Sittin' Side-Saddle in a Tea Cup- Day 2 (finally!)

[DisneyDawgette]

Whew! Ever have those months where you blink and it's gone?! I haven't seen December since I started working retail, so sorry for the late continuation!

But here is day 2! Normally, I do the majority of the planning for our Disney trips, but as we have gone more frequently I have been happy to hand some of that responsibility over to others in the group. However, when Keith said that he wanted to get up early (which was strange to begin with) to go to the Magic Kingdom, AND that he wanted to stay all night for the Christmas party, I basically thought he was crazy. There is no tired like Magic Kingdom tired, and I felt like we were in for it that day. Despite my better judgment, I agreed, and the three of us were off the MK for the next 15 hours!

We got there at around 10am that morning, stopping at Starbucks per my request for breakfast. By the time I made it through the line, which was long but moved quickly given the size of it, we also went and stopped by Casey's for the boys to grab a hotdog. Why they wanted hotdogs so early, I'll never know... But I enjoyed my Trenta Iced Coffee with cream and they enjoyed their chili. We then sat for a bit at the tables outside Casey's and people watched before I decided to trek through the stores. And I will say, that the parks were NOT very crowded, however the Emporium was a MAD HOUSE. I quickly turned my tail around and rejoined the boys after watching a short side show on Main Street, all set to Christmas music! There is no way to NOT be in the Christmas spirit at Disney.

We started our day working left rather than right, knocking out Pirates of the Caribbean and grabbing a Fast Pass for Big Thunder Mountain. We waited in the whopping 10 minute line for Splash Mountain before working our way back to Liberty Square. Now, in previous posts I have mentioned that the boys and I do not always agree on things that we like- namely Carousel of Progress, Hall of Presidents, and An American Adventure. While I could spend an entire day doing nothing but these three attractions, I get to choose one per trip because they are not necessarily exciting for the others. Took it on the nose and chose Hall of Presidents, and didn’t hear the end of it for the rest of the day. But it was okay. ☺

We back-tracked a bit to grab Fast-Passes for JIngle Cruise before taking advantage of our BTMRR time. We were excited to hear the new puns that they had for the Christmas rendition of this classic, so it was worth Fast Passing to not wait in the line… The Fast Pass time was only an hour out, so it seemed worth it. We walked into the BTMRR queue, all the way to the very front, and, lo and behold, the ride shut down. Which was feeling relatively familiar given our EE experience the day before… No matter, we walked out with a 5-day Fast Pass for any one ride in the Magic Kingdom, and were merrily on our way. Big thumbs up for Disney on how quickly and efficiently the packed queue was handled!

As we waited for our Fast Pass to come available, we traipsed over to Tomorrowland and managed to knock out Space Mountain, TTA, and Astro-Orbiters. Side note: we had never ridden the Astro Orbiters, and this was our “new” ride of the trip. However, we learned that this is a ride better NOT done in December. Because boy was it cold. >.<

We made it back to JC just in time and enjoyed the Christmas cheer that laced every pun by our guide. It was a nice refresher to the classic ride! We meandered the rest of the day, stopping in shops and riding a few rides, really just waiting for the party to start. We even made a trip out to the car to grab our Glow with the Show Ears (WHICH I LOVE SO MUCH!) and came back in just in time for them to light up the castle and start the snow on Main Street. If you have never done this before, PLEASE invest in the MVMCP. It was really great! We ate ourselves silly on cookies and hot chocolate (not the best decision in retrospect, given that we were riding rides at the same time… :P), and the holiday parade/fireworks are great. My personal favorite nighttime entertainment at Magic Kingdom is Celebrate the Magic, and the Frozen/Christmas segments were phenomenal. We stayed in the Magic Kingdom, finally getting to ride BTMRR (which was really not jiving with my 6 cups of hot chocolate) and Space Mountain at least 6 times. All in all, despite having to pay for the party, it was very much worth it! It wasn’t very crowded, we weren’t rushed, and we didn’t feel “Magic Kingdom tired” at the end of our long day!

A few final thoughts on MVMCP and MK Day:
1. No one expects it to be as cold as it is in December… It’s Florida. And it was only supposed to be 55 degrees, which doesn’t SOUND all that bad, until the wind blows. Kudos to the Emporium on Main Street for being so prepared with all of the hoodies and jackets, as we stopped by there and blew our budgets. I have a hot pink rain jacket to show from my last wash out trip in November, and a new scarf from this one! It was a mad house, but I was happy to see that all of the Cast Members were calm and cordial- definitely not run of the mill holiday staff.
2. Magic Kingdom decorations are so great, and so charming. And the castle completely knocked my socks off! This is one aspect that I’m happy they don’t really skimp out on. All of the little touches here and there are great, and they’re exciting to find! However, I think the tree in the MK is a little lack-luster? I liked the AK tree better… the MK one seemed a little plain to me. :/
3. One thing we all noticed was that all of the rides, including Splash Mountain, were seemingly in great condition. Despite BTMRR having technical issues, everything in the interactive queue had been well taken care of… same with HM, which looked a little ragged the last we had been. The fountains in Splash Mountain were even dancing! Something that Keith nor Samuel had ever seen. So it was very nice to see that someone somewhere out there has been taking care of things.
4. Glow with the Show Ears are perhaps my favorite addition from 2013. We got a kick out of watching everyone’s ears during the shows, and Keith and I even bought Samuel a pair since he didn’t understand why they were so awesome. But then he did, and we wore those suckers for the rest of the trip. It’ll be better if they can think of a use for them in EPCOT, but I’m still just as excited about them. If you don’t have a pair, GET ONE!

NEXT UP: EPCOT… The best of the best in the World. ☺

[Katzateer]

Did you see that many people with the Glow with the Show ears?? I only saw a few of them during our early December trip.

Sounds like a great day! Love the MVMCP!

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

Sounds like a wonderful day in the MK

[DisneyDawgette]

It seemed like there were big groups of people with them! And the carts that they've started pushing through the masses right before the parades were definitely pulling people in...

And we had three different people ask us about them, so that's a good sign, right?

[faline]

That really is a long Disney day. We didn't attend the holiday party this year though we were there in December - still have mixed feelings about that!

[Lindsey310]

Love love Disney at Christmas time! Looks like you had another great day! Loving your trip reports, excited to read about your Epcot day!



34 days!!!