Wednesday September 15th

Well this was it, the main reason why the majority of people flock to Florida year in year out. This was the day we would visit the Magic Kingdom, needless to say I had no trouble getting my team out of their beds this morning!

After a light breakfast and another trip down Osceola parkway we arrived at the ticket and transportation centre for the Magic Kingdom. Before we left Scotland I had a concern about whether or not we would be able to get the scooter onto the monorail, oh silly me, I should have had more faith. Disney thinks about absolutely everything and no sooner had the monorail pulled in than a ramp appeared as if by magic (well I am trying to get into the mood) it actually appeared thanks to a very attentive cast member. So there we were heading for MK and getting more excited by the minute, everyone thought it was great how the monorail went straight through the contemporary resort hotel.

We quickly made our way through the turnstiles and security and arrived in front of Main Street station just in time for the opening ceremony. This was absolutely brilliant it really got us in the mood (as if we needed to!) cast members put on a great show singing zippety doo daa and then burst into the train is coming down the track just as the steam train pulled into view chock a block with every character you can imagine. This was great!! Mickey performed the ceremony along with some lucky family and then, yeehaa!! The Magic Kingdom was open.

I had a meticulous plan prepared for this park thanks to many long winter nights in front of my PC searching Orlando Villas and my tourguide friends website. As we headed up Main Street I instructed my family to go to Space Mountain while I secured Fastpass’s for Peter Pans Flight. (I was reliably informed that this ride has the fastest growing line). With Fastpass’s safely in my pocket I headed for Space Mountain. The park felt totally deserted and it was a great feeling wandering through Fantasyland and into Tomorrowland, almost as if Disney had opened early just for little old me!!! We did Space Mountain with no wait whatsoever, in fact we may have done it twice I can’t quite remember, it is all such a blur! This ride is great fun and the kids loved it.

It was then onto Buzz Light Years Space Ranger Spin. This was a great ride also and was even better because my FIL was able to go on. The cast member at the entrance led us straight to the front of the line (there was only about a dozen people waiting and this line does move very quickly) and into the area where you exit the ride. Here another cast member stopped the ride until my FIL was safely in his vehicle and then off we went to give Zurg a serious pasting!! “Lowest score buys the dinner tonight.” I shouted as we started frantically trying to zap everything in site. I came off quite confident that my son and I had accumulated the highest score and sure enough we had managed to beat the girls, who had three in their vehicle! However I was put in my place when my mother and father in law declared themselves winners with a massive score!! Just goes to show there is life in the old dogs yet!!!

The park was so quiet that we managed an unscheduled go on the Indy speedway much to my sons delight. I was told the line for this becomes massive quickly and is very slow moving, however we waltzed straight on with no wait whatsoever. It really does pay to get there early.
We now headed for Fantasyland and The Many Adventures of Winney the Pooh. This is a very nice kids ride and my daughter loved it, I think my son liked it also although he is at that age where it is not cool to admit it. The kids also managed a go on Dumbo, which is another ride that supposedly gets very busy very quickly. By now I was feeling very chuffed with myself, firstly for choosing to come in September, which is one of the quietest months, and secondly for managing to include two rides that I didn’t even have in my carefully compiled itinerary.

We now headed for Mickey’s Toontown Fair, which was opening at 10:00am and whe