Back to the Magic - Day 7 Magic Kingdom

[BevS97]

After our late night at Fantasmic, I’m wondering if we will manage to get to Magic Kingdom, but we have an unchangable appointment at the Pirates League. Molly is having a Mermaid Makeover. We all get up around 9, and I am hurrying everyone to get ready and get out quickly. Id booked a fast pass for Pirates for before Molly’s appointment, but I changed it to the afternoon as I didn’t think we would get there in time,.
We do eventually all leave the room, but it was a struggle to get everyone and everything out on time. We get to the bus stop and there is a bus waiting for us, so that’s a great start , and we make it to the Pirates league in plenty of time for Mollys appointment. In fact, the Cast Member suggests we go and ride Pirates and then come back.

I was somewhat regretted changing my fastpass booking…. the standby line wasn’t too bad and by the time we got off the ride, it was time for her to go in.
Before she was allowed in, she had to sign the Mermaid oath, as the Pirates and the Mermaids don’t always get along. She promised to be nice to Pirates, and signed the book,
We had to wait for a little while, inside the ‘salon’ (I don’t know the correct Piratey term for a salon!), there was a great atmosphere in there as everytime a new Pirate was finished, they announced him and everyone had to shout Yo Ho.
The room is full of treasure and looks fantastic/

While we were waiting, it started to rain outside, and a certain Capt Jack doesn’t like to get wet, so he came in to say hello. The Pirate makeup artists were all very excited and said ‘’the Capt doesn’t visit us in here very often’, it was indeed a rare treat.

He made his way around the room, visiting with all the pirates and mermaids being made over, and also with the families waiting. Just before he reached us, Molly was called for her Makeover, so I thought she was going to miss the photo, but her Pirate spotted the situation and sent her over with wet nails.

Just before they took the photo, Capt Jack whispered to me, hold me tight, I’m feeling a little woozy,. This made me laugh, hence the photo with no eyes and lots of cheeks!
Molly went back to her makeover, and we all went over and watched. The Pirate teased Katie quite a few times about not getting a makeover herself, and I have to confess, it never occurred to me that Katie might want to get a mermaid makeover, and I don’t think it had occurred to Katie, but when we got there and it was so good, I think she felt a little jealous, and I felt quite bad for not booking her in as well. It certainly didn’t help that everyone who walked past asked her why she wasn’t getting it done.
Here follow a lot of photos of Molly getting made into a mermaid. the Pirate who did her makeover was excellent, and kept her very entertained. I think she enjoyed this more than the BBB, and I definitely preferred the end result.






Once the makeover was complete, we went over to meet another Pirate who gave Molly her sash and spent ages talking to her about a secret room. it looked like a chest of tea, but apparently it was top secret…. Ooops, I think I wasn’t supposed to mention it….
Inside the secret room, there was a globe and a photographer.



All in, this took about an hour, and I thought it was excellent. Particuarly since we got the surprise visit from Capt Jack Sparrow. My only suggestion would be that they offer a better outfit for mermaids, the Pirate dress is lovely, and they had this fun t-shirt/tutu for non traditional pirates

But we we didn’t think much of the mermaid outfit

I had spent some time looking for a mermaid outfit that wasn’t a fancy dress costume, and we ended up deciding on a green tshirt and white shorts. It was perfect, the colours matched really well and it looked really cute.
As we left, we were offered a photo package, but since we’ve already got memory maker, the photos were included anyway (but not in a fancy cardboard frame)
After all the excitement of the makeover, we walked out to discover it was pouring with rain. I wasn’t too worried about getting wet, but I didn’t want the facepaint to wash off in the first 5 minutes. the girls put on ponchos and we headed off to meet the most famous mermaid, Ariel. The rain actually stopped quite quickly and the facepaint was fine. Molly was pleased to see that her flower and necklace changed colour in the sunlight, and Katie was still feeling a bit jealous but trying to be happy for her sister. I felt quite mean as I could have easily booked her in as well but I really didn’t think it was something she would want to do, however, having seen it, I think it would appeal to lots of older girls as well (particularly if Capt Jack visits)
We had a fastpass for Ariel, so we walked up and walked straight in, no queuing at all,
Ariel was quite pleased to meet another mermaid, and explained that Molly was a Pacific mermaid, and she was an Atlantic mermaid, the differences being the scales on the face.


