Monday, October 15, 2007

Day 3: Magic Kingdom

Okay, first up I have to admit I have a *LONG* history of biting off more than I can chew. But I only had a three day pass for the parks, and I was damned well going to make the most of it! I also am somewhat limited by my arthritis, and by this day, I was starting to feel it. But I wasn’t going to let that slow me down! First up: grab the train over to Frontier Land for Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We checked the wait time for Splash Mountain and it was only 10 minutes, so we head over to Big Thunder Mountain to grab a Fastpass. Except the wait there was only 5 minutes, so we just hopped on board! We both really enjoyed it, but Brian lost his button, ripped right off his shirt. He was glad at that point that he’d taken off his glasses at the start of the ride. Next up: Splash Mountain. We both loved it, and we got so soaked. We were in the very front and thoroughly enjoyed it. Brian would have preferred to have had his glasses off when it came to the big drop, but said it was fun. This was the first place we encountered the non-photopass photos anywhere at Disney. They were $18 and up and we couldn’t even get a good look at them first, so we skipped that. Then on to the Jungle Cruise (a *LOT* of fun) and Pirates of the Carribean. Followed up with the Tiki birds show, which was also a lot of fun.
Next we headed towards Tomorrowland to grab fastpasses for Space Mountain and lunch. You’ll note: we still haven’t seen Cinderella’s castle yet! On the way over to Tomorrowland we finally saw the castle. It was neat, but a *LOT* smaller than I expected. I was sort of underwhelmed by it in the end. We also passed the Haunted Mansion, which had just reopened that week from a long closure for renovation. There were no fastpasses and the line was over 2 hours. We skipped it and planned to come back later. On the way to food/Space Mountain, I got distracted by the Indy Car racing ride, so we did that first (a big disappointment) and then grabbed our Space Mountain fastpasses.
Lunch was really good and then Space Mountain! Brian had somehow forgotten that this ride is totally in the dark. And as usual, he sat down in the ride and tucked his glasses away. Big mistake. The ride totally freaked him out. So we slowed things down for a little while after that. Next up was the people mover transportation system (something nice and slow for poor Brian), then the Stitch ride. Then the people mover again (it was such a nice change of pace) followed by the Buzz Lightyear ride. By then our Fastpasses for Mickey's Philharmagic (3-D show) were up, so off we went. It was really cute, and I didn't get motion sick for once! We went back to the Haunted Mansion, but the lines were up past 3 hours, so we gave that a miss. After running quickly through a couple of the fun rides again (like the Jungle Cruise) we headed out. It was starting to rain, and we were parked out!
We decided to head to Downtown Disney for dinner at Planet Hollywood. So we asked at the transportation hub about how was the best way to get there, and were told which monorail to take... Except it was the wrong one! Thankfully we asked the castmembers at the train, and as an apology (and because I asked really nicely) they let us ride the monorail up in the very front with the driver!!! That was another big childhood dream conquered! So we rode it to the Polynesian hotel in an attempt to see if we could catch the luau dinner show (no dice) and then to Planet Hollywood. Dinner was good, but it was even louder than I ever imagined it would be. But oh what a steal on the meal plan! Back to the hotel to crash and pack. Or just crash...

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