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| Disneyfying yourself is a serious business |
As with yesterday our aim had been to get
up & get out early. No problem with
that plan but we’d not really bargained on Monday morning traffic on the I4
(think M1 in rush hour). This held us up
slightly but we were still parked up by 8am.
Another unwritten rule of Magic Kingdom is that if it’s your first visit
then you must travel from the car park over to the park gates on the ferry over
the Seven Seas Lagoon, rather than cop-out & take the monorail! As there seems to be construction work going
on everywhere in Disney at the moment (in preparation for its 50th anniversary
in 2021) there is a crazily long walk from where the car park trams drop you
off to the ticket centre where you pick your mode of transport to get to the
park. Bag check & security was also
quite busy so we didn’t get in the park until 9 but this did mean that Chris got
his trip on the boat as was required.
Once in the park it was straight on the app
to see about wait times. We realized
that Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was a 40 minute wait & agreed to get over
there first and ride it before the wait time got worse. In the end we only queued for 20 minutes and
the ride was as excellent & thrilling as ever. We were seated at the back and it throws you
around a lot more! Next we headed over
the road to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh as the line was short. This is a charming little ride, although the
Heffalumps & Woozles section is a bit like being on a drugs trip (I
imagine!)
By now it was getting towards 10 and our
fastpass window for Space Mountain opened at 10.30 so we decided to stroll down
to Tomorrowland. On the way the boys
spied the Speedway and decided to go for a spin (Catherine copped out as her
record on this ride isn’t good). Again,
the wait time was short as most of the crowds hadn’t arrived yet. The speedway is good fun and for the moment
you get a good view from it of the construction progress for the TRON
rollercoaster which is due to open in 2021.
Catherine found herself a perch near Cosmic Ray’s café before realizing
that the Speedway has a viewing area (who knew?!) so that she could see the
boys when they emerged from the ride.
Chris was back first having beaten Andrew into 2nd place.
Next stop was a cult favourite, the
Tomorrowland Transit Authority (also known as the People mover). This is a great option for new visitors as
the ride gives an overview of the whole land and the attractions in it. It’s also under cover and therefore a good
choice for when it’s really hot! As we disembarked
our Space Mountain window hadn’t quite opened so we took a punt on a new one
for the whole group – Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – as it only had a 25
minute wait. Unfortunately the ride
temporarily broke down while we were in the queue so our wait time was more
like 35-40 minutes. It’s a good ride
though and excellent if you’re competitive as you score points for ‘shooting’
Zurg & his allies.
Once off the ride
we legged it over to Space Mountain as we only had about 10 minutes left on our
fastpass window for this one. Got on it
no problems (although this isn’t a good one to get into position on if you’re
not very bendy like Catherine!) and the fastpass queue was very short. Space Mountain is marketed as a ‘high speed
rollercoaster in the dark’ & they’re not wrong. It’s full of tight turns and sudden drops and
light is kept to an absolute minimum so you’ve got no idea what’s coming next. Time for a change of tack after this and we
walked across the park to Adventureland for our next fastpass on the Jungle
Cruise. On the way out of Tomorrowland
we realized that there was a meet & greet with Stitch so we joined the
queue to have our photos taken with him.
Stitch is a great character meet as he’s so mischievous. He was very appreciative of Chris’s AC/DC
shirt and they had an impromptu rock-out session with a bit of air guitar.
On to Adventureland and by now the crowd
levels had gone up a touch.
Adventureland was quite busy but we managed to snake our way through the
various pushchairs & wheelchairs and over to Jungle Cruise. Again, a bit of a Disney staple and always
popular – Jungle Cruise is a ride that is starting to show its age but the boat
drivers are always funny with the corniest of corny jokes that come at you one
after the other with no pause for breath.
We then moved on to Frontierland (with a quick pit –stop to watch the
poor souls on Splash Mountain getting drenched) and our next fastpass for Big
Thunder Railroad. This is yet another
Disney classic and is essentially a runaway mine train. However, it was a new ride for all of us and
we all thoroughly enjoyed it. For a
rollercoaster it’s not too intense and there are no steep drops in it at all. Having used our last of the 3 pre-booked
fastpasses, once we’d swiped in for mine train we were able to book another
one. Catherine found one for Pirates of
the Caribbean in about an hour’s time so we booked that with a view to getting
some lunch beforehand.
Lunch was a stop at Peco’s Bill Tall Tale
Inn – this is well regarded in the food offerings for Magic Kingdom & the
food is good. The offering is
predominantly Southern/Mexican but they do offer a salad bar as part of your
meal which is a nice touch. There’s also
loads of indoor seating – very welcome at this point in the day as it was
another hot one.
