The Magic Kingdom is the most popular theme park in the world. I had prepared for our trip to Disney World, but totally didn't get a good read on the Magic Kingdom. When the guides say show up a half hour before the gates open that's because it'll take you a half hour to get to the gates. After parking in their 125 acre parking lot, we had to take a tram followed by a monorail and then we stood in our first line of the day to get our back packs searched before finally gaining entrance to The Magic Kingdom.
We hit Main Street around 10:30AM--an hour and half after the park opened. It was teaming with people. A mid-week day in early February is not a peak attendance day, but it sure felt like it to me.
Our plan was to start in Fantasyland, so we headed over there first. The wait lines for the top rides were already over a half hour. We pulled out our Magic Your Way passes and requested our first FastPass for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
Then we joined the line for Snow White's Scary Adventure. Sure the word scary is in the title, but it's no Haunted Mansion. Nonetheless it was too much for our three. When I asked if she wanted to do it again, Viva said "I'll wait until I get bigger." Jake said it was "too scary." Bentley's input was "I closed my eyes."
We were off to a great start...not. We had time before our FastPass was good, so we went over to the Mad Tea Party--spinning tea cups. This was Kara's favorite ride when we visited the Magic Kingdom 20 years ago.
I parked the stroller while Mark got us in line. When I caught up to him he was grumbling about a group of teenage girls that kept cutting in front of him and the children to join their friends.
As we stood in line, the problem kept growing worse. The group of girls had at least 40 members and over half of those jumped the line in front of us. I asked them twice not to cut and was ignored. I tried talking to their chaperone and got "No hablo ingles." Sure, you don't. I even talked to the Disney worker in charge of the ride, but he did nothing. Finally I just jumped the line in the middle of them. It was a most unpleasant experience.
The tea cup ride was hard to do with Mark in the cup. His knees were in the way. The children tried to spin the cup, but they were too small. I got it going, but that just reminded me why I didn't like the ride. It makes you so dizzy you feel sick. No one requested a repeat of this ride.
My first hour and half in the Magic Kingdom was anything but magical--check points, crowds, lines, rude teens, and more lines. We checked out a couple of other rides, but they all had wait times. Eventually we did The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. All three seemed to enjoy it, although they said little. Jake said he liked seeing all the animals.
We wasted yet more time wandering around trying to figure out the best approach to the FastPass system. By 3PM we had managed to do only four rides. In Legoland we had twice that number in half the time. Not that I'm comparing the two parks. (Of course I am!)
Peter Pan was our fourth ride, another FastPass. The children all liked it. Viva and Bentley liked the feeling of flying. Jake didn't like Captain Hook.
Next we fit in a show--Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. Jake was worried that it would be like the movie, kind of scary. It wasn't. It was just pure fun and funny. It was a delightful break from the morning's sour note. After that things improved a lot.
We watched the Celebrate a Dream Come True parade. The children tell me they like parades. Well the parades in Disney are a lot nicer than the parades in Anchorage. After the parade we went to Tomorrowland and used our third fast pass to shorten our wait time on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.
This is a ride and shoot game. You can spin your vehicle, too. Mark rode with Bentley to help him understand the game. I rode with Jake and Viva. They each had a laser and I had the spinner control. I helped them shoot a few targets, so they scored 1200 and 900 respectively. Bentley had a lot more points, 7,000 or so? He liked the game. Mark's score was 500,000+ points. Really?!
We finally got in our groove and started making better use of our time. We did the Tomorrowland Speedway. It was quite an experience. Drivers of all ages (as young as two or three, but lots of adults, too!) steer race cars around a quite lengthy race track. The car's wheels straddle a guide rail they cannot cross, so they can't get too far off track. What they can do is bang into the rail quite sharply, if the driver doesn't have his/her act together.
I did this ride twice in a row so that both Jake and Viva could take turns steering. Jake was much better at driving than Viva was. Viva just about gave me whiplash. The person assigning cars told me I was driving too slowly. Ha! Has he ever tried letting a four and half year old drive?
B, J, & V all really liked this ride. I asked Viva if she liked the driving course here or at Legoland better. She said Legoland because it was easier. Jake said the same thing. Bentley said he like this course better because it was harder and sometimes he likes doing hard things.
