I felt like that que never ended! Jungle Cruise is such a classic piece of Disney, and how can you not love the tour guides corny jokes!! The six year old wanted to ride Aladdin's Magic Carpets, but we skipped out. Really, it is just Dumbo over again (with a water feature), so to me, not worth it. But, of course, if you had a kid, it would be a different story. :-) We HAD to climb the treehouse. I love it! I still secretly want to live in a treehouse, so it is fun to see the "life" the Swiss Family Robinsons lived.


At this point, Magic Kingdom had gotten pretty crowded and it had gotten pretty warm. We were all wearing thin, so we decided to take a break and head to Downtown Disney. We caught a bus and spent about 2 hours roaming around. This was a nice change of pace! JK and I bought our annual Christmas Ornament in one of the shops, and we enjoyed looking around at the Lego Shop (very cool).

Once we got back to the Magic Kingdom, we caught the "When Dreams Come True" Show, which was so great.

We ate dinner at the Tomorrowland Terrace, which has more variety than some of the quick service plances. Then we went back to do some of the rides in Tomorrowland that we skipped over in our first run through the park. Here is my assessment of those:

Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor- FABULOUS. I have no idea HOW they animations interact to what the audience says, but it is genius. We had so much fun here!

Stitch's Great Escape- As bad as everyone says it is. Don't waste your time.

Tomorrowland Speedway- Too slow of a pace even for the 6 year old. JK and I didn't ride it because we knew what it was like, but some other people just had to ride it. They acknowledged it was a mistake haha! Of couse, if you bring littles it is a great ride.

Carousel of Progress- I really wanted to ride this because I have heard others talk about it, and it is a classic Disney ride, but we were so disappointed. First of all, the attraction has an old moldy smell and THEN the ride broke down. It made us almost late for the Main Street Electrical Parade, so it isn't on my good list. ha!

So after we FINALLY made if off the Carousel of Progress, we RAN to our spot for the Main Street Electrical parade. We stood on the stockade in the Liberty Square area. It was a good spot! I loved the Electrical parade. It was so fun!

After the parade, the kids went back to Thundermountain to enjoy a few late night rides. We found out that they speeed up the ride at night! It is a totally different experience at nighttime, so it is fun to do both a day run and an evening run. Then we found a spot to watch the fireworks. Unfortunately, we were not able to get back to the castle, so we did not experience the full effect of the show. We watched it from the deck in between Liberty Square and Fronteirland. While we could see the fireworks, they did not look like they were actually above the castle. We realized later that we were seeing the back of the show! Oh well, we will know for next time. The six year old was the funniest at this point. He was intensely concerned that Cinderella was asleep in the castle and the fireworks would scare her. I assured him that she was probably used to the fireworks. Then he decided that he SAW Cinderella in the window of the Castle and that she was setting of the fireworks. He told me that that was dangerous and then stated very matter of factly "We oughtta call the law on her!" HAHAHA! Those are the things that make it fun to take a kid to Disney!

It was a long, but very fun day. The only things that we didn't get to do were the Tikki Room (it was closed for renovations) and the Hall of Presidents (ran out of time). Those will be on my list for next time! Tune in soon for Day 3: Epcot!

Day 2: Magic Kingdom

We went to the Magic Kingdom on Easter Sunday. I had mixed feeling about this, but this was our only possible weekend when the family could be together, so it is okay. I did feel wierd not being in church though!

I must say that one of the highlights for me was the entrance show in the morning. Before the gates open, the cast members do a show in front of the train station. Mickey, Minnie (and the Easter Bunny) made their grand entrance on the train. They did a song and dance and then opened the gates. It was such a great way to start the day!

This was for sure the most crowded Disney day, but it still wasn't that bad. We headed straight for Space Mountain and walked right on. The 6 year old was tall enough to ride, so we put him on it, but we sort of forgot that Space Mountain is single rider. Not a good ride to start off on! He was pretty pale by the time he got off! But he was a trooper and shook it off!

