Wednesday (1/3/18) – MK Day! Last Park Day! Go Big or Go Home!
MK park hours were 8 AM to 2 AM the next day! As usual, we got up early and had breakfast in the room. We got on the monorail at 7:30 AM.
We started out in Tomorrowland. The touring plan said to ride Buzz Lightyear first, but we decided to go for Space Mountain, figuring the line will only get longer. Unfortunately, we got the same side (Alpha) as last time. It was so early in the morning that only one side was running again. I guess I should have figured that out. This time I was ready for the head snapping and scrunched my head down in between my shoulders. I’m anxious to ride Disneyland’s version again, but I’m not in any hurry to ride this one again until they refurbish it. I definitely won’t schedule 2 rides on it next time.
It was raining, but the next on the list was the
Astro Orbiter. I was surprised it was running. I think the CM was surprised that we wanted to ride it! There was only one other person besides the four of us. There were about 2 inches of water in the bottom of the rockets (why don’t they have a drain hole?), so it was hard not to get your shoes wet. We had fun anyway. This ride is better at night, but I never got around to riding it again. Also when you are an adult and you run the rocket all the way to the top, you are tipping pretty far over the side because the momentum isn’t enough to keep you to the outside; this makes it a little bit scary! The one at WDW is much better than the one at DL since you are way up high instead of on the ground like another version of Dumbo. I want DL to revive the
Peoplemover and put the rocket jets back up on top of the building. We can only hope.
We went back toward the hub to ride
Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. I like to schedule two rides of the competition attractions (like this and Toy Story Midway mania) if possible so you can have a chance to redeem yourself. This time DW didn’t get 999,999 and DS took the crown (as usual
). I can hardly wait until the next time I ride this (likely at DL) and I know I can just keep my thumb mashed down on the button!
The
Mad Tea Party was next. When DS & DD were little we used to all fit in one teacup, but no more
.
DW and I shared a cup and DD & DS took another. We spun and spun and laughed and laughed as we went around. This was under a roof, so we didn’t get wet, which probably added to the happiness.
No such luck on our next ride:
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. We’d been excited to ride this ever since we heard about it. It is a really cool terrain coaster with some magical special effects at the end. The side to side rocking motion just makes it more fun. We zoomed through the FP+ line and got in our car. DD & DS were in the front row and we were right behind them. We quickly zipped up our raincoats as soon as we went outside. It was raining hard! DD was filming it with her phone anyway, but DW and I cowered under the hoods of our raincoats. I did manage to raise my hands on the drop. They put in a really fun pause before the drop and that makes the ride special. You aren’t sure how much you are going to drop, and then you glide down smoothly into the next turn.] A great ride all around.
Hopefully this type of coaster will come to DL in the next redo of Fantasyland (which I hear is coming just after
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens to take some pressure off that part of the park). Disney wants to start minting money in CA with a “Be Our Guest” restaurant like the one in FL. The latest rumor I heard that seems credible is that a Frozen and Beauty and the Beast area will take over the Wonderland theater and Toontown. The Frozen ride at ECPOT would likely be replicated, but they could apply a Beauty and the Beast theme to the mine train ride I’m sure. This all sounds great except they have to figure out where Mickey, Minnie and his pals are going to live. Tomorrowland at DL gets the short end of the stick again.
Soon after we finished
Mine Train we got a notification on the MyDisneyExperience app saying that the ride was closed and if you didn’t use your FP+ you could use it anytime the rest of the day. That didn’t apply to us, but I’m sure it made the lines a lot longer the rest of the day. Another reason not to go during the winter: rides are more likely to be down due to weather.
Across the park to
Pirates of the Caribbean next. This one is inferior to DL, but we enjoy it anyway. It is my favorite ride and DS really likes it too, which is why we rode it a second time on the trip. DW & DD like it too, but not as much as us. At least it was inside so we could avoid the rain.
By the time we exited, the rain had let up a bit. We had a FP+ for
Big Thunder Mountain. This is DW’s favorite ride at the MK and we all like it a lot, so everyone was glad we were riding it again.
We wanted to go to
Country Bear Jamboree next, but for some reason it wasn’t opening on time this morning. We did some reconnaissance and found out that the
Tiki Room was open. This one is shorter than the DL one, but at least they got rid of the dumb “Under New Management” junk. It rained (like it always does in the Tiki room) but we didn’t get wet.
Country Bear still wasn’t quite open yet so DS & DW did some shopping while DD & I got our picture taken with Jasmine and Aladdin. That was fun. Jasmine almost messed up and said that her tiger doesn’t like the rain (tigers can swim), but quickly caught herself.
