Friday was our second Magic Kingdom day on a Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party day. I had my doubts about whether that would be a good plan (less hours at the park), but I'm so glad we followed the Disboards.com wisdom. It was a relief not having to get up early enough for morning Extra Magic Hours, and the enforced early night made sure we weren't too tired the next day. Plus the lines really were quite short and often nonexistent.
Sleepy Hollow was just as good as we remembered it. We got two Nutella and fruit waffle sandwiches to split between me, Colwyn, Niall, and Fiona; Lachlann got a plain waffle with powdered sugar; Doug got a waffle with eggs and ham (I think). Soooo delicious. After we had gorged ourselves, we went to the Hall of Presidents next door and watched that. I think some of the kids were slightly displeased to sit through as many shows as we did this trip, but I really think the resting in the AC made things more bearable, especially since we weren't going back to the resort in the afternoons to rest.
We did the Liberty Riverboat next. It was alright, but nothing I feel the need to repeat any time soon. The boys did have fun exploring the different decks, but other than that.. eh. Still, glad we finally got around to doing it! A sentiment which we repeated many times on this trip ('Well, that was.. okay/weird/kind of boring.. but I'm glad we finally did it!'). After we returned to the dock, Doug decided to take the kids to Tom Sawyer Island. He was really looking forward to it, and I think I would have as well, if it had been cooler. But I had absolutely no desire to do that, so he very kindly gave me some alone time to shop while he took the kids. Fiona was terrified in both of the 'tunnels' on the island, but overall the kids enjoyed exploring. It started threatening to rain as they were heading to the boat off the island. They had shut down the boats bringing people to the island and were only ferrying people back.
It started raining at about 12:45, right as we met back up in front of Country Bear Jamboree. We jammed the stroller in the overcrowded covered parking area and went in to see the show (it was on our plans, but even if it wasn't, it was pouring with nothing else to do). It was.. odd. Really cheesy and old, and kind of.. well, not racist, but maybe classist? Definitely went with many less-than-flattering stereotypes of Southerners (specifically country types). But we were dry and mildly entertained, so no big loss there. It was still raining when the show was over, so after a bit of hemming and hawing, squeezing through crowds and pausing here and there to see if the rain would stop, we decided to make a break for the Enchanted Tiki Room. I'll just say I'm so, so glad I had the foresight to request a rain cover when we rented the stroller. The Tiki Room was alright.. about in line with Country Bear Jamboree, but without the offensive stereotyping. It's kind of weird when the mechanical sounds of the animatronics almost drown out the music. But again, at least we were dry. Niall actually climbed into my lap and dozed a bit.
We were hoping to get to the nearby Pirates of the Caribbean and ride that, but it was having issues and was shut down. It was only drizzling at that point, but it was enough rain that most of the attractions were still shut down. We ended up ducking into Pecos Bills and got a taco salad to share, which the kids unexpectedly loved. It finally stopped raining around 2:30, so Doug and the bigs dashed over to Splash Mountain. They used their Fastpasses so no real wait, but the ride stopped for a bit after the first little drop, then went sloooowly the rest of the time.
While they were on Splash, I stopped with the littles along the parade route and snagged us an awesome spot, but it meant standing in the hot sun for about a half hour (Doug and the bigs joined us with about 5 minutes to go before the parade started). Still, I was glad I did it because we were all really excited to see the new parade. This was another instance where we experienced a lot of crowding from people whose first language is not English. Several families forced their way in between those of us who had been waiting for a long time and really impeded our view. Doug let a family with two little girls squeeze in front of him so their girls could see, and - to show that our fellow Americans can be downright rude as well - we were amazed to see two college age girls elbow their way in front of these little girls! The dad told them off, and we were about to back him up but they backed off a little, though with some very immature eye rolling at the dad's back. I don't know what it is with people.
Anyway, the parade itself was awesome. They really did an amazing job with the new floats. The Maleficent dragon was obviously the best, with the Rapunzel float coming in a close second. After that, all the floats were equally good, as far as I was concerned. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Flynn smoldered at Fiona! She especially loved the parade and said it was her favorite part of the day. After the parade, we used the new Rapunzel bathrooms (very cute!) - while we were in there, Niall chattered away about the parade, telling me how much he liked Flynn and Maximus swinging.
Next up was Under The Sea - again, there's something so sweet about riding these types of rides with little kids. Fiona and Niall just adored them, and it always made me so happy to see how delighted they were to see their favorite scenes. After Under the Sea, we booked it over to meet Peter Pan. As usual, it was unbearably hot by that point in the day and we really wanted Dole Whips, but the line was ridiculously long. So after meeting Peter (we just made it, too, we were the last family in line for that set), Doug took the boys over for another ride on the Seven Dwarves Mine Train while Fiona and I got some ice cream from Sleepy Hollow while waiting for Tiana and Naveen's next set. Fiona opted for plain old soft serve in a cup, but I'd heard great things about the ice cream sandwiches, so I ordered one of those. I was a little shocked to see how huge it was - holy cow! Both the cookie and ice cream were really good, so it was a pretty good use of a snack credit. We also had a funny moment where Fiona got ice cream on her elbow and kept trying to lick it off - try it, you'll see why it was so funny.
