DAY 3 – 12/18/17
True to form, DD2 was up at the crack of dawn … good thing mommy is an early riser, too. We got dressed and ready for the day and snuck out to explore the resort while the gentlemen got their beauty sleep. We did not have anything planned until our brunch reservation at 1900 Park Fare at 1:40pm, so there was no rush to get everyone up and going (not the case for the rest of our trip!). DD2 and I wandered all over the GF grounds (beautiful!) and checked out the gingerbread house and tree in the main building when there weren’t a lot of people around yet, which was nice.
When the boys were all ready to get up, we headed back over the Poly to have breakfast at Capt. Cook’s, since mommy wanted to try the Tonga toast (it didn’t disappoint). We went back to the GF to swim for a while again before brunch. We got all decked out in our Christmas party outfits (couldn’t resist the matching shirts) and headed over to 1900 PF (we would be leaving from there to head over to MK for the party).
The brunch at 1900 PF was great and really probably some of the best character interactions of our trip (the brunch is only offered in the holiday season – I think it’s usually just breakfast and dinner). The only bummer is that my kids were still in their character-meeting-shyness stage at this point (thankfully got way better as the trip went on), so some of the character awesomeness was a bit diminished by children hiding under the table (true story). The food was good, and there was all-you-can-eat peel & eat shrimp, which was DS6’s only food request for the entire trip. We met Alice, the Mad Hatter, Mary Poppins, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Tigger. Another side note: we used this as our autograph book and loved it! https://www.amazon.com/Junior-Encyclopedia-Animated-Characters-Disney/dp/1423189140/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1501766371&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=disney+animated+character+book
I had it spiral-bound and added several pages of colorful cardstock at the back for extra autographs. It was perfect!
DD2 is not entirely sure about Tigger …
Alice trying to find the child hiding under the table …
After our “brunch” (more like a late lunch but whatever), we headed over to MK for MVMCP.
So … part of the reason we wanted to go to WDW at this time of year was because the last time we went (late September – early October), it was so stinkin’ hot. Now, Iowa can get plenty hot and humid in the summer months, but Florida just takes this to a whole new level. I am amazed at those of you that vacation there in July-August. Just wow. I cannot imagine. So, we wanted to take a winter Florida trip to both escape frigid Iowa and enjoy beautiful, perfect Florida winter temperatures. And for the first couple days of our trip … it was so stinkin’ hot. Again. Thankfully, this got much better later in the week. Everyone told us it was an unseasonable heat wave. Great.
So we were hot. But who cares?! We’re going to the Magic Kingdom! I love starting at MK – walking onto Main Street and gazing at the castle just seems like the classic way to begin a Disney vacation; I think I would have a hard time starting the trip at a different park. We took the monorail from GF to MK, which was super-easy. We did not have any trouble with the monorail our entire trip (which might be a little bit of a miracle), so we were able to fully enjoy the ease of travel that staying at a monorail resort gives you.
Another side note: as mentioned at the beginning, we took DS6, DS4, and DD2. And we definitely wanted a stroller. Our kids are pretty awesome travelers, but the stroller is a must for tired legs at the end of the day and a mid-day nap for DD2. We love having a stroller both for tired kids and so we are not having to carry all the snacks, ponchos, water bottles, and miscellaneous paraphernalia that comes with traveling with kids. I think we will be very sad when the kids have outgrown the stroller. Both times we have gone with the kids, we have rented a double stroller from http://www.orlandostrollerrentals.com; the strollers from there are good quality, clean (which is amazing considering what they look like when we return them at the end of the week), and delivered and picked up right at the resort (or vacation rental, as was the case when we went last year). Another thing we liked about that particular stroller rental company was that we could add a roller board on to the stroller for DS6. For most kids, you probably wouldn’t need this, but DS6 is definitely our straggler and slow walker, and we discovered that giving him a way to ride from time to time definitely speeds things up for us. We have never had difficulty finding our stroller (at least, no significant difficulty ), and we have left pretty much everything on the strollers while going on attractions and have never had anything stolen. Later in the trip, we actually left the stroller at MK and returned for a few hours to the GF in the afternoon, and it was right where we left it when we returned (probably not supposed to do that, but oh well – worked nicely for us that day).