DD was really interested in seeing
Country Bears since it is a classic Disney attraction. We saw it in DL when she was little, but she doesn’t remember. We both thought this version was very tired and not that much fun. I remember the DL version (before it went away) having much better songs and being funnier overall. I’ll have to watch a video of each to compare. It may be that the DL version had “Ghost Riders in the Sky” which is one of my favorite songs!
We went back to Fantasyland to see the
Mickey’s PhillarMagic movie. That is always a lot of fun since Donald tries to take over and wacky things happen.
Plus it was inside!
It was time for lunch, so we used mobile ordering for
Columbia Harbour House. Most guides (and the Disney Food Blog!
) rate this restaurant very high for lunch. We put in our order, but it never showed up at the pickup window. I think it got lost in the system. We had to show them our order on the app and eventually they gave us our food, but it took 45 minutes. Big fail for mobile ordering. The food was okay, but nothing special. I’d go somewhere else next time. DD liked the shrimp mac and cheese.
We had one more FP+ for the day, which was
Splash Mountain. No one else wanted to go, so only I went on it. Everyone else headed back to the room for a break.
Because of the rain, I didn’t need a FP+; it was a walk-on. I didn’t stop walking until I got into a log. This is one of my favorite rides because I love the story of Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear, and Brer Fox. Plus the music is a lot of fun. I didn’t get wet from the ride (they must have had the splash at the end dialed down). It wasn’t really raining at that point, it was just misting.
We all wanted to see the
Jingle Cruise and agreed that the ride is more fun at night, so I looked for a FP+ for later that night. I was lucky to score one at 8:50-9:50, after the fireworks.
I could have used a break too, but I wanted to see the
Festival of Fantasy parade with the steampunk fire-breathing Maleficent dragon. That began at 3 PM, so I had about 90 minutes to kill.
By this time it had stopped raining and the sun came out. Yay!
First I was going to ride the train from Frontierland to Fantasyland, but I just missed it and they only come every 20 minutes (I think the DL trains come more often than that. Maybe they only had one train running because of the rain). So I walked to Tomorrowland and rode the
Tomorrowland Transit Authority, which is one of my favorite attractions (I’m still mad they got rid of the PeopleMover at DL!) I was lucky because just as I returned to the station, the ride shut down. I was able to just get out of my car and walk to the exit while others were stuck until it got going again.
I wanted to ride the train, so I walked to the Fantasyland station and waited about 10 minutes. The last time I rode the train here (may have been 2004), the area between the Fantasyland station and Main Street wasn’t themed (you could see the backstage area). I thought it was really bad show, especially since the DL train has so much to look at during each segment. They must have redone this area in the meantime because I didn’t notice an un-themed area this time. I got a good view of where the
Tron Coaster is going for the 50th anniversary of the MK in 2021. There is plenty of room back there. I’m definitely not coming back to WDW until all the 50th anniversary stuff is done. It will be great then.
I was pretty tired, but luckily I found a bench to sit on in front of city hall where I could wait for the parade.
The Move It! Shake It! Dance & Play It! Street Party came by which was high energy and fun. But I was low energy
The
Festival of Fantasy parade ends at Town Square, so it took about 15 minutes for me to hear the music. Then I stood up and used my usual technique of trying to stand behind someone with a stroller because they’ll invariably kneel down to interact with their child during the parade. Worked again!
The parade floats and the performers were all great. The dragon exceeded my expectations (I’d only seen photos). I figured out when it was going to shoot fire and it did it right in front of me and I got a great photo.
NOTE: A few months later, the dragon malfunctioned and caught on fire! I’m glad I saw it when I did, because who knows when it will be back online.
I was glad I waited for the parade, but now all I wanted to do was go back to the room and take a nap. I exited the park and took the resort monorail back to the room. Everyone else was resting or taking a shower. I took a nap until 5:30. Everyone else had already gone back to the parks. I took a quick shower and rode the monorail to MK to join them for the big finale of our trip!
I put on my eyeshades and put in my earplugs and set a wakeup call for 5:30 PM and my alarm for the same. I have a vague recollection of everyone else leaving for the parks while I was resting, but I drifted off to sleep.
The wake-up call never came for some reason, but luckily I heard my alarm even with my earplugs in. I took a quick shower and headed for the monorail to ride to the MK for the big finale of our trip!
As I was walking up Main Street I finally noticed a text from DS saying they were at the
Skipper Canteen for our dinner reservation. They wanted to make sure I was awake. I said I was steps away, and soon we were checked in. Our reservation was for 6:20 PM, but it took a while to be seated. I ordered Dr. Falls’ Signature Grilled Steak. It was delicious. I like mango, so I ordered the Punch Line Punch. Our server asked if I wanted to get it in a souvenir cup. Originally I was going to say no, but I decided it would make a cool souvenir, so I went for it. I’m glad I did. It is sitting on my desk right now with the Captain Phasma mug we got from the Star Wars Dessert Part at DHS on top. They go together perfectly!
