Day 2: Sunday, June 15th, 2014
We were so excited to wake up on our first full day of our WDW vacation &even more excited because it was Magic Kingdom Day! After an evening at Hollywood Studios we were in full Disney mode and ready to go! We definitely wanted to catch rope drop – a show put on at the Magic Kingdom every morning to officially open the park. So we got ready and headed to the End Zone Food Court at our resort for some breakfast. We wanted to fuel up for the day and both decided on the Bounty Platter – yum! We headed out from there to catch our bus.
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| Ready for the Magic Kingdom! |
We arrived early and got a perfect spot to see the show and then make a quick dash into the park. After the show we headed straight for Big Thunder Mountain! This ride was under construction during our 2012 trip so we didn’t get a chance to ride it then so we knew we definitely wanted to this time around. We didn’t want to use a FastPass as we were limited to three so we decided to do it first thing to avoid long lines!
After Big Thunder we headed over to Ryan’s favourite attraction at Magic Kingdom – the Haunted Mansion. The lines were still short so we barely had to wait at all. You’ll notice throughout these posts that we visit the Haunted Mansion many more times before the trip was over!
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| That's one happy guy! |
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| Making new friends |
Since it’s close by, we headed over the Pirates of the Caribbean and took an air-conditioned boat ride through a pirates life. I swear one of the animotronic Captain Jack Sparrow’s is real!!
Next up was the Jungle Cruise. We love this attraction, not for its thrills or excitement but for the cast members and their witty jokes. It’s a great way to relax and have a laugh!
It was a really hot morning. It was mid June and the Florida summer was in full-swing so it was really hot well before noon. We took this opportunity to ride Splash Mountain to cool down! We were lucky enough not to get soaked but just enough to be refreshed!
It’s a Small World is a classic and although some people groan and complain about the repetitive song, we think it’s a tradition that must be done! It’s fun to go to in between FastPasses or as a break after running from one end of the park to another. Each time we ride, we find another small detail we never noticed before.
All morning we had been waiting for lunch. Not because we were hungry but because we had plans to go to the new Be Our Guest restaurant! If you check out our post on Magic Kingdom’s Be Our Guest Restaurant you’ll learn how we scored an additional FastPass for lunch! We headed over at the beginning of our FastPass arrival window. They looked us up & without any major glitches, we were in the restaurant & waiting for our meal. Ryan ordered the Roast Turkey Sandwich with pomme frites (French fries) and Ellen had the Croque Monsieur with pomme frites. Both were delish! We had pre-ordered our meal so when we got to the restaurant, we made our way through each of 3 dining rooms and found the West Wing and waited for our meal to be delivered. We knew we wanted to eat in the West Wing; it’s the smallest of the three rooms and quite dark but the theme was too good to resist!
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| The West Wing dining area |
After lunch we made our way back to the attractions. First up – Space Mountain! Definitely Ellen’s favourite ride at Magic Kingdom, this ride is full of twist and turns in the dark which makes it all the more exciting.
We headed over the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and took a spin before going to Prince Charming’s Regal Carousel. Ellen made a mad dash to find Cinderella’s horse – the only horse with a gold ribbon on the tail.
We were pretty excited for our next attraction – the newly opened Seven Dwarfs Mine Train! We had been keeping an eye on the opening date of this attraction before our trip and we saw it was officially opened, we quickly logged into our My Disney Experience account and added a FastPass. We were glad we did. Firstly because the FastPasses quickly ran out and secondly, the standby wait was over 90 minutes! While the attraction was designed flawlessly and the coaster carts were unlike anything Disney currently has (the carts sway from left to right while going through the track) were weren’t over the moon impressed with the ride overall. Maybe we built it up too much beforehand but we found it to be slightly less thrilling in comparison to Big Thunder. Definitely a must-do to try it out and would be great for the kiddos!
After a full morning of non-stop attractions, the hot summer heat, and yummy but filling lunches, we were ready for a quick break! We headed back to our resort for a relaxing swim & early dinner. We saw the clouds rolling in during our swim and knew we were in for a wet evening! We were confident the rain wouldn’t last too long but didn`t want to take any chances so before heading for dinner, we packed our poncho’s. We ate at our hotel before heading back to the Magic Kingdom. Ryan had a turkey sandwich and Ellen some chicken nuggets!
As we were waiting for the bus, the rain started. No big deal – we just pulled out our ponchos and made the best of it! First up was Stitch’s Great Escape. While we still miss the Alien Encounter, Stitch’s Great Escape was a great fit to avoid the rain and take in all that Magic Kingdom has to offer!
We headed over to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin where Ellen achieved a galactic hero score of 999 999!!
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| Waiting in line - happy we had our ponchos! |
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| Galactic Hero! |
Because we had used up all 3 of our FastPasses earlier in the day, we were eligible for one additional FastPass at time. While they couldn’t be booked through the My Disney Experience App, there were kiosks available throughout the park. There weren't a ton of options left this late in the day (all the popular attractions like Big Thunder and Space Mountain weren’t available) but we took advantage of what was available and booked an additional FastPass for Peter Pan's Flight.
The rain was easing up by now so we walked over to It’s a Small World and rode it again before heading over to Haunted Mansion for the second time. Seriously...Ryan loves this attraction.
We used our additionally FastPass for Peter Pan’s Flight – which often has a moderate wait time so we were happy to have a slightly shorter wait. After Peter Pan, we went to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
The rain had completely let-up by now so we made our way back to Big Thunder Mountain. It was really fun to ride this at night! On our last trip, we didn’t stay out too late at the parks so we really missed out on the nightlife of the parks so we definitely wanted to take advantage this time around!
We had attempted to ride the Goofy’s Barnstormer earlier in the day but the line was really long and Ellen ended up feeling sick so we cut out of line and took it easy for a little bit, checking out some shops. This worked out great because when we came back to ride at night, the line was nearly empty!
The final ride of the day of was...Space Mountain! We couldn’t leave Magic Kingdom without another ride on Space. We made it back to our resort after a jam-packed bus ride and conked out!
