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Trip Report It feels like the first time... Feels like the very first time *completed*
- Thread starter DryerLintFan
- Start date
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Songbird76
Well-Known Member
I think those princesses are highly trained. We had a very snooty Aurora once, but other than that, they have all been great. Your Ariel looks a bit harried, though. She looks like she is desperate to find an exit.Day three - Magic Kingdom night continued
Based on reviews, trip reports, and food blogs, I went into Cinderella's Royal Table with extremely low expectations. I had read the food was meh, the portions were tiny so you left starving, the princesses took forever to come out and then rushed through your table, and the whole ordeal ate up 90-120 minutes of valuable park time. But hey, going into this trip we had no idea if we'd ever be back again, so why not go for the whole shebang?!
After checking in, we were led inside the castle to a royal chamber where Cinderella was meeting her guests.
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I was really impressed by something that happened here..... There was only one other family who was waiting for their table, so when they left it was just us, Cinderella, the photographer, and a cast member. Cinderella had already met with us, so her obligation to us was over. Another cast member came in and started having a casual conversation with her....... And she didn't break character. He had asked her what she did with her family for Christmas, like you'd ask a friend or a co-worker, and she answered something about the castle and the prince and a fifty foot Christmas tree. I'm sure that was annoying for the cast member who askedbut A had been listening and later told me that next year we needed a tree as big as Cinderella's
so that was just a really impressive job by her!!
The moment we walked into the dining room, trumpets started playing!! We thought "wow! What a royal treatment!" But really it was for Aurora, who entered at the same time as us
I was so excited because we got exactly the three princesses I'd hoped we would get, and we had perfect timing in that all the princesses started their circulation right when we got there so we wouldn't have to wait on anyone! I was leaning over to tell D how great our timing was, when princess Jasmine came in! We got a bonus princess!!
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Hey smile for the camera, A...
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No, A,... Give me a pretty smile....
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Can we talk about Aurora for a minute....? The young lady who was our Aurora was a saint. An absolute saint. A was on princess overload an had a hard time concentrating on just the princess at our table because three others were so nearby. So when A grabbed her pocket pets to show Aurora, we just rolled our eyes, apologized to Aurora, and prepared to just roll with it.
Guys. Aurora played with A and her "little forest friends" for over five minutes. She knelt down by our table, and played with our kid.
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This woman created so much magic for A, who now grabs one of the kitties away from me and says "no mommy, you can't play with this kitty, she's Aurora's kitty..."
And the timing was so perfect, that when she walked away from our table, it was time for food,...
Songbird76
Well-Known Member
Wow...what an amazing Tinkerbell to get her to keep the bracelet on! Quick thinking! I wonder if that's a common thing. We gave the kids lanyards with our phone numbers. They clipped onto their clothes, so they weren't annoyed by bracelets or anything, but I'm betting there are a lot of little ones who try to take their bracelets off.Day three - Magic Kingdom night continued
We found the crowds pretty easy to navigate, except in areas where you could see the stage shows. These areas were worse than people "rubbernecking" in traffic. They'd be walking along at a brisk pace, then notice they could see the stage show, then just stop abruptly while people behind them tried to maneuver so they didn't crash into them. The worst area for this was on the bridge from the Merida meet and greet to the hub. There were cast members stationed about every five to ten feet (they could have stretched out their arms and touched their hands) to keep the foot traffic flowing on either side of the human line they created. As we walked over the bridge we saw people who weren't paying attention collide with these cast members, and more than a handful ran over their feet with their strollers and scooters. By this time, the hub looked like that snake pit from Indiana Jones as people began staking out their spots for the fireworks two hours from now
But we skirted the outside and there was plenty of breathing room. We passed by the popcorn cart and it smelled incredible. This was the first snack cart I had found in the Magic Kingdom. With the crowds, it was so hard to see storefronts so the only way to find the snack carts was too check the app, and I was trying not to pull out my phone much. We didn't stop and get popcorn though because D is allergic, but we both commented on how incredibly delicious it smelled.
Main Street was a breeze, and before long we were in front of the Tinkerbell meet and greet changing A's shoes (because how could she meet Tinkerbell if she wasn't wearing Tinkerbell shoes?!!). Tinkerbell had a 50 minute wait, but we were the only people in the fastpass line. D got the red card, and didn't understand why I needed a picture of him with it
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The cast member who was managing the fastpass line was my favorite we had met on the whole trip. She was so funny and kind and chipper and just seemed like a wonderful person. Someone had left behind two party hats, and when she grabbed them I made a joke about how she could do the Madonna thing with them
She laughed, reminded me that it was a family park, and then put them on her hat and declared herself a kitty and started playing with A. A had so much fun playing kitties with her that she didn't want to go when it was our turn to meet Tinkerbell
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We were shrunken with pixie dust and entered pixie hollow. We later did some online reading from former cast members and confirmed that there is indeed a "cute little kid privilege". Interactive children between the ages of 3-5 do typically get more time with the characters because the characters have more fun interacting with them. They believe in the magic, and treat the characters like they're real. Nowhere did we experience this phenomenon more than when A met Tinkerbell with her Tinkerbell shoes.
