Sunday, March 12th: A Magic Kingdom Park Day, Part One
Yes! Our first park day of the trip, it was finally here! We were able to get to bed at a reasonable hour the night before, so we popped right up around 6am and were on a bus at 7:15am. We go to the park at 7:30.
Our plans for the day:
You may have noticed from our plans that the Magic Kingdom didn’t open until 9am, so why did we arrive so early? Well 1) because we all know that the morning is the most valuable part of the day and 2) we wanted to be sure we saw what the new park opening procedure at the MK was like.
In case you haven’t read online about the changes to the morning schedule at the Magic Kingdom, or haven’t visited since the changes, I’ll tell you about our experience. However, the security process at the MK has changed just in the past few days, so just stay flexible and check the boards if you have early morning plans!
Scott: Contrary to what the picture may show. It was actually a beautiful day. We just arrived BEFORE THE SUN CAME UP.
So when we arrived at 7:30, we went through bag check and the metal detectors. Guests with breakfast reservations were over to the far left, going through the tapstiles there. Guests without reservations were dispersed among the rest of the tapstiles. We walked about as far as you could go to the right and ended up being the second group in our line. Right at 8am, we were allowed to go ahead through the tapstiles and on to Main Street.
#tapstile
GUYS CHECK ME OUT ON AN EMPTY MAIN STREET
In my opinion, this procedure is much better than everyone waiting in front of the train station. I loved the train station welcome show, but crowding everyone into the area between the tapstiles and the tunnels was uncomfortable, and it was difficult to get a good view of the show and stay towards the front of the crowd.
I loved that we got to walk down a Main Street with very few guests, and even better, we didn’t feel the pressure to get to a destination. My first walk down Main Street on every trip is truly the most magical moment, and this time, I could actually savor that moment without feeling like taking an extra few minutes to look around and take it all in was going to turn my wait for my first attraction from 5 minutes to 45 minutes.
We strolled around, taking pictures, and enjoying seeing the gardens and castle hub without construction walls for the first time, beautiful!
On this trip, we used our usual Canon Rebel T3i, but I bought Scott a new lens prior to the trip: a 50mm. If you’re familiar with this lens, you know that adjusting to it can be kind of awkward. Basically, instead of being able to zoom the lens in or out, it stays at one distance. Scott took some really nice pictures of me with the castle, but I struggled to do the same for him! Oy!
Scott: Yea she was having a real hard time with the autofocus. But she figured it out after taking 16 or 17 pictures of me.
Scott: Also, I can't figure out why, but for some reason my pictures occasionally post sideways. I can't figure out how to fix it, but they're oriented correctly when I look at the post on my phone. *shrug* Anybody else have this problem?
One disappointment was that Casey’s has already stopped serving breakfast, bummer! I really wanted to try the donuts and the breakfast hot dog. The breakfast offerings from the Plaza Ice Cream shop aren’t really our jam (sorry, but that donut sundae is just not our calling in life) so we decided to wait and get something else later.
We made our way to the rope just to the left of the castle, as our first destination was Peter Pan’s Flight.
Scott: This one was actually taken on my iPhone. Cell phone cameras have seriously come soooo far.
We ended up standing there for quite awhile, but lucky for us, we had a lot of entertainment in the form of Disney wildlife. In fact, we had so much fun watching random animals on this trip! There was a British family right behind us and hearing the children commenting on the bunny and squirrels that ran through the garden was just delightful.
Scott: Occasionally, I'll see something amazing happen, and I want Alli to see it, too. So I'll throw out a little "Hey.. Alli... Look at that amazing thing happening." Alli rarely looks and often misses these amazing occurrences. In order to make sure she was taking me seriously this time, I practically yelled, "ALLI YOU NEED TO LOOK OVER HERE RIGHT NOW." Because this was happening...
Maybe a bunny eating a flower isn't that amazing, but I was fascinated.
When it came time for the welcome show on the stage, which ran about five minutes, we had the kids come up to the rope. However, Scott was annoyed because one of the cast members who were guarding the rope basically stood in everyone’s view the whole show. I am all about being understanding that I don’t know everything, and not assuming that I know more than a cast member does about a specific situation. I encountered that situation so often while working in the parks. However, this cast member was bouncing around and reenacting the entire show, for the whole length of it. So, you know, that was kind of frustrating because everyone there at the rope was watching this show for the first time. Love that you love it girlfriend, but you made it hard to see the show!
Scott: Her head was literally in every picture I took of the welcome show. All of them.
Anyway, as soon as the show was over, the cast members rolled up the rope, and then we walked behind them into Fantasyland. We headed right to Peter Pan’s Flight and hopped in line.
We love the interactive queue here! It’s tough, because I don’t want to wait an hour or more for this ride, but I do want to see everything in the nursery room in the queue! We were able to see Tink work her magic, and this time the pixie dust worked perfectly! I made sure to take a nice long pixie dust shower before heading onwards. Peter Pan’s Flight was perfect as always!
Scott: This was my first chance to try out our new lens on a dark ride. The experiment was... unsuccessful. However, PPF is a very, very dark ride, and ride photos here are hard to obtain. Oh well.
Afterwards we decided to hit another Fantasyland classic that we have to do, but don’t enjoy waiting for: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
While we were in line, we were preoccupied looking at this picture of Christopher Robin holding a balloon. We tried to imitate how he was holding the string with little success.
Scott: Where is his ring finger?? And why is he holding the balloon so delicately between his thumb and index finger?? You're gonna lose that balloon if you don't get a firm grip, Christopher.
After Winnie the Pooh, we moseyed through Fantasyland towards a breakfast destination: Sleepy Hollow Inn.
We got the breakfast waffle sandwich, which we have had before and really enjoy. This is pretty big, so we split it and were satisfied. We do think that this needs some kind of sauce on it though. Maybe it’s because we live in Texas but a little salsa or pico de gallo would be good!
We decided to stay in Liberty Square and we headed over towards Haunted Mansion, one of our favorites. Though, I think if you’re a Disboards member it’s obligatory that you obsess over Haunted Mansion in all its glory!
We see you back there, lil Mr. Toad.
We walked through Fantasyland on our way to our next stop, and used the beautiful Tangled restrooms. We wanted to take pictures of one of our favorite details in WDW: Maximus’ apples! You can find this bag of apples up on a crate along with the cores of several apples that Maximus has already enjoyed in the walkway.
You can be sure that this scene has been left behind by Maximus, because the horseshoe prints in the walkway are emblazoned with his name!
Scott: I also love the hidden Pascals all along the babbling brook. There are a ton of them hidden around this area. See how many you can find. Hint: They aren't all on the ground. You may have to crane your neck to spot a couple of them.