If you missed the post on Animal Kingdom, you can read about it here. Second park to post about is Magic Kingdom. The first of the 4 Disney parks to be built in Florida. This is actually my 6th time visiting the Magic Kingdom! 1 time as a child and 5 times as an adult. Plus Disneyland once!
We actually visited the Magic Kingdom 3 times during this vacation. Since we stayed on Disney property, we had the park hopper pass. Another benefit of staying on property is that the parks are open extended hours for those people staying there. You just need to show your room key (aka the Key to the Kingdom) to ride attractions. When we arrived Sunday evening, Magic Kingdom was open until 1 a.m. with extended hours, so we popped over for a few hours.
Disney does the fireworks shows at park closing for all their parks with the exception of Animal Kingdom. No fireworks there because of the animals. This makes for a huge mass exodus once the fireworks are done, which I really, really hate. So, since the park had extended hours for on property guests, that meant after the fireworks at 9 pm, everyone else left and the park was open to the resort patrons for another few hours. Here is a tip for you. Visit Fantasy Land in this park on a night like this because it gets swamped with little children during the daytime hours. So, we rode this:
Welcome to your ear worm for the day. 
It’s like a nightmare by the time you get to the end LOL!
Please note – you are not allowed to take flash pictures on rides, but you can take them sometimes without flash or you can video rides if you have no external light source. Listen to the attraction attendants as to what they allow. They will always tell you. It ruins the ride for other people if you use flash, so just don’t do it.
Fantasy Land has another of my favorites – the Winney the Pooh ride! You get to go in a big hunny pot.
My most favorite ride in the Magic Kingdom is the Haunted Mansion. In fact, that was the very first ride we went on Sunday night!
I was giggling like a little kid on this ride. I love it!
This is the daytime view at the entrance to Magic Kingdom. They actually are doing a lot of rennovation on this particular park, so a fair number of things were closed. You can see the big crane in the background behind the castle working on Fantasy Land. They are supposed to be opening up the new stuff later this year.
Daytime view of Cinderella’s castle
It has a beautiful mosaic walk through depicting the Cinderella story. The detail is just incredible.
On to Frontier Land and Splash Mountain! This is a cool log flume ride. I took this shot while on the ride as we floated by the big drop. Then I put my camera away to keep it dry!
The ride is really lovely and goes through the story of Br’er Rabbit. Then there is the drop at the end as he escapes through the briar patch. The camera catches you as you go down the hill to make a big splash.
Note John ducking down. I was full head up and got soaked LOL! This is a very fun ride. No line either. We walked in all the way up to the line and got right on! Loved it when that happened.
When there is a long line, another benefit of staying on property is that you can use the Fast Pass option. You put your room card into a kiosk and it prints out a ticket for you with what time to come back to ride an attraction. Instead of waiting in the long lines, you just go during the time on the Fast Pass ticket and only wait maybe 5 or 10 minutes in a special line.
That is very, very cool. Jungle cruise is a classic ride.
It’s cute. I am a sucker for any train or boat ride.
Of course, I like the safari ride much better in Animal Kingdom with the real animals. 😀
Adventure Land also has the Pirates of the Caribbean, another one of my favorite rides. It was updated adding in Johnny Depp as an animatronic, which was cool.
This daytime visit was on Friday, and I have to say I was really tired of people at this point. This park had the most people in it during our whole visit. Plus, I had laryngitis and John had to do any talking or ordering for me. The next time we come, I would definitely *not* do Magic Kingdom on a Friday.
I had the yummiest snack that day, too. Fruit tart! This was from the Main Street Bakery.
We ate some very good food this week, even for mass produced food!
Something not to overlook is the castle rose garden. This is just past the castle before the entrance to Tomorrow Land.
You know I was all over this! On my bucket list is to come here during the Flower and Garden show at Epcot.
Tomorrow Land has been updated since the last time we were here (and it needed it!).
