June 3, Magic Kingdom and activities at The Contemporary

Tuesday, our alarms went off bright and early at 6. This is one of the times it would have been handy to have a car because we could have slept in a bit longer. We were relying on buses to get to the parks for our breakfast reservations at Crystal Palace before the park opened, so we wanted to leave too much time rather than not enough.

Nick ran over to the main building and got our much-needed caffeine (remember, the East Coast is an hour ahead of us, so it felt like 5- eek) while I got ready. Then,  got the kids ready while Nick got ready and we headed for the bus stop. Buses that much before park opening are only every 20-30 minutes, so we got there at 6:50 and the bus was already there. We were the last on before it left. Of course, I let Nick lead the way since he had walked around the resort more, and he got us lost.... but... we made it, none the less.

We went through bag security and then took some pictures in front of the train station. I could not get both kids looking and smiling and holding still with me, but how perfect is this pic of them with Nick?!? Probably the excellent photographer. ;)

Nick with the kids in front of the train station at Magic Kingdom on June 3, 2014

It looks like we were waiting outside of Magic Kingdom by ourselves, but there were quite a few others there for tours, breakfasts, and the boutique. Actually in this pic above I had to wait while one of the cast members inside was walking in front and snapped it while he was directly behind Nick to make it seem we were there all by ourselves. I am pretty impressed with my skills on this one.... except that I cut off the top of the train station. Oops. Speaking of photos, we decided to take our DSLR. For a while, we were just going to take the point and shoot since we had gotten the Memory Maker included with our package (digital rights to all the photo pass photographers' pictures) but ultimately decided to take it since the pics are so much more crisp, especially the inside ones. 

Once the train showed up, the kids just wanted to look at it. 

Norah practicing walking. She did great with taking steps with our help all week... Disney magic?!? Also, thanks for this AMAZING dress, Grandma Billie. We got so many compliments on it!

After a few more pics, we were directed to the line for breakfast reservations. Both Crystal Palace and Cinderella's Royal Table have pre-park opening breakfasts, so there were quite a few of us. They checked our name and reservation time and put us in line to get into the park. Norah dropped her Minnie ears on the ground and the bow popped off :( So I sent Nick into the gift shop to see if they had a safety pin or something and they switched them for new ones. Disney magic at work! We were in shortly after and got to walk up main street with only a hundred or so other people. It was still a lot of people but nothing like what we would see when we walked in on Thursday morning!

We tried to get some pictures in front of the castle, but the kids were hungry, so it wasn't super successful.

Look how excited Wesley is!

Wish Wes was looking at the camera!

Norah, "I thought there was going to be waffles. Where are they?!?"

After that picture, we decided to head over to The Crystal Palace and check in for breakfast! After Norah's hesitation at Animal Kingdom with characters she knows pretty well, I was nervous for how she would do with Winnie the Pooh and friends.

When we were seated shortly after 8 for our 8:15 reservation, we were told the order of characters and to plan on about an hour and fifteen minutes for all the characters to make it around. I knew from my pre-trip research that I wanted to get out of there as close to 9 (park opening) as possible to avoid lines, so I asked for our check right away as to cut out that wait at the end. Our waitress was really great and happily brought that to us along with our drinks. We got our food, including lots of fruit and Mickey waffles for the kids. The stuffed french toast is legendary, so I grabbed some of that as well and it was GREAT, though super sugary!

My plate at The Crystal Palace... after a bite of my Mickey Waffle!

Winnie the Pooh was the first character we saw. Norah wasn't thrilled, as you can see...

Wes eats his Mickey waffle with his hand. It's fair to say he was a fan. Pooh signs the kids' pages. We decided to do the autograph books in hopes that Wes would be more motivated to talk to the characters. He was very proud of his signatures!

Nick didn't get a great pic of us with Pooh. Wes is clearly eating (Yup, Mickey Waffles) and I look ridiculous. Happy, but ridiculous.

