Hi friends! I’m pleased to report that we made it home safe and sound from the most magical place on earth yet again! Some may call me a Disney fanatic, but I personally believe I am just young at heart. Being at Disney brings me such joy and excitement. Being at Disney with my daughter and husband is even better than I could have imagined.
This year we planned our big, annual group trip around Disney Marathon weekend. We were all running different races and were coming and going at different times, but everything worked out perfectly! We started our trip Wednesday traveling to Orlando and visiting the race expo, but I’ll get to that later. Today I wanted to share our experience at Magic Kingdom on Thursday, or as the guys called it, Magical Kingdom.
That morning Ali and Philip ran the Pluto Family 5K! It was little baby Renee’s first race, and momma and baby were doing well post race. After they got cleaned up, we went over to Disney’s Grand Floridian to go to a character breakfast at 1900 Park Fare! I’m going to do a Disney Food post in a bit where I’ll share all about our experience there. When we were done, we took the monorail over to Magic Kingdom and were ready to start our journey!
As you can see, it was a cloudy day, but it kept the temps mild and the rain stayed away! After a quick picture stop, we hung a left into Adventureland to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. We didn’t stay in Adventureland for long, but some other fun rides to do are Jungle Cruise and the Magic Carpets of Aladdin. Julie and I did both of those last month, and you can ride then with an infant. If you’re up for running around, The Swiss Family Tree House is fun to climb up and walk around in.
Next up was Frontierland! We wanted to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but it had a longer wait. Since Ali couldn’t ride, we decided to jump on Splash Mountain since it had a 10 minute wait! That probably had to do with the fact that it was a bit chilly and people didn’t want to get wet. I’m glad we decided to go though! We did get wet, but not soaked. We also go an awesome picture out of it!
I love that this year Disney added PhotoPass for the Annual Passholders, so we got all of our pictures from the rides, characters and around the park! Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain are the two main attractions in Frontierland, but there are also some good food stops and other little activities you can do there. We decided to keep moving onto Liberty Square to go on the Haunted Mansion! This was the longest line we waited in and it was about 40 minutes. Of course, this is also when Chloe had a mini meltdown and the only way to calm her was to feed her. Luckily there were other mommas around us and everyone was really supportive of me breastfeeding her in line. In fact, I didn’t have any issues anywhere at Disney!
Next we moved into Fantasyland to meet the princesses! The line was only 15 minutes, so we sent the boys on to grab a snack while we met Cinderella and Rapunzel!
I loved having my little Cinderella meet the REAL Cinderella! We also got more signatures in our Princess story book which I was very excited about.
Next we moved onto Tomorrowland to hop on a ride that the boys would love…Buzz Lightyear! I love this shooting game and it’s right up our guys’ ally. We didn’t even wait 20 minutes which was awesome. The park wasn’t terribly crowded which made the entire day better. Some other great stops in Tomorrowland are The Laugh Floor, the People Mover, the Astro Orbiter and of course, Space Mountain!
JP beat me at Buzz, but I suppose that makes sense since he did go to the under 20 Worlds for Trap and Skeet shooting and tie for 3rd.
After Buzz, we jumped back over to Fantasyland where we rode Dumbo, It’s a Small World, the Little Mermaid ride and met Ariel! Chloe fell asleep in the Baby Bjorn while JP was holding her, but we still got Ariel’s signature. Plus Ali and I got an awesome picture opportunity with Ariel as a mermaid!
Other noteworthy rides in Fantasyland are the Mad Tea Party (teacups), carousel and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train which I’ll get to soon!
We were finally able to use our Fast Passes on the best rides that evening. I planned it out to have our fast passes later when we were tired of waiting in lines. I also picked the rides that ALWAYS have long wait times. We started with Space Mountain!
We had a little bit of time to spare before we could use our Fast Pass for the Peter Pan ride, so we went to the Hall of Presidents! It’s a short presentation about our nation’s leaders, and as a history nerd, I kind of love it. It’s a great little napping place as well. (Not for me, but I know a few people that may have fallen asleep in there!) Then we got to go on our last ride of the night, Peter Pan! It’s a classic.
We were going to finish the day with watching the laser and fireworks show, but instead we got to meet two princesses that I hadn’t met before. They’re also two of my favorite princesses…or should I say queen and princess. That’s right, we met Anna and Elsa! Their line is always an hour or more of a wait which I just can’t justify. As we were about to head out to watch the fireworks, we saw there was only a 15 minute wait and couldn’t pass it up. We opted to skip the fireworks and meet the two ladies from Frozen.
They loved Chloe of course, and Chloe loved them. I’m clearly raising her right! We were even able to get the boys to join us for a quick pic! After Anna and Elsa, we quickly exited the park while the fireworks erupted behind us. We were all completely exhausted from a long day. It was about 9:00pm and Ali and Philip woke up at 4:00am for the 5K!
What’s your favorite part of Magic Kingdom?
Fantasyland is my favorite! Princesses, rides and now there’s even a roller coaster! You can’t go wrong. Not to mention, there are some yummy food stops here, but we’ll cover that later!