They replaced the Alien Adventure attraction with Stitch and that was totally lame. Boo on that one. Otherwise, the updates were nice.
Bye Magic Kingdom!
Next park up will be Hollywood Studios, formerly known as MGM.
It looks like you had a wonderful vacation! I’m jealous of that sunshine and your dessert!!!
Ahhh, Disney! It’s one of my favorite places on the planet, I can’t wait to see the new and expanded Fantasyland even though Tomorrowland is my favorite. Splash Mountain is so awesome! Have you ever seen Song of the South that it’s based on?
How fun! That’s great you could avoid the crowds with the extra hours and FastPass options. Maybe staying at the park is a good option. Did you find the costs of staying at Disney much more expensive than staying at a hotel close by, but outside the park?
It is a good option to stay there. If you stay at a value resort (like we did), it really is worth it because of the free transportation, extra hours and just the convenience. There are non Disney hotels on property, but they are much more expensive. You could stay off property all together, but then would have to pay the parking fee for the car (and rent one if you didn’t drive).
Great pictures!!! The mosaic looks really awesome.
I am always up for a boat ride…the other rides, not so much.
Looking forward to the next tale!
Wow, it really looks a lot like Disneyland! Thanks for describing all those pluses for staying on property. My brother is a Disney fanatic, and I think he would like to know all that. The mosaic is beautiful–that’s not at Disneyland. And I laughed at your comment about Tomorrowland. Sometimes when you go it seems more like Yesterdayland LOL. The fruit tart looks totally amazing. I want one now.
I like Pirates, the Haunted Mansion, and the Log Ride too. And the Jungle Ride of course. I like the little kid rides in Fan tasyland too. LOL at ‘Its a Small World’ being in your brain. Feel sorry for my poor dogs, who will now be listening to it for the next few days…
Love the reports, its a small world is my husbands favorite. Very manly I know.
Missed you! Thank you for sharing your pics! Love the log ride shot, even with John ducking.
I’m enjoying reading about your trip so much! I’ve only been to Epcot and Magic Kingdom when I was in Florida, and I had fun comparing/contrasting with Disneyland, where I went quite a lot when I was growing up. Pirates and Haunted Mansion are my favorites!
Looks like you guys are having a great time! The last time I was at the Magic Kingdom I was running through it for the Princess Race, so seeing your pictures brings back memories…
My favorite ride was most definitely the Tower of Terror at MGM – we went on it about ten times!
I’ve been to Disneyland almost 20 years ago and looking at your pictures I definitely want to go back. Maybe R. wants to come to Eurodisney with me someday.
I don’t like crowds either and think I would be annoyed by the end of the day too 🙂
That splash mountain is fun, a few parks here in Holland have those too and this is one of the things I’m not scared of and actually like doing.
looove and livin’ vicariously.
still.
Thanks for the pictures, we live just 100 miles away and it is still amazing to see them
I’ve only been to Disney as an adult! Loved going when my kids were 5 & 3 and seeing it for the first time with them. My 77 year old parents love it and have been there many times, after we all left the nest!
Wow this brings back memories. Years ago my grandparents flew my older brother and me to FL for a week and we went to Disney. That’s my only time I’ve ever been there. It was so much fun and I loved Splash Mountain. What a riot. Wish Ben could handle crowds more so I could convince him to take me sometime. 🙂
Thanks so much for the tour Lori and the tips. We never managed to get our kids here but i still hope one day to make the trip. Looks like you guys had a fab time! Hugs! deb
The last time I was at Disney was in 1978. It has changed a lot since then, lol! I’ve heard that the Disney food is as good as you get in 5-star restaurants world wide. So far, you seem to be confirming that.
Looks like a great time was had by all! Welcome home!
Oh Lori, this post just ooozes fun!!! And yes, I AM humming “it’s a small world” to myself now. DANGIT!!! Have a good Monday!!!
So much fun for you Lori – looks like home for me! 😉