Day 3 - Magic Kingdom

We got to Magic Kingdom super early so we could see the Welcome Show, so we had some time to kill before it started.  Of course there was a gift shop we could visit, so we picked out an autograph book for Em--she didn't get autographs last year, but when I mentioned it to her, she was excited about the idea.

The Welcome Show was pretty short, but definitely worth seeing once.  The characters ride in on the train in front of the station, and then there's a song/dance routine and Mickey officially welcomes everyone.

"Rope drop" is really the main reason I think people arrive early--that's when the park officially opens, and it's usually about 15 minutes before the actual scheduled time of 9:00 am.

It seems like a lot of people waiting to get in until you actually get in the park and realize how uncrowded everything is.  In the first two hours, we were able to ride multiple rides and meet some characters with virtually no line, which meant we could save our FastPasses for later when it was more crowded.

Em tried pulling the sword from the stone this time--unsuccessfully.

She of course wanted to ride the carousel as soon as we walked through the castle, and Anastasia and Drizella came walking up to ride it too!  They didn't do pictures or autographs, but they did end up in line right behind us.

I'm telling you, this girl loves the carousel more than probably any other ride--and since there's really never a line there because it moves so fast, she gets instant gratification!

We passed Prince Eric's castle on the way to meet Ariel at her grotto.

As soon as we walked in, Em said "I remember being here!"

The Dumbo ride actually has a pager system with a big kids' play area, but we didn't even get to take advantage of it because there was no wait!

Em and Mick did use their FastPass for the Seven Dwarfs' Mine Train, and I felt really guilty afterwards for not warning Em about the ride.  She had seen some commercials that showed the slow ride through the mine and was really excited about that--she didn't realize it was a roller coaster (described as a "family" coaster, and there were definitely kids smaller than Em riding it).  These were the pictures of them coming down the biggest drops, and you can tell she's not exactly having the time of her life.

The funny thing is that after it was all over, she decided she did like it "a little bit," but definitely did not want to get back on it.

I did get her to at least smile in front of the ride by promising not to make her go back.

She met Gaston (who was the same guy in character from last year), but he was a little more full of himself this year.

We used FastPasses for Anna and Elsa this year, and unlike our 3 hour wait at Epcot last year, we were in and out in 10 minutes.

Mick and I both agreed though, it wasn't quite the same experience.  I liked the location a little better last year, and loved the fact that Em met the two of them together instead of the way they have it set up now.  Granted, it was nice not having that wait, but it still fell a little flat for us.  Not to mention, these really aren't Em's favorite characters, but the lines are still so long for them, it was worth the FP.

We had lunch reservations at Be Our Guest Restaurant inside the Beast's castle.

Em was super excited to see the castle, and it was really very cool!

There were three main rooms you could choose to sit in for the meal,

and of course, Em chose the West Wing (because "it's forbidden!").  This picture was taken with a flash, but the room was really dark with thunderstorm sounds playing, and the enchanted rose in the far corner of the room.

For dessert, we tried "the grey stuff--it's delicious!"

So many of the castle details looked just like the movie.

And here's the outside of the castle.

We found a good spot to watch the Festival of Fantasy parade that afternoon.

I'm not sure if the Ariel on the float was the same one Em met earlier that day, but she saw Em in the crowd, pointed to her, and yelled "Happy Birthday!"  She might have just seen her button, but it still made Em pretty excited.

She loves the Maleficent dragon--it breathed real fire!

Mickey and Minnie were at the end in a hot air balloon float.

My plan for the day went exactly as I'd hoped--after the 3pm parade, we took the boat back to the hotel for a break.

Our housekeeper was awesome--every day, she made towel animals every day and set up all of Em's friends.

These were just a couple she left, and Em wanted to take them all home with us!

We let Em play in the pool for a little while and then she took a good solid nap before we took the boat back to Magic Kingdom for the night.  It was really beautiful as we approached!

Em loved the boat ride, and it was a nice relaxing trip each time.

I love Cinderella's castle at night!

We decided to meet Tinker Bell because the wait was really short--Em enjoyed playing with all of the oversize props in the fairy area!

We saw the Main Street Electrical Parade from a great location, and Em loved it!

And we went back through Fantasyland so she could see Rapunzel's floating lanterns at night--they really did look cool.

We mistakenly got trapped behind the castle after the parade, and didn't make it to the front to see the light show, which was really disappointing (you can't walk through the castle when they're getting ready for the show and fireworks, and we didn't have time to make it around through Tomorrowland). We found a spot behind the castle for the fireworks, and I had bought some headphones for Em, but unfortunately they weren't quite enough for her--we were so close that the noise really was too loud, so she wasn't crazy about them.

