I’m quite used to waking up early on the first day over here, but this morning really was ridiculous. 9 month old babies have no sense of right and wrong when it comes to waking up early, so Miley-Rose probably didn’t realise just how anti-social she was by being wide awake at 0430. I call this reverse jet-lag “jet-advance”, but maybe only engineers will get that, I’m not sure. Whatever, it does mean that the first day of the holiday sees an early start. This particular early start meant we were stood outside Ponderosa 20 minutes before they opened looking forward to a good American breakfast.
From the Ponderosa on the 192 it’s a short drive to Magic Kingdom where we confirm that reports of parking charges now hitting SEVENTEEN DOLLARS are true. We’re soon on the tram...
and then a packed monorail journey and finally walk into Magic Kingdom, for the compulsory photo:
As the strategy has worked for us in the past we make a bee-line for the rear of the park, and start off in Fantasyland, which has seen some refurbishment since our last visit. Unfortunately the Seven Dwarfs Mine still isn’t completed, but peering through the fence it looks like it can’t be long until it’s ready to open. We board some clam shells for The Journey of the Little Mermaid, and Miley-Rose (and her Daddy Josh) enjoy their first Disney attraction.
After which we go and meet Ariel in her grotto,
and she is fantastic. Her interaction with the kids is amazing, in fact she chats away at great length to anyone with legs.
Enchanted Tales with Belle is the next stop, but Mrs Dad’s Taxi and I opt out of this to investigate the new Fast Pass system. This was totally fresh to us, and it worked very well. The fast pass system now revolves around a touch-screen terminal, and each guest can reserve 3 fast passes per day, all of which I think have to be at the same park. Dotted around the park are clusters of these terminals. A friendly cast member did the whole process for us, and basically he scanned a ticket, typed in the associated ticket holder’s name, repeated this 7 times, then we selected our three attractions and the stupid computer allocated us fast passes for about 9.30 that evening despite it being about 10 in the morning. After the computer had chosen totally inappropriate times the friendly cast member tapped away at the touch screen to reveal much better time slots for all three of our choices, so we picked the 3 times we thought were best, then took a photo of the screen (the friendly guy’s suggestion) to remind us of the wheres and whens. Since all seven of us were going to do all three attractions together we didn’t actually pay much attention to which name was associated with each ticket. This might catch us out at a later date I suspect.
Flushed with our success at getting us speedy entrance to three rides we wait for the gang to come out of Enchanted Tales. When they are back with us there is much enthusiasm about how fantastic it is, and it seems Kayleigh was chosen to be in the show playing the part of Mrs Chip the teacup. We agree that when we come back to Magic Kingdom next week we will definitely do this attraction again.
Next stop is Small World, and at 10 in the morning the wait time is less than 10 minutes. With 6 kids we’ve done this ride SO MANY times, but it’s a great ride and it’s a new experience for both Kayleigh, who is very enthusiastic about it all, and Miley-Rose, who is fascinated by it. Oh it’s a first for Daddy Josh too, but I didn’t gauge his opinion! Then we’re on a roll with our fast passes and we cruise from The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, to Dumbo The Flying Elephant, where we are most surprised to see there are now two identical Dumbo rides. Having queued in the past for over an hour for this ride we reckon this is a very wise move on Disney’s part, as we had previously determined that it definitely was NOT worthy of queuing in the sun for an hour. Our fast pass gets us on in virtually no time at all, and after our short pachyderm flight Miley-Rose needs her bottle so we ask where we can get some boiled water and are directed to Gaston’s Tavern, where we find a lovely air-conditioned Olde English tavern selling huge, very welcome, ice cold diet cokes.
Suitably refreshed we head over to Tomorrowland and straight on to Buzz Lightyear’s Spaceranger Spin with Fast Pass #3, although Mrs Dad’s Taxi sits this one out in the shade and gives Miley-Rose a cuddle. Kayleigh surprises us all by running up one of the highest scores amongst us, giving Evil Emperor Zurg a good thrashing with her laser zapping skills. What do they teach them in the Reception Class these days? Then we split, as half of us want to watch the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor show, which I’m pleased to report has been updated to include mentions of the Monsters University film and characters, and others prefer the Astro Orbiter.
As always I want to include more photos than permitted in one post, so if you can cope with any more of my waffle, read on below...........................................
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