Up and at 'em for our last park day.
Its the Saturday after Christmas so we expect it to be pretty busy in the
MK today! We arrived at the Monorail in plenty of time to get there
before the Magic Kingdom opened (or so we thought). It took a few minutes
before the next monorail arrived and we spent the time talking with our
favorite driver, John. We met him last August and he was wonderful
when we rode up front with him. After the monorail arrived we jumped
on and parked the strollers. While we were getting situated, John poked
his head in and invited us up to the front car! Grandma stayed with
the strollers (which was fine, because the view from the front car didn't
agree with her vertigo too much. She's not a fan of heights!
So off the four of us went with John. He is so much fun. He
likes to joke with the passengers over the intercom, and this is when we
heard that we would be staying put for a few minutes while they brought another
monorail car on the line. It was great. John was telling us about
all kinds of things, and had us pose for a picture with the kids 'driving'
the monorail! (I particularly liked it when he told the 4 year old
not to push any buttons!)
He gave us a bunch of Monorail Pilot cards and said to put the extras
in a scrapbook, or to use for show in tell back at school. After we
got underway it was only a couple minutes until MK, so we said goodbye,
and gave John an appreciation card. He said these are great, and that
the CM's get 'credit' when a WDW guest shows this sort of appreciation for
the work that they do. I also gave him another card to give to the
driver we had earlier in the trip. We hadn't seen her again since then.
Off to the already open MK, but that was OK. There were no lines,
and we zipped right in. There were several characters on Main Street,
and we saw Cruella first. Madison will typically have nothing to do
with the villains, but this time she wanted a picture too! Cruella
was great! She has that 'distant-disdain' act right down perfect!
:-) I listened as she talked with the girls and had trouble not laughing
out loud. "Oh, who's that on your shirts, darlings?". "Ooohhh,
the Princessessssss.. Well, I think they're UGLY. Just look
at Aurora, she has a HUGE nose!" She was great and the girls really
thought she was funny.
Just a little bit farther up was Donald AND Daisy! We've never been
able to get their pictures together before, it was a great 'find'!
The CM said it was only possible because there weren't too many people their
yet. Yeah for us! :-)
On to Fantasyland! We jumped on Dumbo first with zero wait, and
then we did Peter Pan, Snow White, Pooh and Teacups just as quickly.
We headed toward Tomorrowland, and even the Race car line was pretty short.
But even with a short line this wait takes forever, but the girls really enjoy
it and I WON'T wait there in the heat of the summer. It was fun, and
I let Brinn drive the car (well, mostly!).
As we exited we saw that people were lining up at the entrance to Mickey's
Toontown fair. We joined them and headed in a minute or so past 9am.
I quickly saw the draw for early arrival in Toontown. Several characters
were running all over town. We saw Mickey and Minnie at their homes,
Goofy was out in front of the barnstormer and Chip and Dale were playing
with the kids in the playground area in front of Mickey's house. We
got great pictures with them all! We've never bothered to wait in lines
at the Judge's tents - the lines always seemed too long, but it was GREAT
seeing all the characters out and about town!
We rode the Barnstormer with NO wait, and even got to stay on for a second
ride because no one was waiting! That never happened before and the
girls were thrilled! With that done, we headed out and back toward
Tomorrowland.
We continued on to Buzz Lightyear and grabbed a Fast Pass with about a
45-minute wait. We jumped on the Transit Authority and enjoyed the
ride through Tomorrowland. As we exited I saw that Carousel of Progress
was open so we headed in there. We walked right in and enjoyed the
show. I really like this one, I wish it was open more often.
Its fun to explain to the girls how much has changed in the last 100 years.
As we exited this, I saw that Mickey's, Twas the night before Christmas
show would start at about 11:30. It was still pretty early (around
10:15am) but it was time for Buzz lightyear. We had a great ride and
then walked through Mickey's Startraders and the Merchant of Venus.
It was now 10:45 and we had not had breakfast so we headed to Cosmic Ray's
Starlight Cafe for an early lunch before the crowds arrived. For counter
service this place has some great choices, and I love the cooked mushrooms
on the fixin' bar. Yum.
We finished just in time to head back to the Night before Christmas show.
No problem getting a seat (I was worried, since the crowds were definitely
picking up) and it was a GREAT show. I taped the whole thing, so I'll
be seeing it plenty in the upcoming months, but we all really enjoyed it!
They did a nice job, and we could actually SEE this show (no one standing
up in front of us this time!). I've really enjoyed the extras they
do for the Christmas season. |
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