vacation Sunday: Magic Kingdom

We came into the day not knowing how busy the park was going to be.  It was going to be on the cooler side and it was Super bowl Sunday, but it was also a weekend.  (Spoiler: it was a great day to go.)  We had a tentative plan and expectations that we might not get to ride everything we wanted.  (Spoiler: we rode everything at least once.)

Cheryl and Joshua were talking and the following came out.  Cheryl: Grandpa Larry isn't a good waiter.  He always wants to do things now!  Joshua: He shouldn't work at a restaurant then.  (Joshua has had a few one-liners lately.  It's fun to hear them come through.)

Our goal was to ride Seven Dwarves first thing and then skip the extra payment since it's a special lightning lane.  We got there early and stood in a large crowd at "rope" drop.  We rushed with the best of them, although there were probably about 200 people in line ahead of us.  When we got in line the sign said 65 minutes, but then lots of people later that were still getting in line it still said 65 minutes.  We probably only waited 30 minutes, hooray! The first thing Joshua said getting off was that he wanted to ride it again.  What does Grandma do? She worked her magic and we got another ride later in the day.

We started walking towards Thunder Mountain but found a really short wait at Haunted Mansion, which was also on our short-list.  We all enjoyed it, but I'm not sure Isaac understood the reason behind it.

We went on Thunder Mountain, again with a pretty short line.  (This was a pretty surprising but normal theme throughout the day.)  Everyone enjoyed it!  We weren't sure what Joshua would think because it was probably his biggest ride so far, but he liked it!  Ben and I were both pretty excited that both kids were enjoying the big rides.

Our time for Pirates of the Caribbean was up so we went and did that.  It's cool.  (Future note: we started watching the first movie when we got home.  It might have been better to do ahead of time, but I didn't think about it and had assumed that it wouldn't be appropriate.  I've been enjoying watching the movie and seeing the scenes that we rode through.)

We had an awkward amount of time after that, so we decided to ride Thunder Mountain again.  The line said 40 min, but it was closer to  20 min.  A happy surprise, but makes it hard to plan things.

Then we had our time for Jungle Cruise.  I love this ride because of the one-liners.  It was funny but hard to hear.  They need to update their sound system.  

We went to space mountain.  (Without Cheryl, who has said this is one that she never needs to ride again.)  Isaac loved it.  Joshua gave it a medium.  I enjoyed it more than I remembered.  (I love this picture.  Joshua is being so brave.)

At this point we did some of the little rides and sit-down shows.  I was enjoying them, but Isaac was ready to go on some bigger things by the end.  (He really, really wanted to go on Space Mountain again.)  The new magic bands were a big hit.  Joshua figured out that a double tap lit them up.  Of course, Ben put several of them under his shirt and got them all going at once.

Instead we went on Seven Dwarves again.  Once again, I loved it.  It is such as smooth ride.

We had about an hour before our dinner reservation, so we decided to try the Barnyard roller coaster.  It wasn't a bad choice, but it might not have been the best choice.  The ride was really short, and this was the ride it felt like we waited the longest.  We did a lot more standing still than several of the other rides and that makes such a huge difference.

We had dinner at the Plaza.  It was good, but Isaac was getting a bit moody.  Let's be honest, it had been a long day.  We decided to forgo the fireworks because it was cold out and we didn't really have the correct clothes and we thought the Space Mountain line would be especially short.

So we went back to Space Mountain.  I was impressed that Joshua was willing to ride it again.  We did have to wait, but it was only about 45 minutes.  We caught the last part of the fireworks.

We did our last lightning lane at Peter Pan.  The flying feeling is fun but I also agree with Cheryl: I'm not sure why it is such a popular ride.

We thought about trying for another ride, but it seemed like the kids were barely holding it together. So we just called it.  Coming into the park with expectations of not having time to ride all the rides but then being able to ride several of the big ones twice was pretty amazing.