We have just recently arrived back at the apartment we are renting for the week in the Orlando Area. Today we did a 10 hour whirlwind tour of the 4 Disney Theme Parks. Sound crazy? Well maybe a little bit. But mommy and I are both former cast members and we knew what we wanted to do and how to get from point A to point B quickly and efficiently.
Firstly I need to give big props to our friends Andy & Janelle, without whom this day would not have happened. Don't want to spend $300 for two one day park hopper passes to Disney? Spend 10 years becoming good friends with Disney Cast Members and then beg, borrow and steal their comp passes. :-)
Our day started a little late, we slept in and had to do a couple of things before we could head to the park. Arrived at Magic Kingdom (Park #1) right around noon. Decided to take the ferry across from the parking area to the park itself and let Aiden enjoy the boat. Our goal at Magic Kingdom was to do as much of Fantasyland as possible, if time permitted we wanted to get to Pirates of the Caribbean since neither of us has seen it since the "additions". Our first ride was the Dumbo ride. October and a 30 minute wait... who says that Disney attendance is down?? After Dumbo we walked across and right into Philharmagic, which was cute although it scared Aiden (this will turn into a running theme throughout the day with shows). Afterward we went over to Pinnochio's Food Haus or whatever it is called, picked up a little lunch and actually caught a table right next to the windows over looking Small World Boarding. Throughout lunch Aiden waved at all the people riding on the boats out the window. And after lunch we went right into the Small World Line. About 15 minutes for Small World, and it is pushing 2:20. Our goal was to make it over to Hollywood Studio's for the 3pm Parade, so off we go to ground transportation. We missed out on Peter Pan's flight (stating a 45 minute wait) and did not make it over to Pirates. But MK was a success. Favorite part so far for Aiden:Dumbo.
There is a bus station right outside of the Magic Kingdom and we expected to hop a bus and run right over to Studios. But No! the bus terminal at the Kingdom is only Resort buses. So we have to get back on the Ferry, cross over to the Transportation Center, then catch a bus from there to Studios. No way we make it by 3pm, we barely made it on a bus for Studios by 3. So we walk into Hollywood Studios (park #2) about 3:20 and figure the parade is over. There is a lot of music going on but we figure it is just general park music. Walking back toward the hat we saw a big Monster's Inc float. The Parade was still going on! We managed to find a decent spot and there are 4-5 songs left in the show stop. Aiden was jamming a little bit in his stroller, but was not interested in getting out. (He had fallen asleep on the bus ride to Studios and the noise of the parade woke him back up.) After the Parade we wandered back looking for the Cars display. They have a full size Lightning and a full size Mater out for people to come up and have a picture with. Aiden and Daddy got our picture taken with the cars. Aiden was a bit skeptical, but he kept pointing and yelling out "Mater" and "Light Queen". We made our way from Cars over to Playhouse Disney where Handy Manny was out doing photo ops. Aiden waffled back and forth about taking a picture with Manny, and eventually the answer was "no" until we got into the Playhouse Disney theatre for the show, at which point all he wanted was Handy Manny. We watched the Playhouse Disney show which Aiden alternated between clapping for and being scared of. Afterward, mommy wanted to go see the High School Musical 3 show by the hat. We we went out to that and Aiden grooved a little to the music. That finished off our list of things to do at Studios. next stop, Animal Kingdom.
We had really wanted to see the new Finding Nemo show at Animal Kingdom (Park #3) but the High School Musical show was at 4:30 and the last Finding Nemo of the day was 4:45. So obviously timing wise that didn't work out. Still we could make it over to see the last
Festival of the Lion King show at 5:45. We made it to AK about 5:15, plenty of time to make it to Festival. But Aiden had other plans. Like falling asleep. Bless him he did good to stay awake as long as he did, but he was tuckered out. So we just found a place to sit and hang out for a bit and let him sleep. Timing wise we COULD have done the show, but didn't happen. We were in the park though, so it counts. Our friend was going to be in the little park closing show at 6:15, so we stuck around for that, by which time Aiden had woken up and was grooving along in his stroller, again unwilling to get out and dance. After the Park closing celebration at AK it was time to move on to Epcot.
We made it to Epcot (Park #4) a bit before 7pm. Our goal here, quite simple, Illuminations, the finale firework display. We had time to do a few other things, so in looking over our options decided to head for the Living Sea and the new Finding Nemo adventure. They have taken the living Sea ride and transposed video of the Finding Nemo characters over the existing Tanks, which is pretty cool. After the ride we headed over to Turtle Talk with Crush. This was a neat little interactive, just as cool as the little videos of it you see on TV. Pretty fantastic first hand interaction. Aiden, once again, was scared. But he made it through with his face buried in daddy's shoulder. After Turtle Talk we needed to grab a bite to eat, which we did at the Electric Umbrella with some decent bacon Cheeseburger and fries (we deserved it with the walking we did). After dinner we had just enough time to check out the newly retooled Spaceship Earth (mostly the same ride with a neat little personal interaction thing added in) and then find a spot for Illuminations. Mommy and I have always loved Illuminations, although if there had been a Fantasmic! show at Studios tonight we would have gone there instead as that is where we both worked and met each other. Aiden was a little scared by the noise, but he liked the fireworks and applauded sporadically throughout. He alternated between being held by one of us and sitting in his stroller, mostly preferring his stroller actually. After Illum it was the long walk back to the exit and Aiden's first ride on the monorail. We left the parks right around 9:30.
So all told we did just under 10 hours to scoot through all four Disney Parks. Yeah we didn't do a ton of stuff in any single one park, but we got to get a lot of highlights in and really don't think we missed anything we truly wanted to do other than Pirates and Fantasmic! and Fant was not on today so that was never an option to begin with. We could have spent a lot more time in MK with all the things there are to do there, and maybe next visit we can devote a whole day there. But like I said at the top, we knew what we wanted to see and we had a plan to get it done. Now it is time for a night of rest. There are a ton of pictures, but since I am on a Internet connection that is barely saving my progress on the typing I won't be able to upload photos until we get home on Monday. Till then you will just have to use your imagination.
