We arrived before rope drop on our last full Magic Kingdom day. Our strategy was to use our FP+ for Tomorroland Speedway, Thunder Mountain, and Splash Mountain. I can tell you right now that we were very lucky that Tigger had started his scary ride revolt or we would have been very disappointed with this day. We headed in with the masses and Grizzly split off to Thunder Mountain to grab us extra FP+ while I took Tigger to ride the Carousel. His threeness was definitely shining this trip as his top 3 rides in all the parks were probably the Carousel, Tomorrowland Speedway, and the TTA. For all the people who wonder why these attractions are even there, the reason is because a lot of people bring 3 year olds to the park, and my little guy was in ride heaven on them.
Second stop after the Carousel was Astro Orbiter. Dad managed to get back to us from his FP run just in time to join us. I snapped this picture of them while riding. I love the unintentional photo bomber in the upper left corner, he is totally unimpressed by this ride. I feel a little sorry for the kid because Dad is clearly not in the Disney spirit, it's only 9:15 am, this Dad has a LONG day ahead of him. I on the other hand was worried I would fall out of the rocket.
After Astro it was time for our first FP+ of the day, Tomorrow Land Speedway. This is where things get interesting. We scan in at the FP+ mickey heads and they don't turn green. Grizzly tries again. Denied. I try again. Denied. Tigger tries and his works. Hmmm...The CM is refusing to let us through, but I show him
MDE on my phone, and it shows we have a FP+ for this time slot. He lets us through. Curiously when we reach the second set of Mickey Heads all our bands work. What the CM didn't notice is that the # of FP+ reservations read only 1. This is now really odd because all week long it read 2 because Tigger somehow got listed under 'friends' so he was never counted. Today it says only 1.
After this oddity it got even worse. I literally watched as the FP+ reservations disappeared from my phone. It was like one of those movies where the person is staring at the computer screen watching as the bad guys erase their identity. By the time we were off the Tomorrowland Speedway we only had 1 FP+ reservation remaining, and in a few minutes more they were all gone. Vanished! Saturday's were gone too.
If you remember back we weren't supposed to be testing FP+ at SSR, but had accidentally come upon the testing by switching our AKV reservation at the last minute. Maybe Disney just chose Friday at 10am to wipe out all the non-valid testers? I have no idea, all I know is we started off the morning with FP+ reservations for three rides and by 11am or so we had no reservations left and we had lost FP+ making privileges on the ap. I really wonder if this has happened to any of the folks who have made ghost reservations for the purpose of FP+ testing.
So onward we go with our day. We still have plenty to do without our FP+, just the event in general was a little unsettling. What if this wasn't a 'you're not supposed to be testing' issue and instead could happen to any tester at any time.
We actually spent most of the remainder of the morning wasting time over in Adventureland and Frontier land so that we would be able to get a chicken waffle right when Sleepy Hollow shifted to lunch at 11am. I know, so silly to plan our morning around a chicken sandwich, but it was well worth it.
One of my favorite parts of this trip was how much Tigger loved interacting with the characters. This was his 4th trip and all previous trips he was terrified of them, so all our pictures he was either crying, cowering, or standing 10 ft away (sometimes all 3) Here are some examples from previous trips:
Please note that I am not in the business of torturing my child (although sometimes I may want to), past trips he always wanted to wait in line to see the characters, but would flip out once we got close.
This trip however was different. He loved them. He loved hugging them, especially the furry ones. He thought the characters signing his autograph book was the most hilarious thing on the planet. It was just really cool. Sort of like how you imagine visiting Disney with a little kid should be. Just like that. A true dream come true for a parent. Here are some of my favorite character pics from the day:
I love the difference between Stitch at 14 months above, and Stitch at age 3.5.
The only character he chickened out on this trip was Captain Hook. But that is totally understandable because he is a bad guy after all. I, however, got a picture with him because it was a rather long line that we had waited in before Tigger chickened out. I guess to be fair he did muster up the courage to shake his hook. Look, we have the same smile!:
If you hadn't picked it up from the Tigger picture, we had a very late lunch at Crystal Palace. We all LOVED this place. The food was good, steak was delicious, but most of all, the characters were all super furry and just perfect for hugging. We liked it so much that we are going back in January with my parents. I can't wait. I might even make it an annual tradition.
Stay tuned for our night time adventure to Raintasmic, I mean Fantasmic.