Walt Disney World - Day 2

Well, faithful readers (are there actually any of you out there? :o) ), here goes Day 2 of Walt Disney World. We originally had a reservation to eat breakfast at the Crystal Palace, which was a Character Breakfast buffet, where we would have met Winnie the Pooh, but our reservation was for 8:15 am, which meant that we would have to be ready to leave at 7:00, which meant that we would have to get up at 6:00 am, the morning after we had been up at 4:00 am, and then had been up late watching fireworks. My planning was definitely not up to snuff in this instance. Jeff and I talked about it, and we decided that we needed to sleep in more than we needed to meet Winnie the Pooh.

It was the best decision, because we all ended up sleeping until at least after 7, and Jarom slept until almost 8:00. He was exhausted from the fireworks and waiting for the bus from the night before (the girls were asleep in the stroller almost the whole time), and he really needed to catch up. We didn't go crazy rushing around to get ready, but we were still waiting for the bus at 9:00, and taking pictures on Main Street at 9:20. Not bad at all. :o)

The first thing we did was go on the Tomorrowland Speedway. This was Jarom's choice, and he was so excited about going on the cars that he was completely despondent whenever we would pause on our way there, as you can see from this picture that I took of him in front of this old-fashioned firetruck.
We finally got to the Speedway, and got on fairly quickly, so Jarom was all smiles. Even cooler, they let us go around twice so that Jarom and Kelcey could each have a turn to drive (the two of them were in the car with Jeff). That was lots of fun.

We decided to go over to Adventureland next because it was fairly overcast, and we wanted to do the outside things first, just in case it rained. On our way we stopped to get the girls their princess hats, and saw Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald and his nephew (or something), filming a commercial. The kids LOVED seeing them so close.

When we got to Adventureland we walked around the Swiss Family Treehouse, and then stopped for a snack. We were on the Dining Plan, which gives you a snack, a counter service meal, and a sit-down meal for each person every day. Kelcey was too young to be on the dining plan, which normally wasn't a problem; we would just have her and Taran share, or Jeff and I would share parts of our meal. But since we only had one snack on the first day, that we shared, we had enough snacks for everyone to have one every day for the rest of our trip. It worked out great!

The kids had vanilla ice-cream, and Jeff and I had these amazing pineapple floats: pineapple ice-cream in pineapple juice. I love pineapple, and pineapple flavored things, but I tell you, that was the best pineapple any thing I have ever had. The ice-cream was so tangy and creamy, and when combined with the pineapple juice. . . YUM!!!! My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Ok, back to our story: After our snack we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. We weren't sure if the kids would like it or not, or if it was too scary, but I remembered that there was only a little bit of spooky stuff at the beginning, and the rest was the pirates singing, etc., so we decided to try it. Well, Kelcey wasn't thrilled about the dark parts, but the other two loved it!! Jarom, especially, wanted to go on it again right away.

Next we went to get "FastPass" tickets for the Jungle Cruise, and went on the Magic Carpets of Aladdin while we waited. This ride was fun because we could go on one "carpet" all together as a family. After that we went on the Jungle Cruise, and then Jarom and Taran went on Pirates again with their dad, while I waited on a bench with Kelcey, and enjoyed sitting for a little while.

After lunch at Casey Jones' Hot Dogs, we went over to Tomorrowland, and got into the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor right away, with almost no wait. It was really funny, and I can not figure out how the heck they had the animated characters interacting with the audience. Jeff and the kids were even shown on the big screen during the show!

Kelcey fell asleep on my shoulder during the show, so we decided to wait to go on Buzz Lightyear, and went on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, which was really cool, and fairly slow moving, so she could sleep the whole time. After that we went on the Carousel of Progress, for the same reason, but she woke up about half-way through. Well, at least she got sort of a decent nap. We got on the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger spin, which Jeff and Jarom absolutely loved. A ride where you also get to shoot things? What's not to love? We finished up Tomorrowland with getting Jarom his one toy choice, a Buzz Lightyear lazer blaster.

Next was Mickey's Toontown, which was a real highlight for the kids. Very first we went on Goofy's Barnstormer, a small rollercoaster just perfect for Jarom and Taran. I wasn't going to go on it, because I thought that Kelcey wouldn't like it, but she wasn't about to stay when everyone else was going to go. Amazingly enough, she was tall enough to go on it, so we all got in line. The ride was pretty swoopy and thrilling, even for a rollarcoaster designed for little kids. Kelcey got the ride of her life, and was not anxious to repeat the experience. Jarom and Taran wanted to ride it again, so Kelcey and I went to the play area.

After letting all of the kids play for awhile, we headed over to Mickey's house, and then to the tent where you can meet Mickey. The house was cute, especially with all the mickey shaped stuff in the garden, but the real attraction was seeing Mickey in "real life."

The wait wasn't too bad, especially because they had classic cartoons running in the waiting area. When we got in to Mickey, Minnie was there too! The kids were totally blown away. and Jeff and I even got a little carried away by the magic. Jarom asked us before we left on the trip if Mickey and the characters were real, and we told him that they were people in costumes. He was disappointed, but he took it ok. But when we were actually there, meeting the characters, he got a little confused, even to the point that he asked me if Mickey would be up in heaven with Nephi and President Hinckley. Because it feels real! I'm a little embarressed to admit this, but I gave Mickey a hug when we were done taking pictures, and I got a little verklempt!

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have told you.

After we were done with Mickey we rode on the Walt Disney Railroad. This was something else that I had never done before, and the kids loved it. Any train is going to be a winner, especially as far as Jarom is concerned. The train goes all the way around the Magic Kingdom, and we got to see some of the rides in Frontierland that we couldn't go on.

We made a quick tour of Minnie's house (Taran loved that) and then had dinner at "Cosmic Ray's" a counter service place that has a singing alien puppet while you eat. They also had these random hula-hoops all over, and as soon as the kids were done eating, they ran for those and played until it was time to go.

After dinner we took a quick walk around Liberty Square, and then went shopping on Main Street on our way to the bus. We found a T-shirt for everyone, and toys for Taran and Kelcey, which is what we were looking for. There was almost no wait for the bus, which was wonderful. It might have had something to do with the fact that there were tons of people coming to the park, to go to the Halloween Party, so not as many people were leaving. We were home by 7:30, and after watching some Disney cartoons and getting ready for bed, we called it a night. It was an absolutely wonderful day. I even think it might have been my favorite day of the trip.