Disney Labor Day weekend 2010, Day 2

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The plan was to meet an old buddy from high school and his daughter at 8am over at the Ticket and Transportation Center so we got up early and grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel before driving over to the Magic Kingdom. What we didn’t realize was that the 2010 Trek Women’s Triathlon was going on so a lot of the roads around our hotel were blocked off for the cycling portion of the race. We ended up being routed all the way back out to I-4 (!!) and had to find our way back onto Disney property. As a result, we were a little late meeting our friends but still got parking in the first row of the lot so it was a short walk to the gates.

Our reason for meeting early was so we could redeem another Give-a-Day-Get-a-Day voucher for FastPass Exchange cards for the five of us to use in the Magic Kingdom. There was no line at will-call, so getting the cards was quick and easy and soon we were back in the car together (leaving the other one in the lot for our return later) driving over to Animal Kingdom to start the day. Despite our “late” start we still made it into the park shortly before opening.

Similar to our Toy Story strategy at Hollywood Studios the previous day we made a beeline for the Safari in Africa to get FastPasses. Then it was over to Asia to ride Everest. The day continued to mirror our experience yesterday: the standby line was only 5 minutes so we rode the coaster twice in a row. I love the backward portion of that ride … fantastic. The girls weren’t too excited about it though.

It was now time for our safari FastPasses to we walked back to Africa and saw a lot of animals on the ride (going earlier is best when the animals are more active).

My daughter wanted to ride the Kali River Rapids so my buddy and his daughter headed to Dino Land to get FastPasses for Dinosaur! while we got soaked on the ride. We met up with them a little while later and let the kids play in The Boneyard for a while while we dried off. It took some serious coercing, but we managed to get the girls to ride Dinosaur! (after all, my daughter had said she wanted to ride something new at each park and she had already been on Everest last year). In hindsight this might have been a bad idea. It had been several years since I last rode it and it was much louder, darker, and scarier than I remembered, at least from a kid’s perspective. I couldn’t really blame my daughter for covering her eyes and ears and snuggling up to me the entire time.

Having put the girls through enough for the morning, we decided to grab lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and then head over to the Magic Kingdom. By now it was after the main lunch hour, but the restaurant was still pretty crowded so it took a while to get a table and finally eat. This gave the girls (and the the adults) some time to relax though so it wasn’t all that  bad. Plus we were in no rush since the Extra Magic hours would keep the Magic Kingdom open until 1am (not that we had any plans to close it out, though)!

With full stomachs we got in the car and drove back to the Magic Kingdom, parking significantly farther back in the lot this time. We used our FastPass Exchange cards to get on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Space Mountain, both favorites of the girls. I rode in the front car on Space Mountain for the first time since the remodel (that closed over the roof of the waiting area so the ride itself is much darker) and it’s a lot cooler that way. You really cannot tell where you are going and which way the train is going to turn. I did notice quite a few night-vision cameras, though, given away by the circle of red IR LEDs similar to my Foscam units.

The whole back area of Fantasyland is currently under construction: Ariel’s Grotto is now behind a long construction wall advertising a new area coming soon that will include Belle’s castle. I tried to hold my camera up over the wall to get a shot of the work-in-progress but wasn’t tall enough. Oh well, that’s what Google Maps is good for. 😉

As the afternoon drew on, the clouds got darker and darker. I checked the weather app on my iPhone and it looked like most of the rain was going to stay to our east. We had two FastPass Exchange items left for the Mountain rides and the girls wanted to ride Space Mountain again, so we opted to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad instead of getting wet (again) on Splash Mountain. We got delayed slightly in line behind a foreign couple who had inadvertently entered the line without FastPasses and decided to argue with the attendant taking the FastPass tickets inside the ride. We finally got past them and down to the loading platform but then there was a mixup that would have had the five of us split across two different trains, so we let some people go ahead of us so we could all ride together. Mistake! That was the last train to run before they shut the ride down because it had started raining outside! We waited for about 30 minutes there on the platform before we decided to give up because the girls were getting restless. It was a waste of a FastPass, but oh well. We headed out into the rain which made it seem like a good time to grab some dinner, which we did there in Frontierland.

Then it was back to Tomorrowland to catch a show on the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor. I always enjoy that show, and my daughter got to talk to Marty Wazowski (and be on the big screen) in the final act which made her day (Marty called her “the princess of Florida” so I guess that makes me the king ;-)). At least the rain had stopped by now. To use the rest of our FastPass Exchange passes we made two more sequential trips on Buzz Lightyear and then went back on Space Mountain . Gotta love those Exchange cards! As we came out of Space Mountain the evening fireworks were starting so we watched those from near the Tomorrowland Speedway. After that, we closed out the night with ice cream and the Main Street Electrical Parade. I didn’t think any parade music could be more annoying than the SpectroMagic theme, but this “new” old parade proved me wrong on that point. 😮

We were all pretty tired by this point and were ready to go … along with just about everyone else! Wow, you can fit a lot of people in the Magic Kingdom.

We eventually made it onto the resort monorail back to the Ticket and Transportation center, bid goodbye to our friends, and caught the tram back to our car to drive back to the hotel. Whew!

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