Disney Day 3 - Magic Kingdom

On Valentine's morning we woke up super early because we had a 7:20 am reservation for breakfast at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort.  Hunter definitely warmed up to the characters at this breakfast...just as he'd promised the night before while we were dining with Cinderella's family.  He did great, and I was proud of him for overcoming his fear. 

The first character to stop by our table was Goofy...

Then Mickey...

Donald...

Minnie...

And finally Pluto, who put the autograph book on his nose to sign!

After finishing up a yummy breakfast (with the best hashbrown casserole I've ever had - I totally got seconds), we made our way to Magic Kingdom.  We saw the opening ceremony again, and then headed over to Tomorrow Land.  The first stop was the Tomorrowland Speedway...

I drove and Charlotte was my passenger while Hunter drove with James behind us...

After the slowest race ever, we headed to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin...

This was another family favorite.  You shoot your gun at the Z's (for Zurg) all throughout the ride and try to get the most points possible.  You can even spin your own spaceship as fast as you want all throughout the ride.

I knew we wouldn't get a chance to meet Rapunzel at any of our character meals, so we headed over to her home in Magic Kingdom.  The line didn't look bad at all, so we hopped in, hoping to be up to the front in about 10 minutes.  Ten minutes later, we hadn't moved from our original spot in line...

What I didn't realize was that they took a large group of about 10 families into her little area at a time.  After all of those people met Rapunzel, then the outside line would move up as a new group would get to go in.  Since it was taking so long, James and Hunter went to Fantasy Land to ride the carousel and teacups one more time and to get a Fastpass for Peter Pan. 

Fastpass is a service Disney provides where you can insert your Key to the World (park ticket, room key, meal plan card all in one) into one of the machines set in front of popular attractions and retrieve a pass to come back later (usually at least an hour, depending on how many Fastpasses have been distributed up to that point).  When you return, you get into a special line set aside for Fastpass holders, which is super short.  The Fastpass basically holds your place in line.  They give an hour time period for you to return during (for example 10:25 - 11:25), but historically they have let you use the Fastpass even if the time has passed (our return time for Peter Pan was around 12:00 - 1:00, but we didn't return to ride it until that night), but I've heard starting at the end of February they aren't going to allow you to do that anymore.  So you'll have to return only in the time period stated on the Fastpass. 

It was amazing to me that people would wait in 60+ minute lines for a ride that had Fastpass availability.  We never waited longer than about 10 minutes for a ride while at Disney World, with 1 exception (but we were there during a slower season, so you should expect to wait longer during more crowded times).

Forty-five minutes from the time we lined up to meet Rapunzel (the longest wait for anything we did at Disney), James and Hunter came back just in time to see Charlotte meet Rapunzel...

She and Charlotte had a sweet little conversation, and then posed for a picture...

It was definitely worth the wait!

After that long time standing in line, we wanted to sit down and rest for a little bit, so we headed over to the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor...

I didn't have very high hopes for this attraction, but it ended up being my favorite thing up to that point in the day.  They interact with the audience and it is hysterical.  We were all rolling.

Next we headed over to the Move it! Shake it! Celebrate it! Street Party.  They have a little mini parade with 4-5 floats, and then they invite guests to come out in the street and dance with the characters!

When they invited everyone out into the street, Charlotte jumped right out there... 

Right after that video Frozone came up and started dancing with her.  I wish I would've videoed that, but she was a little hesitant to dance with him so I had to dance along with them.  Then one of the street dancers on stilts came up and danced with her.  He had to bend all the way over, and I was so worried he was going to fall!  Luckily, he didn't...I'm sure he's done that countless times, so there was no need for me to worry.

After the street party it was time for our lunch reservation at The Crystal Palace where we would meet Winnie the Pooh and friends.  James and I loved the food and both kids loved meeting all of the characters!

First we met Piglet...

Then Eeyore...

And Tigger...

And finally, Pooh...

After lunch, we headed back to the resort for naptime.  When we came back, we rode the WDW Railroad over to Frontier Land...

We hopped off and walked to Fantasy Land to use our Fastpass for Peter Pan.  After that we headed over to Tomorrow Land for dinner at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe.  The kids had so much fun dancing with each other before and after dinner...

When the were dancing outside after we ate, we heard another street party starting, so we walked over and Charlotte and I danced for a couple of minutes.  Then we found this sweet couple to take our picture with the castle...

 ...or at least part of it.

We headed over to ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover, and honestly, I thought this was going to be really lame, but it turned out to be such a cool attraction!  It took you through every ride in Tomorrow Land...

Hunter and Charlotte were both really scared when we went into Space Mountain because it was so dark (and Hunter kept thinking we were going to have to ride Space Mountain everytime the man on the speaker talked about it).  It was pitch black in there, but I thought I'd take a picture just to see what Hunter's face looked like...

Looks like James was a little scared, too:)

Then we rode Buzz's Space Ranger spin one more time with a Fastpass we'd picked up earlier and headed over to Adventure Land to check out the Swiss Family Treehouse...

