Florida Day #9: Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom

2019-02-28Us, USA Standard

[Photos from 28 February 2019, posted online 13 August 2019, maybe. Chilly wind’s been blowing lately. Is it time for fall already?]

We finally made it to a Disney theme-park, some 10 years after first sort-of planning to do so, but failing due to exhaustion after visiting three parks in San Diego.

This time we were super-duper lucky because my sister-in-law kindly gave us free passes as she worked for Disney at the time, so we didn’t have to pay quite the extortion fee we otherwise would have.

All in all it was as good day, but even though late-February is ‘off-season’, the park felt crowded, and we didn’t really start having a fun time until our ‘fast-passes‘ kicked in, and we weren’t stuck in lines so much. That said, we lucked out in stumbling upon all three parades they have every day, without really planning to. They were the highlight, for sure. (80-ish photos total)

Thursday 28 February 2019

Snapchatty proof that we visited the Magic Kingdom.
Spooling back in time, this is the big sign announcing you’ve made it to Disney World, but another sign said to please not slow down to take a photo. We arrived at 10 am.
Next gate was the entry to the Magic Kingdom parking lot.
We seemed to arrive at the same time as a ton of other people, so we got stuck in a very long slow line to get our access cards. We were told by our friends later that we should have taken the boat/train to the proper park entrance (the one right by the parking lot is not it) where there was a lot less people. Now we know! (@10:57)
We decided to take the boat over the lake to the park entrance itself.
Already getting tired of standing around and waiting, at 11:03 am!
On a boat! There were multiple Disney resorts/hotels around this lake, many very fancy looking.
The Disney castle visible on the other side…
We got off the boat, walked through some security gates, and up a slope to get to this fake-mid-town. (@11:20)
We’d barely made it to the next corner when we noticed that there were people lined up next to the road, and then these dancing people appeared with load happy music (at 11:22).
They were followed by a bunch of large floats, which were mostly large speakers in disguise.
The next float carried the king/queen/hosts of Disney.
The kids were a little befuddled, but seemed to enjoy this impromptu enforced joyfulness.
There’s a fairly long shopping street that leads to the castle. We popped into an arty shop, and Bjarki really liked this.
Emma also picked one she liked.
Castle, whoohoo!
As we moved closer to the castle another show started up, this time with characters from various movies singing and dancing on the steps of the castle, often mixing movie worlds.
I was super happy to have hats to hide under, that sun was hot! Emma was most happy to see Elsa Letting it gooooo at one point.
By the time the show was done, around noon, it was time to find food to eat. We discovered that you can order food in the Disney app instead of standing in a line and while we waited for it to be ready, I hopped into the tea-cup-ride line with the two younger ones, to keep them occupied before they went mad with hunger. Happily, the ride-line moved fast, and we probably only waited for 10-15 minutes. This is at 12:26.
Look, almost actual smiles! 🙂
After burgers and fries for lunch, I volunteered to take the kiddos onto the Buzz-Lightyear-ride. The app told me the wait time was 30 minutes. This is at 13:09.
10 minutes later we still hadn’t moved much, but we seemed close enough to the entrance door to keep waiting.
Trying to pass the time by taking photos.
Almost an hour later (this is at 14:18) we’d made it into the building, and then I realized just how the FastPass system works. Essentially, if you have a valid FastPass (they’re good for a certain time slot) you take ABSOLUTE PRIORITY over the people waiting in the ‘regular’ line.
At 14:20 (after waiting for at least 70 minutes) we finally jumped onto the ride wagons, long after I’d relented and installed Subway Surfers on my phone so the younger kiddos wouldn’t kill each other due to pure boredom.
The ride was admittedly fun and cool.
The wagons rolled through a maze of sorts, and each person had a light-blaster and could shoot at targets and collect points.
Don’t shoot!
Photo of photos of us during the ride.
As our own FastPasses were about to begin, we made our way out of the Tomorrowland area (which is a very 60’s version of the future) towards the Haunted Mansion (@14:30).
That sure is an impressive structure!!
Glory of glories, we could enter through the fast-pass gate! (@14:39)
Finnur probably wondering what I’d gotten him into this time… We only had to wait a very short while before we were let inside.
In the spooky entry area, before we walked a bit before finding a seat on another endless line of wagons. (@14:45)
We stumbled into the bright light after the haunted mansion and only walked a few steps before we noticed people had started lining up next to the road again. Lo and behold, a few minutes later dancers and fancy floats began moving by! (@15:08)
