Cookies and Scream- November 2021- Day 4 Magic Kingdom

[Supersofe]

Day 4: Magic Kingdom

My Pre Trip Report is here

Day 3 is here

We were still making the most of the jet lag and were up at 6am. We packed up and were out of the room by 6.25am. Today was our first day at Disney and we were heading to Magic Kingdom. We had found out the day before that today was actually “Disney Plus” day. It didn’t mean much except Disney Plus Subscribers could enter the park 1 hour early (and hotel guests 30 mins before that!). I think the main advantage was that not many people knew about the early entry!

First we had to check out of Endless Summer- we did this by filling out a little paper slip and putting it in the box by reception. We had really enjoyed our stay here, it was nothing special but really new, clean with some nice features. The transport to the parks was great and definitely a big plus of staying here.

We drove to Magic Kingdom; it was so amazing to be driving through those magic gates again. We parked up really close to the tunnel to the Ticket and Transportation Centre which was very handy as the trams weren’t running at this point in November. Today we decided to use the monorail and we didn’t have to wait long for this- they were packing us in though!

Walking into Magic Kingdom again after such a long wait was quite an emotional experience for me. I had a little cry when I saw the castle, we just felt so lucky to be back. We had a few Photo Pass photos in front of the castle while the queues were short. We entered Fantasy Land through the “Disney Plus Day” entrance at 7.30am. We had to show my phone logged into the Disney Plus app and we were given some awful caps and a badge.

The wait for Seven Dwarves Mine train was posted as 45 mins (hotel guests had been in for half an hour already) so we joined the queue. We ended up waiting about 35 (it’s always good being a party of 2 at Disney when they’re trying to fill the trains!). I enjoyed this ride, it is really cute and smooth; the best bit is the dwarves doing their mining, the actual coaster is pretty short! At this point masks were required by Disney indoors and on any ride that goes indoors (including SDMT). We saw some people make it to the front of the queue only to not be allowed to ride as they didn’t have masks- they were sent to buy some from the shop!

Next up we went to Haunted Mansion, there was a 10 min wait posted but we walked straight into the stretching room. There was one child who didn’t enjoy this- he was howling through the whole pre-show, I think they eventually decided not to ride! This is always very fun, unfortunately we did stop 3 times during our ride.

We checked the Disney Genie recommendations (we decided not to buy Genie Plus as it was due to be quiet). For the regular Genie, you select a number of rides/ attractions that you want to go on that day and the app suggests when is a good time to ride them. You can also view the forecasted wait throughout the day (i.e. high, medium, low). At this point Genie suggested we went to Splash Mountain and it was close so we headed that way. The posted wait was 5 minutes, we walked straight on. This was fun, but I did almost lose my Minnie ears on the drop! J got pretty wet but not as bad as the people at the front of our boat.

Until this point Big Thunder Mountain had been down, however we struck some luck and it opened back up just as we were leaving Splash. Posted wait was 25 mins, we probably waited 10 though most of that was walking through the queue line. We got the front row and I loved it, I think it’s better than the Seven Dwarves version!

At this point Genie suggested we go to It’s a Small World but when we got there the wait was posted as 45mins and there is no way I’m waiting that long! Instead we headed over to the little Mermaid ride which had a 10min wait. After this we went on Dumbo which had a 15min wait posted. Unfortunately just as we got to the Play area, they opened this queue area. They give you a buzzer to wait while your children can play, there are plenty of seats too. Luckily just as we sat down our buzzer went off and it was our turn to ride. In total we waited 25mins which isn’t too bad I suppose.

Now it was time for some breakie! We had noticed while walking around that the queues for all the food places seemed very long. We opted for the Cheshire Cat Café and again the queue was quite long. However, it moved very quickly and wasn’t as bad as it looked, don’t be put off! We got two Cheshire Cat Tails and a cold brew coffee for J which came to $15. There were some table and chairs at the Cheshire Cat Café. These were very nice, though really just a chocolate twist!

Genie now recommended that we went on Astro Orbiter (an “average wait” apparently) but this was 45 mins. We pretty much gave up on Genie at this point! We went on the Tomorrow Land Speedway instead (20min posted, we waited 15). The problem with the app then is there is no way to tell it what we had and hadn’t been on so it would recommend things we had already done. I have never been on the Speedway before (I assumed it was just for kids) but I absolutely loved it! It was so much fun and we got some good views of the Tron construction, looks like a lot of work left to me!

After this we headed to Space Mountain (45 min posted, waited 45), we enjoyed playing the game on the Disney Play app while we waited in this queue. When we came out the wait for people mover was 25 mins (this seemed to be very popular for our whole holiday) so we decided to go on Carousel of Progress instead. This is somewhat of a tradition for us and we could never miss it. I don’t feel like everyone else loves it and unfortunately they have to re-start the show section every time someone gets up to try to leave! This time we only had to watch the 1940’s scene twice.