We were all hungry by this point, and my phone was flat, so we decided to get some jacket potatoes and sandwiches, and eat them at the tables near Rapunzel’s bathroom, so I could charge my phone. Molly had a jacket potato, Katie had a sweet potato, I had ham and cheese, and Phil had Roast beef sandwich, all from the stall in Liberty square. we took them up to the picnic area outside of Rapunzel. I had my USB cable with me, and also an emergency battery pack (which wasn’t working), but unfortunately all the USB points in the area were broken (the central bar was missing), I’m not sure if they work without that central bar as I think in the end the reason my phone wouldn’t charge was due to the cable but I didn’t’ know that at the time, so I tried all the little tree stumps and all of the USB points were broken. The normal plugs all worked fine, so my advice would be to pack a plug, however, you need an American USB plug. There were lots of people managing to charge their phones from the traditional sockets but I didn’t see any success from the USB points.
Anyway, I gave up on my phone for the time being, and we ate our lunch in the garden area. As I was messing on with my phone, I never took any photos but it’s quite a nice area to sit and recharge…



As I had no phone, I couldn’t change the pirates fastpass that we no longer needed. Katie’s iPhone was charged but it wouldn’t talk to the internet, I’ve no idea why as mine has been fine all week. The girls wanted to ride It’s a Small World, which had a crazy long queue, so in the end I went over and used one of the FP+ kiosks to change it. There was a long line for the kiosk, and part of me was wondering the wisdom in waiting in a line to avoid a line, but it actually moved very very quickly, they have a lot of kiosks plus a number of people stood with ipads as well. We were able to change Pirates to It’s a small world. So, it was worth going.
We walked around to Storybook circus, and had a look in the shop under the Big Top, there were some lovely looking cakes in the cabinet, but we were really looking for Disney clothing and there wasn’t a lot of that. I remembered there was a different sort of charging station in tomorrowland, so went into Cosmic Rays and I left my phone in one of the lockers. These stations are locked with your credit card, and they provide the cables, so my dodgy cable wasn’t an issue.

the lockers are locked using your credit card as they key (no charge but you have to swipe the same card to open the locker)
We decided to ride Carousel of Progress, which is a nice long ride, comfy chairs, dark, cool. yes, it’s a perfect napping location. I was very nearly asleep in the last scene, if it had been any longer then I think I would have definitely nodded off.

There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, and it’s just a dream away
As we left the show, Molly pressed a penny. She’s been collecting a lot of pressed pennies, and they are a nice little souvenir as they are very cheap and have loads of designs on them.

I was a little bit nervous about having left my phone, so after the show we went back and collected it. It was charging for about 30 minutes, and it had a 30% charge so not too bad. Of course, now that it was charged, I never needed to use it again for the rest of the day….
After all this messing on with phones, it was time to do something, so we went to It’s a Small World – you can see we are doing all the thrill rides today! Even with fastpass we had a short wait, the standby line was out of the building. I’m not sure why this suddenly has long queues when for years it was a quick walk on. They revamped it recently, but not enough to make it the most popular ride.

We hadn’t had a big lunch, so the plan was to have a big dessert. We walked out through Fantasyland into Liberty Square and ran straight into the parade. We stood and watched a while, as we couldn’t really avoid it. But we will be watching it properly later in the week. After it passed by, we were able to cross the street and we cut down behind the christmas shop, and past crystal palace, and ran into the same problem again, the ice cream parlour was on the other side of the street.
We had a little browse in the shops, as Katie has seen a nice t-shirt that she likes but of course, we didn’t buy it at the time. I think we will have to go back to World of Disney as that’s where she saw it originally. As soon as the parade passed by, I was straight across the street and into the ice cream parlour, about 1000 other people had the same idea, but as I was quick as I was towards the front of the queue. The plan was to share a Mickey’s kitchen sink. We’ve never had the original kitchen sink as it’s just too big and we would never finish it, but the new Mickey’s version was perfect. I got chocolate and cookies and cream ice cream, and hot fudge sauce and it was really nice. Just the right size for 4 of us (with smallish appetites, possibly too small for 4 hungry people)


