Our Family Trip to Disney World: Day 2, Magic Kingdom

After a very restful night's sleep at Coronado, we were up and at 'em by 7:30am. I was so excited because Jonathan was flying in later that night and we all missed him terribly! Today was Magic Kingdom and I'm not sure what I was more excited about: that feeling you get when you are standing at the beginning of Main Street with that amazing castle out in front of you OR seeing our girls in their custom Minnie outfits made by Melissa, owner of Jam Clothing Co.

We headed to the bus stop to meet the crew to head over to the Magic Kingdom. I love the look on Mary Elizabeth's face as she looks at Anna at the bus stop.

As we walked towards the Magic Kingdom, we realized we were there in time for opening or "rope drop" as they call it. The show was really neat and as security checked our bags and strollers, we were getting more and more excited about getting into the park. We stopped at guest services to get Josh's GAC card (for medical emergencies) and then we went straight to Crystal Palace for our 9:30 breakfast reservation. This pic was taken right before we headed into the nice, air conditioned restaurant for breakfast (it was HOT!)

Crystal Palace is a buffet style character dinner so on our dining plan, this counted as our one sit down meal of the day (we got one sit down, one quick service and one snack) We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of Mickey pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, blah, blah, blah. I even had a bowl of Frosted Flakes cause I'm on vacation too! Pooh and all his friends came around to greet the children, sign autographs and take pictures. Pooh was first and got a pretty warm reception from Maggie, not so much from Mary Elizabeth. She enjoyed them from a distance, but heaven forbid they got close to her. She would start screaming, "No! No!" and swatting her arms. Hence, the pics are sans Mary Elizabeth.




After breakfast, we were ready to ride some rides. We headed straight over to Dumbo and stood in line in the heat. We were all gross by the time we got up to the ride and actually got on. Keep in mind, the crowds weren't that bad, but still a 20 minute wait in hell type temps can make anyone feel gross after a while. Everyone loved Dumbo and then we headed to the carousel where we walked right on. Then it was on to It's a Small World. The kids LOVED this ride and even though that adorable little song would be like a death wish were you to get trapped on this ride, it is awesome to see all the little children chanting that adorable little song. Here's a pic of Anna and Maggie I snapped from behind on IASW:
After IASW, we headed over to the Haunted Mansion. Not everyone rode this ride and when we came out after the ride, everyone who had been waiting on us was literally melting. Mary Elizabeth literally drank two full glasses of ice water in the 20 minutes we were gone. We decided it was time to cool down and do Splash Mountain. I should mention that this is Isaac and Luke's favorite ride so it ended up being me, Isaac, Luke, Anna, Uncle Josh and Papa Eddie. As we headed to the ride's entrance, we noticed that the stand by line wait was 45 minutes. I asked Josh to show the cast member at the front of the ride the GAC since that is what they told us to do at guest services (up until this point, we just waited in line). The cast member pointed us to the fast pass line and told us to go ahead. Wait, what? We don't have a fast pass, we have a GAC. Well, I guess in Disney's eyes it's the same thing. We literally were on the ride within 10 minutes. No melting Uncle Josh. It was amazing and we felt so blessed to have that little card. Splash Mountain rocked and we met back with the rest of the crew.

At this point, it's 1pm and we were hot, hungry and tired. We decided to head back to our resort and hit the pool. Papa Eddie, Juju, Aunt Ali, Uncle Josh, Maggie and Mary Elizabeth headed back to the room for the girls to nap while I took the rest of my crew to the food court at Coronado for lunch. It was AWESOME and we enjoyed our counter service meal of the day. From there, we headed back to the room, changed into our suits and hit the AMAZING pool. This sign was on the way back to our room and my kids loved it (talked about the sharks every day)
The great thing about Coronado's pool is that they have an awesome water slide that even I enjoyed! The pool is HUGE and they even have a baby pool so there are activities for the entire family.

We headed back to the room to take showers and get freshened up and then we decided to hit Epcot. If you stay at a Disney owned resort, every day you qualify for extra magic hours at one of the parks. It just so happened that Epcot, which normally closes at 9pm, was open to midnight that specific night for extra magic hours. We headed to the park and immediately went and rode the ride in the big ball (sorry, can't remember the name). From there, we went straight to Soarin', which is one of our favorite rides. Then, we went straight to Test Track which was not working so we decided to head over to the Food and Wine Festival in the worlds part of Epcot. Wow, was it packed. We were also starving because my crew had only eaten lunch and no dinner. At this moment, I opted for the bad mom card and let my kids eat ice cream for dinner. They were so excited and I was very thankful that they stopped whining. We watched the fireworks show and then decided to head back to the hotel.

Jonathan arrived around 11pm to a room full of sleeping kids and a sleeping mommy. Isaac and Luke were so excited to see their daddy that they all decided they wanted to stay in our room so we literally had 4 kids in a queen bed. It was quite the sight. We were just thankful to have daddy there! Next post: Hollywood Studios (my favorite park!)