We mooched around the main street shops for a little bit, they felt pretty busy though. I spotted the Mickey shape soap dispenser that I really wanted but didn’t want to cart it around so didn’t buy it at this point. We had a reservation for the Plaza restaurant at 1.40pm and when it got to this time we checked in on the app. This said it would alert us when the table was ready so we sat around at the hub. Unfortunately we got to 2pm and still hadn’t been called. So I went up to the desk and they said our table was ready.
This restaurant was very pretty but also pretty small! Unfortunately we were seated right by the door to the kitchen which wasn’t a great spot. We ordered the famous Monte Cristo sandwich, basically to share and the starter of the veggie chilli and two unsweetened ice teas. Oh my god, the Monte Cristo was insane, I’m not sure I could have had one for myself was it was fun to share and definitely a one off! Weirdly sweet with the sugar and jam. The chili was pretty nice, quite soupy but it tasted better than it looked! We enjoyed the experience here, it was a pretty casual but nice enough.

After this we headed up Main Street and the Dapper Dans were doing a little show on the train station which was very entertaining. Then we went in to meet Mickey Mouse; there was no queue and we were sent in to meet this big mouse in a little group. At this point, Mickey was behind a rope and there was no photo pass but it was still lovely and the cast member took our photo with our camera. This kids in our group still seemed to find it magical.

When we left Winnie and Pooh and friends were up on the train station waving to everyone which was very sweet. At this point we headed into the shop and bought ourselves some magic bands (just to make things a bit easier), we got the basic ones which were $20.

Next we watched the Monsters inc laugh floor (10 min wait) and then went on Buzz (this had a 30min posted wait but we only waited 10). This time J won, I am so bad at Buzz! We went on the people mover (25 min posted, waited about 15); for some reason it was extremely dark as we went through Space Mountain. We also got some good views of the Tron construction- I can’t wait to go on this!

We walked over to Pirates of the Caribbean and on our way we saw the Princess Cavalcade, this was lovely and the floats were beautiful. We joined the queue for Pirates at 4.45pm and we waited the posted 25mins. We headed over to Liberty Square and on our way we saw the Mickey and friends cavalcade which was very exciting. We then had a nice ride on the paddle boat which is a good way to have a bit of a break and see some nice sunset views.

We went over to the Hall of Presidents but the cast member said it was 25 mins until the next show. While we waited we had a look round the Christmas shop, but the stock was pretty bare- we noticed this throughout our holiday which Christmas decs, maybe we were too close to Christmas but it was a bit disappointing. When it was time, we watched the Hall of Presidents, nice comfy seats! But President Biden didn’t seem to have a special speech, it was just his swearing in- I’m not sure if that how is normally is?!

After this we went on It’s a Small World which we waited about 10 minutes for (much better than 45, thanks Genie!). Then at about 7.35pm we went to go and get our spot for Enchantment (it started at 8pm). It was fairly busy but we could get a spot in the hub in front of the castle quite easily. The show was nice, I thought the fireworks themselves were amazing (better than Happily Ever After in my opinion) but the clips from the films seemed a little random without much of a narrative and the projections were quite hard to make out, even though we were quite central.

After the show we headed with the crowds out the exit (we had been in the park since 7am!), we opted for the ferry boat back to the car. This is cool how they now have double decker loading, people without buggies or wheel chairs are directed to get on via the upper deck. We made it back to the car by 9pm.

We stopped at a McDonalds on the way home but unfortunately the restaurant was closed so we had to wait for the drive through. THIS WAS SO SLOW, we probably waited about half an hour. We took our food over to our new hotel to eat. For the next 5 nights we stayed at Hawthorne Suites in Lake Buena Vista. This is fine 3* hotel and it is nice to have a suite with a separate kitchen and lounge. I will post some photos and about the hotel on another day as I think this one is very long already! The McDonalds was extremely disappointing, especially after the massive wait but never mind. We finally collapsed in bed at about 10.30pm.

This had been an amazing start to Disney for us. It definitely seemed way busier than Universal, and there were loads more families around whereas we barely saw any kids at Universal! But even though there were crowds, none of the waits were excessive and we almost got on every ride we wanted (Jungle Cruise had massive waits all day), we didn’t feel the need to fork out for Genie plus and in some ways this made it much simpler, you just rode what you want when you want. We were quite disappointed by the lack of Photo pass photographers around and about, on previous trips they had been everywhere but this was something that we definitely noticed improving during our trip, and we saw lots in training.

Thanks for reading, I hope it wasn’t too long! I’ll try and post the next day soon, we went to Seaworld next.

[Goldia]

Wow you did well to last all day and then see the fireworks. The Disney + early entry was really handy, but made for a long day. I'm glad you got on all the rides you wanted, well nearly all, and you had a tasty lunch at the Plaza.

[mick]

That was a very long but good day with lots of rides done


Joan