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Friday 17 May 2019
As I write this, the rain is pounding against the windows and the wind is whistling around our building & Patrick Wolf is on the record player. We’re the only building higher than 2 floors in the areas, so we sit high in the sky, already at the peak of Muswell Hill, so it’s a little lively (our living room window pane looks like its bowing in the force of the wind). It feels wintery and grey, but today in the TR had to be my most anticipated day of the trip. We were finally getting back on DCL, heading south to the Bahamas – it can’t be further from where we find ourselves today. So, shall we transport ourselves from a bleak winters day to a glorious late spring in Florida?
I was up before the alarm this morning, ready and rested after our early night the night before. It was still dark outside when I through myself into the bathroom to get ready. I was quickly out again, popping on the coffee and ousting R from her slumber. It was a very big day, and we were starting it in my favourite place.
At 5.30am I took the following snap of the TV:
Glorious weather and extra magic hours at Magic Kingdom? Yes please!
A little not quite sunrise from our balcony
We finally headed out of the room a little before 7am, peeking down at the fountain as we waited for the lift down to the lobby
I just love the Villas lobby area, so pretty.
We were ready for the day
Now whilst our room had no sunrise views at all, we had somehow conspired to get out of the building in time to see the last of mother natures show and by goodness was this worth being up and about so early. Look at that glow.
Yup, its sunrise spam time. The first of the trip, but it won’t be the last
R was even inspired to get her phone out to take a couple of pictures
The Grand Villas were glowing yellow in the reflection
Finally dragging ourselves away from the pretty we headed over to our usual entrance to the main building to find it all boarded up – gasp! There was so much work going on at the Flo for the new bar that took over Mizners, but the grumpiness at having to walk back around to the front of the building was slightly alleviated by the super cute safety signage. Look at how cute Mickey is!
The lobby of the main building was blissfully quiet
More signage for the refurb. I’m really going to miss Mizners
Despite our little detour it was only 7:10 when our monorail pulled in to the station
Monorail selfie? Sure, why not
There wasn’t another soul on the car with us so silliness was to be expected
Mother nature was still putting on her show for us too – it was even prettier in person
Then just 5 minutes after the monorail pulling in to the Grand we were standing here
and it looked like the most beautiful start to the day.
We headed off to the right tunnel, waiting to be let on to Main Street, but I couldn’t resist wandering off for a moment to take a couple of photos.
Back at the tunnel, we were at the head of the pack, but had already agreed that there would be no rushing, no stressing, just a gentle walk up through Main Street and into Fantasyland once Extra Magic Hours started
We realised, I think on our last trip, that the morning dash was stressing us out too much. Too many runners, too many pushchairs being rammed into our ankles. We don’t need it. It only tends to be Seven Dwarfs Mine Train that causes the madness, so we decided to shift it to fast pass or late night visits only. Everything else (for now – lets see how things change when Tron opens up) is fine with a calm stroll over
No time was this clearer than with rope drop today. Bare in mind that this was EMH rope drop, same as yesterday’s visit to Epcot. It was crazy crowded, more so than the old role drops for “normal” hours when the welcome show was at the train station. They had widened EMH to the non-disney owned area hotels since our last visit and by golly did that have an impact.
Cats members released the crowds onto Main Street at 7:45 and we mosied slowly towards the castle, lingering in the hub for a few before heading into Fantasyland once they started letting EMH guests in.
We had hoped to go through the castle, but that was closed this morning so we wandered around the right side of the castle and headed straight to Peter Pan’s Flight
It felt like we had the line to ourselves so I indulged in a few empty queue line pictures
Even with our slow approach we were through and back outside of the ride at 8:14. Not so shabby. We were on a bit of a time crunch this morning, so we decided to head onto one more ride before heading back to the hotel. Small World it was!
We didn’t get our own boat, but we did luck out and get the front row.
