Jfsag123
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2013
Day 8: July 26, Part 1 – Magic Kingdom
It was an EMH rope drop day at the Magic Kingdom. We have a routine for these mornings and we always start with Peter Pan. Everyone else runs to 7DMT and we end up getting a ton done. Sadly, that was not to be on this morning. We booked it over to PP once they let us through and were like 4th in line when we got there. So far so good. But then we waited. And waited. And waited. And the CM’s manning the entrance told us nothing. They were still holding everyone outside the building. We kept going back and forth about whether we should get out of the line or wait it out. We really love seeing the queue for PP and, of course, you bypass it with FP, so we always try to RD it once to see it. About 20 minutes in, just as we decided to ditch, they opened up the line and let us into the queue. We walked through enjoying the Darling house, got to the front of the line…and were stopped again. We were in too deep to leave by that point. We finally rode, but it ended up taking about 45 minutes, so pretty much all of EMH. There were many frustrated people in that line, mostly with the lack of communication. But we brushed it off and pushed on.
Next up was Winnie the Pooh. Here is a picture of something that will surely be different in this age of COVID.
I shuddered when my kids touched this thing before, but no way in hell it’s happening now.
We decided to skip our planned meet with Ariel in her grotto due to the lost time and went straight to the Little Mermaid ride, which was still pretty much a walk on. Next up was Barnstormer which, unfortunately, was no longer a walk-on. However, the line was still pretty short and it allowed me to get a nice view of the Tron construction.
We rode 7DMT with a FP+, then hit up a couple of character meets. First, my favorite:
He and Cora got into an argument about how many eggs 5 dozen is. Needless to say, Gaston’s math was off. He was fed up with Cora’s arguing by picture time.
I was thrilled to see this Gaston again, as he created a magic moment for my kids on our trip way back in 2016. They were dressed as Belle and Beast and we were in route from Enchanted Tales with Belle to dinner at Be Our Guest. Alex had gotten to play Beast and Belle had actually asked her handler to have Cora and Alex hang back after the show. She spent some one on one time with them, which they loved as they knew that isn’t typically done at ETwB. They walked out of there over the moon and were spotted by Gaston, who happened to be making his way backstage from his last meet of the day. He stopped to talk to them, shooed other people away, then took them back into the ETwB queue area with his photopass photographer to take some pictures. This is an experience they still talk about regularly, as they felt so special.
You may not be able to tell, but there is lipstick on Alex’s cheek courtesy of Belle. Anyway, back to 2019. After Gaston we met a character we had never met before. How are there any of those left???
She was great and we were glad to check this one off our lists. We came out through the hub on our way to Frontierland, as the Liberty Square path was still being worked on at this time. Of course, I had to take a castle selfie.
Hello Florida summer frizz! We cooled off here for a bit.
If you don’t know, that’s Country Bears, which we love. Our next FP was for Splash, because might as well throw some Florida water on top of that frizz!
I think Alex had planned on a pose, but then got scared during the drop resulting in this masterpiece. Next up, my favorite treat:
Of course, we ate these while watching (and singing along to) the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room, because it doesn’t get much more magical than that. From tiki room we headed to our final pre-booked FP+ at the Jungle Cruise. We selected this one to coincide with another first for us, the dining reservation we had booked for immediately after our ride.
Cora is all about the corniness of the Jungle Cruise and dreams of being a skipper one day, so this was high on her list of places to try.
We had this bread as an appetizer and it was delicious.
Cora and I each had tastes like chicken, Cora’s with sauce on the side
DH had this. I think it was the pork, but I can’t say for sure
Alex, of course, had mac and cheese and broccoli, his two favorite things in the world
I thought my meal was just okay, but everyone else seemed to love theirs, so I’d be willing to try it again. We didn’t get desserts because we had just had Dole Whips. Did things a little backward…
We decided to head out for our midday break at this time, as it looked like it would start raining at any minute (spoiler: it did). On the way I snapped this picture of Judy and Nick’s backsides as they met in Town Square. We wanted to meet them, but weren’t down for that line. This pic had to suffice.
