Disney Thanksgiving - Day 7 - Magic Kingdom

November 26, 2013

Today we went back to the Magic Kingdom.  We have a dinner reservation at Ohana tonight, so the kids are dressed in Hawaiian outfits (but the day started out chilly, so the kids have warmer clothes underneath - which makes for kind of a silly combination).

I took this picture to show how crowded the bus was.  It was like this several times on the way back to the hotel at night, not usually so bad in the morning.  Everyone did fine though.  Avery held on to Zoe and Zoe always cooperated well for her.  You can see Ella's hand bracing herself on Grandma's leg too.  This was the jerkiest bus ride we had.  We joked that it was because Greg was distracting the driver.  Marc said they found out all kinds of interesting things about the buses, routes, and new bus stops at the Magic Kingdom from this driver.

We were pretty sure that it was going to rain all day, so we came prepared with ponchos.

There was only a mist of rain when we got there and nothing for the rest of the day. The threat of rain may have kept people away this morning though.  It turned out to be a great...not too crowded day at Magic Kingdom!

Zoe insisted on wearing hers (for 2 minutes) even though it wasn't raining at the time.

Everyone enjoys a ride on It's a Small World

In the Disney after Dark fictional/fantasy book series I'm reading with the boys, the Small World dolls come to life and swim after the kids in the book attacking their boat while they look for clues on the ride.  This was all I could think of as we rode this time. Jacob said the same thing.

We thought we'd only have time for one ride before it was time to use our scheduled Fastpasses, but we had time for several.  

Zach gets a lot of attention from his cousins.

Zach, teething on the stroller.

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The world's fanciest bathrooms.

This Rapunzel themed area is cute, but only contains bathrooms?!

Our group split up into boys (plus me) and girls.  The boys rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain while the girls rode the Little Mermaid ride and met Cinderella and another princess in Fantasyland.
We talked Kyle into going on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  He told his Dad that it was so scary that he almost swore!

Lunch at the Beast's castle was good, but the real beast was the kiosk that kept freezing up while placing our order.

Through some Disney fanatic friends I was able to get into a website to test fastpass lunch reservation at Be Our Guest.  We secured a 12:00 window and was amazing to be able to skip the hour+ long line and walk right up like royalty.  It did take a very long time to order, since first we entered our 11 meals into the computer and then it froze up.  We had to place the order again, but the 2 fastpasses for all of us to be used on any ride at any time that day definitely made up for the inconvenience.

Marc, the kids, and I couldn't wait to try the new Master's Cupcake.  It's topped with "the gray stuff."  Well, it was delicious!  If you don't believe me, ask the dishes! Zoe was the lone hold out for the triple chocolate instead.

The main dining room was even more beautiful dressed for Christmas.  It's quite amazing how they make this restaurant work for quick service lunch and table service dinner.  

I'm glad we got in for lunch so our group could see the restaurant.  The only dinner reservation we could get for 13 was at 8:30 at night even though we called 6 months in advance!  We cancelled that reservation in favor of  our alternate 6:30 reservation at Trail's End tomorrow after being able to eat lunch here today.

We used our first group fastpass for Peter Pan.  Since we never planned to arrive for rope drop on this trip when we would normally dash here to ride without a wait, this was a good opportunity to ride.  Even though it's one of the oldest rides, the kids loved it and wanted to ride it again immediately.  We talked them out of that and saved the second group fastpass for Tomorrowland Speedway instead.

It never did rain and the sun even came out for a while.

We had our last scheduled fastpass for the Jungle Cruise at 2pm, but arrived a little early.  We rode on Aladdin's Magic Carpets while we waited.

"Hmm, is my hair going to be that gray?"

The ride was re-themed to Jingle Cruise for the holidays.  There were no festive props, but the new jokes were welcome and fun.

Melissa's "favorite" ride

The crowds were still absent even though the weather was fine.  Two days before Thanksgiving!

There was only a 10 minute wait for Splas Mountain earier today so we reassigned our fastpasses for Space Mountain for Marc, Jay, and Jacob and Buzz Lightyear for the rest of us.  We rode the People Mover while we waited for our fastpass window to open.

I might need a little more sleep!

Zoe  rode in the back of the stroller unless she wanted a nap, then she pulled the shade down and slept.

Zoe takes her driving quite seriously.

Ella might need to lay off the steering wheel a bit.

We all got a bumpy ride!  It was hilarious, fun, and perhaps a bit painful!

The view from my rear view mirror

Spectacle is right!

Smashing pennies

The kids loved traveling together.  They could pretty much find some adult to give them whatever they wanted.  

After a wonderful day at Magic Kingdom where we rode so many rides without waiting that we even left with unused fastpasses for Winnie the Pooh, we caught a boat to the Polynesian Resort for dinner at 'Ohana.

No line here either! We were seated before we could even order a drink from the bar.

All this food was just for the kids table!  They had three more hot dogs delivered too!  It was nice for the grown ups to talk while the kids were well taken care of with food and also entertainment here.

We took the monorail on the way back.  Unfortunately we got confused and took it to the ticket and transportation center where there are no buses to resorts, so we got on another monorail to Epcot and then took a bus home.

I wanted to look around the gift shop when we returned and kept Zoe and Jacob with me.  During this time, they started a musical parade in the lobby for the kids to be in and then had a little fun together afterward.

Zoe liked it so much that she tried to hide the drum in her stroller.  She later asked for one for a souvenir and Grandma generously obliged!

This was probably my favorite day of the trip!  It was just one magical experience after another!  Perfect!