My advice would be not to visit this attraction unless your kids are big fans of Swiss Family Robinson or stairs.  Actually, my kids both love stairs and they were not too keen on this "treehouse".  You climb a TON of stairs and you get to look in different rooms that have been set up to look just like Swiss Family Robinson, but you can't go in or touch anything inside.  I had gotten it confused with Tom Sawyer Island and told Hunter he would get to play once we got to the top.  You can imagine what he thought when we got to the top and just turned around to go back down.

So we quickly headed over to Frontier Land to see Tom Sawyer Island.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten that it closed at sunset, so we weren't able to go.  Nothing a Mickey Pretzel, Churros, and a Sprite couldn't fix, though!  So we shared a snack, and then headed back to Tomorrow Land. 

I hadn't planned on riding Astro Orbiter because I thought it would be too scary for the kids, but when Hunter saw it during our People Mover ride, he asked if we could go on it, so we got in line.  This was the 1 exception to our short wait time.  We had to wait for 30 minutes, and Char had some interesting ways of entertaining herself during our wait...

Finally it was our turn, so we loaded our spaceships and we were off...

I took literally 5 self-portraits of us with Char's eyes like this...

 ...before I got this one...

It went pretty fast, but both kids loved it!  It was so cool to be able to look out at Tomorrow Land and the castle all lit up at night.  (You have to take an elevator up to the ride, so it's elevated over the rest of the attractions.)

We found a spot in Tomorrow Land to watch Wishes.  Charlotte handled the fireworks a little better this time...

And Hunter loved them just as much as the night before. 

James and I were both a little sad as we walked out of the park that night, because we knew we wouldn't be back to Magic Kingdom this trip...but we knew we'd be back one day, so that helped a little:)

Our favorites from Day 2 at Magic Kingdom:

James - Astro Orbiter

Carole - Street Party

Hunter - Astro Orbiter

Charlotte - dancing at the Street Party

Disney Day 2 - Magic Kingdom

On Monday we woke up bright and early so that we could get to Magic Kingdom in time for rope drop, which is basically just an opening ceremony.  The park opens at 9, and the goal was to get there by 8:30.  I can't remember exactly when we got there, but I think it was around 8:40, which is really good if you know me!

I was really surprised how many people were there that early...I was hoping at a chance to be the family of the day, but could see as soon as we walked up that there was no way that was happening.  There were way too many people in front of us.  (Every morning at the Magic Kingdom, they pick a family to be the family of the day, and they get to help open the park with Mickey and friends by riding the train in with them and being a part of the opening ceremony.)

Look how crowded it is waiting for rope drop!

They have a little musical show and then several characters come in on a train and join the singers.  It really is so magical!

Snow White and Chip and Dale were part of the opening the first morning we went to MK...

The kids loved the show almost as much as I did;)  Charlotte waved bye to all the characters as we headed into the park...

We fought through the crowds and finally we could see the castle...

It's so beautiful!

We headed straight back to Fantasy Land behind the castle and went to Peter Pan's Flight...

It really feels like you're flying through Neverland.  It was a favorite of all of ours!

We also rode The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh...

Not as cool as Peter Pan's Flight, but it was cute, and it was a favorite of Charlotte's.  It's definitely a great ride for kids her age.

Of course we had to take a spin on the Mad Tea Party.  Charlotte had been talking about the teacups since we first told her about our trip.  She couldn't wait!  And as you can see, they did not disappoint...

I always tell people that I still feel really young.  I think it's crazy when people turn 30 and say that they feel old.  Thirty is SO young.  But y'all.  The teacups.  They will definitely change your view on what young is...I was so dizzy after it was over that I couldn't walk straight!

After my vestibular system normalized, we went over to the Prince Charming Regal Carousel...

The one ride that I wasn't a fan of in Fantasy Land was It's a Small World.  It  was looooong and sloooowwwww...

I guess it was a nice rest from all of that running around, though.

We had been running around like crazy so that we could squeeze in as many attractions as possible before the crowds got too heavy.  Our fast pace had paid off because we had already seen 5 attractions in less than an hour.  We kept it up, took a deep breath, and headed to our last attration in Fantasy Land, Mickey's Philharmagic...

Another 3D movie, but as you can see, either Charlotte forgot the terror of yesterday's 3D experience or she doesn't realize what's about to happen.  This attraction was AH-MAZING, y'all.  It's not just a 3D movie, but you feel water and wind and smell the smells that coordinate with the movie.  I loved it!  It was definitely my favorite up to that point in the day.  Charlotte, on the other hand, was once again terrified and ended up in my lap with her little hands covering her face.  Luckily, it ended just in time (for her), and we headed over to Adventure Land.

From one scary attraction to another...

I tried really hard to keep all of the possible scary rides or shows out of our itinterary.  Obviously I couldn't predict the fear of 3D, and I didn't think they'd be that scared of Pirates of the Caribbean.  But, sigh, they were.  The boy in front of us making scary voodoo noises and the woman behind us with the witch's laugh definitely didn't help the situation either.  Here are James and Hunter pre-ride, before it all fell apart...

After convincing the kids that there wouldn't be anymore scary rides, we got in line for The Magic Carpets of Aladdin...

