Disney Recap Day 2: Magic Kingdom!

Wow, here I am over a week later, ready to share Day 2 with you.  Sorry for the delay!  But oh what a wonderful Thanksgiving week we had!  Hope you did too!  (More on that later)

On Day 2 (Friday) our first FastPass was for Big Thunder Mountain at 8 AM.  So we were up and at 'em around 5:30 and caught the breakfast buffet at the resort around 6:30.

Two words: Mickey Waffles.

Also, side note... Miss J developed a fascination for boiled eggs on this trip, and every time we passed by them at the buffet she would shout "BOILED EGGS!!!" at the top of her lungs, like they were the most amazing things in the world.  She insisted on having one on her plate at every breakfast, although never did a boiled egg actually cross her lips.  She just was somehow enamored with the idea of them, I guess.  But not the actual eating part.

After a somewhat leisurely breakfast we boarded the bus to the Magic Kingdom!!

I'm really glad we did Magic Kingdom on the first day, because in terms of building excitement, there's simply nothing like walking down Main Street towards the castle.  We were chugging along though, because as a result of our leisurely breakfast, we had about 10 minutes before our FastPass expired.  So we hightailed it over to Frontier Land to board Big Thunder Mountain with about a minute to spare.  Whew!

Grandma is not a fan of coasters so she graciously agreed to watch J while the rest of us rode.  J really really reeeeally wanted to ride with the rest of us but Grandma expertly distracted her with the Country Bear statues nearby and they waved to us from the observation bridge as we "thundered" by on the coaster.  Great way to start the day!

(Thumbs up from the big girls after their first ride!)

Next we were off to Pirates of the Caribbean!  J was excited that she was allowed to ride this one, but halfway through the ride she got a bit scared and I had to keep reassuring her that the pirates were "just robots" and not real.  She only whimpered a couple of times, though, and I think enjoyed it overall!  It took a lot of convincing from Daddy to get C on the ride too, and I think she spent most of the time with her face buried in Daddy's shoulder, as you can see in this on-ride photo:

Everyone ended with a smile:

N wanted me to tell everyone that she got splashed in the face by the cannonballs.

Next we were off to the Haunted Mansion.  On our way we stumbled upon a Muppets show in Liberty Square!  Very exciting-- they were real puppets!

N was the only girl brave enough to ride Haunted Mansion, so Daddy and Grandpa stayed behind with the three younger girls, and they all had a snack and rode It's a Small World.  I got to ride Haunted Mansion with my Momma which was fun!!  One of my favorites!

Since our initial three FastPasses were now used up, we had freedom to book additional FastPasses.  We were able to score one for Space Mountain, so we headed to Tomorrow Land (passing by Rapunzel's Tower on our way-- new since we last came):

and had lunch at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe while we waited.  (BTW, the same animatronic dinosaur/alien guy that was singing there during our lunch 25 years ago there is still there.  And he's just as loud... if not louder??)  Again, our meal plan provided us with wayyyyy more food than we could eat and we ended up throwing some away!  The Greek Salad I had there was really yummy, FYI, and was just the light lunch that my still-queasy stomach needed.

Fortunately, none of the coasters were bothering my stomach, so I was able to ride Space Mountain no problem!

The older two girls loved it, obviously :)

Oh and Auntie Piper was so kind to buy all of the girls Minnie ears in the Space Mountain gift shop... so adorable!

C and J had stayed with Grandma and Grandpa while we rode Space Mountain (thanks so much to them!!) and watched some guys with cool paintbrush/brooms that were painting Disney characters on the sidewalk with water.  One of those extra touches that makes Disney so special!

Miss J was acting pretty saucy by this point in the day, BTW.  I applaud Grandma and Grandpa for dealing so kindly with Her Grumpiness.  It was nap time, you know, and she was feeling the travel fatigue and the late nights.

After riding Space Mountain we were all feeling like we needed a pick-me-up so we hit up Joffrey's Coffee in Tomorrowland.  I was a little worried considering Joffrey is the most horrible human being alive, but my worry was for naught because this was some of the best coffee I tasted on the trip!  Plus delicious baked goods!  I highly recommend it.  Oh, and on our pre-paid meal plan pretty much anything in the park was considered a "snack", and we were each allotted two snacks per day, so it was all part of the package and paid for.  Coffee as a snack?  Yes, please!!!!  The very best part of this moment was that, after forcing her most unwillingly into the Ergo on Daddy's back, J promptly fell asleep as we waited in line for coffee.  She's one of those kiddos who will keep herself awake at any cost until you restrain her... know what I'm talking about?

While we were still in Tomorrowland we hit up the Carousel of Progress (one of my all-time favorites!  so happy it was still open!  ah the nostalgia!) and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover.

We also did the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor and since Uncle Ben got interviewed for the show our whole family's picture was up on the big screen!

Then we headed back towards the Snow White Mine Train-- FastPasses for this one had proved impossible to get so we thought we might try to wait out the standby line but it was 90 minutes at that point so we figured we just couldn't hack it.  Next time!  We attempted to ride Winnie The Pooh

but the ride shut down due to technical difficulties *just* as we had gotten in the honey pot for our turn.

The nice thing about that was that as we exited the Disney employees gave us a "universal" FastPass-- meaning we could use it on any ride, any time (with the exception of the Snow White Mine Train... bummer).

Our next scheduled FastPass was for Journey of the Little Mermaid so we headed that direction as we pondered how we would use our Universal FastPass later.  The kids were all beginning to get pretty tired at that point, but luckily we had some folks around willing to give them a hand with the walking:

We got right on Journey of the Little Mermaid... I got to ride in a seashell with Miss J, and it was so wonderful to watch her exclaim with delight over everything.  This was without a doubt her favorite ride and she kept talking about it for days afterwards.

After Ariel we paused at the exit for a while to chat a bit about what we wanted to do next.  While we did so my brother the Cartographer wanted a photo in front of this sign:

Cute little photo bomb there.

We finally came to the conclusion that we would use our universal FastPass on Goofy's Barnstormer, which was near the top of the girls' to-do list.  The park was going to be closing soon and we weren't 100% sure we'd be coming back to Magic Kingdom, so I wanted to make sure that we got that one in before leaving.  

Miss L had made a pact with Justin months ago that they would ride Barnstormer together, and it was such fun to see her getting her wish.

Barnstormer was great!  Definitely exceeded my expectations!

The train station was right next to the Barnstormer exit, so since the park was about to close we decided to ride back to the front entrance rather than walking.  A good choice, I think.

When we arrived at Main Street we took one last opportunity for a family photo op

and then made our way to the buses back to the resort.

But not before buying Miss J the Ariel bubble-blowing light-up wand she had been asking for all day long.

Some of the aunts and uncles opted to ferry over to Epcot since it was only 6 PM... but the kiddos were worn out so we shuttled straight back to the resort with Grandma and Grandpa.  The Ariel wand kept J occupied on the bus ride, although she kept accidentally turning the bubbles on and spraying them in people's faces... but it's all good.

We ordered some room service pizza and pasta for the girls' dinner, plus Chardonnay for Mom

then we had a bubble party

and then we crashed and fell into a deep deep deep deep snow.  I mean sleep.  Haha.  What a day!