Magic Kingdom (day 5)

I woke up several times dreaming of being in the North Pole. The airconditioning was a bit frosty. Normally I would get out of bed and turn it down, but apparently I wasn’t altogether lucid last night, so I tried to cover myself with the tiny little decorative bedspread, and after that I grabbed a cardigan.

Don’t ask… I really have no answer for this.

Anyway, the alarm clock hit me hard this morning, and my ‘not quite lucid’ state might have lingered just a tad… yikes.

The Noodles were all excited about going to the Magic Kingdom. It’s our favorite park, and usually the start of our Disney experience. Elora, like me, was being a bit sluggish this morning, so when we finally went to Sassagoula Floatworks for breakfast, we were running late.

We’re on the dining plan, so that means we spend points for meals, it’s quite brilliant! We got one big breakfast platter between the three of us and a portion of three beignets. The portions here are so big, we couldn’t even finish one platter with the three of us. The beignets were okay, not as spectacular as we hoped. I expected them to be like oliebollen (Dutch seasonal pastry), but they weren’t as good.

The drive to the Magic Kingdom brought back some good memories. We always think back of our first holiday here, when Elora was only 2 ½.

The Disney cast member who welcomed us to the parking lot tram is my new hero, he was hilarious. The whole tram was in stitches when he started to sing ‘let it go, let it go,’ when he was describing what you should do if you accidentally dropped something out of the tram. The man had showbiz talent.

I have to admit, I was a little gutted that we missed the opening ceremony to the park. It’s a first day tradition, and it felt sad that we didn’t do it. We’ll get it next time, so I won’t dwell on it. I’m already happy I can take pictures again.

Normally I have a geeky and precise plan for the parks, but I’ve been so busy and distracted lately, I never made one. I honestly felt a little lost for a second. The fastpass plus things kinda threw me off too, though I have to say it’s great.

Who ever invented the magic wristbands is a genius, btw. They are SPECTACULAR. I love ease and comfort. I love not having to dig through my bag for cards to get in the parks. And these do everything! I can even pay in the shops with them. No hassle, it’s bloody brilliant.

We had fastpass tickets to the new Dwarf mine train attraction, from Snowwhite, but not until 10:30, so we had some time for other attractions. Winnie the Pooh had a reasonable wait-time, so we decided to go for that. I love the interactive play area in the line, it really makes the wait a lot less long. Peter Pan had a longer line, 45 minutes, and for a moment we hesitated, but Elora talked us into it. Turns out they changed the line for Peter Pan too… it was AMAZING! You go through the Darling house, where there is so much to see and do. My favorite part was the interactive shadow area, where we could hold up our hands to watch butterflies land on them, or ring shadow bells. Peter Pan’s shadow also flew around. And of course there was an appearance of Tinkerbell, who got stuck in a key hole. It was so great, the 45 minutes flew by.

We still had some time to kill, so we took a trip through Small World. I am ashamed how much we struggled naming certain cultures. I think Daan credited the Turkish nationality to about three different doll areas. *snort*

The line to the mine attraction was ridiculous, so I was very grateful we had a fastpass. It was a cute ride, but not one I’ll repeat this holiday. It wasn’t spectacular.

We decided to go to the Little Mermaid ride after that, and there was almost no line. I wasn’t sure why, because the park was pretty crowded already. Hey, we weren’t complaining. We had more time to kill before our next fastpass, so we ended up going to Elora’s former favorite ride: the Haunted Mansion.

It’s not her favorite anymore… in fact, I don’t think she enjoyed it a lot. Too scary, she decided. Remember, this is the same girl who wanted to ride Harry Potter twice, and wasn’t frightened of giant spiders or dementors… so… yeah… the Disney Haunted Mansion was ‘too scary’. Sure.

Our fastpass for Belle’s enchanted story time was a bust. Something broke, and after waiting for 40 minutes, we were told it would take another hour at least. Yeah… no thanks. We got a ticket for it, and we might go tonight. Plus we got a new fastpass for a random other attraction. Yay Disney, you rock.

We decided to have lunch in the park, and shared a pork shank, some mixed vegetables and crackers and hummus between the three of us. It was lovely. We found a nice place in the shade and enjoyed our meal. We had just missed Gaston, but I hope Elora will have her picture taken with him this holiday. He’s so funny.

After lunch, we went home. The park was getting ridiculously crowded, and the weather was too hot for us. We’re not used to being in the sun for hours at the time.

