I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: November 4, 2014] Magic Kingdom

For day three we planned our biggest, longest day–Magic Kingdom.  We have since decided that you could easily spend two days there. Especially since poor T. still didn’t feel great.  C. , on the other hand, was raring to go.

Even if you’re not totally swept up by the Disney Magic, it’s hard not to be excited when your kids turn the corner and see The Castle for the first time.  Even T. who wasn’t feeling great was pretty excited.  And, as far as Disney Magic goes, it was great that they have people in costume–no one “famous,” just random costumed people–walking around to make chit chat.  And we met one such lady who was very funny and was quite charming with T. and it really set the day up nicely.

Our FastPasses were for the mid-afternoon, which meant we couldn’t leave at lunch time like we’d have liked to have done.  So, rather, we made a path for some fun things that we didn’t get to do last time we were there.  Like the Swiss Family Treehouse

Swiss Family Treehouse
Last time the kids were too small to go climbing up the treehouse.  It’s not a “must-see” attraction especially since none of us have seen the movie, but it is cool, and we marveled at the amount of work that went into making it.

The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
From there we went right to the magic carpets.  There are so many of these kind of rides–go in a circle and up and down, that I’ve grown a bit tired of them, but this one was fun, and the kids enjoyed navigating them (thank you Disney for having a controller in the front and the back rows).  We had a funny experience when Aladdin and Jasmine were actually in the cars riding around on the trip right before ours.  Each character was in the car with a small child and the car in front of them was full of paparazzi.  So, who knows, did these people pay some exorbitant fee to ride with the characters?  Or was it a lucky ride for two kids?

We briefly watched a bit of the Jedi training, which was fun, and then we went on

Pirates of the Caribbean
Our vacation luck was with us as the line was only 15 minutes.  And while we were in line, they moved the chains around to accommodate the hundreds more people who had been filling out the line behind us.  I don’t know if either kid was excited by Pirates, although I was delighted to see how many “Johnny Depp” pirates are made for the ride now.  The Pirates’ gift shop is always fun and we took pictures with hats and weapons.

Then we moved to Frontierland.  That’s right, we skipped the Jungle Cruise, despite Weird Al’s song.  S. and I have both been on it a number of times, and I don’t know how much the kids would have enjoyed it.  And yes we skipped the Enchanted Tiki Room, which I don’t think I’ve seen since I was 7 or 8.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
S. loves this ride more than just about any other.  So we got a FastPass for late in the day, but when we saw that the line was only 20 minutes, we jumped right on it (and it proved to really be only about 5 minutes).  C. loved it (he was nervous) and T. enjoyed it (despite not feeling great).  And I really liked it too–the feeling of almost getting thrown out of the car is so much fun!  It really set the tone for us to have a lot of fun that day.  We were going to jump on Splash Mountain next because the line was shortish, but we decided to get some ice cream (it was getting hot), and when we were done, the line was 45 minutes, so we waited till later.

We had our FastPasses for Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin coming up so we skirted past Fantasyland–a section S. wished we could have spent more time in, and I agree.  But it looked crowded so we headed past and C. got a Turkey leg (while T. ate nothing).  She was mopey and tired by then (hardly having eaten for two days and being dragged all over WDW), but a passing minstrel said he was part of the smile police and that perked her up.

And then we had our glitchey afternoon.  We were on line for Space Mountain–very close to going on–when it shut down.  So we got a free FastPass and had to walk out through the bowels of the ride.   Then we went on Carousel of Progress, which also had a weird glitch which made the whole ride be off by about 30 seconds as we left the ride.  And then finally on Buzz Lightyear’s ride, it shut down while we waited on line (and we were given a FastPass ticket for that too).

Shortly after, while we shopped and the kids and S. went on the teacups, I noticed that Buzz Lightyear had reopened.  And our FastPass was still good for twenty minutes.

Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
I really like this ride–you shoot at batteries and spin your car around–it’s a full-immersion video game.  And I almost got 100,000 points.

Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
We love this live/cartoon humor show.  It’s wonderfully put together and the imrov is very funny.  The kids got a good kick out of this one too.

Space Mountain
Then I saw that Space Mountain was open again, and our old FastPass still worked for the rest of the day–no time limit (I had gotten a text that said it would still work, which was really cool–Disney is so incredibly high tech, I love it).   We loved Space Mountain–even C. loved it.  It doesn’t have any big drops, but since it’s all in the dark it’s impossible to know what to expect.  But we all had a great time on the ride.

We headed past Fantasyland again, although the kids were starting to wear out.  S. had really wanted to go on the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride (how odd that they made a new ride from such an old movie when Frozen is so popular).  But the line was super long, so we blew it off.  We also felt we didn’t have time to explore the newest section of Fantasyland (which was quite crowded) because we wanted to check out Tom Sawyer’s Island (which neither S. nor I had ever done).

Tom Sawyer’s Island
The Island is a fun place for kids to run and explore.  It’s ideal if your kids are wound up and hyper.  It is terrible if your kids are tired.  But there are some very cool tunnels and climbing structures and I could certainly see spending time there if you wanted to rest while the kids were busy.

We knew we wanted to hit Splash Mountain, and we were going to use our free FastPass on it, and then we saw that there was no line for …

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
So we enjoyed that one more time.

And then we used our FastPass for

Splash Mountain
Although C. doesn’t like roller coasters so much, he loves log flumes (not sure exactly what the difference is, but he is quite clear about it).  Splash Mountain is a mellow ride with a really big drop.  It was super duper fun.  So much that we took our second FastPass and went right back on line.  It was a great way to end the night.

Since both kids were wiped out, we decided not to hang around for any of the late night business (our kids wake up pretty early), so we headed out.  There was a parade (of course) on the way out, so we watched some of that and then hopped on the Monorail (who doesn’t love a monorail).

Rides we did not go on but would have liked to:
Haunted Mansion (why is the line always so long for this ancient ride?  It’s so weird. And we weren’t willing to wait).
The Hall of Presidents (we considered going in here to sit down, but at 22 minutes, it seemed a little long for our kids to enjoy).
It’s a Small World (this also has crazy long lines for a fairly lame ride.  I guess it is iconic.  We decided we didn’t need to go on it).
Seven Dwarfs Mine
Snow White’s Scary Adventure
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (this was surprisingly fun last time, but again, too long a wait)
Astro Orbiter (This is a surprisingly intense ride, but the wait is always too long).

Even though Magic Kingdom seems like it is made for kids, there is so much to see, and cliche or not, kids of all ages can thrill at everything there.  It is definitely a park that you can spread out to two days and still not have enough time to do everything.

Do also check out S’s post for more information and pictures!