I thought Rapunzel would be A's favorite meet and greet, but it was clearly Tinkerbell. A came alive. They compared shoes, and talked about their dresses (your dress is made of leaves!!!!), talked about the lost things and Tinkerbell's ice sister, and Tinkerbell even showed her how to put her hair in a bun
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Since we knew we were headed into massive crowds tonight, we put an alert bracelet on A before going to the Magic Kingdom. It just has our numbers in it and our information, and the outside is bright yellow and says PLEASE OPEN IF I AM LOST or something like that. She wasn't a fan of wearing it, but I made her anyway. She showed her alert bracelet to Tinkerbell and asked her to take it off. Tink told her that the bracelet was her "second star to the right" bracelet, because it helped her find her way so she wouldn't get lost, and that she had to wear it until she got back to her hotel room
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Next we headed back through the hub crowds past that delicious smelling popcorn (I normally hate the smell of popcorn) and up to our fastpass for 7DMT. D took A to go find a bathroom while I hopped solo into the fastpass line. After a quick 5 minute wait in line, I was sat on the very back of the train, next to the mom of two teenaged girls who were in the seats in front of us. They were sweaty and out of breath, because they had just run all the way from the front of the park, barely making their fastpass window. They had been waiting for the dad at the front gate, but he got stuck in traffic and couldn't get there in time.
Never you worry, I said, I got tons of corny dad jokes!!
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I loved everything about this ride. The rocking mine cart, the decorations and theme, the surprise twists and turns. It was so fun and exhilarating! I would say this was my favorite ride, but since we didn't get to go on many, that probably wouldn't be fair
I found D and A over in the stroller parking and took over watching A while D went off to enjoy the ride. We people watched, A blew bubbles, I SAW THAT CARRIAGE STROLLER IN REAL LIFE!!! We made friends with a nice Pakistani man who was also waiting for his family. He said he hadn't felt well all day and decided to skip the ride, but here's the catch.... He had been waiting for over two hours for his family, right there in the stroller parking. His family didn't have fastpasses and he waited for them right there the whole time. I was shocked. In his shoes, I would for sure be off doing something else for that amount of time. His family came out and we all said hello and then said our goodbyes. They were all very sweet. Then D came out! He loved the ride too, and he got to ride next to a cast member who told him a bunch of fun facts about the ride, which of course he didn't remember
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Up next: food, fireworks, and fistfights...
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Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
Day three - Magic Kingdom night continued
, which I accidentally ate a few bites of
"accidentally" hu? yeaaaah riiight!
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StarWarsGirl
Well-Known Member
Always glad to be of service (and to be right)
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Songbird76
Well-Known Member
Perhaps he would enjoy it more if you had been able to do rides. Maybe wait a few years and then go back when you can do more...does he like roller coasters? My husband loves them, and my oldest is just getting to the age where she will go on some with him, and now he enjoys that so much more. My son is more like A...he doesn't like the dark queues, he didn't want to do anything on our DLP trip but buzz light year and autopia (tomorrowland speedway) and meet characters. So we split up and took turns with him doing those things while the others did fun stuff. Everyone got to do what they wanted and so we all had fun. I'd say tell D to give it another chance in a few years and take turns...I bet you'll all enjoy it more. You might also want to consider staying a bit longer and visiting the other parks. With the little ones, it's usually all about the MK, but as they get older, they can enjoy other stuff. I think my son loved HS because of all the star wars stuff, and hubby liked it because of roller coasters/thrill rides. DD and I love epcot for the WS, and both kids loved Epcot for stuff like Turtle Talk, Imagination, Spaceship Earth, and LOTS of character meet and greets. There really is something for everyone. I'm glad A had so much fun and that you are willing to go again.Departure day
We were up before dawn to catch our Tragical Express, only for us it wasn't really tragic. We were exhausted, tired of meeting princesses, and just wanted to sleep in our own beds. Without waking up in a puddle of toddler drool or with stinky toddler feet in my face. It was a short trip, but it felt like we were there for at least a week. So when the bus pulled up, we grabbed our seats, and settled in for the ride.
