Day 8
Disney Park: Magic Kingdom (open till 11PM)
Out of all the days we spent in Orlando, this was to be the yuckiest weather wise. The reports said it was to be thunderstorms from mid morning on. So we took our chances to spend our last morning in Disney walking the Saratoga Springs property to hang out down at the main pool. I am so glad we took this relaxing start. First, it was spotty with sunshine but no rain, so that was a win, and we all needed to enjoy some free time before the bustle of real life. With leaving tomorrow. 😦
Ok, no dwelling on that!!
We had great fun hanging out at the main pool, there are two hot tubs-and they were bone melting hot. Yes!! We luckily got ourselves ready AND partially packed by the time we made it to the Magic Kingdom! We wanted our last full day to be at the MK.
The park’s attendance didn’t seem as crazy as our other two days there before, so we were thrilled. We strolled through Main Street USA, without bumping into a soul. We kept our first FP for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride at 1:40PM. The girls and I loved this ride from the first day, and were looking forward to riding it one last time.
The queue for the ride is so darn cute. I love those seven little guys!The only thing that stunk about our ride was as soon as the mine carts hit the outside the large drops of rain started to fall. Not a terribly big deal, I had my sunglasses to stop the splatter of water in my eyes. And even if the ride had a few minor stops along the way that got us wet, we don’t know what happened, we still had fun. That wait outside the cottage at the end was a fun opportunity to teach everyone that they can rock the carts back and forth to the music. So, we swayed to Snow White dancing! It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds.
About the time we got off the ride, the rain seemed over. The park was prepping for their big parade, and we wanted to get to Thunder Mountain before it was too late. But, by the time we got over to Frontierland through the bridge and roped areas, the rain had started coming down harder. Ponchos on, we ran to Pirates of the Caribbean, which had a ten minute wait listed. I was happy to keep my poncho on for that ride as well. The canon went off right next to our boat… I stayed dry. After POTC, the sun came gloriously out but thunder started so all the outside rides had to pause till it was over.
The girls really wanted to have a Dole whip, because each day resulted in some fail to get one, so we raced over to grab one. Our oldest is a huge pineapple nut, so she wanted the dole whip swirl over the upside down pineapple cake and our youngest wanted a simple vanilla, no pineapple. The vanilla was so good, and swirled with the pineapple was pretty great. I am a fan and not a fan of the Dole whip. The first time I had it I got the float, which was literally so much pineapple that I couldn’t taste anything else for three hours. But our oldest remembers her very first one, in 2012, and talks about it like it was an ancient precious relic. Haha
I like rum. Maybe next time I will try the rum ones?
Since the sun was still out, and no thunder rumbles for a while, we ran over to Big Thunder Mountain which had virtually no line! We ended up riding it twice in a row, taking full advantage of people stuck somewhere else due to the thunder.
After this, we planned FP to split up because our oldest wanted to ride Space Mountain again with her dad, and our youngest wanted to go on The Haunted Mansion with me. My ghoulish gal. We had a lot of fun splitting up! We walked through the store first to cool off from the humidity, then made our way. We laughed a lot, and the ride had a quick pause where we got spooked pretty good by the creepy skeleton that pops up out of the tombstone!
We met up after these rides in Liberty Square. The rain started again, so we ducked into The Hall of Presidents. Without too much detail or ranting crazily about my dislike for Trump. All the Presidents creep me out. They always have. Especially, the little guy at the desk behind Pres. Washington. I flashed the 8 gang sign to Pres. Van Buren, always representing Seinfeld. Cheered seeing JFK, cuz Boston. The show is a good watch overall. Our country is spectacular and we have had do many different types of leaders. My kids liked the video beforehand followed by President Lincoln’s address. I always do. Which is probably the best part of the whole show.
And, Trump sucks even as an animatronic puppet reading from a script. Ugh sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
We left the show to find blue skies and SUNSHINE! Woo! We took a walk up the side of the castle then realized each time we walked by the castle this trip it was closed for a parade or show. We saw it was open and finally made our way in!
It’s not a terribly big walk through but it is worth stopping to look at all the Cinderella reliefs. The lighting is dark, but what you can see of the mosaics is spectacular when you think about how many man hours the artist put into them. She did an amazing job. I especially like the gold tiles, so sparkly in each relief.
As we strolled down the castle paths, we realized the time. We had a FP for The Speedway and then reservations for dinner following, at Be Our Guest.
The Speedway is one of those ‘ride your own’ rides that crack me up with the girls because they can’t drive to save their lives and are overwhelmed if they bump the inner track. My husband rode with our oldest, because our youngest wouldn’t allow me to go with her. Notice how she is always with me? She is starting to attach herself to my hip. Well, we had good fun driving, or trying to drive. She was so funny because she has a lead acceleration foot and a lead breaking foot. She kept freaking out, letting go of the wheel and smashing into the inner track.
Let’s hope this isn’t her driving future.
Finally! Dinner!
We had only eaten lunch at Be Our Guest in 2014, and had a good experience. Dinner service is way different than lunch.
