So it was finally our day to visit the Magic Kingdom. We were at the front gate just 6 days ago, but today, we get to go in and see the castle. On our way in, this was a first for us, we got to watch the mass of runners leaving the Magic Kingdom and heading to EPCOT to finish the half marathon race. I must admit that this was my dream when I was running...to one day run the Disney marathon. It was close and within my sights at one time, but hey, did I mention, that on the drive past all these people, I had to hold my knee bent at what I could find as the only good angle to avoid constant pain. So yes, knee was already throbbing at 8am, probably not a good sign. It is fine as long as I am standing up, but any slight bend, like what you might do on a disney ride attraction...yeah, pain (Space Mountain was the worst). Oh well, I still love watching the runners, and sharing (and probably boring) the kids with the routes for each of the races. Stories of the starting corrals for the races, stories of the Disney characters on the races, yep...I read all the stories, but my story is just me in a car full of the best people in the world.
We arrived at the entrance to the MK, and I was surprised to see that all guests could go ahead and enter the park, but they had allowed resort guests only access into tomorrowland and fantasyland. So we made the immediate move to start our visit in adventureland which would be opened up at the same time for both non-resort guests and resort guests at the same time. This allowed us to walk straight onto about the third boat of the Jungle Cruise. How this ride is still maintaining greater than 60 minute waits amazes me, but we were glad to be on it much quicker. So good joke was that the backside of water has a chemical formula of O2H. And my favorite joke was...Why don't you ever give Elsa a baloon? She will just let it...Into the Unknown the skipper says as we all chant Go. Nice.
We next hit Pirates, Splash Mountain, and Thunder Mountain before the lines starting getting crazy long, but I saw that as a good success. Mom was not so pleased with us riding splash mountain so early and getting wet. But we knew we wanted to ride with little lines, and this would be our last opportunity to ride before a scheduled closure for the remainder of our trip. I also remember losing Sam and Ruby after Pirates. She had saw the special Disney character Lock pins she was wanting to collect on the lanyard of a cast member in the Pirates store, and had stopped to trade for it. It is amazing how they all quickly found the set they wanted to collect, and all 4 watched out for one another to find any that anyone needed.
Haunted Mansion was over an hour wait, so we started just hitting the easy rides on our way over thru Fantasyland (Small World, Philharmagic, Carroussel) and over to Toontown. I did ask the kids if they would rather skip the Autopia cars, and go get in line for Space Mountain. Davis had stepped away from us at that point, and Sam said, I know what I would rather do, but Davis will not skip the cars. And sure enough, when Davis came back to the same question, he quickly replied...Let's ride the cars. I heard Sam quietly behind me say "Called it". We made our way thru tomorrowland and over to the Plaza restaurant for lunch, where we tried the Monte Cristo sandwich...pretty good, but so strange to eat strawberry jam on a ham/turkey sandwich.
Our crew broke up again that afternoon for a bit as the boys went and rode splash mountain a second time, while me and the girls went to see the princesses from 6 feet away. Those lines were amazingly short. Apparently when the princesses don't have to hug the little girls, and sign autograph books, their lines are too bad. I did have a potentially racist moment with Elena of Avalor, when I asked if she knew the Madrigal family. The girls are always shy when meeting the princesses, so I try to ask them questions that might be fun. I am pretty sure Elena gave me an eye roll as she said, "No, but I have heard of them, they are a very magical family I've heard". I guess I just figured all the Latino folks know each other, I mean, they both speak spanish.
The lines were just very long on this day, but we bounced around and watched some shows, with plans to hit the Dwarves mine train near firework time. We were hoping to time things right to ride the mine train while the lines were watching the fireworks. Sam had a sticky day this morning, as a new shirt he bought the other night at Walmart was sticky on the inside, and needed to be washed. He used his souvenir money to get a new shirt, to avoid that sticky situation, but then while waiting in this dwarves line, he stepped into gum someone had thrown down. It was funny that all the kids started looking around for Aunt Katie as the culprit for this heinous deed...I knew it might be someone else, so I started looking around for Uncle John.
We did time this last part of our day perfectly as we got off the mine train right as the fireworks were beginning, and immediately ran (except for me...I was hobbling very slow at this point) over to Peter Pan where there was NO LINE at all. After riding it, we moved over to the Haunted Mansion and walked straight in. At this point, I think everyone else could have kept riding, but my knee was in some severe pain. And anyway, the fireworks were done, and lines started to gather again. Before we left, we visited guest relations where we heard that Sam will probably never find the watch he dropped somewhere in the dwarves line, and as we took some pics on the minnie mouse bench, Ruby and Belle found a purse that someone had left behind Minnie. Hopefully they will find what they lost. We walked out of the Magic Kingdom to the kids all big eyed at probably a 25 minute monorail massive curling line...and all followed me hobbling along past the red light guys trying to get everyone to stay in that line, and over to the resort monorail. Where we hopped straight on, with an extra stop, but a nice seat. I still remember Ruby kept hugging my knee. She didn't say anything, but she was worried about dear old dad. And from Mom's look, I knew she was too. Oh well, I hit the advil hard that night, hoping that the inflammation would go down.
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