Pooh didn't stay long or interact much. He may or may not have been trying to escape Norah's pouting!

Piglet was next. He was much more interactive. He, like many other characters on our trip, pointed out that he was on the pages he was autographing (I had this for all the characters I knew or hoped we would see). He also waved and Norah and blew kisses but kept his distance since she was clearly nervous. Norah even was smiling. She liked characters much more if they made an effort to acknowledge her or play peek a boo with her from a distance! 

Blurry pic :( I needed to train Nick to snap several before the trip. Easy to delete later but can't go back and take more.

 Tigger was our third character. He was fun! Norah was interested him from the time he came into our dining room. He also interacted more than Pooh and wasn't intimidated by my nervous little girl.

 As you can tell, when Tigger got close enough for a pic, Norah got pretty worried.

 So, Tigger backed off and played peek-a-boo...

 ...and Norah loved it. Look at her smile at him. I wasn't far enough away to get them in the shot together, so you will just have to believe me that these two pics were taken at the same time!

The last character for us to meet at The Crystal Palace was Eeyore. He acted the way Eeyore should. He was shy and adorable.

For some reason, Wes was intimidated by Eeyore, so I had to hold him for our pic!

Hiding from Norah since she was a little scared.

As soon as Eeyore went to the next table Norah was all smiles and saying, "Bye!" She's so funny!

It was just before 9 when we left our table and hit the bathrooms before taking on Magic Kingdom. The tip abut paying ahead of time was good because we were out the doors just after the others got into the park. 

My hope was to hit Peter Pan first since I was using my FastPasses on things that we thought were more important. The line was 20 minutes immediately, which isn't terrible, but I wasn't about to let lines build up for things we wanted to do more, just to do that. So, we hoped that we could get a FastPass for it later after we used our prescheduled ones.

We went to Anna and Elsa first. My obsessive checking of the Disney website had scored me a FastPass for them, which is really the only way to see them. The wait time was 240 minutes when we go there at about 9:15...

Yup, 4 hours long by 15 minutes after park opening. Wow.

It was 280 or 300 pretty much every other time we walked by. Wes loves Frozen, so I wanted him to see them, but planned to just make sure we saw them in a parade if we couldn't get FastPasses. Wes had his Anna shirt on, so he was ready to go!

 We walked into Princess Fairytale Hall, and it was so cool. They had beautiful chandeliers and Cinderella's glass slipper was on display. I almost wished we had to wait a few minutes so we could look around. But we were in to see Anna and Elsa about 5 minutes after we entered. We watched the family ahead of us meet the sisters and Wes was in awe. When it was our turn, he totally clammed up. Like wouldn't talk or make eye contact. HE loves, loves, loves Anna and always talks about how nice she is. I wonder if this is how he will act in front of his future crushes, too. He was totally in awe but so, so shy. Anna and Elsa did their best to get him to crack a smile. Anna made a huge deal about his shirt and how much she liked it. Elsa told him a couple jokes. When I told Anna she was his favorite, she got down on his level and held his hand and talked to him and such, but he was still so shy. Norah was loving Elsa. Smiling at her and looking at her dress. Elsa's dress is gorgeous and sparkly in person and she has snowflakes in her hair. The girls were beautiful and acted totally in character. Now, I am going to post a couple of the PhotoPass pics, but I will say in advance I can't believe how cheesed how I look in my pictures at Disney. I don't know if I thought smiling bigger would make the kids smile or what, but wow, I needed to tone it down a bit!

Look at Norah looking at Elsa!

Anna tried so hard to help Wes come out of his shell... nope!

I think Elsa could see how lovestruck Wes was!