After the race cars, we saw Buzz Lightyear doing photos and autographs, so we joined the line. Viva opted for ice cream instead. The ice cream line was short so we made it back to the Buzz line in time for Viva to get her photo, too. She said she wasn't going to, but then she did. Jake said he was going to, but almost didn't. There's nothing like a pair of four year olds to keep life interesting.
We finally left that area of the park and headed for Adventureland. We were starting to lose light and the Jungle Cruise is much better when you can see the animatronic animals. Bentley really gave us a hard time about doing this ride. He was quite concerned about going on a boat. Would it sink? How did I know it wouldn't sink? Would he get wet? We'd already skipped the too scary rides and the rides that really did get you wet, so I wasn't going to skip the boat rides, too.
The Jungle Cruise was quite amusing. The tour guide's dialogue is full of puns and jokes that made Mark smile. Jake was sitting on my lap and the other two on Mark's lap. Jake kept getting spooked by the fake animals. He knew they were fake, but they made him very wary.
After the Jungle Cruise we had a very messy turkey leg for dinner. Jake and Viva really liked it. We headed to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride--over Bentley's protests. The line was almost nonexistent. We lucked into the first seat in a boat. I call it good luck. Bentley would tell you it was bad luck because we got a little spray on us. Not much at all, but Bentley didn't like it. Viva said she wanted to do this ride again, but the boys weren't as brave. What they did like was the gift shop which had spyglasses for sale. They each bought one.
We had a second set of fastpasses for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, so it was back to Tomorrowland to give it another try. Bentley improved his score. Jake and Viva had lower scores (200 and 500), but I didn't help them at all. I was tempted, but I didn't. Mark's score went down.
It was getting close to fireworks time, but we managed to squeeze in the ten minute 4-D movie, Mickey's PhilharMagic. Donald, not Mickey, was the host, so why Mickey is in the title, I could not figure out. It was okay. The children liked it. (The 4-D in Legoland was much better.)
The fireworks show (Wishes Nighttime Spectacular) was just starting as we came out of the theater. We were right below the action. It was an interesting perspective. We all thought the fireworks display was awesome. It put us all in an even better mood.
Our moods had been improving throughout the afternoon and evening. The cooler the temperatures got, the happier we were and the wilder the children became. We Alaskans do not like hot weather!
The fireworks show is an hour before the park closes, so when it was done, we still had some time to fit in another ride or two. We were standing right next to Prince Charming Regal Carrousel, so I asked the children if they wanted to ride it. Jake told me he'd been wanting to go on it all day. Huh? He never said anything and we walked by the carrousel many times during the day.
Disney's carrousel is pretty splendid. It has four large horses across. They really go up and down as they go around and adults are allowed on them. This carrousel was much better than the one at Legoland which I thought was kind of lame. When we got on, Viva scouted out a pink horse. (She complained at Legoland when I put her on a nonpink horse because there was a shortage of horses and I had to just get her on one.) Mark and I rode the carrousel horses, too. It was good fun. When it was time to leave I had to pry Viva's fingers off the horse and then she managed to mount another one as we passed by.
We chose to do our third round of Buzz, using up our extra FastPasess that a Disney cast member had given Viva. Viva said she didn't want to shoot again; she wanted to control the spinner. Having someone spin you away from the targets rather than towards them tends to affect your score, so I was amazed at how well I did. I must have hit the jackpot a couple of times! Jake and Bentley improved their scores whereas Mark got his lowest score of the day.
When we finished with game, B asked to do the race cars again. We raced over there and found a very short line. Bentley went with Mark and I got the twins again. They had to share the driving this time because there wasn't time to do two rounds. They did a great job. Jake tried to give Viva some driving tips, but--big surprise--she didn't listen.
The park officially closed and we headed out to find our car. Bentley started agonizing that we were taking too long. He did this at Legoland and the Animal Kingdom, too. He seems to think they'll lock you in, if you don't get out quickly enough. No matter how many times I tell him they won't, he doesn't really believe me.
Our day at the Magic Kingdom was fun, despite the poor start, long lines, and hoards of people. If you believe, the Magic Kingdom is magical!
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