After our ice-cream, I was done, finished, kaput. I am definitely the weakest link in the family in terms of how long we stay out in the parks, but I think everyone was tired. We made our way out of the park, and there was a bus waiting at the stop for us. The buses aren’t exceptionally quick but it’s so much nicer than getting the monorail and the tram back to the car. We made it back to our room just in time for the heavens to open. It was absolutely chucking it down.
We have been extremely lucky with the rain, it’s rained quite a few times but so far we have either been inside a show or a ride, or it’s been after we got back to our room. we’ve been carrying the ponchos but we really haven’t needed them.
Back in the room, I went to plug in my phone to charge it, and discovered two things. The extension cord wasn’t plugged in at the wall – which would explain why it was flat,. And I’d been carrying the wrong cable around all day, which may explain why I couldn’t charge it in the Rapunzel area (although I still thing the USB ports were broken)
We pottered around for a while, quite a long while as it happened, as by the time we were in the car to go out for dinner it was nearly 8 o’clock. I’m not sure where those few hours went, but we were all feeling more refreshed for it.
We went to Applebees for tea, and we didn’t bring a single device that could take a photo, noone remembered a phone or a camera….
We dithered a lot on what to eat, and settled on a 2 for $20 deal for Phil and I, and Katie fancied a trio of starters . Molly had a kids mac and cheese. The plan was that we would all help Katie with the starters, as you get quite a lot. we had a few issues, they brought our buffalo wings out without any plates or knives and forks, so we were all sat there staring at them for ages. Whilst staring at them,we realied they were the wrong buffalo wings, we like the non spicy sweet sauce, and this was the traditional spicy sauce. We flagged down the waitress who changed them for us, and provided us with some plates and cutlery.
Then when our meals came, I had asked for Steak with rice and fries (strange combination but Katie fancied some fries), I actually got Mash and fries which is an equally strange combination. Fortunately I quite like mash so I wasn’t too bothered.
Phil had an oriental salad which looked nice, and Katie had the most enormous plate of food – mozzarella sticks, chicken wonton tacos, and steak wraps. It would have fed us all. I was fairly full after my steak, so didn’t really help her out as much as I thought I might, so there was quite a bit left, which is now sitting in our fridge for later.
We finished dinner around 9, so it wasn’t a long leisurely meal, but we were quite happy with that, and ready for bed. We drove back via Downtown Disney which was a mistake as the traffic was very heavy – we actually turned away from DTD when we could and detoured around past Saratoga Springs and OKW to avoid the traffic.
We had a quick stop at the Hess station outside our hotel, where I picked up some Dunkin Donuts and some more pop and juice for in the room, and then it was time for bed.
Tomorrow we are having a lazy day, and it will be very lazy indeed.
Tomorrow is also the middle of our trip that first week has gone by extremely quickly. I hope I can slow down time for the second week.

[Guest]

Glad you are having fun. We have passed the half way mark too! Lazy-ish day on the cards for us... Villa pool and shopping mall. I really think the fastpass * system is great! Haven't queued for longer than 10 min for anything so far. We are hitting Universal tomorrow and will have to queue boohoo!

[igoefamily]

Really enjoying reading your report. Hopefully your holiday slows down for you. Loved the makeover pictures. Adorable.

[BriarRose]

The mermaid makeover looks fab, I was trying to persuade my DD to do this (she wanted BBB again) so that DS could do the pirate makeover at the same time, but she wouldn't budge. Maybe next time ...

The food sounded great as always. Don't worry you still have loads of your holiday left!

[joandwayne]

Can't believe you are nearly a week through your holiday.

I am loving your TR. The mermaid makeover is just gorgeous. DD is 14 and too old now but she would definitely have loved this when she was younger.

How do you know where all of the phone charging points are in the parks?

[beck_loz]

Great report and great pictures x

[Florida-Sarah]

I've just read each day and am really enjoying your report Bev! Thanks for taking the time out to write it.

[Guest]

Great report and love that you point out some tips along the way And love the mermaid makeup. If only I wasn't too old Captain Jack looks devine btw

I am very worried I am the one with the least stamina and will need to head back each afternoon Glad to see you had some nice evenings after a break so maybe with naps I may make it through the days haha

We loved AKL and would love to try Boardwalk - really must try an Epcot resort in the future so nice to see your experience. Looking forward to more

[Milner]

Another great day.

[BevS97]

Originally Posted by joandwayne

Can't believe you are nearly a week through your holiday.

I am loving your TR. The mermaid makeover is just gorgeous. DD is 14 and too old now but she would definitely have loved this when she was younger.

How do you know where all of the phone charging points are in the parks?

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i thought my 16 year old was too old, but she definitely wished she'd had it done, mind part of that was about not wanting to have to grow up. I think it's hard when she sees her younger sister still getting to be little.

I'd read about the charing poitns on thedIBB.