November 15, 2011

The Dog Days of Disney: Day 4

Friday morning, we had no choice but to arise early. We had 8:00 breakfast reservations at The Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom. This was completely by design. One of the ingenious tips I read prior to our trip suggested making an early breakfast reservation here, gaining you access to the park prior to opening, and the perfect chance for stellar castle pictures without a crowd.

I was SO excited.

The park was beautiful in the morning. I had to wait a minute for my camera to catch up with the humidity, but the fall/Halloween decorations were great. The girls even showed us their "scary" faces...



Magic Kingdom has lots of neat architecture near Main Street and in the front corridor.



We enjoyed a leisurely stroll towards the castle...



...Then, I saw it. I mean, c'mon. For real? Are you kidding me right now? UGH!!!

I still put on my happy family picture smile.



But, I was non too happy. Why, you ask? Now do you see it?



Yeah, the giant eyesore of a construction crane right in the way of all of my fabulous, highly anticipated castle pictures. I wanted to cry. But, we made the best of it.



Even princesses have construction on their homes.



The one neat things was that because of the construction (or maybe because it was before the park opened?), there was a lack of ropes and barriers around the front platform of the castle, so we (perhaps illegally?) gained access to spots like the eave and the floor where the princesses perform before they were blocked off to the public.



When you walk through the castleway, the mosaics are incredible! The girls and I probably could have stood there for hours examining every inch!



Now, I could have returned home and spent some time photoshopping the cranes out. Yeah, maybe I should have. But, you know what? That wasn't our experience. I felt it better to just leave them in. Maybe we'll try again next trip!

We made our way to breakfast. After a short wait outside, it was our turn to be seated.



The buffet was actually pretty good. they had children's buffet lines that were just their size, which the girls LOVED! As we ate, we got to meet a variety of Winnie the Pooh characters.



We ate and mingled and acquired many autographs. And hugs.



After breakfast, we made our way back to Frontierland. We all rode the WDW Railroad and Tyler and I took turns taking Sassy on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, officially Sassy's first roller coaster ride, which she LOVED! In between attractions, we visited Jessie from toy Story!



The girls rode The Magic Carpets of Aladdin with Ty and Sassy and I checked out the Haunted Mansion.

Then, we purchased the ever-famous Dole Whip desserts for everyone and parked ourselves in the very long line to meet the Disney Fairies at Tinkerbell's Magical Nook.

It felt like we waited FOR-EVER, but the girls really wanted to do it. So, we did.

They got to meet Rosetta...



And, the little sprite herself...



Before leaving, we used our FastPasses to ride Peter Pan's Flight, which was really neat! We also checked out Mickey's Philharmagic, which three of us really enjoyed. So cool! Tink... not so much. She was pretty frightened. We definitely learned on this trip that she is not a fan of 3D effects!

We even ran into a certain Fairy Godmother on our way towards the front of the park!



After a nice, long hotel rest, we decided to cancel our dinner reservations and have a relaxed evening. We headed to Epcot, had dinner at La Cantina de San Angel (YUM!) and checked out a few attractions. We walked around the Norway and China pavilions, caught a little bit of Illuminations (although Tink wanted nothing to do with the fireworks) and rode Maelstrom.

I took very few pictures Friday evening, but I just had to share this one- cracks me up!



Tyler had the chance to ride Mission: Space (Orange) and we all had the pleasure of riding Journey Into the Imagination with Figment. Ahem.

And, so concludes our very full Friday at Disney World!

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