Magic Kingdom - Day 1 of parks!

Thanksgiving day we decided to skip the meal and head to Disney! Our flight wasn't until 1:40pm so there wasn't really the big rush to get any where which was good. My mom drove up to meet us and we left for the Manchester airport at 11am. Seth was literally overjoyed to be on the plane. He was even psyched when he SAW this picture. They all watched TV on the portable DVD player we bought for the trip and Seth did some extra walking back and forth between our rows but all was well. The bus ride to the hotel from the airport was a little long, well only 35 mins, but for Seth he was pretty much done with the whole travel experience, plus it was past dinner time. We checked in at 6:30pm and to our surprise had a nice turkey dinner at the hotel!! Woo hoo, turkey day after all. The boys had a tough time settling down and bedtime, much to my dismay, wasn't until 8:45 for Seth and almost 9:30 for Cal and Ben!

I thought this picture with the balloons was right after check in but it must have been after our first day due to their clothing.

On our first day, The Magic Kingdom, we got to the gates at 8:20am. Tour Guide Mike (TGM) told me it was going to take 35 mins to get there from my hotel, ummm, no. Some jerk on the bus told Eric that the very large double stroller we had was going to cause us headaches coming home from the Magic Kingdom and had him all nervous. He told Eric it took him 4 buses to get back to the hotel because they couldn't accommodate the stroller...yeah, maybe after the fireworks when everyone goes home but not for us! Anyway, we got there kind of early but we didn't have to wait too long because Mickey shows up on the train and they do a little dance to open the park - does anybody know this? I had never seen it and it was really cute. Gates opened at 8:45 so we were in and off and running.

Waiting for Magic Kingdom to open

We decided to skip TGM's advice on our first ride. I didn't think Dumbo was worth it since we'd be doing two other similar rides and I was under the impression that they couldn't drive the cars at the Speedway so we skipped that too. Although I was told later that they probably could have. Oh well. Anyway, we did our first EIGHT rides with NO WAITING. Yes, that's right, we walked right on every single ride, no line, no wait. We started with Winnie the Pooh, very cute, and then on to Snow White's Scary Adventure. Ben had been worrying about this ride for some time before we went on the trip. He saw a picture of the peddler woman in a book about Disney and was convinced this was NOT a ride for him. But he was such a trooper and went on after we assured him it would be ok. Next two rides were the classic Peter Pan and It's a Small World and then to Prince Charmings Carousel. Umm, does that carousel really only go around once?!! Oh well, they didn't care.

This might be on Snow White?

Tea cups! Go Daddy!

Still cruising along, we headed to Mickey's Toontown Fair and Seth and I walked through Minnie's house while everyone else hit the Barnstormer mini-coaster. We had the time so I figured why not? After that we all walked thru Mickey's house and then hopped a ride on the railroad to venture over to Splash mountain. Ok, so you have me here, we waited a whole FIVE minutes for Splash mountain and then a whooping 20 minutes for Thunder mountain (our longest wait the whole day).

After a fun-filled morning of riding it was time for lunch and what I thought was the best meal at Pecos Bills. We all skedaddled to Pirates of the Carribean while Eric ran to get a fast pass (FP) for Mickey's Philharmonic. Again, just a 5 min wait for Pirates, can you believe this?! Go TGM! After lunch we did the Enchanted Tiki Room and surprisingly Seth got a little sleepy. Must have been that late bedtime. Right outside the Tiki Room was the magic carpet ride which I PROMISED Cal we'd do since we didn't do Dumbo. We started to wait (15 mins was the wait time) and then realized we wouldn't make it to the Mickey Philharmonic show so we booked it there instead. The show was really cute and the boys loved it! Seth did so well keeping the 3D glasses on and watching every second of it. We REALLY wanted to fit the Haunted Mansion in so we did this next and waited for 15 mins. Totally worth it and the boys loved the fact that a ghost rides with them in the end!! It was time to follow TGM's advice and get our prime parade spot and Ben decided the magic carpets wasn't for him. So Ben and I high-tailed it to the parade spot while everyone else went to magic carpets.

Here we are sitting next to other TGM followers (guy in the red shirt) waiting for parade to start.

Eric had secured us FPs for the Jungle Cruise right before the parade which was a good thing because we bypassed a 50 min wait once the parade was over and went right on! Unfortunately, it was raining when we got off the ride BUT as we were going toward the castle trying to leave the park, this AMAZING rainbow appeared above the castle....come on, how much more MAGICAL can you get??? It was really really cool.

I realize I have 3 pictures of the rainbow but seriously can you even believe how lucky this is?? Perfect ending to a perfect day!!