I swear, that view of the castle never gets old! And it seems there's always some new angle to capture when I see it. After 21 months of planning, it was finally a Magic Kingdom day!
We woke up on a beautiful Sunday morning and ate breakfast in the hotel room quickly ready to make it to "rope drop" at Magic Kingdom. Since we drove, the process was a bit new to us. We parked at TTC and took the ferry across, which was actually really easy and really pretty. We were able to see The Polynesian and The Grand Floridian resorts on our way over, too.
Rope drop procedures changed quite a bit since the last time we were there. Instead of waiting by the train tracks on the exterior of the park and them having a morning show with the train coming, they let people in an hour early to stroll Main Street, grab a coffee, shop, and get some castle pictures. Then, just before 9am, they do a quick show on the stage with many of the characters and the park is officially open. I thought the morning show was pretty lame, but it was nice to experience it once.
We did some of the obligatory castle photos using our Photo Pass that we purchased (so worth it!). It was pretty crowded on Main Street so it was hard to get some of those elusive "empty park" looking photos, but we made do.
After the castle show, there were a few entrances to get into the rest of the park. Most people were to the right of the castle ready to go into Fantasyland, likely heading to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride. We went in that direction, but headed to Winnie the Pooh first. We waited maybe 10 mintues for Winnie. In fact, our morning looked like this:
Winnie the Pooh
Mad Teacups
Meet Alice
Barnstormer
Dumbo
Under the Sea
Snack/Potty break near Gaston's Tavern
Splash Mountain (FP 10:30-11:30am)
While we were waiting to ride the Mad Teacups, Alice was riding with random people in a teacup. I had read about her doing that around park opening, so it was really neat to actually see it happen! And by the time we got off the ride, there was only a short wait to meet her. I'm glad we watched Alice in Wonderland as one of our Disney movie nights so the boys knew who she was. They really enjoyed it and it was their first autograph of the trip!
Splash Mountain was so much fun, as it was Evan's first time riding it. We lucked out with the first two rows and boy did we get soaked! After Splash Mountain it was time for lunch so we walked over to Frontierland to go to Pecos Bill. It's a Quick Service restaurant with some pretty amazing nachos and a toppings bar.
After lunch we hightailed it over to Tomorrowland (the complete opposite side of the park) for our Space Mountain FastPass. Evan and my mom rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin since Evan isn't tall enough for Space Mountain. Sean was a little nervous since this ride was in the dark, but he made one funny ride photo!
Our afternoon looked like this:
Space Mountain (12:50-1:50 FP)
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (1:05-2:05) Evan and Mom
People Mover in Tomorrowland
Mickey's Philharmagic
Peter Pan's Flight (2:30-3:30 FP)
It's a Small World (4th FP)
Haunted Mansion
Snack/Potty break over in Adventureland
Enchanted Tiki Room
Main Street shopping
Evan was a little disappointed in not being able to find Moana toys in Magic Kingdom. We were told we'd have better luck in Hollywood Studios since that's where her meet and greet is. Sean didn't really find anything either that he liked. So, we hit the road around 4:30pm to take the monorail over to The Grand Floridian for dinner at 1900 Park Fare. The boys loved the monorail ride!
We all freshened up, some of us changed clothes, and we were ready for our 5:10pm reservation. We had to wait a few minutes for our table, but The Grand Floridian was truly beautiful to look at while we waited. 1900 Park Fare is a buffet style dinner with character meets of Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine, and the Step-sisters. It was really nicely done and the food was delicious!
Evan was definitely a little shy and it took a bit for Sean to warm up, but they really enjoyed their dinner. Afterwards, we did a little shopping at Basin inside of The Grand Floridian. It sells the most wonderful bath soaps, bath salts, etc. Sean and Evan picked out a Mickey bar of soap for their teachers and I got one for myself.
We rode the monorail back to the TTC and headed back to the hotel. We had an early start the next day at Hollywood Studios, so the boys enjoyed taking a bath in the Jacuzzi tub and seeing what Tinkerbell brought them. It was a great first day at Disney!
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