Magic Kingdom, Trader Sam’s and ‘Ohana
Rise and shine! Today is Rope drop at Magic Kingdom! No roaming today! Well, we sort of made it.. We got there just in time to see the ending of the opening show, so I think that counts. Our plan (thanks to Touringplans) was to check out the new talking Mickey since that and the Mine Train were the 2 major new attractions since we were there last. Normally we do not wait in lines for meet & greets. The last time we did was for Tinkerbell when my daughter was younger and obsessed with her. Since the girls are older, we haven’t had to wait in any lines in a very long time. Plus we did all the character meals during our year of annual passes, so we got our character fixes in that way.
Talking Mickey was…. creepy. There is no other explanation for him. We watched him do a magic trick with a little boy and he goes “Look into my eyes” …blinkblink.. it was really weird. The girls wanted to ask him questions, so we asked the handler if we could ask him something and she said “within limits – so for example, what is your favorite color”. I guess he has some pre-recorded selections to choose from during your interaction. The girls walk up and he asked them if they wanted to be pirates. They then proceeded to ask him what his favorite cheese was, and he said “the red one, and sometimes the blue one”. We all thought that was pretty funny and still talk about how weird and awkward it was.
We then walked past the construction of the hub (for some reason I thought it was all done?) and on to the Jungle Cruise.
The Jungle Cruise water looked different… almost like the Chocolate river from Willy Wonka. Otherwise the ride was the same fun antics as we remembered. Love this ride!
After Jungle Cruise we noticed Pirates of the Caribbean was open! (Touringplans had it listed as refurbished) so we hopped on board. I didn’t notice anything new, but Mr. Roamer said it was a much smoother ride. I guess that’s what they were working on.
After all that adventure we needed to cool off with a Dole Whip. We went to the place to get the Dole Whips, but there was no more Dole Whip. It was now called a “Citrus Swirl” which I figured, OK it’s probably the same, so went ahead and got one. It is NOT the same! It was really bitter and I couldn’t even finish it. I had to throw it out. Turns out (shame on me for not knowing this) that they moved Aloha Isle to where Sunshine Tree Terrace was, and this was now Sunshine not Aloha. If you want your Dole Whip you have to go to the one behind the Magic Carpets. No wonder the line was so short!
By this time the plan was all messed up, so we went ahead with the rest of the rides that we could get in on using FP+ or low waits. We had a light lunch at Gaston’s Tavern, splitting 2 pork shanks between 4 of us, with some fresh veggies and apples for sides. The girls tried the new LaFou’s Brew which they said the apple part was good, but the top marshmallow part was bitter and they didn’t like it. The pork was delicious and just enough to tide us over until Ohana’s later tonight. We weren’t able to catch the line for Gaston but we watched him interact with a few people, one of which was a little girl dressed as Belle. He proceeded to take her by the arm and walk with her around the area, proclaiming in his Gaston voice, “Watch out! Belle and Gaston coming through”. He stopped at his water fountain, admiring his bronze self, being sure to point out how good he looked to the little girl. It was really cute and just what we wanted to see Gaston do in person.
We checked out the newly refurbished Little Mermaid ride, which looked SO much better! I didn’t notice much more than her eyes were fixed, but Mr. Roamer went on and on about how much better it was now. He has a thing for Ariel though and was quite upset she looked jacked up before the refurb. Now she is finally pretty as a princess.
We got to see the new Festival of Fantasy parade which was really good! I even got a “Happy Birthday” shout out from Merida! The floats looked amazing and the dancers’ costumes were so cool!
When it was finally time for our Mine Train FP+ around 3:30pm, we headed up there so excited to finally get to ride it. Unfortunately, it was broken down! Oh no! Since that was our last FP+ of the day, we had to use it before getting more. So, we asked the CM what we should do, and he said we could get another one from a kiosk and to save this one for when the Mine Train was back up. We went to the FP+ kiosk but the lady there said no, if we use another FP we will lose that one. No way did we want to lose that FP+ because we knew there wouldn’t be any left if we tried to get it later! We were going to do Hall of Presidents (much to the girls’ dismay – uggghhh not LEARNING!) but instead decided to try another FP+ kiosk to see if we could get a different answer. I guess the third time’s the charm because that CM said we would only lose it if we used it for anything in a particular list. The ones we wanted to get FP for (all the mountains) were on that list. She could sense our frustration and maybe because I had a birthday button on, she felt sorry for us and gave us a paper ticket FP to use on anything. All we had to do was fill out a survey card saying how awesome she was. Done! So we ended up waiting in the regular line for Thunder mountain (about 25 mins) and using the FP for Splash mountain (about a 65 min wait in standby). It all worked out in the end. We even got to go back and ride Mine Train towards the end of the day. It was very cool! Kind of short, but it was fast and curvy. Yes, a lot like Thunder mountain but with an awesome pit stop in the middle of the mine shaft where the dwarves were mining and singing “Hi Hoooooo”. The dwarves looked amazing! Their faces were projection mapped, so they didn’t have the weird big eye blinky thing going on that Ariel does.
Right before we left I finally got to go on Stitch now that my oldest daughter wasn’t scared anymore (yes, she was still scared at 12 years old). It was weird having the shoulder harness come down so hard.. I didn’t care for that too much, but I’m glad we finally got to do it. It was a cute show, though I don’t think I’d go out of my way to do it again.
We wanted to head out so we could show Trader Sam’s to the girls since it was before 8 (the beginning of “No kids allowed!”), and we had our Ohana reservation at 8:30. We were then going to try to make it back over to MK for the fireworks and whatever rides we didn’t get to (Astro Orbiter, Space Mountain, and Buzz). The wait for Trader Sams was an hour so we just sat outside on the patio for some much needed relaxation. The patio was the exact opposite feeling from being in the Magic Kingdom. It was so relaxing… a nice breeze going, tropical drink in hand, and a live ukulele player serenading us. He even sang Happy Birthday to me in Hawaiian!
I got to try the Pearl (more cinnamon, yay!) and Mr. Roamer got the Dark & Stormy. The girls got some jungle juice and it came with umbrellas and crazy straws which they thought was super cool.
After some much needed R&R time, we headed upstairs to check in for our feast at ‘Ohana. And feast we did! We all ate WAY too much, but oh my, the food is Delicious!! After dinner we were all too tired and full to go back to the MK so we just caught the monorail back and then waited for our resort bus. A great day at the MK but very long and tiring.
Tomorrow’s adventure – Animal Kingdom
