Magic Kingdom

Walt and Mickey

Cinderella's Castle

Tomorrowland

we rode this because Christy heard it may be closing down in favor of a Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride.

a classic slow ride in the air conditioning!

inside It's a Small World

I love how at the end of It's a Small World, the word goodbye is presented in all languages

I couldn't believe I wanted to ride this twice!

Haunted Mansion...a favorite of Christy

Our lunch spot

wonderful make your own taco salads and the triple chocolate cake was also really good

Cinderella's Carousel is now the Prince Charming Carousel...guess he didn't get enough attention before

loved the phrases on these chocolate bars in the gift shops

We had a lot of fun playing the Sorcerer's game!

you hold your key card up to the key box and the portal opens....

and a movie appears telling you what is happening and when to use your "spell cards" so that you can defeat the evil person and move on to your next stop

loved these orchids growing in the trees. I can't even grow them in a pot!

the afternoon parade..we skipped this one

one of the mosaics in the walk through of Cinderella's Castle

another mosaic

dinner from Earl of Sandwich at Downtown Disney..this is the roast beef sandwich and the dessert is a brownie cut in half with chocolate icing in between the layers. It was all delicious!

Christy's sandwich and grapes. Her grapes became our breakfast the next morning.

the Main Street Electrical Parade

tinkerbell takes flight before the fireworks and she was REAL!

fireworks over the castle

beautifully lit

Pin trading

I collected all the pieces of this particular Figment collection, took a picture, and then traded them for different pins.

Magic Kingdom has a bit of Magic all it's own. This is the park I remember seeing through Ben and Hallie's eyes even though I had been here on my honeymoon also. I was thinking of them the whole day. The moment you walk onto Main Street and see the castle, thoughts of princes and princesses fill your mind. We had wanted to ride Thunder Mountain Railroad, but it was closed for refurbishing. We went instead to Buzz Lightyear and rode it once. I think if I had not done the Toy Story ride already at Hollywood Studios, I would have been more thrilled and wanted to ride it again. It wasn't a favorite and Christy was content to move on also. We left Tomorrowland and went to Splash Mountain. We got a Fast Pass first for later and then rode it. The line wasn't very long. We brought hand towels from the hotel (thanks Tour Guide Mike) to wipe the seat as we sat down and to cover our faces from getting too wet. I know some people are thrilled to get wet, but me not so much. I'm not sure if we liked the first ride for the ride itself or because we liked listening to the little Asian lady and her son behind us who were obviously riding for the first time and didn't like "scary" rides. She had a lot of funny sounds as we went through the dips and little slides along the way. When we came to the BIG drop, she let out a big yell. Well I was yelling too, but she was yelling louder. I couldn't believe I wanted to ride it again and we did just that with our Fast Pass later in the day. Disney is trying out a new Fast Pass offering that Christy happened upon at the airport. She was able to secure Fast Passes for some of the more popular rides while she was still in the airport! We did a lot of crisscrossing in the park, but I figured we were still working off cupcakes and it sure couldn't hurt us. We rode Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jungle Cruise. Pirates of the Caribbean was different from what I remember because they use Captain Jack Sparrow now as the main pirate thanks to the movies of the same name. We also briefly watched "pirate training" outside with a "jack sparrow" look alike who sounded just like the real thing.  He was great! We rode the Haunted Mansion ride twice as it is a favorite of Christy. If you ride again, notice at the end that the faces of those switched are you and your seat companion! I adore Disney technology!!! We ate lunch before 12 at La Tortuga and it wasn't very crowded at all at that time. It was Mexican and delicious. After lunch we went to Peter Pan's flight with a Fast Pass, Snow White (which is intense for little kids), and Mickey's Philharmonic. I would have loved to have gone back to Mickey's Philharmonic, but there wasn't a regular Fast Pass for it and the line was really long. Those were all of the rides and shows we had planned to ride so Christy introduced me to the Sorceror's game which is an interactive game that sends you all over the park (except for Tomorrowland) using cards to defeat Disney villains. We defeated Ysma from the Emperor's New Groove. It was fun and I will probably pick up the game the next time I'm in the park. We weaved our way back to the entrance, stopping to eat the next cupcake, the Peanut Butter Cup Cupcake from the Main Street Bakery, pin trading back and forth and then out of the park to go back to Downtown Disney for dinner at Earl of Sandwich. Our sandwiches were delicious which was good because we had intended to eat at Wolfgang Puck but the line was too long. The line at Earl of Sandwich moves quickly and efficiently. We rode the bus over to the Grand Floridian so we could catch the monorail over to Magic Kingdom for the night parades. We saw the Main Street Electrical Parade and then moved to a better viewing spot for Wishes, the fireworks display over the castle. We were surprised to see that the flying Tinkerbell was REAL!! We didn't get back to the hotel until really late but it was a great day even though we did have a really good rain shower mid day. Tomorrow is our last day and we go to Animal Kingdom....until then!

