Disney: Magic Kingdom Day 1

Planning a Disney trip?  Make your trip a little smoother.  Check out all my Disney planning tips and tricks.

Yay!  It was finally time for the Magic Kingdom touring day.  When we started our Disney planning, we knew we wanted to incorporate 2 days to see the Magic Kingdom.  Not only is there enough stuff there to fill up two days (and more) but it makes our life a little less stressful to know that we don't have to do everything in one day.  In light of that, we had picked out our touring plan - the 2-day Touring Plan for Junior Pirates and Adventurers. 

 Since Disney said so, we can now officially "Let the Memories Begin."

The plan started in the back of the park at Peter Pan's flight.  But right away we were derailed.  We walked into the park on the wrong side - we went in on the left but the stroller rental was on the right.  As we walked over to get our stroller for the day, we heard "Come see Mickey.  No waiting."  See Mickey first thing?  Uh, yeah, we're going there.  And he was right.  We were second in line and we saw Mickey and Minnie first thing.

 Eager anticipation.

 
Then, of course, we had to take in some of the Main Street sights and get a few pictures taken.

OK, now we were finally ready to follow that touring plan!  Our first wonder of the day - Magic Kingdom stroller parking.  Now, Epcot had stroller parking but the Magic Kingdom really has stroller parking - like parking lot sized stroller parking.  After we parked that stroller, we rode Peter Pan's Flight (a great, non-scary little ride to start with), then watched Mickey's Philharmagic (awesome 3D!!!!).  Our touring plan called for touring the Haunted Mansion next; however, we had already decided to mark that one off.  I know too many kids who rode some scary ride (Haunted Mansion, Snow White's Scary Adventures, etc), got freaked and refused to ride anything for the rest of the day.  So we were nipping that one in the bud before it even got started.

We wandered over to Frontierland next.  OK, we really didn't wander.  When you're with me at an amusement park, you walk quickly with a purpose :).  Anyway...Splash Mountain was next on our list, followed closely by Big Thunder Mountain.  Splash Mountain was a HUGE hit.  So huge that we went straight over to the Fastpass machine and picked up passes for another ride later.  Hopefully it would be hotter then and the water would feel great.  Big Thunder Mountain, on the other hand, didn't go over with the kids that well.  Tim and I loved it but both Julie and David thought it jostled you around too much and "went waaaaaay too fast" (to quote David).

Following "the plan" we went on the raft/ferry to Tom Sawyer's Island next.  That was really boring, to be honest.  I thought it would be more like a playground to play on, but it wasn't.  And since my kids aren't old enough to have read Tom Sawyer, they really didn't understand what all the buildings and places were.  So we jumped on the next ferry back.

It was about lunchtime and we had decided to leave the park for a few hours at lunch (like our original plan that we veered away from at Epcot), so we headed out.  We decided to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (or some combination of those) back in our room.  We were planning to stay late at the park that night to catch the fireworks.  Eating in the room and resting just seemed like the best idea.  Tim and I took a nap after lunch, Julie read and David played.  But we all got rested and ready to go back that afternoon.  It worked out well for us.

**TIP** - When you rent a stroller, you can return it in the middle of the day, then pick it back up later.  All you need to have is your stroller receipt that is stamped with the day's date.  Just show it to the stroller rental people and they'll hook you right up.

After our midday break, we got right down to business.  Jungle Cruise was our first ride of the afternoon.

Classic ride as always, witty tour guide, silly little animatronic animals that the kids loved!  (Incidentally, "animatronics" is David's new favorite word.  He finds ways to use it in all sorts of sentences.)

Then we rode the favorite ride of all 5-year-old boys, Pirates of the Caribbean.  I don't know if you have ridden this recently, but as far as the action of the ride, it's tame.  As far as the content, it's a little sketchy - if you're in the know, you see brothels, drunk pirates and lots of theft.  If you're 5, you just see cool pirates.  And, they have redone the ride in the last 15 years since I've ridden it, go figure.  Now, the Jack Sparrow in the ride looks just like Johnny Depp.  Anyway, we all loved the ride so much, we rode it two times in a row...with no waiting either time!

And just for Tim, we went to the Hall of Presidents.  OK, OK, it was pretty good.  After some dinner at Pecos Bill, we camped out near the castle to wait for the fireworks show.  A little ice cream helped out the wait.  The fireworks were good but the show before the fireworks was even better.  They had this cool show where they put pictures on the castle then changed all the colors and all the decorations on the castle.  All done with the wonder of projectors.  It's hard to explain on here but it was really neat.

**TIP** - If you have a rest day, go to the fireworks show the night before.  Then when you arrive at the hotel late at night, you won't feel bad sleeping in the next day.  That is, if your kids know how to sleep in.  Mine, not so much.

And, just because my sister is a band director, I took this picture.  So here, Laura, this one is for you.  The trumpet player was really good, reminded me of you ;).