Disney World 2023/Day 3, Part 2/Magic Kingdom

After we got a good laugh from seeing the Mine Train picture, it was time for us to hit "Space Mountain" - which I had lightning lane reservations for. The lady who had been sitting next to Doug on the rollercoaster was also heading there with her husband and son. I felt pretty good about our strategy at that point.

It was off to Tomorrowland...

Doug and Bri rode Space Mountain the last time we were at Disney, but I opted out. I was determined to ride it this time. I was nervous I admit...

I did like that there were three seats so we could all sit in the same car.

Here we are on the ride...

(If you missed what I said in my last post, I'll repeat it. I checked PhotoPass and realized I had access to my attraction photos. I read something that said Disney is now giving access to attraction photos if you purchased Genie+ - hich we did daily. Score! I downloaded a bunch of photos without the logo!)

My face didn't really show it, but I did not like Space Mountain. I really didn't like it. And I know that lots of other people really like it, but I'm just not one of them. It wasn't really because of the darkness - it was just so jerky. It rattled me from side to side. I was bracing quite a bit trying to keep my head from bobbing around. When I got off the ride, my shoulder hurt for a while. It just wasn't the ride for me. I can say I did it now, so I am glad I did it. I just won't ride it again.

Once we scanned our magic bands for Space Mountain, that freed up lightning lane access. So, Doug grabbed us reservations for Winnie the Pooh (which was actually getting kind of crowded at that point, so I'm glad he did it). We had a little time before we could get on it, so Doug and Bri decided to ride the teacups. That was fine because I needed a little break.

"Mad Tea Party"...

We still had some time to kill before our Winnie the Pooh lightning lane, so we thought we hop over to the PeopleMover back in Tomorrowland...

 

 Some of the darker parts of the PeopleMover - Bri's ears glowed...

We got a glimpse of the new Tron ride (there was a soft opening, only annual pass holders invited)...

Unfortunately, the PeopleMover kept stopping. Over and over. It started off ok, but toward the middle of the ride, it would go a few feet and then stop again. It happened 5 or 6 times. We started thinking we were never getting off of there! 

We had a few rides stop on us at Magic Kingdom that day - luckily most of them started up pretty quickly again. We also had some issues with rides closing for a while so we couldn't get on them and then opening back up again after an hour or so. Not sure what was going on that day, but it happened with a number of them.

We finally got off PeopleMover and headed over to "The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh."

Pooh and Tigger sighting...

Once we scanned our Magic Bands, we grabbed lightning lane reservations for Jungle Cruise. It is a super popular ride with one of the most difficult lightning lane reservations to get at Magic Kingdom for some reason. We got a good time for the for the evening. Our plan was to take a break in the day, head back to the hotel for a while and then come back. So, it worked out perfectly.

I had reservations for lunch, and we had some time for just one more ride before then. We chose the standby line for "Under the Sea: Journey Of The Little Mermaid"...

Here are a few videos...

 

 

We stopped on this ride for just a minute, but then it started back up pretty quickly.

Once we got off, we still had a little time before our reservation, but not enough time for another ride.

So we grabbed a Lefou's Brew from Gaston's Tavern...

It was just as delicious as I remember from 9 years ago!

Finally, it was time to walk over to the "Be Our Guest" Restaurant for lunch...

We ate at "Be Our Guest" when Bri was 7, and we wanted to check it out again - this time for lunch...

 

This visit, we got to sit in the main ballroom...

 

We saw the Beast come through a couple of times...

We had the nicest waiter (he liked talking about Atlanta when we told him where we were from - he had visited several times) and the food was delicious. I ordered chicken, Doug ordered beef and Briana ordered the pork chop. It was all yummy, but hands down, Briana's was the tastiest of them all. And the desserts were so good...

After a delicious lunch, we wanted to stop one more place before heading to the hotel for a well deserved break.

One of my favorite attractions in Tomorrowland is the "Carousel of Progress"...

