Day 23 - Orlando - Walt Disney World

Orlando - The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World - 37°c

I was awake a good while before my alarm went off at 6:45am whilst I was in the bathroom, having to run back out into the bedroom to turn it off before it woke Nathan and Tim next door! It was definitely excitement that woke me up. Knowing somewhere in the back of my subconscious during my slumber how exciting the activity of today was going to be, definitely kept me awake at several intervals during the night!

Once ready long before I needed to be, I met up with James, Steve and (Brit) Danielle at our arranged meeting point and caught the free shuttle bus to the Magic Kingdom that the hotel provides.

After getting our tickets, we headed over from the Transportation and Ticket Center on the monorail through the Contemporary resort and onto the Magic Kingdom where the queues were already forming at the gates. At 8:40am we were there even before the park opened at 9am, which was great! After visiting and staying at Walt Disney World 5 times before in 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006 & 2007, I’ve never managed to get to the Magic Kingdom before it officially opened for the day, and have subsequently never seen the opening ceremony!

Just before 9am the ‘mayor’ of Main Street arrived to welcome us all at the Main Street train station, before a whole host of dancers and singers joined him for a while until a train from in the background got closer and closer until it pulled into the station right in front of the gates, complete with Mickey, Minnie and a whole load of other Disney characters aboard. The continued dancing and singing until Mickey started the countdown from 10 to 1, when the fireworks went off, and streamers and confetti rained down upon us all as the gates opened! It was such a cool thing to see, and next time I’m here I’ll definitely have to make sure I’m up and there in time to see it again. Seeing the Grand Opening definitely got us all in the mood for a day of fun, and for Danielle and James who’d never been before (Steve having been as a child) it definitely gave them a taste of what to expect from within the park.

As soon as we were in the park, we took a few photos by the entrance before heading straight to Frontierland to ride Big Thunder Mountain since with Space Mountain out of action for the summer and autumn for it’s refurbishment, alongside Splash Mountain, they’re both probably the most popular rides in the park for the time being.

It was only just over a 5-minute line to get on the ride, and once on, all of us loved Big Thunder Mountain, with the four of us riding with our hands high up in the air! From there we headed straight over to Splash Mountain, but after waiting in line for a while it soon became apparent that the line wasn’t moving, so Danielle asked someone about it and was told that the ride was temporarily closed for maintenance, so we picked up a fast-pass to come back later on in the day without having to queue.
After that we headed over to Adventureland where we walked straight on to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and then straight onto the Jungle Cruise right afterwards. The park was so empty and it was so great to be able to do 3 rides and pick up a fast-pass for a fourth within 45-minutes. From experience I knew that there was no way we’d be so fortunate later on in the day as the crowds swelled.

We headed on over to Liberty Square where we picked up a good breakfast, once again planning ahead so as not to get caught up in the massive rush for food between 12-2pm like everyone else in the park. After some food we went into the Hall of Presidents attraction. Although I’ve been to Walt Disney World so many times, I’d never seen this before and one inside and in the theatre, it was really good. Up on the stage were audio-animatronics of every US President ever to serve in office, and after a presentation of some of the history of the USA, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama made a speech, which was really cool and very life-like.

Once we were out of there we headed back on over to Splash Mountain to use our fast-pass that we’d picked up earlier on in which was a good thing since the queue for the ride now stretched to a 60-minute wait! We skipped straight to the front of the line and got on board, with James and Danielle taking the front row, Steve and I just behind which suited me just fine since it was James and Danielle who got the most soaked! Danielle and I bought the on-ride photo, which looked really great! In the photo, James and Danielle have their arms right up in the air whilst Steve and I are screaming and holding on for dear life behind them!

We next went on Aladdin’s Carpet Ride, which, although for smaller kids, was good fun! James took the controls and moved us up and down while we ‘flew’. Somehow James managed to take the ride from being a children’s ride into something of a thrill ride with his control operations!
After that we headed on over to Fantasyland and onto the It’s A Small World ride. Danielle had me in stitches on the ride round, saying how the moving dolls and the incessant singing were giving her a headache! It didn’t help much when the ride came to a complete stop for a good 5-minutes or so and we were stuck in the same part, with the dolls singing over and over and over again!

