I was, as usual, awake early. I let Nick sleep slightly later today, given our plan for the morning. So we got ready and left the room shortly after 7, and headed to the food court so that Nick could get real breakfast before we got the day started. Side note, the food courts don’t open early enough for being on the first bus out of the resort in the morning. While it’s a money saver, I don’t love it. I got a yogurt parfait and one of the small king cakes (because it’s Mardi Gras!), and Nick got a breakfast platter.
The parfait was good. Nick said the eggs on his breakfast platter were terrible, but the rest of it was good. The king cake had good flavor but the outside layer was very dry.
Once we were finished breakfast (about 7:30), we headed for the bus stop, where we quickly realized that we were much better off sticking to my typical plan of being on the first bus out. Holy wall of humanity. Is anyone still sleeping? And why is everyone going to Magic Kingdom? It’s Tuesday, not Monday!
Thankfully there were a couple of Transportation leads at the bus stop calling in more buses, so buses started rolling in for Magic Kingdom every couple of minutes, and at one point we had two loading simultaneously. They packed at least 4 buses to standing room only in about a 15 minute span. Just let that sink in. And that was for early entry.
We made it to the very crowded Kingdom and were let right into the park.
They checked our Magic Bands to make sure we were resort guests near the bridge to Tomorrowland, and then we were off. First stop, Buzz Lightyear, after a quick bathroom detour that Nick would have preferred to not have because he wanted “to go shoot things!”. You can take the boy out of rural NH, but you can’t take the rural NH out of the boy…
Obviously Nick beat me on Buzz Lightyear (although I was actually winning initially), but it was fun, and we got through the ride right before it went down. Phew!
Next, the Peoplemover! It’s a must do! And yes, it was cool this morning…like 54 degrees. While riding the Peoplemover we marveled at the absurd length of the line for Space Mountain. It stretched back to Buzz Lightyear. And then a friend at home who is a fellow Disney fan messaged me that Mine Train was down. That explains it! And then Buzz went down. Yikes!
After putting our feet up it was time to head for Adventureland. Rope drop occurred as we were reaching the Hub, so for a minute or two we definitely felt like fish swimming upstream. But then things settled down. I snagged a couple statue pictures as we headed towards our attempted first stop, the Jungle Cruise where we stepped into line near the camels. I made the mistake of checking MDE, which said the wait was already 45 minutes. I told Nick we were aborting that mission and moving on. As we walked to Pirates, he informed me that the line actually wasn’t that long; they hadn’t filled in the real queue yet. #shortpeopleproblems. Oh well. Next trip, maybe.
Pirates was only about a 10 minute wait, so we rode that, and then checked out wait times and sort of put a plan together. Rides were going down left and right and it was holiday level crowds, so we really had to plan on the fly. So….off to Small World.
Small World was posted as a 35 minute wait, but that wasn’t bad compared to the other attractions, and this one was a priority this trip. We lost my grandmother in November. She was 97 and had been unwell for a very long time, so her death was not unexpected, but the circumstances kinda were. The tiny hospital in a Covid surge area restrictions that meant there were no goodbyes, and her death coming while we were already in crisis following my (much healthier) Grandfather breaking his femur 5 weeks earlier were surprises too. Small World was Grammy’s favorite, so for this trip, it was a must do. This was for her.
Thankfully the wait was actually only about 20 minutes (over-inflating to sell Genie+ much?!). While waiting, I mobile ordered us two Tropical Serenades from Aloha Isle. Coconut dole whip POG juice floats were definitely a must do!
Small World was, well…Small World, and we made our way straight to Aloha Isle for our treats after. Pickup was painless and worked much more smoothly than how things seemed to be going at the in-person ordering line. We both thoroughly enjoyed our floats, because coconut and POG juice is a match made in heaven. I really hope these become a permanent thing and not just a 50th anniversary offering. We enjoyed our floats while watching the celebration Cavalcade, and it was clear Nick liked this cavalcade concept as much as I do.
When the cavalcade ended, I noticed one of the country bears up on the roof.
Then since we had a little time to kill before the cavalcade that I really wanted to see, we headed for another ear worm: The Enchanted Tiki Room. The timing of this show worked perfectly for being able to catch the Adventure Friends cavalcade.
I don’t think Nick had done the Tiki Room before. I don’t think he’ll do it again. I’m running out of these surprise things to torture him with haha. Over the years there’s been the Beverly, Imagination, and now Tiki Room. He’s still talking about the Beverly almost 10 years later…
We escaped the singing birds and made our way back to Frontierland for the Adventure Friends cavalcade. Guys, if you see only one cavalcade make it this one. It’s a long cavalcade and has so many usually not seen in the parks characters. Loved it!
Now it was time for picture taking. We made our way back toward the Hub to do some statue picture taking. We even ran into someone that had bought a car from Nick while waiting to take a picture.
After our Hub pictures, we headed down Main Street to do pictures with Mickey. The wait was posted at only 25 minutes, and I knew he was wearing his 50th costume. The wait was actually only about 10 minutes. And I have to say, I actually don’t mind these distanced meets.
From here we headed for Tomorrowland for more statue pictures.
Then we rode Carousel of Progress. This is one Nick doesn’t think he’s done before, but despite the ear worm, he actually liked this one. Yay! After COP, we both decided we were starving, and honestly, it was a little late to be eating with an early dinner reservation. A quick look at what was available for mobile order led us to Friar’s Nook, where we waited a solid 15 minutes after our arrival (despite hitting “I’m here” when we were near the Teacups) for our food. The food was worth the wait though. It was really tasty. I had tots with cheese sauce (tater tots and plastic cheese…a combo I never knew I needed in my life), Nick had the bratwurst which comes in a pretzel roll with tots, and we split the Mr. Toad cake, which is chocolate and peanut butter mousse. Everything was delicious, even if we did have to eat standing up, holding the tray we were eating off of. Have I mentioned it was busy today?
From here, we did a bit more picture taking.
We then hit up Philharmagic for some air conditioning and to see the new Coco clip. It was posted as a 30 minute wait. We walked straight into a loading theater. Enough of the Genie+ antics Cheapass! And then, via the Main Street stores, we exited the park.
After some picture taking out front, we hopped on monorail green and headed for the Polynesian.
We were about an hour early for our reservation at O’hana but the Polynesian lobby is a nice calm place to chill out. It was a welcome break. We poked around the store and I filled our refillable mugs. In case anyone was wondering, Captain Cook’s has the very old school soda fountains. But they still had lemonade. Phew.
Eventually it was time for our early dinner at O’hana. We were seated near a window, and had a great serving team. I had the Lapu Lapu to drink and Nick got a backscratcher. We both shook our heads when we realized where the backscratcher that comes with the drink originated. Really Chappek?! Dinner was delicious, and they brought us a massive helping of noodles when we asked for more. Our only complaint was that the beef was a little uneven. Some pieces were cooked perfectly and some were WAY overcooked. But otherwise it was a delicious meal, and they do much better here at managing food waste than Sebastian’s, because they bring small portions and then bring you more.
Eventually we left O’hana, once again in a food coma, me regretting my thought process of going back to the park after the meal. That was NOT happening. This is definitely a meal for a non-park day! Hopefully I can make it back to Magic Kingdom later in the week! We monorailed back to the Magic Kingdom and took a couple pictures on our way to the buses.
We didn’t have to wait very long for a bus, and then it was back to the hotel where I crashed VERY early, despite knowing I could sleep in the next day.
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