We then headed to the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. One warning, if you have already done Toy Story Mania at Hollywood Studios, this doesn't even compare! It is the same principle as Toy Story Mania (arcade style games while spinning), but with lazer guns and blacklights. I don't think mine ever had a lazer because I had no clue the whole time what I was doing! Hilariously I had the highest points of anyone!!! I would suggest doing this one first and then doing Toy Story Mania. It is hard not to compare the two! It is a fun ride but not on my must do list.

After these two rides, we headed to Fantasyland. Again, WE HAD NO WAIT. We got on the teacups first. A Disney Classic, and predictably, the dad of the family was this close to throwing up by the time it was over! How come kids walk off this unphased, while the adults are stumbling around! haha! We also got to meet Alice and the Crew! It's like no one had even found Fantasyland yet, which was wonderful.

Next we stopped off at The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. This is a new ride since I have been there and it was GREAT! It was just as much fun for us as it was for the kids. They have started doing a lot of interactive activities in the que, which is a great idea. We had just as much fun outside the ride in Winnie the Pooh's musical as we did inside the ride. We could have gotten right on but we actually lingered a bit playing in the "garden". Here are some photos of the ride and us outside of it!

Welp, that's all for this post! I will continue with Fantasyland and the rest of our Magic Kingdom day next time I get some time at the computer. :-)

Hollywood Studios- Day 1

So picking up where we left off, we next walked right on (seeing a pattern here) to the Great Movie Ride. The adults in the group really enjoyed this one, but the kids were not such big fans. I will say there were SEVERAL intense moments, that made it sort of scary for little kids. So if your kid is 7 or under, I would seriously consider skipping it. The other downside is all of the movies are "classics" meaning that our kids didn't really recognize a lot of the movies. I really enjoyed it though!

We ate lunch at the ABC Commissary. This is a great large, quick service spot at Hollywood Studios. There was a variety of foods, large space to sit, and good restrooms. It was nice for a large group. However, I will say that I really, really wanted to go to the Sci-Fi Drive in. It is just so fun! However, we missed out on walk-ins. The person right before us got the last one! I know people that do dining reservations in advance and plan their time around the reservations. We just don't go to Disney for the food. However, there are fun restaurants (like the Sci Fi Drive In) that are worth going to each time. We might eventually start doing dining reservations. We will FOR SURE reserve character dining when we have kids, but for right now, we are good without dining plans.

Next we stopped off at the Honey I shrunk the Kids playground. A fair warning, if you have children, prepare to be here for a while. It is a really fun place and good for blowing off steam. Our kiddos did not want to leave!

Next we went on the Backlot tour. This is classic Disney. I don't think it has changed at all. It is part walking and part riding. By this time in the day, we were thankful for the time on the tram! After this the boys really wanted to go the Extreme Car Stunt Show. I wasn't so sure about this, but it turned out to be really great! I am very glad we went! Herbie even makes an appearance.

The rest of the day we mostly went to shows so no pictures. We went to Muppets Live 3D, which is a theatre show. We did get fastpasses for Under the Sea, which was nice because the line was quite long. I really, really liked Under the Sea, but the boys were less impressed. It is combination of live acting and large puppets. There are also bubbles and other things in the crowd. I think it is a great show for kids. We went to the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. It has literally not changed in years, which is one thing that makes it so much fun. You know exactly what will happen, sort of like a well-read story book. :-) We also went to Disney-one man one dream exhibition, which was really enjoyable. There were a lot of of neat displays about the history of Disney. Finally we went ot the Art of Animation plaza to see the characters. This was a new set-up since the last time we were there, but it is a really nice set up. Multiple characters are together, but you do have to stand in a seperate line to see each chracter. We met Mickey here!

My one regret from Hollywood Studios is that we didn't work out our performance times just right and we weren't able to see Beauty and the Beast. This is a really great stage show and I hate we missed it! We ended our day with Fantasmic, which in my opinion, is the best nightime show in Disney. There were some scary moments (the villain scene is pretty intense), but the six year old we had handled it great. If you have an especially sensitive kid, it might be too much, though. It was really beautiful, however, and I am really glad we did it.

So that was our first day! It was truly wonderful and magical!