Thankfully we managed to escape eventually and after an ice cream, went over to Mickey’s Philharmagic, a 3-D show that is one of my favourite attractions in the whole of Walt Disney World. Seeing it again was like seeing it for the first time and it still gave me goose bumps. It was cool to hear that Steve, Danielle and James loved it just as much as I. After a quick walk around the gift shop next to the ride where Danielle started her main assault on the shops of the Magic Kingdom, we went opposite to the Carousel where there was no wait line and we got straight on. Steve didn’t fancy going on, not quite up to the same child-like behaviour as Danielle, James and I, so stood by the side and grabbed some photos of us on it.

Straight after we got off we went straight down to Main Street ready for the 3pm parade, by which time it was the hottest point of the day and was almost unbearable! Even just sitting there was draining and enough effort, so once the parade started and the performers and characters in costume were dancing, singing and running up and down Main Street, we all agreed we had great empathy with them!

After the parade had finished we were all SO hot, and with the humidity kept on rising with no sign of a thunderstorm to break it up a bit we headed over to Tomorrowland and to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. Although the queue was quite long, we the majority of it was inside where the air conditioning was pumping and we were able to cool right down. Maybe it was experience, maybe it was just luck, but I completely thrashed everyone with my score which was quite funny and the subject of much ribbing!

Once we got off of the ride we walked through Tomorrowland, back onto Main Street and headed out of the park for a while, wanting to get a break from all the activity and people. So once out of the gates we caught the monorail to the Contemporary resort hotel where we picked up a free Disney bus over to Downtown Disney for some shopping and chill-out time.

We were there for a couple of hours, in and out of the shops and making plenty of time in ‘The Art of Disney’, my favourite shop in the entire Disney World complex, with it’s beautiful figurines and one of a kind artwork not available anywhere else on property. There was a brief rain shower that lasted all of about 10-minutes whilst we had a quick bite to eat in McDonalds, but quickly disappeared providing very little respite from the heat and humidity.

After a couple of hours at Downtown Disney, we caught the free Disney bus back to the Contemporary resort where Steve decided to pick up the Lynx bus and head back to the hotel.
Danielle, James and I walked back over to the Magic Kingdom and headed straight over to Toontown. Whilst Danielle lined up to meet the Disney Princesses, James and I got into the 45-minute queue to meet Mickey and Minnie. It was the longest line of the day, but once in there we agreed that it had been definitely worth it and we both got some great photos with them.

From there we had to make a dash back over to Main Street to catch the 9pm Spectromagic parade, only to find every square inch of the ground was completely covered with people! Unable to get through to the other side, we had to run all the way around the castle, through Fantasyland and Liberty Square, before finding enough space for the 3 of us to see the parade over in Frontierland.

It was so cool to see the parade again, and I got just as much enjoyment out of seeing it again for the umpteenth time as I did the first, and it was great to share it with two people who had never seen it before too.
After the parade was over, we made our way back down Main Street to around the exit area where we viewed ‘Wishes’ the fireworks, over the castle at the end of Main Street which again were truly beautiful.

As the fireworks ended, we all said our goodbyes to the Magic Kingdom and dashed out of the gates to pick up the monorail over to the Transportation and Ticket Center ready for our Lynx 56 bus back to Old Town. - At 11pm it was the last bus of the day, but thankfully we managed to get out of the park fairly swiftly and got there in plenty of time for our bus. Once back at Old Town, shattered from our 14 and a half hour day at Disney, we all headed back to our respective rooms, and I packed my case (including my abundance of Walt Disney World purchases I’d bought throughout the day!) ready for tomorrow’s early departure, not wanting to get up any earlier than I really had to!

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Part of trip: Trip of a lifetime!

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