We entered MK right around 4pm with our party tickets. I had scheduled fastpasses for the hours leading up to official party time, which was great – I heard they are not letting people do this anymore, which is too bad! We had a FP for 7DMT (3:30-4:30), ETWB (4:30-5:30), and SM (5:30-6:30). We headed to 7DMT right away once we got into the park. And this was mommy’s first big mistake of the trip. You see, DS6 and DS4 had both gone on 7DMT last year and loved it … or at least didn’t hate it. This time, they hated it. Suddenly, overnight, my children had turned into complete wimps. I’m still a little baffled. This would be a theme for the rest of the trip – the first question on entering any queue would be “Is there a hill? Is it fast?” Sigh. So I traumatized them with our first ride at WDW. DD2, strangely enough, didn’t seem to mind it. Kids. Needless to say, after this I scrapped the 5:30 SM fastpass and switched it out for Dumbo. Haha!
This is the face of a child whose parents have traumatized him by making him go on the scariest roller coaster known to man: the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
After the Mine Train debacle, we went to ETWB, which was lovely – we didn’t do this our last trip, and it is so cute! Then on to Dumbo, and all was well with the world again. After Dumbo, we headed over to the castle to watch Elsa transform it into an ice palace … wow. This was probably one of the best moments of our trip. We got really good spots right in front of the castle, and the moment when it lights up with the icicles was goosebumps-amazing. The little show with the Frozen characters is cute (my kids love Frozen, so they had a good time with it), but the whole thing is worth it just for that moment of transformation. This is also when my kids discovered their love for the fake snow, which we were to encounter several more times that trip.
After that we hit a couple more rides (this is where my memory fails me a bit – I won’t be able to remember everything we did, sorry!). We walked past Princess Fairytale Hall on the way to something else, and I noticed that the posted wait was only 15 minutes for Tiana and Rapunzel. I knew that on party nights, the princes are with the princesses, so I jumped at the chance to meet four-in-one with little wait. Yeah … that posted wait was a big fat lie. Lesson for mommy: don’t trust the signs, trust your Lines app. We waited at least 45 minutes, which was not a lot of fun with squirrely DD2 (the boys and daddy abandoned the line after about 10 minutes when they realized it wasn’t going anywhere to get some snacks and stake out a spot for the parade). When we finally got to Tiana and Naveen, my princess-loving daughter was suddenly and inexplicably shy and hesitant (not her usual). I was about to enter into full-on mental lament about standing in that line for close to an hour and then leaving without any pictures of my princess with the princesses. But Tiana shooed Naveen away (hilarious!), got on the floor with my daughter, and proceeded to talk sweetly and quietly to her for a couple minutes, getting her to completely open up in the process. It was wonderful, and just one example of how amazing those characters can be with kids. I will always have a special place in my heart for Tiana after that. After Tiana and Naveen, we met Rapunzel and Flynn and high-tailed it out of there to get to the parade on time. I love Disney parades and was especially looking forward to this one because I love Christmas! Unfortunately, our viewing spots were not the best (note: DO NOT watch an evening parade across from the Diamond Horseshoe – they have huge spotlights set up across the way that are blinding), but the kids (who are shorter and were not being blinded) loved it and the adults made do. After the parade we went on more rides, ate some blue snow cone stuff (we didn’t eat any of the cookies!! What is wrong with us?!), and settled down to watch the Christmas fireworks and projection show on the castle – lovely! I’m not exactly sure where our spots were, but I was looking back at our pictures/video and they were pretty awesome – maybe by Casey’s Corner but a little bit closer to the castle? Great spot!
We went on a few more rides after the fireworks, and then headed back to the GF via boat this time. This ended up being a pattern for us – take the monorail in, take the boat back – and it seemed to work nicely. The kids were pretty much all asleep by the time we got back to our room. I spent a bit of time getting everything prepped for the next day, as we would be heading to HS early to make rope-drop and sign up for Jedi training!