After breakfast at the Crystal Palace, we spent the rest of our second day at the Magic Kingdom park. It was a very full day, so I have a lot to write about and several pictures to share.The park is divided in to several "lands". We headed first to "Fantasyland" that has rides geared mostly to younger kids. Disney has a system called "FastPass", available on most of the really popular rides. To use it, you put your park ticket into a machine just outside the ride and it prints a ticket for you with a specified window of time to return. When your return time is up, you go to a special line with little or no wait. The catch is, they only give out a set number of Fastpasses for each ride each day, and you can only hold one Fastpass at a time. (You can't get a new Fastpass until the time for your previous one comes up.) I know this is a long explanation, but there is a point and it illustrates one of the many ways God provided for us over the week. When we entered Fantasyland we got Fastpasses for the Winnie the Pooh ride and then got in the regular line for Peter Pan's Flight (which wasn't too bad, since it was still early in the day). The boys really loved this ride. As we were exiting the ride a "cast member" (i.e. employee) was handing out a limited number of "Dream Fastpasses" as part of their "Year of a Million Dreams" promotion. This Dream Fastpass contained Fastpasses for nine of the most popular rides. So, not only were we each holding 9 fastpasses, instead of the usual one at a time, ours could be used anytime that day. It proved to be such a blessing. Even when the park got really crowded in the afternoon we were able to wait only 10 minutes for rides while the regular lines would be up to an hour or more. God was good to us! So, with smiles on our faces, we proceeded to explore the rest of Fantasyland. We rode It's a Small World, one of the few rides I remember really clearly from visiting Disney as a child. Kenna, Nana, and I really loved it:
We also rode Cinderella's Carousel:
And the Mad Tea Party:
The teacups spin around on this one. At the end Nana made a comment about her stomach not feeling so great. To which Camden replied, "She's gonna blow!"
The teacups spin around on this one. At the end Nana made a comment about her stomach not feeling so great. To which Camden replied, "She's gonna blow!"We also rode The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and watched Mickey's Philharmagic show - a really great animated, 3D show.
From Fantasyland we headed back up MainStreet to retreive our lunches from our locker, with a stop at "LeChapeau" for mouse ears. Nana bought this souvenier for each of the kids. It was a really neat store where you could create your own ears. You choose a beanie, choose ears, pick patches, and Kenna even picked a tiara for hers. Nana and Papa had found a great spot for lunch, and the kids ran to show them their new, customized ears. They wore their ears pretty much the rest of the trip and got many compliments on them!
After lunch, we headed to "Frontierland", where we explored The Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, rode The Magic Carpets of Aladdin (see pic that follows), watched The Enchanted Tiki Bird show, rode The Jungle Cruise (using our Dream Fastpass!), and The Pirates of the Carribean (also with our Fastpass). This is the ride that inspired the movies. Our kids haven't seen the movies as we think they're too intense for them, but the ride was fine for them.
We all watched the Monsters, Inc. comedy show together, which was pretty funny. From there we went to "Mickey's Toontown Fair", another area geared toward the younger set. Kenna, Nana, and I rode Goofy's Barnstormer, a child sized roller coaster that actually got up a good bit of speed. The boys visited a play area designed as Donald's Boat. We also explored Minnie and Mickey Mouse's Country Homes. Here's Kenna sitting at Minnie's kitchen table, ready to pour tea:
We took a break for dinner and Nana and Papa headed back to the hotel. We decided to go back to Fantasyland where we had started our day and use the last few of our Fastpasses. Kenna and Robert rode Snow White's Scary Adventures (the boys wanted nothing to do with a ride that had "scary" in the name), while I took the boys for a repeat of Peter Pan's flight. We traded kids and Robert took the boys for a repeat ride on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Cinderella's Carousel while Kenna and I waited in line to meet Ariel, the Little Mermaid.
By this point the line for Dumbo wasn't terribly long (only 20 minutes compared to the hour waits they were having earlier in the day), so we took the opportunity and rode it.
