First thing this morning, we loaded up and drove to Disney World! The morning sun was just coming up as we pulled into the parking lot and we were ready to go. Kamy came fully prepared as Aurora today, including wearing her mouse ears all the way from Tokyo!
Incidentally, we never saw this style of mouse ears at any of the Disney World parks. Perhaps they were only sold in Tokyo! Kamy felt very special.
We actually arrived at the parking lot before the ferry was running, so we ended up taking the monorail to the front gates. We did manage to get a family photo with one one else in the background though, which is quite unusual. 😉
We were here early with plans to rope drop the Seven Dwarves Mine Train. It was the newest ride at Magic Kingdom, so it often has 3+ hour waits. That would definitely not hold our attention, so we made a beeline for the ride. Cast members were holding us in the central courtyard until rope drop though, so Miss Kamy was able to get some photos right in front of Cinderella’s castle.
We did manage to rope drop Seven Dwarves and ended up only waiting about 30 minutes for the ride. The queue itself was pretty cool and interactive, but we were all a bit underwhelmed by the actual ride. We won’t be trying to ride this one again.
We worked our way through the park — hitting highlights like Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. Kamy was particularly interested in riding the Haunted Mansion — every other time she’s been on it (California and Tokyo) it was decked out with the Nightmare Before Christmas decor. This was her first time to experience the “original” ride.
Over in Tomorrowland, Daddy managed to cap out the score for Buzz Light Year! We also rode Space Tours and Space Mountain and the kids got to experience The Carousel of Progress. We all proceeded to have its song stuck in our head the rest of the afternoon.
The kids also got to sit on the new motorcycle ride vehicles that will be installed in the new Tron ride which isn’t open yet! It looks amazing.
We got a chance to watch the afternoon parade too! The floats and costumes were beautiful as ever, but we were especially glad to see the amazing Maleficent float! We saw her in Paris too, but she wasn’t blowing fire (thanks to a fire incident here in Florida several years ago when she caught herself aflame).
We made a point of riding Splash Mountain and the carousel, as well as Big Thunder Mountain too. The Ariel ride was new to us and it was very nice! Kamy was able to meet both Ariel and Belle and enjoyed being called “Princess” all day long by cast members.
Keller did an amazing job managing all our Fast Passes for the day and it made a huge difference! There is no way we would have been able to ride as much as we did without them. The park wasn’t even “medium” level of busy and it still took us all day to ride what we wanted to. We managed to use SIX Fast Passes. The only thing we really missed that we were hoping to do was It’s A Small World.
The true highlight of the day was the fireworks and projection show on the castle. We managed to work our way to one of the central flower beds so the kids could see with a clear view. It was perfect!
The show was amazing! The projections were so bright and crisp — it was really neat to see the different ways they could light up the castle. Plus the fireworks were massive! The show was even programmed where “arrows” shot by Merida flew off the side of the castle as fireworks.
The fireworks were quite the highlight and were our favorite part of the entire park!
After the fireworks were over, Keller and the kids hustled off to ride one last ride before the parks closed while Min and I rested on one of the benches. Unfortunately, she tripped over one of the curbs in the dark and hit her chin on the concrete. Thanks to ice and ibuprofen she was able to tough it out, but it was a rough way to end to the day for Min.
We grabbed dinner on the way home at a local pizza place called Flippers that was quite tasty! Next time we’ll call ahead for our order so we don’t have to wait as long, but they are open until midnight most days so we can definitely head here after the park closes.
Day 1 is done!