Hollywood Studios

Christy sweet talked a disney photographer into taking our picture with our camera

My favorite ride in Hollywood Studios

you feel very small as you walk in the line for the ride

by the fourth ride, i (red) was awfully close to Christy's (blue) score

Our cupcakes in the park came from here!

One of my favorite stage shows

Beauty and the Beast stage show

Mama Melrose's to the right was our lunch spot

our complimentary appetizer...we got to pick and chose this antipasto platter with meat, cheese, olives, pickles, roasted red pepper, and pistachios

strip steak and macaroni with cheese

we asked for a dessert menu, but this arrived as part of our reservation meal...Chocolate Amarettini Cheesecake and a Chocolate Cannoli Cake. I actually preferred the cheesecake.

Even in Disney I find chocolate on the walls

Lights, Motor, Action show

These guys are Disney pin collectors...can you tell?

One is a Donald collector and one is a Mickey collector

The end of this street is actually a painted backdrop

our meal at ABC commissary...Christy and I took our mousse to go. It was that good!

We had a good night's sleep and were up and at the bus stop at 8:15 for the bus to Hollywood Studios. Once we arrived at the park, we went straight to Toy Story Mania, the most popular ride at Disney World, or so we've heard. It runs out of fast passes faster than any other ride. It was sooooo much fun! It was new to me and I really enjoyed the up to date arcade style ride. That really surprised me! We managed to secure enough fast passes throughout the day to ride it FOUR times! My score improved with each ride and by the end of the day, I was within spitting distance of Christy's score. She managed to have the top score of 8 people in our car group at least twice if not all four times. We crisscrossed across the park and squeezed in The Great Movie Ride, Star Tours, and the Muppet 3D show. We had 4 cupcakes to try today as we continue on our Cupcake Crawl. These came from Starring Rolls Cafe. We picked up the first two on the way to the Beauty and the Beast stageshow. They were the Chocolate Peanut Butter and the Butterfinger. We ate them while we watched the show. Both were delicious but our favorite was the Chocolate Peanut Butter with its chocolate cake and peanut butter filling frosted in peanut butter frosting with piles of chocolate shavings! The Butterfinger was also good with a chocolate cake and fudge filling and light buttercream frosting rolled in crunchy Butterfinger. We had a lunch reservation at Mama Melroses and it was delicious upscale Italian. We had reserved the Fantasmic package with our Disney dining plan so we could be in the reserved seating area and arrive later. We didnt know that we would get even more food!! Our package let us choose an appetizer as well as our meal and came with two special desserts that were yummy. We were so stuffed when we left the restaurant and we still needed to eat two more cupcakes on our quest! We picked up a Red Velvet Cheesecake and a Marble cupcake from Starring Rolls....to go. We decided to take a break and run over to Downtown Disney for a little while. We didn't know that transportation there was going to be so time consuming because of the way we had to catch the busses. As a result we were only there for about an hour, but it was a nice break from all the people at the park. We ate our very melty but good cupcakes on the way back to the park. The Red Velvet was yummy with its cheesecake filled center. We weren't impressed with the Marble after the others we had eaten. When we arrived back at Hollywood Studios, we walked quickly to pick up the last show of Lights, Motors, Action and then One Man's Dream before finishing with the Studio Backlot Tour and our last Toy Story Mania, whew! We ate supper at the ABC Commissary. I don't know how we were even hungry, but we surprised even ourselves. We stayed late in the park for Fantasmic, the evening show. I had forgotten how intense and frightening that show could be for little ones. I made a mental note for future trips with grandchildren. We had threatening skies but no rain today despite the 40% chance. We are hoping for the same tomorrow. Until then...