After we met Anna and Elsa, we moved onto Aurora. I loved watching Sleeping Beauty as a kid, and since she meets with Anna and Elsa, I had the kids watch it before we left. I seriously felt bad for Aurora. She was super sweet, but it  must suck to meet all those kids after meeting the hottest Disney Queen and Princess in all of WDW! Wes recognized her and called her by name, so he wasn't feeling nearly as shy with her... but look at this pic. See how Norah and Wes are looking off the the side? They are looking back to Anna and Elsa! Kids! Wes even told Aurora how he had just met them and how Anna was on his shirt. I am not sure why Wes was so silent with the Frozen sisters but lost all the shyness with Aurora, but he did. Still, you can see in the pic where his heart is. After we left princess fairytale hall, he said Aurora was his favorite. Lucky for him, we would see her a few more times on our trip.

In true Disney fashion, as we left seeing the princesses, we had to exit through a gift shop. That is when Norah spotted this.

Norah was so excited to see this Minnie. She really wanted to take her home... but that didn't seem possible, so we later bought the next best thing.

Then, it was time to hit some rides!  We went deeper into Fantasyland to ride the Barnstormer, or as Wes called it the Goofy roller coaster. Nick and Wes rode it first then me and Wes. He loved it. He had fun on it with Nick and then took me by the hand to ride it with him, and he told me he would show me the way. It's a pretty tame roller coaster, but it was fun! There was no wait.

Next up after that was Dumbo. I guess I have been on Dumbo before. My mom swears she waited 45 minutes to ride it with me when I was younger. I do not remember that at all. It was a fun little ride and one that Norah could do, too. We waited about 5 minutes.

We then headed to the Mad Tea Party (teacups). We didn't wait long, maybe 5 minutes tops. We could all ride in the same teacup and the kids enjoyed it! 

After that, we headed to the carousel, which Wes had wanted to ride right away when we walked by it. I knew it never got too much of a line, so we held off until later. We pretty much walked right on. Wes and I enjoyed this, but Norah was pretty freaked out. Nick wanted to just ride on the bench with her but it was already taken when we got there. 

Then, we had a FastPass for Enchanted Tales with Belle. The line for this gets crazy, so it was nice not to wait. We were in pretty quickly. This is sort of like a meet and greet but with a small storytelling of when Beast and Belle fell in love. Besides Belle, the people in the audience help act it out. I tried to get Wes to volunteer, but he wasn't having any of that. The Wardrobe talks the audience through assigning the roles and she is really neat. Then, we went into a room with benches for those not participating and Lumiere who is animatronic. 

He was really neat, too. Then, Belle comes in and the story is told. It was cute, but I would have enjoyed it much more if I could have talked Wes into participating. Belle takes pics at the end, but my kids weren't too cooperative for that. I think they were starting to get tired and hungry.

Luckily, we also saw Belle at Epcot and got a much nicer pic there!

We had a little time to kill before our FastPass for the Seven Dwarves Mine Train, so we took a little break after Belle. We went back to the area with the Barnstormer because Wes had see the Casey Jr. Splash Station, which is a play area with a circus train that sprays water. We got drinks and the kids had some animal crackers. Wes had a blast and got DRENCHED. Having been warned of these areas in my extensive research, I was prepared with an extra shirt, but there was a kiosk there selling clothes, swim towels, etc.

This was another highlight for Wes, not a surprise considering how much he loves the pool. At the end of the day, we would always ask him what his favorite things were. Wes talked about the train station that sprayed him with water and got him all soaked so he had to change his shirt. The kids there were having a blast!

I managed to pull Wes away to ride Seven Dwarves Mine Train. This is a new roller coaster that JUST opened in late May, so the regular line was nuts, but again, we were lucky to have FastPasses! We grabbed a rider swap pass, so Nick could ride with Wes, too. We barely waited at all and we were on. Wes loved it. It was another pretty tame coaster, but it was a little faster than the Barnstormer. It slowed way down for the indoor part, which had the seven dwarves in the mine. It was really amazing to see the detail put into that! I think the regular line was 90 minutes at this point, which I never would have waited in, but it was a super fun ride. Wes enjoyed going on it again with Nick! Norah slept this whole time. 

