After we left the resort for the first time we headed to
Epcot. It was amazing to say the
least. We stopped in awe to look
at Spaceship Earth. We had a
dinner reservation for Akershus so we headed right over. I thought I would be weirded out by a
real person “playing” princess but I nearly gasped when I saw my very favorite
staring back at me- it was Belle.
We were in Disney World actually eating with the princesses. Could it get any better than this? Little did I know what lay ahead of me
the following day.
As a tween I had never realized that the reason all of my
favorite TGIF shows on the ABC Friday night line-up had gone off to Disney
World because, in fact, Disney owned ABC and was using it as a marketing
ploy. And so when I first walked
through the gates at Magic Kingdom I did, feel some strange sense of
nostalgia. I remembered when
Michelle Tanner cut Stephanie in line and became princess for a day (when the
hug music came on Michelle offered Stephanie her crown and there were two
princesses for the parade), I remembered DJ picturing her boyfriend Steve as
Indiana Jones, and I pictures Steve Urkel and Laura Winslow getting
married.
It did not take long for me to get out of the realm of 80s
sitcoms and realize that I was in Walt
Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.
It was the best day of my life besides getting married and my niece
being born and all that. So what
did we do? We took pictures all
the way up to the castle (together, of each other and of the castle itself) and
then we headed to Fantasyland. My
first ride was Peter Pan’s Flight.
After that we made our way around the area and headed out towards the
castle. We ended up in
Adventureland and headed up, eating at Pecos Bill’s for lunch. After lunch we went back onto Main
Street, towards the entrance and hopped the train to see Mickey and Minnie’s
houses. After all was said and
done we headed to the Tomorrowland entrance to view the Parade (again I thought
of Full House). Once it ended we
went for Stitch’s Great Escape and made our way through the other Tomorrowland
rides that interested us.
Next it was off to Epcot for dinner. World Showcase meal #2 was Restaurant
Marrakesh in Moracco. Then we made
a pitstop at the hotel for sweaters and made it back to Magic Kingdom in time
for Spectromagic and Wishes. I
must say, back to the TV references.
Spectromagic was incredible and I am so glad I got to see it so many
times before the switch back to Electric Light Parade.
Neither of us knew what to expect when it came to the last
two parks. Rob had been to Disney
once, Animal Kingdom wasn’t built yet and MGM wasn’t something he remembered
well since he had been 7. When we
got to MGM we promptly bought “ears” from a vendor- mine like Stitch, his like
Sorcerer Mickey. Then it was
straight up Hollywood Boulevard and around the corner to check the times for
Indiana Jones and try out Star Tours. While we waited for Indy we wandered around close by
and were able to see MuppetVision and get some pictures with characters. After we saw Indy which was all I had
expected and more, we headed towards Mickey Avenue to check out all the
animated stuff, we hit up Magic of Animation but somehow skipped the Animation Academy (my first time was February 2011). For lunch we opted for lunch at ABC
Commisionary but not before we tried the Great Movie Ride. After lunch we wandered some more,
missed the parade, and hopped on a couple more rides.
The last ride was the best. My boyfriend (now husband) does not like rollercoasters, nay, he hates
them. I promptly lied to him and
told him that the Rock’n Rollercoaster wasn’t so bad. He asked if it was inside- I lied and said that it was just
a wall and he asked if there were loops and I said no way. I am lucky he was such a good
sport. That and the fact that he
couldn’t stop laughing when he heard Steven Tyler yelling “Threee, Twooo, Oneeee”
before we were off. It was a great
end to a long day at the park so we grabbed some mickey-shaped ice cream pops
on the way out.
Next stop was our World Showcase Dinner #3- Mexico. This was by far our favorite of the all
the World Showcases that we had eaten at.
And afterwards we grabbed another quick Margarita at the stand outside. Oh, and I can’t forget that we fast
passes Soarin’ on our way in and got to go ride it on the way out- it was
AMAZING and still one of our favorites!
The next morning, we went to Animal Kingdom. My excitement the last few days had
caught up with me. I had been up
at 5am for Magic Kingdom and around 6 for MGM… I couldn’t help it my body just
woke me up at that time. I was
tired. We got up closer to 7:30
and made our way to the food court and then the park. Animal Kingdom was great for a day when we had woken up
tired. We made our way through the
Oasis nice and slow watching and taking pictures of all the animals. I must say we didn’t accomplish quite
as much here as the other parks since we were both tired and not as
interested. We skipped Dinoland
all together and spent the day doing Maharajah Jungle Trek, Kilimanjaro
Sarafis, Pangani Forest Exploration and eating at the Flame Tree BBQ for
lunch.