It was an EMH rope drop day at the Magic Kingdom. We have a routine for these mornings and we always start with Peter Pan. Everyone else runs to 7DMT and we end up getting a ton done. Sadly, that was not to be on this morning. We booked it over to PP once they let us through and were like 4th in line when we got there. So far so good. But then we waited. And waited. And waited. And the CM’s manning the entrance told us nothing. They were still holding everyone outside the building. We kept going back and forth about whether we should get out of the line or wait it out. We really love seeing the queue for PP and, of course, you bypass it with FP, so we always try to RD it once to see it. About 20 minutes in, just as we decided to ditch, they opened up the line and let us into the queue. We walked through enjoying the Darling house, got to the front of the line…and were stopped again. We were in too deep to leave by that point. We finally rode, but it ended up taking about 45 minutes, so pretty much all of EMH. There were many frustrated people in that line, mostly with the lack of communication. But we brushed it off and pushed on.
Next up was Winnie the Pooh. Here is a picture of something that will surely be different in this age of COVID.
I shuddered when my kids touched this thing before, but no way in hell it’s happening now.
We decided to skip our planned meet with Ariel in her grotto due to the lost time and went straight to the Little Mermaid ride, which was still pretty much a walk on. Next up was Barnstormer which, unfortunately, was no longer a walk-on. However, the line was still pretty short and it allowed me to get a nice view of the Tron construction.
We rode 7DMT with a FP+, then hit up a couple of character meets. First, my favorite:
He and Cora got into an argument about how many eggs 5 dozen is. Needless to say, Gaston’s math was off. He was fed up with Cora’s arguing by picture time.
I was thrilled to see this Gaston again, as he created a magic moment for my kids on our trip way back in 2016. They were dressed as Belle and Beast and we were in route from Enchanted Tales with Belle to dinner at Be Our Guest. Alex had gotten to play Beast and Belle had actually asked her handler to have Cora and Alex hang back after the show. She spent some one on one time with them, which they loved as they knew that isn’t typically done at ETwB. They walked out of there over the moon and were spotted by Gaston, who happened to be making his way backstage from his last meet of the day. He stopped to talk to them, shooed other people away, then took them back into the ETwB queue area with his photopass photographer to take some pictures. This is an experience they still talk about regularly, as they felt so special.
You may not be able to tell, but there is lipstick on Alex’s cheek courtesy of Belle. Anyway, back to 2019. After Gaston we met a character we had never met before. How are there any of those left???
She was great and we were glad to check this one off our lists. We came out through the hub on our way to Frontierland, as the Liberty Square path was still being worked on at this time. Of course, I had to take a castle selfie.
Hello Florida summer frizz! We cooled off here for a bit.
If you don’t know, that’s Country Bears, which we love. Our next FP was for Splash, because might as well throw some Florida water on top of that frizz!
I think Alex had planned on a pose, but then got scared during the drop resulting in this masterpiece. Next up, my favorite treat:
Of course, we ate these while watching (and singing along to) the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room, because it doesn’t get much more magical than that. From tiki room we headed to our final pre-booked FP+ at the Jungle Cruise. We selected this one to coincide with another first for us, the dining reservation we had booked for immediately after our ride.
Cora is all about the corniness of the Jungle Cruise and dreams of being a skipper one day, so this was high on her list of places to try.
We had this bread as an appetizer and it was delicious.
Cora and I each had tastes like chicken, Cora’s with sauce on the side
DH had this. I think it was the pork, but I can’t say for sure
Alex, of course, had mac and cheese and broccoli, his two favorite things in the world
I thought my meal was just okay, but everyone else seemed to love theirs, so I’d be willing to try it again. We didn’t get desserts because we had just had Dole Whips. Did things a little backward…
We decided to head out for our midday break at this time, as it looked like it would start raining at any minute (spoiler: it did). On the way I snapped this picture of Judy and Nick’s backsides as they met in Town Square. We wanted to meet them, but weren’t down for that line. This pic had to suffice.