Magic Kingdom, Part One

We spent our 2nd and 3rd Disney days at Magic Kingdom, because what 2 and 3 year-old girls don't want to spend as much time as possible with a castle in sight at all times?!?

We found ourselves inadvertently spending most of Day 2 on one side of the park. Main Street, U.S.A., Fantasyland, Mickey's Toontown Fair, and Tomorrowland, to be specific.

Main Street, U.S.A. was home to the "Move it! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party", which began at 11a, shortly after we made it to the park following breakfast with Chef Mickey. We also took what turned out to be our only opportunity to meet Daisy, who apparently doesn't make many appearances within the parks. We're told she spends a lot of her time shopping, spending Donald's money!


Fantasyland was next, as it is home to most of the "kid" rides at the park, including "it's a small world", Peter Pan's Flight, Cinderella's Golden Carrousel, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Mad Tea Party, and Mickey's PhilharMagic.

Since "it's a small world" was BY FAR my favorite ride of the bunch, it gets its own collage, while the rest of the rides in Fantasyland are lumped together into one. Let's just say that I'm glad we took advantage of Fast Passes when possible, as I'm pretty sure I would have been disappointed to have stood in line for any of the other rides for any more than 10 minutes...

But a quick note about Mickey's PhilharMagic, which is a 10-minute 3D movie featuring Donald chasing Mickey's magic hat around the world. It's GREAT! We saw it twice, once each day, and I could have gone several more times. Sitting next to Ivie, watching her reach for items that were seemingly within her grasp, and duck away when they came flying at her head, was, well, magical. So it lives up to its name.



From Fantasyland we headed to Mickey's Toontown Fair. Ivie and Emerson loved being able to walk through Mickey and Minnie's houses, though Ivie was very concerned that Minnie didn't have a bedroom. I had to convince her that it must be on the 2nd floor, to which we didn't have access. That seemed to satisfy her... We also jumped on the Walt Disney World Railroad and took it for a spin around the park (with Ivie manning my camera for a few pics), followed by the dads taking the girls on The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm (a kiddie roller coaster that still made me queasy while watching from afar).



Since the girls (okay, mostly their mothers) were obviously not going to settle for a trip to Magic Kingdom without a visit with the princesses, we took advantage of the fairly short line in the Toontown Hall of Fame Tent and spent some time with Cinderella and Belle. Sadly, Aurora (aka, Sleeping Beauty) was unable to join us. Ivie surmised that she must be sick. So we're hopeful that she's feeling better now...


We had dinner in Tomorrowland, rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, gave the girls their glowsticks, and managed to "lose" Ivie in the dark for about one minute before finding her with a nice lady who had seen her standing alone, latched onto her, and began talking with her and looking intently for her mommy and daddy. I'm not sure I've ever been that scared, although it only lasted 30 seconds until I spotted her about 10 yards away.

While we technically came back Saturday to ride the Tomorrowland Speedway, I'm including it in this collage, for ease of organization purposes...


At 7:15p, the guys snagged the perfect spot on the bridge to watch the "Wishes nighttime spectacular" fireworks at 8p, and the girls passed the time by shopping for souvenirs. And it turns out that the fireworks were well worth the wait. An amazing way to wrap up the day!