Florida Part Two: Magic Kingdom

Our second day at Disney World, we left our hotel even brighter and earlier, since the Magic Kingdom's parking lot isn't as convenient as Epcot's. You have to take a boat or the monorail to the park entrance. But, we made it in time for a quick bathroom break and the cute little opening ceremony! Mickey and Minnie arrive by train to officially open the park. Once again, the park opened about ten minutes ahead of it's 9:00 scheduled time. 

We walked through Main Street and around Cinderella's Castle to Princess Fairy Tale Hall. 

We waited for about twenty minutes to meet Rapunzel and Tiana. Cinderella and Elena of Avalor (from a Disney Channel show) are on the opposite side of the hall. You have to wait in two lines if you want to meet all four princesses, but thankfully we met Cinderella at Epcot and our daughters have not seen Elena's show. 

We used Touring Plans to make personalized plans for each day at the park. Highly recommend that resource! Our plan had us going to Enchanted Tales with Belle next, since it usually has a longer wait and we weren't able to get a Fast Pass, then coming back for the carousel. Maggie really, really, really wanted to ride the carousel as soon as she saw it. I started to convince her to wait until after Enchanted Tales, but then I realized I needed to chill the heck out. Life would go on if we slightly altered the plan! (For real, though, having a plan of attack for the park was amazing. We did follow it the rest of the day and it really allowed us to optimize our time.)

We still only ended up waiting maybe fifteen minutes for Enchanted Tales. You're ushered into Belle's childhood cottage and then a mirror magically transforms into a portal to the Beast's castle. That part was super, super cool. It's Belle and the Beast's anniversary, so Wardrobe is organizing a reenactment of how they met for the celebration. She gives out costumes to volunteers willing to perform in the play. We're escorted into the library, where Belle comes out, Lumiere guides everyone through the performance, and Belle greets all the guests after the show. 

Next up was The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. This was the first time a Fast Pass was actually helpful.

 

Followed by Dumbo the Flying Elephant and the Mad Tea Party. 

 We had hoped to squeeze in the Barnstormer as well (a little kid's roller coaster) but had to book it to our 11:00 lunch reservation at Be Our Guest. 

It's a quick service restaurant inside the Beast's castle! You can actually order your food online ahead of time, which was so convenient. The adults had beef dip sandwiches and the kids had grilled cheese. You choose your own table, so we got to peek in the West Wing, complete with the slashed painting and enchanted rose, before finding our seats in the main dining room. 

Our first stop after lunch was Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid. This was the newest dark ride we went on, so the animatronics were very well done, especially during "Under the Sea" and "Kiss the Girl." Claire and Maggie found Ursula and her eels a little scary though. We had a Fast Pass for this ride but didn't need it - everyone could just walk right on. 

Mickey's Philharmagic is a 4D film featuring Donald Duck getting thrown into scenes from Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, the Lion King, Peter Pan, and Aladdin. It was cute and very nice to relax in a dark theater for a few minutes, but probably our least favorite attraction of the day. 

It's a Small World and Peter Pan's Flight a classics for good reason! We really loved them both. Our third fast pass was for Peter Pan, and like Winnie the Pooh, it was definitely helpful.

We had just enough time to use the Tangled inspired bathrooms before the 2:00 showing of Mickey's Royal Friendship Faire. 

 

It's a little musical on the steps of Cinderella's Castle featuring songs from the Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Frozen. Afterward, we grabbed some popsicles and found a good spot to watch the parade. 

 

Betsy learned to clap on our trip - it was so cute to see her clapping along during the parade!

After the parade, we finally ventured out of Fantasyland to ride the Magic Carpets of Aladdin in Adventureland. 

It's pretty much exactly the same ride as Dumbo, but, hey, we all still enjoyed it. Betsy especially found those two rides and the spinning tea cups hilarious. Even babies love Disney World apparently! 

We met Aladdin and Jasmine after the ride, which brought the girls' princess total to eleven over the course of two days. 

We couldn't leave the park without a family photo in front of the iconic castle! And without some souvenirs. We told the girls ahead of time that we'd all pick out a Christmas ornament. We found them at the Emporium on Main Street. 

So, we were actually at the Magic Kingdom on Thursday, December 8th. That's the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation. We walked out of the park at 5:00, which we figured would give us plenty of time to grab a quick dinner and go to Mass at 7:00, down the street from our hotel. But just as we were leaving, the monorail broke down, so everyone exiting had to take a boat back to the parking area. Unfortunately that took such a long time that we don't get back to our car until 7:00, foiling our plan. We just grabbed burgers from the Steak & Shake next to our hotel and had a picnic on the living room floor. Maggie actually fell asleep as we were exiting the park and didn't wake up until the next morning!

If I could go back and change anything about our day, I probably would have skipped Mickey's Philharmagic and met Peter Pan instead. Instead of getting a Fast Pass for the Little Mermaid ride, I would have got one to meet Tinkerbell at the theater on Main Street on our way out. Really, we had such a wonderful time and although there was so much of the park we didn't see, we hit all the highlights on our list.