Our bus driver was fantastic!! He kept playing with the stop lights. As we rolled up on a red light, he'd whisper Bippity Boppity Boop! Right as the light turned green. By the time we got to the airport, A was convinced he was a fairy godmother
I went to grab a Starbucks, and D went to get the gate check tag for our stroller. The airline lady took this opportunity to make my daughter cry hysterically. She was joking that since our flight wasn't for so long, she would just take the stroller and put it in the flight to Hartford Connecticut. Even after my husband warned her that A was only two and took everything very literally, she persisted, until A was a screaming puddle of tears yelling "don't let her take my stroller!!!!!"
The hours passed slowly. At one point, D went to go get me another coffee and Starbucks had opened up a second page. There was only one lady in the second Lane so her hopped in line behind her thinking he would breeze through. She had a wheelchair carrying a lot of shopping bags (she said she had bought a lot of things at the airport shops for homeless foster children and she couldn't carry them all) and she had put her wallet in one of the bags but couldn't figure out which one. She had to empty almost every one of her bags before she found it. By the time D could order, everyone who was in the other line already had their coffee
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It's okay, we had plenty of time. After an uneventful flight home, D went to get our car from extended parking while A and I went to baggage claim to collect our things. When we stepped outside, the air immediately hurt my face. OMG it was so freezing cold that I instantly regretted complaining about being so hot in Orlando
Well we got home and realized we were pretty dumb for turning the heat off while we were gone. The inside of our house was down to 27* and even with the heat going full blast it was only just up to 55* five hours later. Live and learn. The kid and I have huddled under a pile of blankets watching movies, so that was really niceWe got lucky that it finally warmed up in time to put the kid down for night night. And we apparently got REALLY lucky that our pipes didn't freeze and our house didn't flood. We had to throw away a lot of food from the fridge though because it froze solid and tasted freezer burned.
Final impressions from a first timer:
We were impressed by how incredibly clean everything was. The walkways were power washed, the trash cans were wiped down, we didn't see any litter in the property.
Level ten crowds aren't really that scary, especially if you're willing to rope drop. The biggest impact they had, in my opinion, was that they made it difficult to see the snack carts. I didn't see a single Mickey pretzel or Mickey bar kiosk anywhere on property. I'm sure they were there, but just hidden by the crowds. That, and it made it hard to notice any of the details that everyone kept telling me to slow down and pay attention to
I wish we had more time in Epcot. I was expecting to be bored out of my mind, to be honest, because that sort of attraction isn't usually my thing, but I loved all the countries we saw. I especially liked bruising through the crafts and trinkets at the shops. I would have loved more time to stop and smell the roses there instead of just chasing one princess after the other.
Magic Kingdom was really fun the last day, when we got to ride the roller coaster and see the fireworks. It was really disappointing the first day when all we got to do was see princesses. I wish we would have ridden a couple more rides alone the first day. I should have placed more of a balance on doing things for everybody instead of just for her the entire trip, because when we all experienced things we loved the third day, we all had a blast.
I highly recommend the photopass service. It cost around the same as a mini session with a local photographer, but it takes so much pressure off of taking pictures for your vacation. I'm so glad we had this added to our package.
The bottom line:
D could take it or leave it. He loved seeing A light up with the princesses and was completely impressed with the fireworks, but wouldn't voluntarily plan a trip back to the World.
I wouldn't count myself a fanatic by any stretch, but I'm definitely planning a return trip for A and myself. A mommy daughter trip in a couple of years sounds perfect. Hopefully she'll have time to stop being afraid of the dark so we can go on rides together though (she did tell me that when she's a bit taller she wouldn't be afraid of the ride decorations anymore
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sheriffwoody
Well-Known Member
Loved reading your report! I am super impressed that you tacked the parks with a toddler for the first time during the Christmas season. You're a brave woman!! Looks like A had the time of her life
Courtney6682
Well-Known Member
SAME!!! I only managed to put up some stupid clings on the window lol...I'm here and following btw...today is my first day back at work! Ughhh
You guys did great on Christmas morning...we arrived at 830 and stayed til 2-230...more on that later tho
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21stamps
Well-Known Member
SAME!!! I only managed to put up some stupid clings on the window lol...I'm here and following btw...today is my first day back at work! Ughhh
You guys did great on Christmas morning...we arrived at 830 and stayed til 2-230...more on that later tho
Do what I did..2 strands of battery lights. One fake shiny “tinsel” Christmas tree- 1 step assembly.
Just make sure to leave the elf at home
@DisneyBound2017 , maybe try Planet Snoopy at Kings Island this coming summer..see how A likes it. Much shorter travel time, then you’ll know if she’s ready for rides at Disney
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