My trip to Florida over New Years was well worth the travel time, the planning, and leaving home. The sun definitely made up for the constant rain and cold during the winter back in Seattle.
When first arriving to DisneyWorld, the archway welcoming you to the parking area is enough to make you excited! I remember looking over to the car next to us to see a little boy rocking out and ready for all the fun. We only decided to go to the Magic Kingdom, because of costs, even though I would have loved to venture over to Animal Kingdom as well.
Although, the morning for us was a little cold and rainy, we didn't let it completely dampen our spirits because everything looked so magical. It was still decorated with festive Christmas wreaths and garlands, lights hanging everywhere and all of the workers, at least out in the shops and the streets, were very friendly and helpful (some people at the rides seemed very less enthused).
We started off the day at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a nice start to the day in FrontierLand and a great way to get us even more excited for the rest of the day.
*As a side note, I think we waited until after the ride to go look at our fast passes and we should have done that when we first walked through the gates...That was a major bummer to have to wait all day to use some of them (and some were all taken) even though it did work out well for us in the end.
We strode through AdventureLand next and went to meet Aladdin, which was my friends "need-to" item of the day.
Meeting the characters was a great extra I hadn't even really thought about before getting there, but it was definitely a great feeling to even be standing next to a character from your childhood.
Later in the day, we also met Ariel, Gaston, Beast, Anna and Elsa.
Mind you, we are the park from when it opened and we stayed till just before it closed, so we were there for a good 16 hours walking our butts off trying to see and do as much as we could.
More rides, circling through the whole park at least a couple times, before hitting the time of the day where the dominos were falling into place.
Being able to use one fast pass for The Haunted Mansion, running to see the fireworks and then trying to get out of the swarms of people to get to our dinner reservation.
The New Years fireworks display (although it was Jan 2nd) was amazing and for sure a highlight. The music from countless Disney movies playing, the flashes and sparks dancing and glowing along. There were two shows and we stayed for both.
We then, like I said, had to book it to our dinner reservation at Be Our Guest (Beast's castle) because we were already late. They were very nice there though and we got seated pretty quickly.
We only decided to get dessert there because the actual food was very pricey, so we got a couple lovely cupcakes and, of course, had to try some of the grey stuff! Which is delicious, by the way.
After we got to meet Beast, which was lovely.
Traipsing around the park again after the sugar, our favorite ride through the day was probably the Little Mermaid ride, sitting in a clamshell and singing the songs. We rode on this for the second time at this point.
We went to TomorrowLand to finish it out and wait for our last fast pass for Space Mountain. The Orbiter and Buzz Lightyear took up our time and then we headed over.
We decided to just wait in line because we were too early, but by the time we got through and on, we were able to scurry back and use our fast pass to get back on in 5 minutes, score!
That was the end to our magical day. Filled with much happiness and thankful hearts.
We would have stayed longer, but we did have to go to Universal in the morning, so sleep was a necessity.
Worth it? Oh yes. Recommend it? Highly.
They don't call it the happiest place on Earth for no reason.
More to come soon!
Cheers and safe travels everyone!
