The Lills 1st Trip to Florida May 2017-Day 1:1900 Park Fayre (or not!) and Magic Kingom

[kellbelle]

Pre-Trip Report
https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1025036
Travel Day
https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1025123

I woke up first at around 4.30am. Tried to get back to sleep but was wide awake so got up around 5am. I wasn't eager to be up and out by 7.30am latest today as we had breakfast booked for 8.35am at 1900 Park Fayre. One of my worries were that I wasn't going to be up early every morning and hubby and the kids would want to lay in! Luckily this wasn't the case today! Everyone was up by 6.30am and we left just before 7.30am. Disney was only a 20 drive away on the sat nav. I suddenly thought on the way that the kids didn't have an autograph book yet and we'd need one straight away for the character breakfast. So we stopped off at a Super Target on the way. We got there at 7.45am and it didn't open until 8am so decided to wait and rush in when it opened. At 8am on the dot we went and got the autograph books, then had to wait for hubby to find the toothbrushes as he forgot his :angry: By the time we were back on the road it was gone 8.10am and we realised that this was going to be a big rush! Got into Disney at 8.20 and didn't really know where we were going to get to the Grand Floridian. Paid for parking and then went into MK car Park! I thought that maybe we could just park up and get the monorail but when we got to the monorail station it was closed! It was 8.30 now so knew we weren't gonna make it so just got the ferry across to MK entrance and tried to think of a backup plan. I got on the free Disney wifi onto MDE and noticed that there was a reservation for 9.20 at The Crystal Palace (which we'd already booked for another day) so decided to go there. I couldn't reserve it online as it was clashing with the other reservation so just thought we'd turn up. When we got into MK the openeing ceremony was just finishing up, we walked straight down Main Street to The Crystal Palace. We only had to wait 5 mins outside until our names were called to our table. We were seated and had our drink order taken, we were told to wait to go up for breakfast until Eeyore had been round as he was close by! So a couple minutes later we met Eeyore!

Closely followed were Pooh and Piglet!

After Piglet we quickly went up to get breakfast before Tigger came as he was fast approaching! They aim to see you within 1hr30 so think we were lucky that they all came within about 20 mins! Breakfast was lovely, Myself and hubby had bacon, sausages, potatoes, eggs. The kids has fruit, yogurt, pancakes. R loved the Mickey waffles!

The characters were great. They did a little thing around the restaurant to celebrate friendship day. Our bill came to $108, so we left $130. Hubby didn't think it was worth that, but he's a bit tight and wasn't as prepared as I was for Disney prices!

We left the restaurant and went straight to Fantasyland. I had a Touring Plans err plan(!) and wanted to try to stick to it as much as poss to get as much done as poss. First we went on Dumbo, then the Barnstormer which we persuaded L to go on and she said afterwards that she didn't like it! We got given one of those red tickets on this to take to the CM at the top for the updates on queue times!

It was still quite quiet in the park. We then went over Circus tent to meet Minnie, Daisie, Goofy and Donald.

After this we bought our Magic Bands and had them linked upto our tickets which seemed to take ages as the system was playing up! Also had to buy some "cotton candy" (too many YouTube videos) for L. Our first fast pass was for Rapunzel and Tiana meet which started at 11am so we had time to go into Mickeys Philarmagic first and then to meet Ariel in her grotto.

After that we went to meet Rapunzel and Tiana.

I can't believe how many characters we had met already! It was seemed much harder to meet the characters at DLP.

Our next fastpass was for Peter Pan at 12.55. Before this we had time to go on Winnie the Pooh, which was probably the longest queue we had waited in at 35mins. But it was ok as there were stuff for the kids to play with along the way. We then did Peter Pan and It's a Small World which the kids were dying to get on!
We had a third fastpass booked for Cinderella and Elena meet but that wasn't until 3.20. Everyone was starting to get tired now so we decided to leave before the fastpass and go on one last thing, Mad Hatters Tea Party (where hubby spun us ridiculously fast!) and then made a move for the exit. Twice during the day fireworks went off for no apparent castle was closed off so I don't know whether that had anything to do with it?
We got the monorail back to the car park and drove back "home". Stopped off at Walmart on the way to get some bits for tea and inflatables for the pool, by this time I was starting to feel ill, think sleep was catching up on me! Got back to the villa and I had a nap whilst the kids and hubby went in the pool. This was well appreciated after walking around in heat all morning! I think I only slept for about 5 mins then decided to join them. I think the heat had got to me too!
We had a chilled out evening in the pool, eating outside and got the kids to be at 8pm. They were out like a light! We weren't long after! Was asleep by 9.30pm!

Tomorrow Hollywood Studios!

[collybird]

A stressful start to your trip, you were so lucky getting into Crystal Palace!

Not much help now of course but you could have picked up an autograph book in one of the gift shops at the GF. We had to panic buy one once at the Beach Club on our first morning when we were going to Cape May Cafe and I realised just before that we didn't have one.

[mick]

A busy day but you got lots done
Hope you fell ok after good nights sleep

Joan

[JenD1]

Stressy start but you still managed to pack lots in. Enjoy tomorrow. Thanks for sharing.

[kellbelle]

Thanks everyone.
I know, I didn't know whether there would be a gift shop in Grand Floridian so didn't want to risk it. Should have known really as there are gift shops everywhere!
Trying again for 1900 Park Fayre tomorrow... !

[Mortimer Mouse]

What a stressful start. I always get abit confused when driving through the MK arch. If you have an ADR you should be allowed to park at the hotel for 3 hours for free. Just tell the CM in the booth and ask him for directions (think you stay in the right hand lane).