Sat. Nov. 27
I've never been a park commando. I just don't like scheduling every single second of a day. I am one to make plans, but this is probably the loosest set of vacation plans I've ever had.
We got up and the kids watched a little TV over a breakfast of cinnamon streusel muffins. Stefan asked where we were going to go today. We had no firm plans, but I'd scoped out predictions and found that Magic Kingdom was a good day.
That's right. Magic Kingdom. On a Saturday. The Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend.
We didn't leave the room to be there at rope drop and I thought that might be a problem. As we drove to MK and saw the sheer number of cars pulling into the parking lot, I started to wonder a little bit more.
After we got off the tram, we headed to Will Call because I figured that just in case it was crazy, we could use one of our Give A Day, Get a Day Fastpass Cards here. Just to review: These cards give you 6 Fastpasses on your choice of major attractions within your choice of park on one day.
After getting the FP cards, we headed to the monorail station. The Express Monorail line was really backed up, but no one was waiting for the Resort Monorail. We hopped the line and got on the Resort Monorail as it had just pulled in to the station.
After entering Magic Kingdom, we walked down a pretty busy Main Street. For the first time visitor, you might have looked at those crowds and thought, "I'm toast. There's no way I'm getting on any rides today."
I could not believe the number of things we did... without the Fastpasses.
For the first 60-90 minutes...everything was a walk-on. I'm not kidding!
Bryan and the kids wanted to do Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. Once they walked off, we had to have the traditional ride on Aladdin's Magic Carpets so that Stefan could try and get Bryan wet from the spitting camel. He was successful, by the way.
The kids and I walked right on to the Jungle Cruise. Sara, our skipper, was a freakin' hoot!
Bryan joined back up with us and we headed to Pirates of the Caribbean. Whoa! Pirate Goofy was out so we had to jump in line to meet him.
Both side of POTC were open, but everyone else was walking onto the left hand side. We walked through the right hand side and, you guessed it, walked right on to the next boat.
We headed to Frontierland to hit Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (BTMRR). The wait time said 20 minutes. I looked at how fast people were walking in and I did not want to use a FP...I totally thought it wouldn't be a wait. The kids wanted to, and since we had 6 FPs, we used one.
That was a total waste! We walked in, joined back into the line and walked right into an empty spot to await the next train to arrive. It was not anywhere close to a 20 minute wait.
Stefan had the munchies when we were done; he was in search for his favorite Mickey head ice cream bar. We mosied in the direction of Liberty Square. Bryan decided he needed a funnel cake. He and kids headed to Sleepy Hollow and I wandered over the Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe.
Lots of fun new stuff in the Christmas shop; I'll be back on Monday to make some actual purchases.
For all our luck in no lines for attractions, we waiting the lonnnnnggggest time for that darn funnel cake. I'm not kidding. I think we waiting 10 minutes and that was after I rejoined Bryan and the kids.
By that time, everyone was getting a little more hungry than snacks could cover. We decided we'd do Philharmagic, Buzz Lightyear and Space Mountain before heading home.
Philharmagic, oddly enough, had a weird waiting line and seemed rather long. We decided to ditch it and do it on another day.
Another odd factoid: The Fastpass machines for The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh are near the Philharmagic Stand By Entrance. I'm sure it has to do with the Fantasyland construction, but that was just plain weird to me to have the FP machines so far from that ride.
We headed over to Tomorrowland. Buzz had a listed wait time of 30 minutes. Fastpass! By the way, those GADGAD Fastpass cards give you instant Fastpasses. No waiting! We got right on.
Bryan and the kids headed over to Space Mountain (Mary does not do Space.) and I decided to do the TTA, Tomorrowland Transit Authority, or Wedway People Mover. I did a short video, which I'll upload to YouTube and link here in a later blog post.
Once I was done, I decided to take advantage of not having my tribe with me and I'd do a little shopping on Main Street. I texted Caitlin where I was going and headed in that direction.
I cut through Tomorrowland Terrace and it was open! It seems like this place is never open and I was glad to see it!
It's sporting a different menu - not just Asian food, but a smorgasbord of stuff, including sushi.
I shopped for a bit before the tribe caught up with me. At that point, the natives were restless for some food so we headed back to BCV and made hot ham and cheese sandwiches.
After lunch, it was time to hit the pool!
It was a bit of a cold day today so the pool was a bit empty. Bryan camped out in the hot tub and the kids and I swam about a little. But we were the star family of the day at the poolside games that afternoon. That means we were the participatory ones that weren't afraid to make fools of themselves in a t-shirt relay and pool deck dancing. Seriously, though, I think the lifeguards and recreation staff were glad to have participants. They wanted to make sure we'd be back for the campfire and the movie under the stars, which was Toy Story 3.
We headed back to the room and had a little down time before making chicken stir fry for dinner.
After dinner, we were a little antsy, so we headed to the Beach Club lobby and checked out the gingerbreak carousel. There are 11 hidden Mickeys within the structure. So far, I've only found 9. We'll take a crack at it again.
We headed outside and Cate decided to go pearl diving. She got a beautiful blue pearl and decided to get a silver ring for it. Good grief, they suck you in with the jewelry part...but she doesn't ask for much so when she sees something she really gets into, you kinda have to jump on it.
The movie didn't start until 8pm so we decided to walk over to Epcot and waste a little time. That's the nice thing about the Beach Club Villas...great location.
The kids wanted to head to Test Track so Bryan and I headed to MouseGears. It turns out TT had a pretty long wait and the kids didn't want to do single rider so we headed back to the World Showcase.
Bryan needed coffee so we stopped in one of those gift shops and got the Disney Holiday Cheer. We'll see if he likes it tomorrow. He's finishing up the coffee in the room today.
We caught up to the kids in Norway and it was around 7:30pm. We figured we better hoof it back so they could get to the movie on time. We had a brief stop in Germany - Bryan to the Christmas Brewmaster's stall and Cate and I to Karmel Kuchen. Stefan wanted to head off to Japan.
Karmel Kuchen was packed! We walked through so we could look at the diabetic-inducing goodies and wow! We're going to stop here on another day when it's not packed.
Cate & I headed out toward Japan. Good grief, was it crowded. Hello...it's opening weekend for Candlelight Processional, knucklehead. What were you thinking?
Bryan caught up with us in Japan, we picked up Stefan and headed home. The kids lasted a little bit, but got tired and came back to the room. We vegged until it was bedtime.
Tomorrow: Sun. Nov. 28 - Animal Kingdom
Saturdays at MK are the best!!
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