Magic Kingdom - Day 1

Wes had had enough of theme parks for a bit, so decided to stay back at the resort while the rest of us headed for the Magic Kingdom. We arrived early in order to get a "Fast Pass" for Space Mountain then headed to Splash Mountain.

What a Zippity-Doo-Dah fun ride. It's just one of those "feel good" experiences. We all loved it! This is Tara's favorite ride, and Kylee's newly acquired favorite. We rode it almost Back-to-Back, slipping the Thunder Mountain roller coaster in between. Early on a Monday there were almost no lines, so getting right on a ride was not a problem.


Next we headed straight to Pirates of the Caribbean, only to find it was suffering from "technical difficulties," and no guess as to when it would be working.

Fortunately that ride is conveniently located by the Jungle Cruise. A Real Disappointment once you have been to the Animal Kingdom Safari Adventure. And to make matters even worse, the ride "guide" spent the whole time telling really bad jokes with bad puns flying all over the place.

Rylan really wanted to head to the Haunted Mansion, so we rode that. I forgot how silly and fun that could be. Granted it's been since 1976 that I visited Disneyland, but that ride is one of the few vague memories that I have from the place. It's amazing what I recalled.

On our way out we ran into Timon and Rafiki, the kids managed to get autographs and photos:


We rode Space Mountain, and it's rather jerky for a roller coaster, it was fun, but not one of my favorites. Kylee then talked us into going on Stitch's Great Escape, based on the Lilo and Stitch film. Hands down the WORST ride any of us have ridden at any of the parks. If you are going to Disney, don't waste your time!

Following Stitch, we then rode Buzz Lightyear. Basically a moving target gallery ride. You shoot various targets throughout the ride and compare scores. Rylan managed to cap it at maximum with 999,99 points; I scored nearly 300,00, and the girls were all under 75,000. That was fun! All rides should have a game attached to them! :) To make it even better, we ran into Buzz himself on the way out of the ride!

We decided to go back and ride Splash Mountain once more, considering it was in the mid 80's a little water splashed on us seemed like a good idea!

As we were headed out towards the entrance, we passed Pirates of the Caribbean, and low and behold it was open finally, so we ran in and were on the ride in under 10 minutes; that's as good as it gets with this place. They've updated the ride, adding some of the most realistic "Jack Sparrow" characters. I was convinced that it was an actor at one point. The realism was amazing!

All in All, a very fun-filled afternoon. We left the park around 3PM in order to get the kids back to the resort. They were signed up to play games and activities with the resort staff. So we had to take the mandatory photo with Cinderella's Castle.

Now, I want to say for the record I LOVE Being Here With My Kids, but it was nice to spend a few hours and catch a movie. We saw the Anthony Hopkins flick "Fracture." A rather good movie, but the ending was, in my opinion, a little weak and predictable. Still worth seeing however.

Dinner at Bennigan's and calling it a night. I am falling asleep at the keyboard, so will apologize for any grammatical errors in today's or yesterdays posts. I can drive in my sleep, (Been doing it for years) but typing isn't as easy.