Today would be our last day of weather in the 80s. Storms were rolling in and behind those storms we had some cold weather. The temps dipped down into the 40s and we were happy to see high 60s and low 70s the final few days during mid afternoon.
Today was a day that I felt we had overbooked activities, and I was worried we wouldn't get to see a lot of the magic kingdom. We had a breakfast reservation at the Polynesian to see Lilo and Stitch at Ohana's. And we ended up adding in a last minute reservation to Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary for lunch. I was worried with all the time away from the Magic Kingdom we wouldn't get a whole lot done other than traveling. But thanks to the storm rolling in, that wouldn't be the case.
Original Plan for day:
8:05 ADR at Ohana
10:00-11:00 Fast Pass to meet Rapunzel and Tiana
11:00-12:00 Fast Pass for Peter Pan
12:45 ADR at Chef Mickey
2:35-3:35 Fast Pass for Tomorrowland Speedway
6:50 ADR Be Our Guest
We had an 8:05 ADR for the breakfast to see Lilo, Stitch, Mickey, and then Pluto after we ate. We decided to drive over to the Polynesian and leave the car there and just take the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. It would have worked out perfectly, except for the GPS, I just typed in Polynesian thinking it would be the only Polynesian. Nope, some other resort has the exact same name in Orlando and we ended up heading that way. We figured it out after we had left Disney property and were driving through Orlando, and thankfully had left early enough that we made it to our reservation right on time at 8:05.
We were seated almost immediately. I am not really a fan of where we sat for this ADR. We were so close to the table next to us, and the kids were so far away on the other side, it was hard to talk and get good photos when the characters came around because Paul and I felt like we couldn't move without disturbing those around us. However, the food was delicious and served family style. And just getting to meet Lilo and Stitch was great. The kids made sure to mention that our cats are also named Lilo and Stitch.
This is when we realized that our pens weren't working that great. I just threw in our autograph books from October 2016 without thinking that the pens might no longer work well. They worked fine if you didn't press hard, but with the characters I'm sure they have to press hard in order to sign. They were great with how it happened, but you can see Sam in the photo above testing out his pen after we realized the issue. We went and bought new pens after breakfast.
I definitely didn't get my camera ready for this trip. I forgot to bring spare batteries for my speed light and didn't spend the time like I wanted really learning how to use it on manual and just stayed on automatic mode. For our next trip I definitely need to fix this.
After breakfast we jumped on the monorail at 9:30 am. A change from our previous trip is that you go through security before getting on the monorail at the Polynesian, so you don't have to go through bag check again once you arrive at the Magic Kingdom. It actually made it pretty quick to get in to the parks. Sam loves the monorail and considers it a ride, so he was happy with all the riding we did on it this day.
Our first ride on our first trip to Disney was the people mover. And the kids wanted it to be the first ride again this time. It is actually a great little ride to start out on, since it usually has zero wait and you can get good views of the castle and some rides in Tomorrowland.
We left the people mover to head over to fantasyland to use our first pass of the day. We had a couple of stops along the way. We did a walk on to the Monster's Inc laugh floor. I wasn't sure what to expect for that one, and it was actually really cute. I am impressed with how whoever is working behind the scenes can play off the audience so well. We also stopped to see the Friendship Faire stage show that was going on in front of the castle. We were able to get really close to watch and it was fun to see all the characters.
Ally's pick of a fast pass is to meet Rapunzel and Tiana. We know it's one she wants, so even though it's not a must grab fast pass because of crowds, for us it is to make sure she gets it in during the day.
We left Rapunzel and Tiana and walked around to get a few pictures (kids were surprised to find out they could not get the sword from the stone!) around the park.
After pictures we set off for our fast pass for Peter Pan and rode It's a Small World stand by before we had to leave for the Contemporary for lunch.
The kids absolutely love Peter Pan and It's a Small World. Paul and I could ride each once during the entire trip and be good to go, but they really enjoy the rides and wanted to do them several times. We were only working on our schedule this trip and not a larger group, so let them ride whenever we could fit it in.
After It's a Small World, I was worried about how long it would take us to get to the Contemporary so we walked past the castle and had to take some photos along the way. A tornado watch was in place for Orange County so Sam was really excited and trying to use my phone to keep us updated on the weather as we went to lunch. You can see some of the storms starting to roll in and he was thrilled.
Notice the fireworks going off in the picture below. Startled both kids!
On the monorail the tornado watch turned into a tornado warning. Sam could hear the phones from those around us going off and thought it was the best day ever.
I planned a good 45 minutes to get from the Magic Kingdom over to the Contemporary. I wasn't sure how often monorails came by and how long it would take once on the train. Well.. it took all of 5 minutes, so we were a good 40 minutes early for our reservation. We checked in but used the time waiting (we were told that we wouldn't be able to be seated early which is to be expected at Character Meals) to shop at the gift shops and explore the resort. We decided on Contemporary because we thought (and were correct) that Sam would love riding the monorail into a building and eating at a restaurant with the monorail going over head. The brunch was actually really good and it was one of our favorite meals. You get a lot of mixed reviews on this one, it seems people either love it or hate it, but we were in the love category. You definitely didn't actually see the monorail going over head while eating, but could hear it and see it from the lobby. The characters were great and we had a great seat for this restaurant and were right on the end, and one of the first tables the characters stopped at.
So this kid was starving at lunch. He was actually shoving bits of food into his mouth while characters were at the table... We had to work with him on the fact that he needed to just take a minute to interact and then go back to eating.
Paul's 40th birthday present was the new Go Pro Hero 6. Pluto was great with it and really played to the camera.
After lunch we got back on the monorail and decided to take a break for the day. The first reason for this was the weather and the storm getting ready to hit, and the second was to give Ally some down time. She'd been going strong the past few days, and I thought with the weather we might as well give her some nap time (she needs more sleep than Sam). I moved our fast pass that was scheduled for after lunch to 4:30 to give us some time to rest.
On the monorail back Sam started up a conversation with others in our car about the weather. He was super excited so we checked out the incoming storm at the Polynesian and hurried to our car. We made it to the car with minutes to spare before the downpour.
We left the Polynesian around 2:30 and stayed at our resort for rest time until 4:30 when we headed back to the main building to catch a bus to the magic kingdom. More about this day in Part 2 since it is already incredibly long!
No comments:
Post a Comment