Vacation – Day 3: Hello Mickey!

We
woke up early to make sure we made it to the Magic Kingdom by the opening.  We ate breakfast at the condo…some cereal we
had picked up the night before at the nearby Publix.  Both the kids had Cocoa Puffs, a vacation
indulgence.  We drove the 10 minutes to
Magic Kingdom and parked in Pluto 11.  We
boarded the bus and then got on the monorail. 
A few minutes later we arrived at the gate for the obligatory bag check
and then to the ticket check.  There was
a little oddity here in that all of the adult tickets (we had purchased 5 day
basic passes a few weeks ahead of time) required that the owners place two of
their fingers in the a reader of some sort. 
I didn’t figure out why they did this for a few days: to keep people
different people from using the same pass.

We
got there just as the opening show started. 
The park opened with much fanfare and we headed straight in.  We
stopped for a picture with Minnie Mouse
(the line for Mickey was too long) and then headed to a few of the
shops.  After some browsing, we headed to the
princess castle for Cinderella’s coronation. 
It was a nice show, with some of the other princesses included to make
it a big show.  After standing in the
heat, we headed to the Haunted Mansion, which my son had been asking to
go to
since he saw a standalone haunted house on the first day.  We got
in after a short wait and other than
him closing his ears the whole time, he seemed to really enjoy
it.  My daughter liked it as well.  Afterwards we headed over
to It’s a Small
World.  It hadn’t aged well, but the kids
liked it.  DeAnna blamed it as one of the
causes for the rapid emergence of ADD over the past 30 years!

Next
up was Peter Pan’s ride which also had a short wait.  It was enjoyable, but nothing
spectacular.  After that we headed to the
merry go round, which also had no wait.

• Dumbo
• Ariel
• Philharmonic –
  movie
• Snow white ride
• Split up
• Teacups – fast
  pass for space mountain
• Blue train
• Carousel of
  progress
• Pictures with
  stitch
• Goofey
  rollercoaster
• Split-up –
  space mountain / pictures with princesses
• Parade
• Dinner – Bahama
  Breeze (on Buena Vista) – Appetizers on deck, Mason eats whole pizza
• Back to park
  for another ride on Haunted Mansion
• Fast Pass for
  Buzz Light Year
• Walk to end of
  parade and then fireworks – Kendall sleep’s through it all and then we
  have to carry them out.