We finished Dumbo just as the evening fireworks were about to start. We were basically underneath the show. Some of the fireworks went off in front of us and some behind us, so we watched the show like a tennis match in the air. Cullen has never liked fireworks because he is very sensitive to loud noises, so between that and the fact that he was really tired, he pretty much had a meltdown. So, when the show was over, we made our way to the exit. Not the best ending to the day, but still a great day overall.
From Fantasyland we headed back up MainStreet to retreive our lunches from our locker, with a stop at "LeChapeau" for mouse ears. Nana bought this souvenier for each of the kids. It was a really neat store where you could create your own ears. You choose a beanie, choose ears, pick patches, and Kenna even picked a tiara for hers. Nana and Papa had found a great spot for lunch, and the kids ran to show them their new, customized ears. They wore their ears pretty much the rest of the trip and got many compliments on them!
After lunch, we headed to "Frontierland", where we explored The Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, rode The Magic Carpets of Aladdin (see pic that follows), watched The Enchanted Tiki Bird show, rode The Jungle Cruise (using our Dream Fastpass!), and The Pirates of the Carribean (also with our Fastpass). This is the ride that inspired the movies. Our kids haven't seen the movies as we think they're too intense for them, but the ride was fine for them.
From Frontierland we moved across the park to Tomorrowland. We got trapped by the afternoon parade, which we had not planned to watch, but we did get to see most of it near the castle which is in the middle of the park. After the parade, we made it to Tommorowland and rode Buzzlightyear's Space Ranger Spin (another Fastpass ride). This one is like you're in a video game and there are all kinds of targets to shoot at. Everyone had fun on this. We all compared scores at the end, but I selectively forgot those because I didn't do too well! Next we rode the Carousel of Progress. This is an oldie, but goodie that I remember from my childhood. Kenna's teacher had told her about it, so she was excited to see it. It's pretty corny, but to my surprise, everyone seemed to enjoy it - if nothing else it provided a few minutes to get off our feet!
After a quick ice cream treat, Nana took the boys on the Tommorrowland Transit Authority (a tram type ride around the area), while the rest of us went on Space Mountain (using Fastpass) - great fun!
After a quick ice cream treat, Nana took the boys on the Tommorrowland Transit Authority (a tram type ride around the area), while the rest of us went on Space Mountain (using Fastpass) - great fun!
We all watched the Monsters, Inc. comedy show together, which was pretty funny. From there we went to "Mickey's Toontown Fair", another area geared toward the younger set. Kenna, Nana, and I rode Goofy's Barnstormer, a child sized roller coaster that actually got up a good bit of speed. The boys visited a play area designed as Donald's Boat. We also explored Minnie and Mickey Mouse's Country Homes. Here's Kenna sitting at Minnie's kitchen table, ready to pour tea:
We took a break for dinner and Nana and Papa headed back to the hotel. We decided to go back to Fantasyland where we had started our day and use the last few of our Fastpasses. Kenna and Robert rode Snow White's Scary Adventures (the boys wanted nothing to do with a ride that had "scary" in the name), while I took the boys for a repeat of Peter Pan's flight. We traded kids and Robert took the boys for a repeat ride on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Cinderella's Carousel while Kenna and I waited in line to meet Ariel, the Little Mermaid.
By this point the line for Dumbo wasn't terribly long (only 20 minutes compared to the hour waits they were having earlier in the day), so we took the opportunity and rode it.
We finished Dumbo just as the evening fireworks were about to start. We were basically underneath the show. Some of the fireworks went off in front of us and some behind us, so we watched the show like a tennis match in the air. Cullen has never liked fireworks because he is very sensitive to loud noises, so between that and the fact that he was really tired, he pretty much had a meltdown. So, when the show was over, we made our way to the exit. Not the best ending to the day, but still a great day overall.
I really can't believe all we did in that one day. Having those "Dream Fastpasses" really made a difference - thanks be to God! It really was a "magical" day.
No comments:
Post a Comment