First, you check in at the front kiosk where you are told to await a text to enter the gates. Within seconds we got the text. We then were let into the gates, then told to await our party’s name to be announced. Every few minutes a footman would come out of the side door calling names. Once our name was called the footman walked us in the castle through the main doors telling us that the prince was throwing a party. The lunch ordering kiosks to the right were covered in lush velvet curtains and we were taken straight through the ballroom where we had sat before to our table.
We were seated in what I called the Thunder and Lightning Room. It was one the left side of the ballroom; beautiful plum wall paper, dimly lit tables and it had a lot of theatrics. The ceiling had tapestries hung that the Beast had clawed through during a fit, there was also a crackling fireplace with a painting hung above. Every few minutes thunder and lightning lit up the space, and with each clap of thunder the painting above the fireplace would flicker between the painting of the Prince to an image of him as the Beast. Super glad no other children sat in this space because the thunder and lightning was sort of loud …and spooked me a little! Also, next to the fireplace-in the corner of the room, there was the enchanted rose under glass twirling. It was a beautiful space but I wish the rose was more realistic rather than holographic.
When we got seated the Beast made a dramatic entrance into our space to say a quick hello to the room before heading to his character meet spot inside the study, the ordering kiosks area at the front. Our waitress was super nice and the atmosphere was pretty fun, though at times I’d joke that we were at the Rainforest Cafe with the lightning and thunder.
Our waitress encouraged us to take a walk around the restaurant and to see the Beast. After we ordered drinks we took a minute to check out our room and the other rooms across the way. We decided to hold off on seeing the Beast until after we ate and ready to leave.
The whole table was dressed so perfectly in a rose theme. Each place-setting was adorned with rosette napkins and a giant candle in the middle of the table. The girls loved the napkins a lot; so now I have to learn how to make rose folded napkins to surprise them.
Our experience this meal was actually nothing like the horror stories we had read. We ended up enjoying it way more than we figured we would. My husband got the salmon. Our girls got the grilled shrimp and mac n cheese. I got the roasted chicken- because I never order chicken ever but during this trip I ordered it like everyday. Haha. My husband had a beer and I had a rose champagne. We had a great time together, even if the thunder got the best of me once in a while. Hah
We, of course, had to get the grey stuff. My only meh moment of the night was this grey stuff. I’m the only one who didn’t care for it, too. It was sort of bland and the crust was so hard to get through. I took a bite and forfeited it to the big man. Which I am glad I did because I got a second round of champagne instead :).
After dinner we met the Beast. Well, he is the reason I wanted to take the girls to this restaurant; well, I had never seen him in person. Just wow. What a costume. The whole character meet was so sweet. He kissed our hands, hugged us and we were enchanted.
Now that we were all floating on cloud nine, we made our way to Big Thunder Mountain to use our last FP. As we ran over, we noticed the park was starting their nighttime show, so the ride had virtually no line anyways. We got onto the ride, my husband and I alone in front of the girls, who got to sit in the last seat (which is the best seat on the whole coaster). We popped outside to find the fireworks just starting. IT WAS AMAZEBALLS! I mean, the locations of each display is staggered to look together from Main Street USA but from the side they are spread out so our view was literally surrounded on the right side… it was the best thing I had ever experienced on BTM.
The fireworks show is pretty long, and they continued as we exited the ride… so the girls wanted to hop back on, and I decided to sit it out to watch the fireworks. I got to sit on top of these boxes near the water bubbler by the exit to watch the show as they went on. It was awesome. The best part of this stint of the night was when my family exited the ride my husband sat out the next ride to sit with me on the boxes as the girls rode again.
Kissing during fireworks that close is pretty special. 🙂
As soon as the girls exited, the fireworks ended and the rain started! BAH!! almost perfect, right? Well we ended up getting the girls on the carousel as we took cover near by. We had one last FP for the night, Peter Pan. It may have been the best way to end the night. The girls wanted to ride it together, which was sweet, and left us alone. I know I said this last time, but I just love this ride so much. We jetted after this ride to the Confectionary on Main Street USA to grab some last minute souvenirs for everyone. They were shooting photos for some photo shoot inside there, which was fun to see.
Sad to say, that this was our last full day in the parks, but a pretty great last night of the trip. The girls were wiped during the bus ride home, but so was I. When we got back to the resort, I jumped on finishing up the packing and setting up everyone for the next day. 😦
Our last day.
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Day 9
Disney Park: EPCOT
We woke up to beautiful sunshine! Of course, we were leaving. We dropped off our bags to bell service to hold, grabbed a bite to eat and a few more souvenirs. I needed my Mickey waffle key chain! Then headed right to EPCOT. We had to be back to the resort by 2PM to grab the Magical Express back to the airport. Which by my calculations left us not a ton of time to play. We had one FP this day, because of the time constraints, to Test Track. We literally got to EPCOT, took a few pictures, rode Test Track then left.
Or at least it felt that fast!
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Well, there we have it, guys!
It was a fun nine days with the people I love most on this marble creating memories, just having fun. BUT, I think we have had our Disney Parks fill for a bit. Wink Wink. I will explain my winks further on Instagram sometime soon!
Hope you all enjoyed reading along. I miss not waking up in Disney, it really has been magical.
xoxoxo
Valeria Out Loud 