Food demolished, we went back to
Adventureland for Pirates. It’s a good
ride, again one that’s been there from the beginning. We’ve popped this on our list for rides to do
on the Halloween night as they change it (to be revealed on a later blog!). While in the queue we were scouting out for
fastpasses again. It was starting to
look thinner on the ground at this point but we booked one for the Little
Mermaid ride (Catherine’s choice) at 3pm so that we could do some other stuff
in the meantime. Next up on the plan was
to visit the Hall of Presidents to give us 20 minutes sitting down in an air
conditioned theatre. This didn’t go
quite to plan as we hit the afternoon parade on our way from Adventureland over
to Liberty Square which held us up a bit.
However, it did mean that we saw a few of the floats & then got to
walk behind the final float as it travelled on the rest of its route. This is something Catherine had wanted to do
since she was young so cue lots of bad dance moves all the way down the route.
Hall of Presidents did prove to be a
relaxing break and following this we stopped for a quick hydration break and a
re-apply of sun cream. We still had a
bit of time before our next fastpass so it was time to bite the bullet (for
Andrew anyway). You haven’t been to
Disney if you don’t go on It’s A Small World so we prepared ourselves for the
fact that the song would be going round our heads for the next 2 weeks and
joined the queue for it. This ride
shifts people like nothing else but we did have to wait about 20 minutes as
most of the park seemed to have had the same idea as us for another way to
escape the crippling heat! Once we’d
discovered that it was indeed a small world after all, we moved on to going
Under the Sea with Ariel (our next fastpass).
This ride had really long queues when it first opened a few years back
but it’s calmed down a bit more recently.
We probably didn’t need to fastpass it but it meant that we walked on
with no wait at all. The ride is a
colourful journey through the songs of the Little Mermaid and the animatronics
are pretty good.
By now it was getting on for 4pm and we’d
been on our feet since 8 so we were flagging.
Chris managed to get us a fastpass for Peter Pan’s Flight so we wandered
towards this, trying to decide whether or not to keep going until the fireworks
tonight or think again & do them another night. To rest our legs we did the Philharmagic show
on the way to Peter Pan which is another nice break in the air-con.
Peter Pan is always a popular choice with
guests and the wait time is very rarely under 40 minutes. It’s definitely one for a fastpass as the
ride itself is less than 3 minutes so we were lucky to pick one up on the same
day. This ride is starting to show its
age a bit & could probably do with a refurb but while the crowds keep
coming it won’t be changed. We were now
really ready for a break so we stopped in Pinocchio’s Village Haus for some
snacks, water & coffee to perk us up ready for the evening. We also managed to book our final fastpass
for the day – Splash Mountain at 8pm so we were definitely committing to
staying until the end.
After an hour resting at Casa Pinocchio we
decided to have a walk down Main Street and make use of the Memory Maker photos
that Andrew & Chris have included with their tickets. On the way we realized that the Haunted
Mansion had a very short wait so hopped in the queue. This ride has cult status among Disney fans
but our number 1 Disney fan of the group couldn’t remember ever going on it so
time to put that one right! The ghosts
were obviously up to some mischief as our carriages were stopped for a short
time while we were in the graveyard – spooky!
We’ve got a fastpass for this booked on Halloween party night so fingers
crossed they’re better behaved then.
Main Street was fairly busy when we arrived
and people were already getting in position for the fireworks 2 hours before
they started! We had a look in the shops
but then still had about 45 minutes until we could go on Splash Mountain. It was time to try something new again so
back to Tomorrowland to experience the Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor. A great comedy experience which relies a lot
on audience participation (they use live voice actors which we loved) and one
that we’ll definitely do again. It was
then almost time for our final ride of the day so we went back to Frontierland
for Splash Mountain. We managed to get
on 10 minutes early and on the front 2 rows of the log boat. Excellent choice, we thought as on these
water rides it’s always the poor souls at the back that get drenched. How wrong we were!! We got utterly soaked – good job it was still
really warm even if it was now dark.
Off the ride at 8.20, we then had only 40
minutes to find a spot for the Happily Ever After fireworks show. The whole park seemed to already be in place
so we opted for a spot further away from the castle on Main Street. It was definitely worth sticking the day out
for. This show is incredible and evokes wonder and fantasy. Some of the gang cried a lot (Catherine…)
with very little sympathy from her darling husband who just didn’t seem to
understand that this stuff makes Disney nerds cry (it’s Quasimodo that always
starts it off and then the tears keep flowing!).
Fireworks over, the park was now officially
closed so no more rides for anyone.
There’s a mass exodus from the park so we waited it out in the Main Street
shops and then Starbucks (coffees & a mug for Catherine’s collection
purchased). Crowds were starting to thin
by now so we made a break for it.
However, once we were out of the park gates we realized that it was
going to take us another 2 hours to get on a monorail (approximately…). A helpful cast member pointed out that the
quickest way back to the car park was probably the buses as they were running
extra ones back there as well as to the hotels.
Not many people seem to know about this so we got on a bus & back to
the car park relatively painlessly.
Back home and a quick snack of cereals all
round before bed after what turned out to be a pretty much rope drop to
fireworks day. Not much planned for
tomorrow apart from Disney Springs for shopping and then a lazy afternoon &
evening to recover.
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