WDW 2019 - day 5

[Silvercat]

Previous day is here

DAY 5 – Sunday 01 December

Plan : Magic Kingdom
Actual : We were up by 6.15 a.m. as we had a breakfast reservation at Be Our Guest today! We quickly got ready, had some coffee, and were soon out of the door. The weather today was sunny and hot, but very windy. We parked at the Ticket & Transportation Centre, got onto monorail silver, and were arriving at the Magic Kingdom by 7.30 a.m. Unfortunately, Extra Magic Hours had been added to the park opening hours since I made our reservation, so we were asked to join the main (huge!) queue when I tried to check in at the tapstiles with a Cast Member. Our reservation was at 8.50 a.m. and I had anticipated being in a short, uncrowded queue, but that had gone out of the window. We were eventually let in with all the hoards at 8.00 a.m., most of whom were running to get to 7 Dwarf’s Mine Train, so were going in the same direction as us – what a nightmare!

The Christmas decorations were out in force, and looked gorgeous. We paused on our journey to watch the opening show on the castle forecourt stage, which was lovely. I was hoping to get in a ride on 7 Dwarf’s with a very short wait, but by the time we got there the queue was already at 30 mins standby, so instead we headed round to Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, which never has much of a queue. I always forget how long the entrance walkway to actually get on this ride is! We were straight on though, and enjoyed our adventure with Ariel.

We found a nearby bench that wasn’t too wet from the early morning cleaning, and just sat watching the world go by for a little while. At 8.40 we finally entered the Beast’s Castle, and joined the long breakfast queue. I ordered Belle’s Préfér – bacon, brie, and 2 poached eggs on a croissant. DH ordered Gaston’s Feast, which is basically a full English. We also got a pot of melon and grapes, and a plate of pastries, plus I ordered a chocolate milk, but was shocked to be given the child’s size bottle. Clearly a cost-cutting move. As the drinks station is self-serve, I got us both some coffee, and apple juice for DH. I got myself a glass of orange juice, but I think the machine was running out as it was incredibly watery, so I threw that away and just got some lemonade. The dining rooms were all very crowded, but we managed to find a table in Belle’s Music Box room which had just been vacated, and a cleaner cleared the table off for us. Breakfast was delicious, and we polished off everything including the plate of pastries between us!

A quick rest room visit, and we bade farewell to Belle and her beau, and took a slow stroll through the Emporium, just for a look at what was new. I have developed a bit of an obsession with Disney spirit jerseys over the last 12 months, and had a mental list of ones to get this year, so I was on the look-out for them. I spotted the new, fluffy white one, which is gorgeous, but $10 more expensive than the regular jerseys. Having seen it in the flesh/fluff though, I thought it would be worth the extra cost as it is so soft and furry, yet lightweight. (What I didn’t realise until buying it at a later date, taking it home, and wearing it with black velvet trousers, is that it also sheds like a white fluffy kitten!)

We emerged near the Fire Station, and made our way over to City Hall. I had decided for the first time to try and get a Guest Assistance Pass this year. My issues with my back mean that standing for long periods of time, such as when in a long queue, becomes increasingly more painful after about 5 minutes. I’m okay if I’m constantly moving, such as walking round the parks or in a queue that is constantly moving, but standing still is agony after a few minutes. With the Pass, you can get a return time from a dedicated Cast Member near an attraction, which is equivalent to the standby line time. This means that instead of standing in a regular queue for an hour, for example, you can get a return time of one hour later, and go and find somewhere to sit while you wait. When you return to the ride, you enter in the FastPass line, thus meaning less standing in a physical queue.

We waited in City Hall for a short time, and then were waved forward to speak to a Cast Member. I asked about the Pass, and he asked me what my concerns were regarding queueing. I explained my condition to him, and he then happily added the Pass to our Magic Bands, explaining how the system worked. I was really pleased about this, and thought it would greatly help me this year.

As all the Disney parks had recently become smoke free, we had already checked online to see where the smoking areas would be, and the one for the Magic Kingdom was outside the entrance. (I don’t smoke myself, but DH does, although he is trying to give it up, (again!)). So I sat on a bench outside the Chamber of Commerce and occupied myself with checking our FastPasses for the day, while DH went out to the smoking area. This turned out to be near the bus stops, quite a walk away!

When DH returned, we made our way to Frontierland for our first FastPass of the day, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This is my favourite ride in the Magic Kingdom, and we had a great time! We were on the ride in about 10 minutes with the FastPass, and were in the front row – not my favourite row, but we still had fun. Our next FastPass was for Pirates of the Caribbean, so we headed over that way, but were about 15 minutes early so found a nearby wall to sit on and just relax and enjoy being there for a few moments. Once our pass time was open, we made a quick walk through and were seated quickly, again getting the front row. This is our preferred row for this ride, as there is no-one in front to mask the views. Fun!

After a brief browse around the store at the end of the ride, we walked through Liberty Square and visited the Country Bear Jamboree, being surprised at how popular it was today. There were lots of folk laughing, and clapping along with the songs, it really made for a great atmosphere and a fun show.

