{Disney} Day 1 - Magic Kingdom

Our first stop upon entering Magic Kingdom was Guest Relations, located in City Hall, which is just inside the park's entrance. Allie and Emily hung outside with Grammy and took in the sights while Rich, Anna and I waited in a shortish line. Our goal was to take care of one of Anna's needs related to her spina bifida. (I am planning to write a separate post detailing our experience visiting Disney with a child who has spina bifida.)   When we exited City Hall, we spotted a Sleeping Beauty meet and greet taking place in that little patio area to the left of City Hall. There were only two groups in line so I thought that the line had been closed but when I asked, I was told that it was still open.  Woo hoo!  It was sooo nice to start off with a meet and greet that essentially had no line.



Dear Mr. PhotoPass Photographer, please stay out of my way.  I have a "fancy" camera and I don't plan on purchasing your photos.  Thank you.



Marie, who is one of Emily's favorites, was holding her meet and greet in that center area right inside the park entrance. The line looked long (it really wasn't) and the girls were eager to go on a ride but I convinced them to wait instead of trying to meet her later. I knew that there was a chance we wouldn't see that M&G again during our trip.  We only had to wait about 15 minutes.





The weather was a bit odd for us at this point. There was considerable cloud cover, which helped to keep the heat bearable, but once those clouds parted, the heat and humidity became almost oppressive. Especially to those of us who had just experienced an extremely mild summer.

We left it up to the girls to decide what they wanted to do next. They all agreed on a ride and I can't remember who suggested it but Pirates of Caribbean became our destination, even though the wait time was 30 minutes long. Ack! We've never seen it that long and later we determined that the "scary" rides had longer wait times due to the Halloween party that night. After Pirates, we checked out the Swiss Family Treehouse, which was our first time. The girls liked it, even though it wasn't a ride. And then it came time for a bathroom break. Now, I should note that for some reason, we didn't have any FastPasses booked for this day. Because we were staying at a Disney resort, we had Magic Bands and the ability to book FP+. When our window opened to do so, I was extremely busy with work and feeling overwhelmed with sewing and all the other planning, so I had asked Rich to book the FastPasses, which he did. For some reason though, we both overlooked this day.  Oh, well.

The girls enjoy parades and as we were leaving the First Aid/Baby Care Center area, they caught a glimpse of the 3:00 parade through the crowds lining the parade route. The girls were kind of bummed that we had missed it. We did pull up as close as possible and held them up but they didn't see much. I promised them that we would carve out time to see the afternoon parade at some point during the week. With our dinner ADR fast approaching, we decided to check out the gift shops on Main Street.

I had booked an early dinner reservation knowing that we would probably want to get the kids to bed somewhat early after a long day. During the planning process, Rich and I had discussed and opted for a table service restaurant over quick service for dinner on this particular day. Unfortunately, because I was making my ADR well after the 180 day mark and there was a Halloween party that night, my options were severely limited. My only option really was The Plaza at 4:05. We'd never eaten there (and I actually didn't even know where it was located) but after checking out the menu online, it seemed to have a fairly decent selection of items that weren't outrageously priced.

We checked in a few minutes early and had to wait for about 3 minutes before we were seated.  I was a bit surprised at the size of the restaurant.  It's pretty small.  Grammy and I decided to share a sandwich.  I debated over whether to order the grilled reuben or the vegetarian sandwich.  We ultimately went with the grilled reuben.



Eh.  It was okay.  Maybe we should have ordered the vegetarian.  I've had better reubens at chain restaurants.  In my opinion, the meat wasn't cut thin enough and the sandwich was too dry.  I like more than a smear of dressing on my sandwiches.  Rich had the cheese steak sandwich.  He said it was "okay."



By this time, folks attending the Halloween party that evening were steadily filtering into the park and there was a lot of people watching going on.  We didn't expect to see so many costumes.

The girls wanted to ride Haunted Mansion so we headed over there.  Unfortunately, the stand-by wait time was 25 minutes, which is the longest I've ever seen it.  I promised them that we would ride it another day, when it had a more reasonable line.  Rich suggested The Hall of Presidents because it was right there, the girls have a good understanding of what it means to be a president and it was an attraction we had not yet experienced during our previous trips.  We missed a show by a few minutes and had to wait almost 15 minutes for the next one.  While we were waiting inside the lobby, the sky opened up and it poured.

The girls sat and watched the show with interest.  Well, some more so than others.  Near the end, Rich suggested leaving early but Allie didn't want to.  As we were exiting, Anna announced, "That was the most boringest thing ever," which caused laughter from the couple behind us.

We headed back to Main Street and stopped for ice cream.  In hindsight, we should have just eaten dessert at The Plaza as they have an ice cream based dessert menu.  It continued to rain (thankfully it wasn't heavy) while we ate and my photo taking came to an end because I didn't want my camera wet.  Everyone was pretty much exhausted and we wanted to have the kids in bed early (especially seeing as we had an early breakfast ADR the next morning) so we left.  Unfortunately, the return trip to our resort was not so magical and took almost an hour.  This began my dislike of the monorail.

[Arrival Day outfits courtesy of Grammy.  She found Emily's and Anna's Minnie shirts in a consignment store.  She sewed Emily's Minnie dot skirt and Allie's purple dress, featuring Minnie.  There was also a pink Minnie dot skirt for Anna but she didn't want to wear it because she hadn't asked Grammy to sew it.]  

Coming up next - Day 2 - breakfast at 'Ohana and more Magic Kingdom.