Disney World’s Magic Kingom

The day after we visited the Animal Kingdom, we headed to the Magic Kingdom on what I was to later find out was the busiest day of the year to that point.  Florida schools start back a bit earlier than Ohio and it was the last day for kiddos there on summer break.  Combine that with the Extra Magic Hour day and it was insanity.  It was also one of our most interesting days due to a tropical storm system at sea that kept sending in some nasty storms all week.  I’ll get to that in a bit.

I was really excited to see “the” place that you think of when you hear about Disney World.  Walking into the Magic Kingdom it was so impressive.  The siren song of Starbucks called my husband but when he saw the line winding out the door he opted to skip it and we did the cheesy pics in front of the castle.  We look horrible.  LOL

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We spent the early part of the day in Tomorrowland with our first ride being the Carrousel of Progress, one of my to-do’s.  It was super cheesy but I loved it!  The bonus?  It’s air-conditioned.  We then rode Space Mountain and I thought it was a hoot but my husband’s back didn’t think it was all that fun.  We tried to eat lunch at Be Our Guest but the line was over an hour long so we ended up at Cosmic Ray’s which was decent.  Sadly Drew was not feeling well so he left shortly after lunch.  We walked with him to the gate and everyone (but me, I’m not a big coffee drinker) hit up Starbucks.  I ended up holding out and getting a Dole Whip and now I know what all the fuss was about.  SO SO SO SO GOOD!  We hit a few attractions in Adventureland – my favorite was Pirates of the Caribbean.   Oddly though, our boat kept ramming the others really hard and I still wonder if that’s quite normal.

We then hit up Liberty Square and got stuck in The Haunted Mansion. Not kidding.  At first I thought that they had to stop the Doom Buggies for someone to get on/off (normally they just run continuously and you hop in as they are moving but they have to stop it for someone with a wheelchair) but after 10 minutes I was pretty sure something was up.  We were at the spot JUST before the seance room so we could hear it but couldn’t really see it.  I wish we had been stuck in the ballroom spot!!!  We ended up being stuck for 45 minutes!!!  LOL.  Although my long time with the seance room got Sleeping Beauty on the brain because the voice of the lady in there is the same as Maleficient.  Thanks wiki!  We made it out and hit a couple more things before our reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern.   They have a Thanksgiving family style meal there and I really enjoyed it.  The roast beef ironically was all of our favorite.  The service was the only thing slightly lacking but the place was completely swamped so I’ll give them a pass.

Storms started to roll through so after dinner we hopped on the Riverboat and took a lazy spin around the park.  I finally took my camera out and took some proper photos for the first time that day.

We never did make it over to Thunder Mountain Railroad but it was fun taking pictures of it.

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One of my favorite lazy things to do at Cedar Point is to take the trip on the Railroad and see the skeletons.  When I was younger it was one of my favorite things to see, I loved the little skits (RIP Paddlewheel).  I didn’t know they had a similar thing at Disney so that was fun to see.  I had to take pictures of it!

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We kept hoping that the storms would pass and the skies would clear like they had the past couple days but unfortunately they didn’t.  We had a few fun runs through the rain which were almost comical in how hard it was all coming down (and I was wearing white, sigh).  We hit a couple more rides and wandered up to the front of the park to see if the parade was going to go.  They ended up canceling the parade and the skies opened up and we ran towards a gift shop on Main Street.  Just as we got to the awning the lightning started and it hit a rod at the main gate and pretty much everyone  screamed.  The power went out for a few minutes but eventually came back on.  Later we would find out that it went out in the rest of the park and people had to be rescued from a ton of rides due to the power outage.  Tomorrowland flooded with 3 feet of water and shut down.  People had to get rescued from the “boat” rides (Pirates of the Caribbean, It’s a Small World etc.) by firemen.  I can’t apparently go anywhere without it being an adventure.

Right after I took this image, the lightning hit the main gate.

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Eventually the rain let up, the skies cleared and they still put on Wishes, Magic Kingdom’s fireworks show.  However, it didn’t go on until pretty late (11PM) and I didn’t know until later that a “show” is supposed to display on the castle during the fireworks and that at the end Tinkerbell is supposed to fly across the crowd.   For our show the castle stayed pink and there was no Tinkerbell.   We had no idea where you were supposed to stand for the show, so we were up front at the castle but eventually moved back as far as we could when we found out we couldn’t see most of the fireworks.  Oops.  Rookie mistake.

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We were all really surprised to find out that the electrical parade was still planned for the second show despite it being after the park was supposed to close to all but those staying at a Disney resort.  The Main Street section of the parade route was PACKED so I moved us over to just after the bridge to Liberty Square and really thought it was ideal from a photography standpoint.  I highly recommend this spot to anyone that goes and wants good pics of the parade because there’s no one around – you get the castle in the background and no one can stand on the bridge so it’s a people free zone.  The parade reminded me of a nighttime Mardi Gras parade (without the beads).

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See what I mean about people free?

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It was fun seeing movies represented that don’t get a lot of love usually from Disney like Alice in Wonderland (my Dad’s favorite).

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Fun fact: I played Dopey as a kid in a show for my Mom’s Barbershop Chorus so I had to take this pic.

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So.  There are these evil little effing donkey boys that run around during the parade.  I had a total of 3 of them mess with me but this guy was the worst.  I’m still hacked off 7 months later about it actually.  So the first one comes up, screams in my face and walks away.  I was totally confused because as you can see, they aren’t easy to see.  This guy was the second one and the worst of the lot.  He stopped there and kept getting in front of my camera.  He finally moved away and I thought it was for good but instead he was RIGHT in front of me, grabs my camera (which thankfully I had around my neck) and pulls it towards him and asks me what it is for.  I’m totally gobsmacked because he is yanking my camera, I grab my camera out of his hands and eventually he moves off.  The third one comes up and brays at me, tells me to take a picture of HIM and moves off.

I hope to god they don’t do this to little kids.

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Growing up I LOVED Pete’s Dragon so this was a highlight for me.  Behind the dragon you can see the last float which ironically gets stuck on the bridge every time (so the security guy says) so if you want a long chance to take pics of the american float definitely stand here.  It’s something to do with how long it is vs. the bridge.

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This is not the best picture in the world but it’s a funny part of the story. So we leave after the parade and decide not to even try for more rides (I’m glad we didn’t because most were down still from the power being out).  We walk out the main gate and see the monorail is stuck just before the landing pad or whatever you want to call it, these firetrucks outside, a STRONG smell of gas and people FREAKING out and rushing us to the platform where we pick up the bus.  We were moved to a different side and the bus pretty much picked everyone up and rushed us out of there ASAP.  We listened to the radio on the drive back to our hotel and there was some kind of gas leak due to lightning hitting something at Magic Kingdom, the monorail was stuck because lightning hit the monorail power source (later heard it was 3 hours people were stuck on the monorail) and there was something wrong with a bus.  It was amazing how many things went amuck the day we went to the Magic Kingdom.  What is really impressive is that we had NO clue about any of it due to how it was all being handled.  Had we of gone to go to other parts of the park we may have found out but we just assumed they closed off Tomorrowland for the fireworks (we did see that roped off) and had no clue about the rest of it.  Never a dull moment!

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My recommendations for Magic Kingdom

Eat: Liberty Tree Tavern (Full Service)
Drink: MK is “dry” outside of Be Our Guest so console yourself with a Dole Whip Float instead (I got vanilla/pineapple juice)
Ride:   Pirates of the Caribbean 

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