There are four different acts to this rotating animatronic stage show which talks about the progress of our nation. Unfortunately, there was a problem/blip with this attraction too. The audience didn't "rotate" after the first act and we ended up having to listen to the first act twice. Oh well.

It was getting pretty warm outside and it was really crowded, so sitting in the quiet, air-conditioned theater was nice. Once the show was over, it was the perfect time to take a break and head back to the hotel. 

Every two hours, we were allowed to continue picking lightning lanes, so we picked a few more rides to go on that evening - Haunted Mansion, Thunder Mountain and Pirate of the Caribbean. Having multiple lightning lane reservations at the same time is called "stacking" (I learned some Disney speak during my study sessions).

Back to the hotel we went...

Well deserved afternoon rest...

We rested a couple of hours and hopped back on the monorail to go back to Magic Kingdom. Magic Kingdom is a lot of fun in the evening (and a lot cooler)!

Disney World 2023/Day 3, Part 1/Magic Kingdom

Finally on to Day 3 - Magic Kingdom!

Good morning MK...

I know Magic Kingdom is supposed to be geared more for the little ones, but I still think it is probably my favorite park. I think it is because of all the nostalgia. There is just something special about MK.

Monday morning, Day 3, was President's Day. I chose Magic Kingdom to visit on President's Day because we had navigated MK on President's Day before and the individual lightning lane for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was the easiest of the individual lightning lanes to obtain - and I knew President's Day would be insanely crowded.

Magic Kingdom opens early - 8am. Which means early entry is at 7:30am. So very early - yawn. Once again, I had purchased Genie+ at midnight due to my sleeping issues. Since we were taking the monorail to MK, we decided to stay in the room to grab our lightning lanes quickly and then head to the park. 

Once the clock turned 7am, I grabbed the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train individual lightning lane (around 10am I think) and then grabbed a regular lightning lane for Space Mountain for right after that. We were good to go.

Waiting for the monorail (which comes right inside the building)...

Park bound...

Hello Magic Kingdom!

Time for some castle pictures!!!

This was our 4th visit to Magic Kingdom with Briana...

 Time to head for some rides!

 

Fantasyland was our first stop.

"Peter Pan's Flight" is one of the most popular rides in Magic Kingdom (and one of the shortest). I knew lightning lanes would go quickly for that one, so I decided to early entry that ride. We got to MK probably around 7:40am due to staying in the room to get the lightning lanes, so there was already a significant standby lane for Peter Pan. I think we waited about 20 minutes in line before we got on. Not too bad, but it would only get progressively worse as the day went on.

Peter Pan...

Once we got off the ride, we headed right across the way to "It's A Small World." There was no wait for that one at that time...

Then it was time for "Seven Dwarfs Mine Train"...

When Briana was 7 years old - the last time we were in Disney - the Mine Train (roller coaster) was still being built. We were finally going to get to ride it...

It was SO fun! I really liked it. It has Thunder Mountain vibes and I laughed the entire ride.

When we got off the ride, we didn't realize the ride had snapped a picture of us coming down the first drop. There was a woman who was a single rider who ended up next to Doug. She was very nice and her husband and son were waiting for her when the ride was done. She looked at her phone and started laughing. She mentioned something about a picture but I didn't put two and two together that it was a picture of us. The PhotoPass picture had already been posted to the Disney app. When you see this picture, you will see why she was laughing...

When we looked at the picture, we couldn't stop laughing - including Doug. The look on Doug's face is so freaking hilarious! The ride wasn't that intense, but we hadn't ridden it before, so we just weren't sure how it was all going to go down. He got a good laugh from it and then started texting it to his friends! So all was good. I asked him if I could post it on the blog and he gave me his approval. Priceless!

 (I just checked PhotoPass and realized I had access to my attraction photos. I read something that said Disney is now giving access to attraction photos if you buy Genie+. Score! I downloaded a bunch of them without the logo!)

I actually think this is an hilarious way to end this post. I have a lot more of Magic Kingdom to write about. Part 2 - next...