Tuesday, November 29th - Magic Kingdom Day - Continued
After Lincoln had woken up from his nap and had a snack, we headed back over to the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Prior to the trip, L had been given a hand-me-down Tigger plush, and he'd become quite attached to Tigger. Anytime we'd read him a Winnie the Pooh book, he'd point Tigger out. So we knew we had to let L meet Tigger on this trip. When we got in line, Pooh and Tigger were meeting. While we were in line, a CM let everyone know that the characters change out, so it may not necessarily be the two of them when we got up to the front.
Thankfully, after about a 20-minute wait, Tigger was still up there with Pooh. L had a hard time being patient in line, especially when we got to the point where he could see Pooh and Tigger. When it was our turn, Pooh walked up to take L's hand to lead him over to the photo spot, but L zoomed right past him and made a beeline for Tigger. He cried out "Tigger!" and bounced up and down a few times before diving into Tigger's arms, where he was met with a huge hug. I may or may not have shed a tear.
Eventually, L did pay attention to Pooh, and he had such a special interaction with both of them. He cried when we had to leave them.
The tears didn't last long though, because as we'd promised that morning, we took him back on the carousel.
By this point, it was 5:00, and the park would be closing for regular guests at 6:00. We decided we had time for one more ride before we needed to grab dinner. What better ride to finish out a fantastic day at Magic Kingdom than Dumbo? I rode in a separate elephant from the boys so that I could take some cute pictures/video from up above them.
After Dumbo, we mobile-ordered our dinner from Cosmic Ray's. We usually would default to Pecos Bill for our MK dinner, but Cosmic Ray's had recently brought back the spicy chicken sandwich that J and I had both loved back in 2019. Plus, we thought L would enjoy seeing Sonny Eclipse. Imagine our surprise when we walked in and Sonny Eclipse was gone.
We'd forgotten that they use Cosmic Ray's for a dance party location during the Christmas party, and I guess they keep the stage up all day on party days. Regardless of the lack of singing aliens, we enjoyed our dinner - J and I both got the Rocket Hot Chicken Sandwich, and L got the kid's BBQ chicken sandwich with apple slices and fries.
After dinner, we started making our way out of the park. It was our first time in two years being in the Magic Kingdom with the lights on, so we took our time meandering down Main Street.
We stopped in the Confectionery on our way out, but we didn't see anything that piqued our interest, so we headed out of the park, and saw some friends on our way out.
We left the park right at 6:00 pm, when it officially closed for day guests. Unsurprisingly, the line for the monorail was insane, so we took a very packed ferry back to the TTC to get to our car. We finally made it back to the hotel around 6:45.
Every time we had walked by R.C. on our way to/from the room, L had pointed him out and said "ray car! ray car!" but there had always been other kids playing there. This time, that area was empty, so we let L climb and play on R.C. for a few minutes before heading to the room.
After getting out to play on R.C., there was no way L was going back in the stroller, so we let him "help" push the stroller back to the room.
After we got back to the room, we facetimed the grandparents for a bit to tell them about our day before we got L bathed and ready for bed. L went down at 8:30, J fell asleep shortly after, before 9:00, and I followed around 9:30. We were all worn out from a fantastic day at MK - we took a gamble going to MK the day of a Christmas party, and it totally paid off. The park was practically empty for the first half of the day, and we were able to get so much accomplished in a short time. J and I have both said we're definitely going to MK on a party day again this year.
I'm maxed out on photos for this post, but we walked 27,501 steps and 11.39 miles this day.
Up next: Hollywood Studios Day - will the ROTR curse prevail?
So, when my alarm went off at 6:00, we were all a little groggy. Unfortunately, HS is not quite as laid back as AK, so we wouldn't be able to get away with sleeping in and going to the park later. We started getting ourselves ready, and shortly before 7:00, I purchased our Genie+ access for the day - it was $15/person again this day.