And since we'd made such good time, we squeezed in a fairy meet and greet before lunch...

Charlotte loves Tinkerbell, but she still hadn't warmed up completely to the characters, so she wouldn't take a picture without me.  Tinkerbell was probably the most like the real character of all the ones we met.  Her voice sounded exactly like Tink's in the movie and she was just as peppy. 

After a quick lunch, we headed back to the hotel for our afternoon nap...and we definitely needed it after all of that running around!

When we got to our room, I realized I hadn't taken any hotel pictures yet, so I snapped one of the view from our front door...

We were on the 4th (top) floor, which ended up being really nice, because the pool got pretty loud, especially in the middle of the day when we took our naps.

I had heard great things about mousekeeping online and was so excited to walk in to this...

So cute!  They made different things like that each day.  The next day was Valentine's Day so they made a huge heart with towels on the bed and put little towel animals and Char's lovey (like above) in the middle.

We had a 5:10 pm reservation at 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian to dine with Cinderella and family, so we set the alarm to make sure we had time to get ready and head over.  Charlotte was so excited to wear her Cinderella dress.  After she was ready, she walked up to Hunter and said, "Let's get married."  Since getting home, she's constantly wearing her crowns and princess shoes and either asking one of us to marry her or asking to dance like a princess.  I love it!

1900 Park Fare was probably my favorite character dining.  The step sisters and step mother cracked. me. up.  They did such a great job of staying in character. 

Anastasia walked up and asked what was wrong with us because we were too quiet.  Then she showed Charlotte how to pose just like her...

 Precious.

Then Cinderella came and was so sweet and charming, just like in the movie...

After that, Cinderella and Prince Charming went to the middle of the restaurant and danced together (while Anastasia, Drizella, and Lady Tremaine made faces and rolled their eyes...hysterical).  Then the prince and princess separated and each started dancing with little girls.  Charlotte was over the moon that she got to dance with Prince Charming...

And then he came right to our table to meet all of us.  He was a great Prince Charming...so well mannered;)

Next Drizella stopped by and taught Charlotte how to pose her way...

Love it!

Hunter could see Lady Tremaine making her way through the dining room and kept asking about her.  He had refused to take a picture with anyone else at the dinner up to that point, but he seemed so excited about Lady Tremaine, that I thought he may actually pose with her.

But when she came up, he refused once again.  When I told Lady Tremaine that she was Hunter's favorite, she said, "Well of course I am.  Why wouldn't I be?" in a very serious, straight-faced way.  This chick never broke character...

Here's Hunter hiding to avoid pictures with characters...

Finally he said, "How bout this.  How bout tomorrow I take a picture with Donald at breakfast."  Sounds good to me buddy...

After dinner we raced over to the Magic Kingdom to line up for the Main Street Electrical Parade.  I thought we had a great seat, but when James took Hunter to the bathroom some Europeans (I couldn't really tell what language they were speaking) came and stood right in front of me.  I had to try extremely hard not to let that ruin my night. 

So my pictures of the parade are not great.  In fact, most of them have a little European kid's hand sticking in the middle of them.  I'm not bitter, though.

Mickey and Minnie's float...

Alice in Wonderland...

That weird smoking worm-thing from Alice in Wonderland...

Cinderella and her fairy godmother...

Snow White and Grumpy...

Pinocchio...

The fireworks were scheduled after the parade, but we planned to watch them on the other side of the park from where we were.  I hadn't planned for the mass chaos that would ensue after the fireworks.  There were people EVERYWHERE.  Poor James was having to navigate through it all with our double stroller which is next to impossible to steer.  After standing in gridlock forever, we decided to just watch from the hub area right in front of the castle where thousands of other people were.  It turned out to be just as good of a viewing spot...

Hunter was so excited about the fireworks, mostly because they sounded like gunfire.  Here he is shooting his imaginary guns...

Charlotte covered her eyes through most of it...

But later she kept saying that the fireworks were "so pretty" because that's what I kept telling her during the show.  Sadly, I'm not a skilled photographer, so this is the best shot I got of the finale...

That picture doesn't do it justice...it was beautiful!

The fireworks were at 9:00, but the park didn't close until 11:00 that night, so we decided to go ride a couple of rides before heading back to the hotel.  First we tried the jungle cruise, which was enjoyable, but not my favorite.  The driver tells lots of cheesy jokes throughout the cruise...

Charlotte and I couldn't get it together...

The kids were a little frightened because it was at night and I guess it wasn't as clear to them that the animals and tribal people weren't real.

After that we headed back to Fantasy Land to ride the teacups again.  Hunter's first choice was Peter Pan's Flight, but the line was like 60 minutes or something, so we settled for option number 2, which was just as fun!

We had an early breakfast reservation the next day (for Valentine's!) so we headed back to the hotel after our thrilling teacup ride.  We had such a fun first day at Magic Kingdom...we couldn't wait to return tomorrow for round 2!

Favorites of the day:

James - Pirates of the Caribbean
Carole - 1900 Park Fare dinner
Hunter - Peter Pan's Flight
Charlotte - Dancing with Prince Charming (at 1900 Park Fare)