Since we had used the FastPasses I scheduled ahead of time, it was time to visit a kiosk to see what I could get next. I tried for Peter Pan, but those weren't available until later when we were going to be at dinner, so I got one for It's a Small World, so we walked right on while the line was 20 minutes for standby. Disney just recently started allowing people to use more after the three that are booked ahead of time, so I think a lot of people didn't know to do that. It's a Small World was cute. It's a classic ride that I wanted to see. Again, my mom said we went on this when she took us as kids (and got stuck), but I didn't remember it at all. I was 3 when we went so my memories are very limited.

I went straight back to the kiosks and grabbed a FastPass for The Winnie the Pooh ride. We again, walked right on. The waiting area for the standby line actually did look really neat as there was some interactive areas, but no wait seemed better anyway! 

After that, we grabbed a FastPass for Tomorrowland Speedway for after our nap break. I wanted to ride this for sure because I do actually remember riding this with my dad. The line gets long pretty quickly, so I was glad to pick that up. 

After that, we walked towards the gates but Wes was complaint about being hungry, so we stopped at Casey's Corner at Magic Kingdom. It was not good. The kids enjoyed their hot dog and apples. Nick and I shared nachos since we had a big breakfast and a big supper was planned and they were awful. The chips were stale. We were not off to a good start as far as the quick service dining at WDW, luckily, it got much better after our first not great experiences.

Then, we took the bus back to our hotel and attempted to lay the kids down for nap. Attempted is the key word here. Both kids laid down for maybe a half hour and neither slept. Norah had napped a bit in the stroller, but Wes hadn't, so he needed a rest! I knew nap time was over when Nick started snoring and Wes started giggling uncontrollably, which led to Norah doing the same. We watched a little TV and had a snack and decided to explore the resort a bit. For what it's worth, Nick didn't get too much of a nap since the kids' giggles woke him up.

Having fun with the Goofy Statue 

Had to get a picture with the Corvette, of course!

Wes running over Nick with the Big Wheel

Norah was delighted with the Mickey Phone and Wes with the giant foosball players!

Playing Foosball is a Wilson family rite of passage, so this was neat!

After that, we decided to head back to Magic Kingdom, figuring we would hit a couple of rides, do a little shopping, and then head to the Contemporary for supper and Pirates and Pals Fireworks Voyage.

We were having awesome luck with the buses... until then. We got there just as an MK bus was leaving. They are supposed to be every 15-20 minutes, so we figured we were still okay. We waited about a half hour and then traffic was bad.... We got to MK at about 5:30 and needed to be at Chef Mickey's at 6:35. We decided maybe we would just shop a bit and then head over. All of a sudden, they started clearing the streets... for the Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it! parade. So we sat down and watched. It was a lot of the major characters, so the kids really enjoyed it! It made up for missing our Tomorrowland Speedway FastPass return time!

The Main Mice were first, of course!

We looked at a couple of shots, and I took this picture with the kids and the Minnie and Roy Disney statue. They weren't in the mood, so we headed to the Contemporary.

It's a short walk, but we hadn't been on the monorail yet and knew Wes would enjoy that. He did! Monorail is one of the new words Norah started using on the trip. So cute.

When we got to the Contemporary, we had about 15 minutes, so we did some shopping. Nick found his mouse ears, Sorcerer Mickey. The cashier told him they had light up ones down stairs.... so that happened. The hat is a little ridiculous, but I guess all ear hats are, and the kids really liked it. It stopped a couple of tantrums in their tracks, so that was an added bonus!

We then checked into Chef Mickey's. We had our picture taken with the Mickey Statue.

They tried to sell this to me later in a package with several prints for like $30 or $35, but we passed since we already had digital rights with the Memory Maker package (Have I mentioned what a great thing Memory Maker is? It really is! It was included in our hotel/tickets package, but I would totally pay the $150 for it if it hadn't been). 

