Day 4: Magic Kingdom

On Day Four (a Saturday), we headed to the Magic Kingdom. We were meeting our friends who just relocated to Florida and were excited to spend a day with them at the park! 

We got there bright and early in time for rope drop. I love love love the park opening at Magic Kingdom. I wish every day could start off with singing, dancing, and Mickey Mouse arriving on a train. 

We lucked out on another absolutely beautiful day with cooler temps and lots of sunshine. 

Florida in March is awesome. 

 

It was so great to meet up with our friends and I'm glad we got a shot with all of us together (thanks photopass photographer for taking a photo with my camera!). I'm not sure what the kids are looking at but I think it was important to make sure we had proof that we were all there! :o) 

We were pretty much open on our plans for the day but I knew I wanted to hit up the new attractions in the new Fantasyland right away. So we headed through Cinderella's castle and hopped right on Under the Sea with no wait.

  

We had fun wandering through the queuing area and they had lots of fun things for people to see when the lines got long. The kids loved the little jar featuring a crab collecting treasures- he would pop up in different ones around the area. 

 The ride was soo fun and I loved it. We rented The Little Mermaid from the library and watched it no less than 10 times. Michael and I both love that movie and were happy to see so many Little Mermaid attractions around the World. 

After Under the Sea, we got in line for Enchanted Tales with Belle which was already at 40 minutes early in the day. We decided to wait because I knew it would just get longer from here and it was still nice and cool out (also the kids did great!). 

 

 

 Matt and Vanessa have the nicest family and their kids were soooo well behaved. I think Michael could use some pointers from them!

 

Enchanted Tales with Belle is like a glorified meet and greet. You are magically transported to the Castle through Beast's magic mirror. A cast member assigns roles to anyone who wants one and then you head on in to the library and Belle appears. The kids who had parts then help Belle tell her story. Michael got picked as a horse and he had to say "neigh". He was so cute! Scott also had a non-volunteer part as a guard and we all laughed and laughed about it because Scott would never in a million years volunteer for something like this but he did a great job. The little girl who played Beast was just adorable as well.

 

 After the story is told you get to do a little parade around the room and the Belle presents each Prince or Princess with a bookmark and poses for a photo. We had also watched Beauty and the Beast a few times before our trip so Michael knew exactly who Belle was and was excited to meet her. He smiled and stared at her the whole time! I was so proud of him for being in the story.

 

I had really been looking forward to Enchanted Tales with Belle and it did not disappoint. It was very magical and special, as cheesy as that sounds! 

After Belle, we headed over to the Storybook Circus to ride Dumbo. We rode standby and got to play for a few minutes inside the new circus play area while we waited for our pager to go off. I'm pretty sure this was one of Michael's favorite parts and we visited it many more times over the next few days.

 

 

Dumbo was also everything I had hoped it would be. We didn't ride it last time we visited so this was a first for us. So fun!

After Dumbo we were going to ride the Barnstormer but it was down. The cast members attending said they didn't know when it would be back up and advised us not to get fastpasses in case it didn't come back up all day. We waited around a few minutes and then decided to hop on the train and take a ride around the park. As soon as the train pulled away from the station they opened up the Barnstormer and we could have hopped on with no line if we had just waited!! Oh man. At any rate, the train ride was fun and the kids liked it. It also gave us a chance to rest our legs for a bit. We did a round trip so we just left our strollers at the station otherwise if you ride the train you have fold up your stroller and take it with you in the aisle.

When we got back to the station we stood in a short line for the Barnstormer and had a blast riding. It is a short roller coaster and good for kids. Michael wasn't scared at all (although I was a little!). After riding we sat in the shade by the Casey Junior Splash Area and ate our sack lunches. Michael had a blast running in the mist while we ate. Today it was cooler so the water was barely turned on so Michael didn't get soaked like he did later in our trip!

After lunch we headed toward Tommorrowland and rode the People Mover. I loved it! It was also a relaxing ride and a good way for little legs to rest. We then got fastpasses for Buzz Lightyear and watched Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor while we waited. We hadn't seen it last time and I thought it was really funny. Luckily none of us were chosen to be made fun of on screen!

 

 

 

The park was starting to get really busy now that it was early in the afternoon so we did one more ride in Adventureland before we said goodbye to our friends. Magic Carpets was super fun and a good speed for all the kids and adults.  

 

 
I love this picture because you can see everyone in our group if you look closely. I'm pretty sure the boys were just photobombing me but it turned out pretty neat. 

After saying goodbye to our friends and thanking them for the awesome day (it was so fun, guys!!) it was about 3 o'clock and we figured we better find some spots for the afternoon parade. We just plopped down in a spot expecting to have to wait a while for the parade to start but we didn't realize we were at the beginning of the parade and not the end! We had a great spot and got to see the parade with no waiting just by luck!

 

After the parade, Scott treated us to some ice cream which as you can clearly see...was awesome. 

 Dave and Margie were going to pick us up at 5 from the monorail station so we figured we better mosey on out until we realized we had met up with the parade at the entrance of the park! As you can see, Scott was obviously thrilled. Those things move pretty slowly! We watched the end again and then hopped on the monorail back to the TTC. It was a great day and we had a blast!

Next up: Downtown Disney and a rest day.
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previous recaps:
Day One: Travel and Arrival Day  
Day Two: Hollywood Studios 
Day Three: Animal Kingdom