Daan went to the mall, while Elora and I took a 20 minute break from the sun and watched the Derby. Then the girls were off to the pool, where we cooled off for an hour and a half. Daan joined us when he came back, and then we went back to the room to get dressed for our dinner in the Beast’s castle.

We had to wait quite a while, and Disney doesn’t seem to like it when tired people sit, so we hung out on the bridge for a little while.

The inside of the Be Our Guest restaurant was truly breath taking. It really was as if we walked into a fairytale. From the enchanted rose, to the torn up painting… we were in the beauty and the beast story. My favorite part was the snow outside the windows of our part of the restaurant. It really looked like it was snowing outside.

The food was decent. We tried the grey stuff, and it truly was delicious. Our waiter was wonderful and a little clumsy… I adored him right away. These are my people… the klutzes and the misfits.

After dinner we wanted to explore the park again. We still had a free fastpass because of the Belle’s storytime thing, and we actually still had a ticket for Belle too, plus one more to meet Anna and Elsa.

The first stop was Belle’s storytime. It’s an interactive show, where the kids get to play the different parts. Personally, I’m not to fussed about this one, but I booked it because I know Elora loves this kind of stuff. She was very skeptical about it when I told her what we were going to do, and she basically told me she wouldn’t mind missing it. This always makes me doubt if I’m doing the right thing or not, but we decided to try this one anyway. Thank God that I stuck to my guns, because I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be the highlight of Elora’s holiday.
 

Elora loves to get picked for things, and so far she’s been really unlucky. Other kids get picked, and in Ollivanders –in Harry Potter land—the stupid shopkeeper even choose an adult over all the stary-eyed children’s faces.

Anyway, I was a little worried she would get a crappy part again (last time she was a painting) or not get any part. Luckily it turned out that everyone got a part (though some people were plates who did nothing in the performance)

When the lady was handing out the roles, she started with the beast. Elora roared her little heart out, but another girl got the part. But the next part was Philippe… A HORSE…

Ohhhh I was holding my breath and crossing my fingers. Please, please, please let her be the horse. My child neighed her little heart out for the audition… and…. GOT THE PART!! Oh, you should have seen her face. She was beaming so much, she lit up the room. She did such a great job that the whole room laughed when she played her part and she even skipped in a horsey trod when they got to do a circle around the audience. The whole night she was elated about having played the horse. It was freaking magical.

After Belle, Elora wanted to go and check out Dumbo in the new circus area. The new area looked nice, but I’m just not a fan of the ride. We went in, which was nostalgic, because it was our first ride with her, but Dumbo just doesn’t float my boat…

Daan made me laugh, because he was messing around in the elephant behind us, being a big goofball. He’s been cracking me up all vacation with his jokes and mad photobombing skills. I wonder how many people will notice they have a tall Dutch dude pulling faces on their picture.

After Dumbo I wanted to go to the Electrical light parade on mainstreet. So many freaking people were gathered there, and not all of them were that considerate. We sent Elora to the front (she’s a kid, people can look over her) with the instruction not to block anyone’s view, and we stayed in the back. Some people are real shitheads. I’ve seen grown men block the view of little kids. Gah!

We only caught a part of the parade, because our fastpass window was coming up and we wanted to be out of the park before the mass exodus to the monorail. It was lovely though, and Elora was completely enchanted.

The line to Elsa and Anna was long, but we only had to wait five minutes. I’m still so impressed with how nice and professional all the characters are. This is probably the last year that Elora wants to get everyone’s autograph, so we’re still going along in the madness of getting her on the picture with them. She was wearing a blue dress, and both Elsa and Anna commented on how lovely they thought her dress was. Elora –who is so vain, she makes Narcissus look laconic—was over the moon, and made sure I heard that she got compliments.

We wanted to go home, but the free fastpass was burning a hole in our pocket, so we decided to do a quick stop at Pirates of the Caribbean. Turns out our free fastpass wasn’t exactly working *whoopsie* but the guy was nice enough to let us through anyway.

After the ride we speed walked all the way across the park, hoping that we wouldn’t get stuck in the mass of people. It was tight, and we were pretty nervous. In past years we’ve had times where we would have to wait almost two hours to get the monorail to the parking lot, and we were too tired for that crap.

We made it to the first monorail, though some people decided that ‘if I run, I don’t have to stand in line’…. Ehm okay. We all got there in the end.

 

Elora was so tired, she almost fell asleep in the monorail. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. By 11pm we were all back in the hotel and in our beds, but it had been a long… looooong day.