Norah was excited to see the Mickey statue (though she was mad about wearing her ears), and I was hoping now that we had seen several characters around and in the parade that she would at least cooperate for a nice photo with her BFF Minnie. I was hoping Minnie would not be the first character we saw so that Norah would have a little more time to adjust..... but, Minnie was first. Wes and I were going through the buffet when she came out and was getting close to our table, so Nick started texting frantically so we wouldn't miss her. We were back in time though, and they would have brought her back if we missed her. Turns out, it didn't matter that Minnie was first. Norah was delighted to see Minnie! Wes was excited to see her coming too, and asked to wear Norah's Minnie ears. Norah didn't want them, so we let him. Minnie pointed them out right away and nodded approvingly! 

We learned quickly that Norah did best with characters if Nick had her (Daddy's girl!). A mom at the table next to us offered to take our pic so we could all be in it. The same mom took the photo with Mickey below. We did the same with her family. It was a good plan!

So Happy!

 Mickey was next. Wes saw him coming and wanted his Mickey ears, so he could show them off! Again, Mickey pointed them out and his shirt. It was nice! Wesley liked being dressed to impress Mickey!

Since Mickey had already signed a page for their autograph scrapbook in progress, he signed the picture matt, too. We had this for characters we saw more than once. Now, I just need to choose the photos to go in them!

Everyone cooperated for a pic with Mickey, too!

At this point, Nick headed for food since Minnie came as soon as Wes and I were through and Mickey was shortly after. 

When Goofy came to see us, Norah wasn't happy. Goofy is CONSIDERABLY bigger than Mickey and Minnie... Minnie and Mickey are shorter than I am (I'm 5'5") and Goofy is taller than Nick (Nick is 6'3"isn), so I think Goofy's height was intimidating. Wes wasn't intimidated at all. He had seem him walking around earlier when we were getting our food and he was pumped to meet another new character!

 Goofy is one of Nick's favorite characters, and the family who we had been trading taking pics with left, so I made sure to get Nick in these!

Donald came next. Norah liked Donald better than Goofy but still was pretty nervous. She liked him from a distance at least, which wasn't the case with Goofy.

 Love these pics of Donald and Wes!

Donald is Nick's other favorite, so this picture was a must take. There are two pictures of Nick alone with a character on our trip. The next one is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Promise. Any of you who know Nick's favorite Disney movie can probably guess!

 We also saw Pluto at Chef Mickey's to round out the Fab 5. If Daisy would be at this one, it would hit all the main Mickey Mouse Clubhouse characters, but six characters is probably asking a little much. That is why we made sure to meet her Monday at Animal Kingdom. The kids both LOVE that show.

 Pluto was great with interaction. He tried (unsuccessfully) to win Norah over, but Wes thought he was so funny, signing their pages on his nose, giving Wes dog kisses, etc. Wes chose some bath toys for his souvenir, and it has all of these 5 characters. Mickey and Pluto are his favorite, and I honestly think this experience is what put Pluto up there with Mickey!

 We took a pic with the sign as we left. We had such fun at this restaurant!

Chef Mickey's has some pretty lopsided reviews online. It had better breakfast reviews, but Nick isn't thrilled with breakfasts and I had a few others booked already anyway. I thought the food was pretty decent. Not the best ever, but pretty good. We paid for the experience at this meal, but I did really like the lobster mac and cheese and the parmesan mashed potatoes. Nick liked the beef ribs. Wes enjoyed the ice cream with M&Ms for dessert.... and, Norah... well... she liked the chocolate Mickey desert made with an Oreo and what looked like chocolate mousse. 

When we go back, Chef Mickey's is a must do for us, even if the kids are too big for other character meals at that point! 

After Chef Mickey's, we had one more event planned for the evening. Pirates and Pals Fireworks Voyage. This was also at the Contemporary, so we went down two flights and checked in. There were coloring pages to do while we waited for Mr. Smee and Captain Hook to show up. 