We lucked out and found a spot where we could stand high up so the kids had a really good view. Emma was again thrilled to see Elsa.
I marveled at all the performers as they moved around in their big costumes in the heat without passing out!
Crazy fun design! Again it turned out that there are speakers everywhere, disguised as bird-boxes etc so they totally blend in. The sound quality was impressive! (@15:14)
After the parade passed in it’s entirety, we started a mad scramble to try and find ice cream. We finally succeeded, again by the help of the Disney app, and then we split into two groups, girls and boys, and went our separate ways. (@16:00 aka 4 pm)
Blood sugar levels restored to normal, and time to start our walk to the other side of the park. (@16:00)
Not knowing anything about the park, when we’d manage to arrive, how easily we’d be able to move around etc, I’d held off on ordering fast-passes until the night before. When were were driving to the park I’d realized that the boys probably didn’t want to meet any princesses, so that prompted a quick search for something better, and then in the park itself, I again decided we really didn’t need to meet two sets of princesses, so instead I took Emma to this small “Barnstormer” roller-coaster, while Anna visited Winnie-the-Pooh.
The boys went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and then Monsters Inc laugh floor instead. This is a screen-shot of the Disney app to help Finnur navigate to the next ride.
After the roller-coaster, us girls decided to try the Dumbo ride, as the projected wait-time was not insane. This turned out to be my favorite line, first you stood in a rather short line to get a buzzer, then Emma got to run around in this enclosed playground while the big people sat on benches. Once the buzzer went off, we again made our way to a short line, which led to another short line, and then we were on! (@16:40)
Waiting in the last line section to get on the Dumbo-ride (@16:48) (Animated gif, wait for it to load.)
Emma in the air! (@16:54)
It was soon time for our last FastPass of the day, but first I’d promised Emma a ride on the huge carousel. The line moved quickly, which made the waiting more bearable. (@17:18)
The carousel wait time was indeed only about 15 minutes, but meeting with the princesses without a fastpass would have cost about 65 minutes of waiting!
Finnur and Bjarki made their way back to us just as we got on.
Carousel-selfie!
The crazy impressive thing about this park is all the attention to detail in the surroundings.
Europe anyone?
Large cafe with fun umbrellas! (@17:22)
The last FastPass was to meet two princesses, next door to the carousel. We got in the short line at 17:26.
Still waiting 8 minutes later…
A minute later we were allowed to enter the meet-and-greet hall.
Anna happily served as translator, so I could snap a photo with Rapunzel. (@17:37)
Having a short conversation with Tiana (@17:38)
Official posing. There is a photographer that takes a photo with a better camera, and it is wirelessly uploaded to your account as your card is scanned. The system wasn’t perfect though, as we only ever got photos from the Tiana meet.
By 17:45 we were feeling tired, and decided we wouldn’t wait around for the fireworks, but rather start heading home. Turned out you can walk through the castle when it’s not in show-use.
Us.
Much to our surprise, we’d stumbled onto yet another people-gathering-by-the-road, so we found a spot and hung around.
Sure enough, five minutes later, dancers and floats appeared to happy music! (Animated gif, wait for it to load.)
It looked like these were the same performers that we’d stumbled onto when we arrived shortly before noon!
This time though, the dancers and floats stopped, and gathered people out on to the road to dance.
Bjarki was ambivalent about the dancing…
He joined in when the dancing got led by one of the dancers. (Animated gif, wait for it to load.)
Once the dancing with peeps was over, the guards helped clear the road, and the floats set out again.
By 18:08 the dancers were all gone, and people started milling out down the main entrance/exit street. The park literally ends at the last house of this street.
Energies were again running low, so we hopped into StarBucks (of course the was a StarBucks there!) and bought sugar in cups.
Sam (my Starbuck’s name) and her daughter waiting for the drinks.
Mmmm, sugar in cups, and smiles restored (@18:16).
Next stop on the ‘make sure the kids leave in a happy mood’ mission was to the Confectioner’s to get colorful hard candy.
Bjarki also insisted on going into the art-store again, to take photos of more works.
One favorite.
Another.
A third.
Last on the stop to make kids happy was a hat and Mickey-ear store.
By the time we made it to the end of the main entry street, it was 18:41, and it was beginning to get dark.
Posers by a K-9 unit in the parking lot. This time we’d taken the train, and not the boat. Since we’d lingered to shop we’d missed the biggest crowd exodus, so getting out of the park was a breeze. Thus endeth our trip to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom!!! (@18:55)