Trip Report 2004 (Days 6 and 7)
[u]Tuesday, 27th April 2004 (Day 6):</u> We were (re)scheduled to go to Magic Kingdom on this day, and with the park due to be open till 9:30pm, thought we could do it. I usually like to give a day and a half for MK since the kids like to do everything twice, but I convinced my niece that once would be enough.
We had had scattered showers on Monday and rain was forecast for today as well. So, we took ponchos and arrived by 9am. The crowd was moderate and we found parking easily. My niece insisted on using the boat from the T&T center and so we did. There were only scattered clouds at the time and we got great views of the Castle and resorts on the journey.
I always like to do MK in an orderly clockwise manner, starting with an hour browsing around Main Street USA. My wife went to the shops while some of us wandered around looking for Disney Characters. There seemd to be plenty of these about and my niece has whale of a time getting autographs. They had even a show in front of the castle which I had not seen before.
It was 10:30 by the time we made our way to Adventureland; by then, it was quite overcast. We managed to to the Treehouse, Jungle Cruise and Tiki Birds within the hour. I have always liked the Enchanted Tiki Birds Show, but somehow it seemed harsher and garish under the 'new management'. My wife also did not care for the new music but the others, who had never seen it, thought it was great. It started raining as we reached Pirates of the Caribbean, and I was upset to see a lot of opportunistic queue jumping with the stewards otherwise busy. We waited our turn and as always, enjoyed the ride. I have to confess here though that I thought the Paris one seemed more energetic.
Frontierland was busier despite the intermittent rain and we needed FPs for Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We managed this between a trip to Tom Sawyer's Island (which offers some of the best daytime photo opportunities in MK) and the Country Bear Jamboree. For some reason BTMR seems to be everyone's favourite and I have never seen it without a long queue. On Splash Mountain, I had forgotten to secure my camera till actually on the ride, but fortunately I had a portable dry-bag in my pocket and managed to protect it before the big drop. I think SpM is a good ride for coaster chickens to make a start; there are some mild twists only before the big (and wet!) plunge.
In Liberty Square, we skipped the Hall of Presidents by common agreement (a lot of Brits seemed to do the same) and went to the Haunted Mansion. There was a long queue, so we got FPs and went on the Mississippi Riverboat and then stopped for sandwiches before returning to HM. It was still nice and spooky, but this is one of those attractions that lends itself to upgrading with modern audio-animatronics and it is about time.
Yes, we did start Fantasyland with 'it's a small world' and I am not ashamed to say that I went too. In fact, we all went on all the open rides & shows like Peter Pan, Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh etc. Laugh if you like, but Fantasyland makes up the heart and soul of Magic Kingdom and my niece wanted her favourite uncle to come with her. So there! I cannot say that I did not enjoy myself as well. Strangely though, none of us thought Mickey's Philharmagic was that special; the 3-D effects were good, but the storyline was hard to follow for the kids. This is a new show and perhaps one needs to 'grow' to like it. Somewhere along the way we stopped to see the afternoon Parade, which was as good as ever.
The sky had cleared by the time we reached Mickey's Toontown. This is a good place for kiddies to get autographs and see a lot of Mickey, Minnie and friends in all those 'houses'. I even took my meek niece on her first rollercoaster (having chickened out of SpM and BTMR earlier) when we rode Goofy's Barnstormer. The way she screamed, you would have thought she was on the front row of the Kraken! But she did well for a first timer and I gave her the first 'points' as promised.