When they showed up, we were let into a big conference room where we could line up for pics with the guests of honor and there were snacks, too. We had a big supper, so we got in line for the characters first. This was super disorganized, but Wes was excited, so that made it okay. 

The pics I have from this are awful, awful, terrible. The photo pass photographer really should have said how bad the pose was. Norah wasn't thrilled with either of them, so I think they were trying to rush us through. I am disappointed to not have a usable pic with Captain Hook, seriously, that pic belongs on the Awkward Family Photos Blog, but since it's my family, that's not going to happen! 

After autographs and such, we went down to the boats. We were on the Smee boat.

Wes waving goodbye to Captain Hook and Mr. Smee. He seriously loved those two! 

After that, we got to see the Electrical Water Pageant, which was really neat, then we made our way in front of the Castle and waited for Wishes to start. The captain of our boat was a pirate named Patch, and he was super funny! On the way to our watching spot, he asked where everyone was from, and he had commentary about every state or city. He called us the abnormally large ear family since Nick and I were both wearing our ears. The kids were referred to as the children of the corn. :) We could see the castle changing colors during the projection show, but we couldn't see the show (we did this later in the week, don't worry!). When Wishes started, they played the music on the boat. It was really neat. Norah used her favorite word some more, "WOAH!" and Wes loved it too. The Wishes soundtrack is pretty neat. I am tempted to download it on iTunes...

After that, we boated back to The Contemporary. We had a special guest waiting for us: Peter Pan. I knew about this, but I didn't tell Wes. He was excited. Wes and I waited in line while Nick took Norah to change her and look for Wesley's lost Magic Band (don't worry, we found it in the bottom of the stroller. Wes eventually fessed up to where he put it!). We were second to last in line but chatted with a cast member who was also a high school English teacher before her husband's job moved her to Florida and found out the tourist ahead of us was a teacher, too. The line moved fast, and, as the cast member promised, Peter Pan spent more time with the people at the end of the line.

We met so many characters Tuesday, and I was thrilled with so many of them, but Peter Pan was the best. Excuse my ridiculous detail coming... I so wish I had taken a video of this, but I had no idea how amazing this would be! Peter came to greet Wes and immediately pointed out that Wesley's shirt looked kind of like him. Then Wes gave Pan the autograph pages, and he said, "Those look even more like me!" He signed Norah's and hades it to me, then he signed Wesley's and said, "Well, this is for me because it has my name on it!" Wes looked super confused and then giggled. They talked about Jake, and Pan asked Wes to tell him to come to Neverland more instead of hanging out at Hollywood Studios all of the time. He then pointed out a "shooting star" and told Wes to make a wish. If you've seen Peter Pan, you know he talks, and talks, and talks, and this Pan was just like his movie presence. Wes pointed out that it was just an airplane and not a shooting star. Peter Pan said he didn't like airplanes since that's not the most fun way to fly. They said goodbye, and Peter Pan told me to have my ears checked because they looked Scaly- yes, I had my sequined Minie years on still, Wes thought that was hilarious. As we left, Wes was thrilled. I was, too. Peter Pan spent probably 5 minutes with Wes compared to the 1 or 2 minutes people earlier in line had. So glad we had to stop at that bathroom and be at the end of the line!

Saying cheese... Peter Pan totally mimicked Wes and Wesley thought it was so funny!

Looking at the airplane/shooting star.

We then took the monorail back to Magic Kingdom and got on the bus back to Pop Century. Norah was wide awake until the bus started moving. Wes passed out in the stroller. I had to wake him up so he could get on the bus (I carried Norah and Nick the stroller).

They both slept on the bus, and we again had to wake Wes to get off the bus. He instantly fell back asleep and I just picked him up and put him back in bed. That boy was exhausted and probably having magical dreams. Both kids slept in their clothes Tuesday night. They were OUT until our alarms went off the next morning! It was just past midnight when we got back to the room.