Tuesday: Magic Kingdom

Well, if you asked me to put together a list of  'things I'll never do', being at the Magic Kingdom on New Year's Eve would have probably made the list.  There were times it was packed and shoulder to shoulder, but most of the time you could move around pretty easily.

Anyway, we started with a buffet breakfast.  I love breakfast foods...when someone else makes them.  It was delicious.  The Christmas decorations were all still up, and it was fun to see how the trees were decorated differently in all the places we stopped at.  (The trees came down on Jan 2.  There were still a few Christmas decorations up, so it wasn't as though everything was gone at once, but it was pretty close.)

We got to the park just a little bit before the parade and found a decent spot near the entrance.  People steadily came in the whole time we were there.

Due to the business, we decided to do some of the other things today.  I don't think we waited in a line for more than 30-45 minutes.  One of the things was the card game.  It was pretty cool, although I'm convinced that it doesn't matter which card you hold up to attack the villain as long as you hold one up.  It took us the whole day, but we slowly played through all four areas.  (I think Hades had more villains he was going to recruit and we would go back to the same areas, but that was enough for us.)

It was perfect pants and sweater weather.  I was trying to take a selfie with the castle, but it was also sunny. :D  I think I took more selfies on this trip than I have in the last five years.

With the card game, we first saved Pongo's pups.

Then we managed a better selfie with the castle.

We did several of the "small" shows.  Around 1pm, while in line for the Tiki birds, we got a notification that the park was at capacity.  (This means that they weren't selling tickets at the door anymore.  If you were an annual pass holder or staying at the resorts you could still get in.  I'm curious as to how many people this actually affected.)

As mentioned, most of the time walking wasn't too bad.  A few times they rerouted some streets for parades or when it was close to the firework time, and then the other places got very crowded.  Everyone managed though.

We had a few fast passes throughout the day too.  The first was the Jingle Cruise, which is the Christmas version of the Jungle Cruise.  It was full of puns and I found it hilarious.

We went on the people mover.

We got our hats and sat down to eat a pretzel.  It was a huge pretzel, but I really like soft pretzels.  I don't know where to get them in Holland, so whenever I see them somewhere else I take advantage.

We said a quick hi to Mickey...

...and found a spot for the fireworks.  I could see most of the castle (it is lit up really well).

Some fireworks before the New Year...

...firework numbers for a countdown (eight is shown)...

...and Happy New Year!  There were so many fireworks going off.  It was almost like daytime.  Well, a cloudy daytime, but bright nevertheless.

We were close to the park entrance and so able to scoot out pretty quickly.  We only sort of planned that...Mickey was near the entrance and so we just found a good place near there.  We were able to walk to our hotel which was so nice!!  I think even being near the beginning of the crowd the monorail would have been terrible.