While we were waiting for our food, some of us read the titles of the books in the library as the guide books had recommended. They were hilarious. My favorite was “The Overwhelming Dodo Population”.
We skipped dessert because we’d scored a reservation for the Happily Ever After Fireworks Dessert Party.
The food and theming of the
Skipper Canteen was great. I was disappointed our server didn’t crack any jokes like a Jungle Cruise Skipper. Maybe she was filling in? Anyway, bad show.
DD, DS, and I all wanted to go on the
Carousel of Progress since it is a classic Disney ride. We rode this back in 2004, but of course they don’t remember it. DW wanted to get a photo in front of the castle of all of us, but the line was long and we didn’t have enough time. Also they would have had to use flash since it was dark outside, and we have a blinking problem in our family.
We got into the
CoP with a short wait and spent the next 20 minutes (the CMs really emphasized how long the show was going to be I guess because people want to leave in the middle if they find it boring) traveling through time and technology. The last scene has been updated fairly recently and involves virtual reality and an oven that responds to voice commands. It was very clever if predictable. I like the song “Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow”, so I had a lot of fun reliving my past visits to this attraction. and I liked the updated ending.
Then it was over to the Dessert Party at
Tomorrowland Terrace. We checked in and got our wrist bands. I thought the desserts here were much better than the ones at the
Star Wars dessert party. The best was the Oreo cookie with the Grey Stuff on top. It had the proper consistency. The Oreo flavor was really enhanced by the Gray Stuff mousse.
We’d gotten there about 15 minutes after it started, and people were already heading for the fireworks viewing area. After about 15 minutes we went back to the check-in desk and were escorted over to area of the hub that was roped off for us. It is one of the areas with AstroTurf, which was nice to sit on while we were waiting. There was a family of four with two small kids next to us who all had light up shoes. I hadn’t seen those for adults before. They looked good at night, and I guess made it easier to keep track of everyone.
The Happily Ever After fireworks were great, with spectacular projections on the castle complemented by the music and pyro.
After the show we swam through the crowd back to Adventureland and used our FP+ for the
Jingle Cruise! This was one of my must do’s on this trip. They didn’t do the Christmas Overlay at the
Jungle Cruise in DL this year, so I was glad we were here to see it. As we entered the queue, a cast member sang us a more ominous rendition of “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town:” “You better watch out!!!! You better watch out!!!!” Our skipper was great and made lots of fun jokes with a holiday twist. Best of all the sound quality was excellent. The last time I was at DL, I couldn’t hear what the skipper was saying because I think she had the microphone too close to her mouth and there was a lot of distortion.
At this point the schedule read:
Ride Till You Drop!
DW decided she’d had enough and went back to the room to sleep. DD & I wanted to ride the
Seven Dwarfs Mine train without the rain, so we got in the standby line. The official sign said a 120 minute wait, but the TouringPlans app said 64 minutes.
DS went off on his own at this point. He started with the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. It goes fast, so he had to bundle up since it was getting cold! He also rode the Astro Orbiter, his second ride of that today! Early in the morning and late at night. It is always better at night. He shifted to the other side of the park to ride a couple of his favorite rides: Big Thunder Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Back to DD and me. The line moved very slowly. When we got to the gem sorting screens, some kids didn’t want to leave so they had squeeze past after their parents finally convinced them to get back in line. A mother and her son were right in front of us and she brought a book to read, which was a good idea.
It was getting pretty cold at this point. Most of the queue is outside, which didn’t help. I was very glad I had my balaclava and my Goofy hat! DD had gloves which was a good idea.
It seemed a lot longer, but we actually waited 65 minutes. Not a bad prediction. The ride was a lot of fun at night and more enjoyable without the rain. I can see why it is so popular.
It was a fun father-daughter experience that hearkened back our first trip to DL when we rode Dumbo together more than once.
We split up at this point.
DD went off to ride one of her favorite rides: Peter Pan! Then it was back to the hotel.
I love the
Autopia at DL and I wanted to ride the
Indy Speedway here, so I got in line for that. It was about a 20-minute wait (posted as 30). The drive here is much shorter than at DL, so it isn’t as much fun, but I really enjoyed it at night. I had to keep backing off the accelerator because the car in front of me was slower or the driver wasn’t flooring it like I was!
I walked back to the hub with a really good feeling that this had been a great trip. I decided to get my picture taken in front of the lit-up castle. As soon as I got in line a got a tap on the shoulder and who could be there but DS! He noticed my Goofy hat and wondered how many people would be wearing one tonight. We got our picture taken together in front of the castle and again on Main Street with the Christmas Tree in the background.
It was a magical finish to a magical day of a magical trip at Walt Disney World!
We kept going to the monorail station and rode our last ride back to the Poly. I got in bed right around midnight.