After the fireworks, the line for Cinderella and Rapunzel was really short, so we got in to meet them with no wait at all.

And one more time on the carousel!

The park was closing at 11pm, but we were literally walking onto rides with no wait at 10:55!  We rode the PeopleMover (which gives an awesome view of the whole park and is really cool at night) and the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger spin when we thought the park would be closed.  On our way out at 11pm, we caught the parade a second time!

Disney time is just different than any other time, I guess.  We really wanted to stay for The Kiss Goodnight, a nightly tradition when they close the park, but we just couldn't make it.  Em was exhausted and we knew we had another big day tomorrow, so we left around 11:30.

Day 2 - Animal Kingdom

On Tuesday, we went to Animal Kingdom, which we hadn’t done last year.  I’ve read quite a bit about how some people believe this is a “half-day park,” but I guess it really depends on what you want to do, because I think Em could have spent all week here.  She is such an animal lover, and she wanted to stop and look at and read about every animal we passed.

We had a FastPass for the Kilamanjaro Safari that morning that we could use until 10:30, so we didn’t get there super early.  Early enough for a Mickey-shaped cinnamon roll that we all ended up sharing, though!

The safari was awesome—believe it or not, it was actually cool enough that we had to pick up a jacket for Em at one of the stores!  I’m sure we’ll never be on a real safari, so this is as close as we’ll get, but the animals really were just freely roaming around where the vehicles drove through.  A couple of times, traffic was held up by a passing rhino or zebra! 

We rode the train over to Rafiki’s Planet Watch and ran into Chip and Dale playing some games with the kids there—Em joined in for a while and then we spent a little time at the petting zoo. 

We saw The Lion King show, which was really pretty incredible.

After that, we had lunch reservations at Tusker House, which is a character dining restaurant with a delicious buffet!  It was nice to have a good meal and just relax for a bit while the characters came around to our table.

Literally every meal we had, someone brought Em a birthday cupcake or dessert with a lit candle, and here she also got a birthday card signed by all the characters!

This is the kind of stuff that makes me think we could have spent a lot longer at Animal Kingdom--lots of fun things to pass the time.

We saw the Finding Nemo live show, and it was really good too.

By the time Nemo was over, it was around 3pm and Em was wearing down pretty quickly.  I knew we had to find Pocahontas, because you can only meet her at Animal Kingdom and Em wanted to see her.  We found her line and had some afternoon snacks while we waited.  Em also decided that she wanted to entertain everyone in line and make friends with the cast members.  They're all so incredibly nice and terrific with the kids.

Em had a quick conversation with Pocahontas and was ready to roll.

On our way out, we passed the meet and greet spot for Adventurer Mickey and Minnie and the line was super short, so we took advantage of it.

As we headed toward the gate, Em wanted to ride instead of walk (yes, we brought a stroller for her--we bought a lightweight, easy-to-fold one specifically for this trip that has a higher weight limit).  I'm going to hate when she outgrows a stroller completely because we won't have a place to put our stuff!

As soon as she sat down, I told her she should close her eyes and rest, and it was over.  She slept for over an hour, so Mick and I checked out some stores and just took a break for a while.

Best thing about all the Disney photographers is that we get lots of family pictures!

This was the day, more than any other, that I felt like we didn’t really take our time anywhere—I had FastPasses for the shows we wanted to see, and on top of lunch reservations, it just felt like we were rushing to get to the next place on time.  Em would have loved to spend more time seeing the zoo portion, which we really didn’t even go near.  Next time!

Once we were back at the hotel, Em was rested and ready to play, so we spent some more time down at the pool.  The Wilderness Lodge is actually inspired by national park lodges in the northwest, and there's even a man made geyser that you can see several times a day.  We caught it a couple of times! 

We had dinner in the hotel at Whispering Canyon Cafe--it was a little bit like a family version of Dick's Last Resort or something similar.  There was a card on the table that you turned to green if you wanted to participate in the fun and games, and red if you didn't.  You can probably tell by Em riding a stick pony around the restaurant that our card was on green!

When our food came and Em asked for ketchup, the server yelled out "we need some ketchup!" and some little girls at another table brought over about 20 bottles.  A few minutes later when another table needed ketchup and yelled for it, it was our turn to take all 20 bottles over to them.  Em loved that part.

And of course, what's dinner without another birthday cupcake!?  Em didn't actually get to eat this one because she didn't do so well with her dinner, but it didn't make it less fun for her to blow out the candle!

We went down on the beach area of the hotel after dinner for the nightly electrical water pageant. It didn't last too long, but there were a bunch of floats with animals and characters made of lights, and it was all set to music.  Pretty cool way to end the night.