Anyway.. when we were done eating, we went over to Tiana's line. I was a little disappointed to see a huge line already (we were, I thought, 20 minutes early). The cast member at the entrance to the line explained that on MNSSHP nights, the set starts 15 minutes early - something not written out on Kenny the Pirate's site, which was what I was using to plan out our character meets. In a strange coincidence, as I was sending Doug a text 'complaining' that Kenny had failed me and we'd be a little longer than I expected, Kenny the Pirate himself got in line behind us! I was beside myself with excitement (forget Tiana, this was Kenny!), and dying for Doug to hurry up and arrive so I could share the moment with him - he had taken the boys to get ice creams and milkshakes at Storybook Treats. As it turned out, Kenny wasn't actually in line but just chatting with some people who were, and after a bit, he got out of line. I was so disappointed, because I was planning on waiting around at the exit after meeting Tiana to get his autograph! Yes, I'm a huge dork.
Oh well, at least we did get to see Tiana and Naveen. Tiana was nice but Naveen was kind of 'eh' - the CM wasn't a good match, visually speaking, and wasn't very interactive. Doug took Niall to get cleaned up while we were finishing the meet, as he'd made a huge mess with his ice cream. It was only about 6pm at that point, but we decided to head out. We stopped on Main Street to get a picture in front of the castle and were photo bombed by a MNSSHP CM named Marco. It was really spontaneous and fun, and I'm so glad we had the Memory Maker package so we could keep the silly photo. Obviously, we got a regular photo, too. But I kind of like the one with Marco better!
We had another late dinner at the hotel again - another reminder of how lucky we were to have been 'forced' to switch to Movies! Saturday and Sunday were our 'rest' days, but we were still wanted to get to bed at a reasonable hour so we'd have enough energy for the water parks!
Next up was Under The Sea - again, there's something so sweet about riding these types of rides with little kids. Fiona and Niall just adored them, and it always made me so happy to see how delighted they were to see their favorite scenes. After Under the Sea, we booked it over to meet Peter Pan. As usual, it was unbearably hot by that point in the day and we really wanted Dole Whips, but the line was ridiculously long. So after meeting Peter (we just made it, too, we were the last family in line for that set), Doug took the boys over for another ride on the Seven Dwarves Mine Train while Fiona and I got some ice cream from Sleepy Hollow while waiting for Tiana and Naveen's next set. Fiona opted for plain old soft serve in a cup, but I'd heard great things about the ice cream sandwiches, so I ordered one of those. I was a little shocked to see how huge it was - holy cow! Both the cookie and ice cream were really good, so it was a pretty good use of a snack credit. We also had a funny moment where Fiona got ice cream on her elbow and kept trying to lick it off - try it, you'll see why it was so funny.
Anyway.. when we were done eating, we went over to Tiana's line. I was a little disappointed to see a huge line already (we were, I thought, 20 minutes early). The cast member at the entrance to the line explained that on MNSSHP nights, the set starts 15 minutes early - something not written out on Kenny the Pirate's site, which was what I was using to plan out our character meets. In a strange coincidence, as I was sending Doug a text 'complaining' that Kenny had failed me and we'd be a little longer than I expected, Kenny the Pirate himself got in line behind us! I was beside myself with excitement (forget Tiana, this was Kenny!), and dying for Doug to hurry up and arrive so I could share the moment with him - he had taken the boys to get ice creams and milkshakes at Storybook Treats. As it turned out, Kenny wasn't actually in line but just chatting with some people who were, and after a bit, he got out of line. I was so disappointed, because I was planning on waiting around at the exit after meeting Tiana to get his autograph! Yes, I'm a huge dork.
Oh well, at least we did get to see Tiana and Naveen. Tiana was nice but Naveen was kind of 'eh' - the CM wasn't a good match, visually speaking, and wasn't very interactive. Doug took Niall to get cleaned up while we were finishing the meet, as he'd made a huge mess with his ice cream. It was only about 6pm at that point, but we decided to head out. We stopped on Main Street to get a picture in front of the castle and were photo bombed by a MNSSHP CM named Marco. It was really spontaneous and fun, and I'm so glad we had the Memory Maker package so we could keep the silly photo. Obviously, we got a regular photo, too. But I kind of like the one with Marco better!
We had another late dinner at the hotel again - another reminder of how lucky we were to have been 'forced' to switch to Movies! Saturday and Sunday were our 'rest' days, but we were still wanted to get to bed at a reasonable hour so we'd have enough energy for the water parks!
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