Wednesday 3 July
The shuttle bus arrived promptly again this morning to take us to Disney World. I had planned on being there for two days, thinking it would be needed to do all the rides, and to celebrate the 4th of July in style. However, everyone on the shuttle bus yesterday talked us out of doing a theme park on the 4th, saying the crowds would be enormous. Apparently when Magic Kingdom reaches capacity of 180,000 people they shut the doors and don’t let anyone else in, and on special holidays and Christmas, that sometimes happens by 10.30am!
As soon as massive crowds was mentioned, Ross was shaking his head at me and I needed no further information. As much as we have enjoyed being here, we have decided to move on. We will leave a day earlier than intended and the KOA will give us a refund for the last night.
Being our last day at a theme park on this holiday, I have finally got my act together! I sat down last night at dinner with a Disney World map, colour coded all the rides and attractions (black = will not do, green = enjoyed in LA so will do if there is time, blue = must do!), and drew a path to achieve it.
And achieve we did! We started the day (which incidentally was cheaper than Universal yesterday) with a ride on the monorail and straight to Adventureland to do the Pirates of the Caribbean ride which is a favourite of everyone. Then the kids went on to Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride and we all went straight into the Enchanted Tiki Room because Grandma had talked about it at Disneyland but we hadn’t had time there. We now have the repetitive Tiki song to annoy each other with…
I then made everyone sit through the Country Bear Jamboree, because I remembered being really impressed with it as a small child…a trip down memory lane, but not as impressive in this day and age! We took advantage of the lack of crowds and enjoyed an early lunch, and then lined up for the Haunted Mansion, a must do as everyone had enjoyed it in Anaheim.
After that we headed over to Fantasyland. They have been doing major upgrades here, and still have under construction a Princess Hall and a Seven Dwarfs Mine ride. Belle had been desperate to go here all morning to see Princess Belle and the Beast’s castle. There is a whole village set up called Belle’s village. We went straight to see Belle but there was a 75 minute wait, and the Little Mermaid ride had a 120 minute wait, so we ducked into a Mickey 3D show instead. It was VERY well done, everyone was hugely impressed.
Tomorrowland was next. We did a Stitch (from Lilo and..) ride which was just strange, Monsters Inc comedy show, Buzz Lightyear ride, the People Mover, and Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress. Walt Disney created this for the 1964 World Fair, and I could see how impressive it would have been in that day. Today it was a chance to sit and rest while we waited for the time on our FastPass for the Buzz ride!
Having done something in all other lands, we returned to line up for “Enchanted Tales with Belle”. Our Belle of course was totally enamoured by the whole experience. It took us through her house, and then into rooms in the Beast’s castle, and ended with meeting Princess Belle herself. Both Sam and Belle loved that, and had photos taken with her. Belle did ask me on the way out though which one was the real one, so I guess it must have been a little confusing after bear-hugging another Belle on the other side of the country!
Ross valiantly agreed to sit through Its A Small World again, and we all then enjoyed Peter Pan’s Flight again on a FastPass. It suddenly poured as we were discussing what to do for dinner, so we ducked into the nearest store, Gaston’s Tavern, for a light snack. Belle was very happy to be back in HER village to eat. The Carousel was next followed by The Little Mermaid ride, Winnie the Pooh ride and we considered (well, I considered…) a show on the US Presidents, but it’s 22 minute running time meant we would have missed the fireworks.
We actually watched the fireworks from Main Street near the exit to get a jump on crowds leaving, so we wouldn’t miss our ride! The fireworks were fantastic as usual, but had a special 4th July theme, with the finale being all red, white and blue fireworks with 50 stars amongst them, to patriotic songs. I love their patriotism!
We were early for the 10pm shuttle ride home thankfully. And once back at our RV we found a note from the couple we met yesterday to say they had a successful day, so we put the kids to bed and went to make a late night visit to them. They understood exactly what Abi had wanted, and went to the trouble to wrap it secretly in several layers, so I actually think I may be able to pull off this surprise! 😉
Apologies for the event by event detail, but this helps my memory of the day, and reminds me what we loved most. It is a shame not to be doing any more theme parks now I have the FastPass system down pat and know how to plan the day in advance. We had a very productive day, missing only two other rides we would have considered but did not because of rain. And while we didn’t do any of the other Disney Orlando theme parks, we all felt quite satisfied with what we had been able to do. Especially Ross, who feels all theme parked out!!