Next we took a slow stroll round to the Hall of Presidents, which had been updated with new scenes and the addition of a Donald Trump animatronic since we last visited. We really enjoyed the show, and thought that Trump’s hand movements in particular were excellent. We are both always amazed by the realism of these animatronics, the way the figures turn to look at each other when they speak, the way they stand up and sit down again, adjusting their trousers at the knees before sitting, it is all incredibly realistic.

We walked over to Memento Mori for a look around, but were a bit disappointed not to find anything of interest to us this time. I had been keen to look for the gravestone salt & pepper shakers, but they didn’t have any, nor anything else we wanted to buy, which was a shame, so we left there and went to the Haunted Mansion as it was time for our final booked FastPass of the day. Standby was showing at 45 minutes, but we were on in about 5 minutes and had a thoroughly fun ride!

When we exited, I spotted an ice-cream cart and suggested we stop for a Mickey ice-cream sandwich, which I “paid” for with 2 snack credits. We stood in the shade at the side of Memento Mori to eat these, as there was nowhere nearby to sit. While we were there, I used the My Disney Experience app to book FastPasses for It’s a Small World in about 15 minutes’ time.

After a quick restroom stop at the lovely Tangled-themed toilets, we walked round to 7 Dwarf’s Mine Train to see if we could use my Guest Assistance Pass for the first time, getting a return time of one hour later, (standby was 70 minutes at this point). Then we went back to Small World to ride. There was a young lad in the row behind us in the boat, who kept saying, “oh god, there’s more …..” at each room, which we found hysterical!

Next up was Mickey’s Philharmagic – we both love this show, and as we went to walk past, we noticed it appeared to have no queue. We took the long walk through the queue area, and the show was just about to start loading. It was great fun, we never tire of this! I always make sure to look pointedly behind me at Donald’s butt at the end of the movie, just in case anyone around me misses it.

It was now time for 7 Dwarf’s Mine Train, the park appeared to be getting more crowded but we swam our way against the masses and arrived at the FastPass line. We tapped our Magic Bands on the Mickey tapstile, and the lights turned green – yay! We were liking how this pass worked, we have always been big fans of FastPasses anyway, and I was finding it so much easier and less painful to go on a sitting-down ride or even just take a break somewhere while waiting to utilise the Guest Assistance Pass.

After our exciting and fun train ride, we realised that we were getting tired. The park was really crowded to start with, and now guests for that evening’s Christmas party were starting to arrive, making the crowds even worse. Plus there was only a couple of hours left before the park closed to regular guests anyway, and we thought we had achieved a lot for our first park day! We had a wander through the Emporium, DH was looking for a new watch, but we couldn’t find anything other than a women’s Minnie watch. I asked a Cast Member, and they said to try the jewellery shop on the other side of Main Street, so we went over there. However, they only had the expensive, designer-type watches, and we only wanted an everyday one for him. Again, I approached a Cast Member for advice, but she said that the cheaper watches were being phased out and suggested we try Walmart or Target – I was quite shocked! I’m not sure how true this is, as I know that sometimes Cast Member information can be a bit misleading, so I hope we are able to find him something on a later visit.

We headed towards the exit, although I stopped at the merchandise cart near the right-hand exit in order to pick up a pair of the new Christmas Minnie ears, which are peppermint candy swirls, and a flashing jingle-bell Mickey necklace. We really had a struggle to get out of the park, there were only a couple of exits open in the line of tapstiles and hordes of guests were streaming in. We decided to catch the ferryboat back to the Ticket & Transportation Centre, and had a short wait for the next boat.

Once back at our car, we debated whether to just go back to the resort. The original plan had been to eat at the Polynesian before going to Walmart, but we were tired and in no way hungry, so we decided to skip dinner and just head to Walmart. We drove to our favourite store, on the 192, at West Vine Street and Bass Road. Once there, we picked up a few things, although we were intending to come back and do a big shop later in the holiday. We got a couple of really nice walking sticks, (DH has been using one occasionally since he had a virus earlier in 2019, leading to some unsteadiness and light-headed feelings, and I borrowed his sometimes, finding it really helped to ease my back pain), some socks for my daughter, 2 t-shirts and a pair of Frozen 2 pyjamas for our granddaughter, a bottle of alcohol-based antiseptic wash for the ulcer on DH’s leg, and a pack of cheap, disposable lighters for him too. We also picked up some Folger’s Coffee Bags, a tub of Coffee Mate, (the one in our Owner’s Locker was out of date by now, having been in there for a couple of years), and some snack items.

We then drove back to our resort, and parked at reception so we could explore the resort store. It was quite large, and had a good selection of merchandise etc. DH picked up a Caribbean Beach Resort pin, and I got a couple of Rice Krispie treats with snack credits. We got some coffee in our refillable mugs, and then returned to our room, where we relaxed with some TV before bed.

Next day is here

[Kat11]

Another great day. It always amazes me how they can take down the Halloween decorations and put up the Christmas decorations over night! 🎃 🎄

Kat

[mick]

Another lovely day

Joan

[disneywiseowl]

Sounds like our usual 1st Disney day! Theme park & Walmart! I love the amount of detail you include.
Thx for posting - we all need something to cheer us up atm. 🙂 🙂🙂