Day 3 - Tuesday 8/18 – Magic Kingdom, ADR’s at Be Our Guest & Crystal Palace - PART I
We woke up bright and early as we had an 8am ADR at Be Our Guest. I put my alarm for 6am and DH and I got ready before the kids were up. We were dressed and out the door by 7am. By the time we got to MK entrance there was already a line for early ADR’s. They let us in at 7:45 and let me tell you it was such a magical experience, being able to walk through Main Street without a huge crowd trying to push past you. I was so giddy I was skipping, Dh laughed at me. We took some pictures in front of the castle and headed to BOG. The check-in was quick and easy and soon we were walking over the bridge while CM’s clapped and welcomed us.
We had pre-ordered our breakfast (which DH thought was insane, “how the heck am I supposed to know what I want for breakfast a month from now?”) so we were seated fairly quickly. We took a table in the main room and although we were all the way to the side closest to the drink dispensers you could see into the West Wing and hear the thunder. I thought it was pretty cool, unfortunately the thunder scared the crap out of DS (don’t know why since he was totally ok with the meteor shower at T-Rex). He jumped in my lap and would not let me put him down. So I had to eat breakfast with him in my lap. DH and I both had the Open-faced Bacon and Egg Sandwich. Oh my, that was one delicious egg sandwich! We both really enjoyed it. I was planning on sharing with DS but he was more interested in the pastries and fruit. Dh and I were stuffed from our sandwiches so we didn’t have any pastries, but DS had about 3 and seemed to like them. DD had baby cereal that I had brought as well as some fruit. DH and I drank coffee and I got DS and DD some apple juice.
Now the reviews on this place seem to be mostly in the “I liked it but not at $20 per plate” category. I will say that we really liked it, more than we thought we would and don’t feel $20 is too much for this meal since it includes pastries and drinks AND the food is delicious. DH agreed that being in the castle was a nice experience and he really liked being inside the park before the masses so I am sure we will be eating breakfast here again.
After we were done eating we got everyone a cup of ice water for the road and we were off to start our MK adventures!
Except….. right off the bat all my planning started to go awry! (ok, it didn’t really but it felt like it would) Here’s what happened:
My DS
loves Mickey Mouse, watches him all the time at home on the Disney Channel, on youtube, plays the apps, etc. When we went to MK in February he loved the talking Mickey at Town Square, I almost couldn’t pull him away from Mickey, he wanted to stand there and hug him all day! So for this trip I wanted to make sure we saw Mickey early in the day to get DS into the Disney mood and so we could get a nice family picture before we were all sweaty. When I asked on the boards about walking back to Main Street after BOG I was told it was a better idea to just stay in Fantasy Land where we could get a walk on ride on Winnie the Pooh or Peter Pan; possibly both.
However, Touring Plans showed Town Square Mickey’s lines getting longer after 10am. Skipping Mickey was not an option, neither was zig zagging back and forth through the park later in the day OR waiting in line longer than 20 minutes. I should add that everyone’s response to my question of walking back to Main Street was that we SHOULD NOT, not specifically that we COULD NOT. The reason I say this is because I assumed we could just walk right back to the front of the park before it officially opened, the same way we had walked over to BOG. Turns out I was wrong. After leaving BOG we walked past Cinderella’s castle and down the little hill. At the bottom of the hill before reaching the bridge to the hub a CM stopped us and asked where we were going, we said “Main Street” she said ok, wait here just a minute. It couldn’t have been later than 8:45 by now. We waited and waited ….I wasn’t really paying too much attention to what was going on because I was busy texting my dad. (my mom was having minor surgery that morning so I was checking in). And DH was busy wrangling the kids who were both trying to climb out of the stroller.
What I didn’t realize was the CM was making us wait for the RD crowd to reach us. When the CM said “ok you can go now”, I looked up to see the massive RD crowd making their way towards us. We were stuck, pushed up against the side wall as the crowd tried to squeeze past us to get to 7DMT. It was a horrible experience! We were getting swallowed up by the crowd and the people in the crowd were annoyed to have to get around us and our double stroller and making not-so-nice comments. Needless to say I was NOT pleased with this situation. Especially since it could’ve easily been avoided if the CM would’ve just told us we couldn’t go back to Main Street, or that we couldn’t get to the hub through that particular bridge. Eventually we managed to basically swim upstream through all the people and get to the hub to finally walk down Main Street to Town Square Mickey. This was really the only snag we encountered in our plan that day and in reality it wouldn’t have happened if I would’ve listened to everyone’s advice. Fortunately it didn’t really cause a disruption to our plans. We basically just lost any “lead time” we had gained by getting an early ADR. And looking back, for the way we wanted to schedule our day, being there at RD would have been just as good. The early ADR wasn’t really necessary but we will probably still do it again since we loved BOG so much.
So we finally get to the line for Mickey and the sign outside says it’s a 5 minute wait, while the Touring Plan app said 15minutes. The app was correct. This is was really the longest line we stood in all day. We finally get in to see Mickey only to find that DS is now terrified of him!
WHAT?! I have no clue why he was so scared since he loved this M&G only 7 months ago. DS was shaking, he was so scared. He just stood there grabbing DH’s leg. Mickey tried talking to him and asking him to skip around but DS would barely even look at him. Finally Dh picked DS up and said “let’s give Mickey a hug”. Ds gave Mickey a reluctant hug and we took some pictures. I’m still not sure what got into DS (we may be skipping this next time especially if we have ADRs for Chef Mickey’s)
Our next stop was Buzz Lightyear which was a walk-on. Great ride, DS loved shooting at things and DD wasn’t sure what was going on but she seemed to like it. We then headed to the Tomorrowland Speedway which according to the app was a 15 minute wait but when we got there the line was already pretty long and the sign said 25 minutes. This seemed like too long for us so we decided to skip it. We opted for a bathroom break instead which for us is more involved since both DH and I have to use the restroom in addition to changing 2 diapers. While DH was wetting our Frog Togs I gave DD a bottle and DS drank some water and had a left over BOG pastry.
Next up was our FP at Winnie the Pooh. The standby line already said 25 minutes so I’m glad we got FP for this ride. We followed Pooh with our FP for the Little Mermaid which we were all riding for the first time. I must say, I really enjoyed this ride. The theming was excellent and I can’t wait to ride it again in January. (plus this is my favorite Disney movie). We then headed over to Dumbo which was practically a walk on and then DH took DS on the Barnstormer. I was a little worried about how DS would react, but DH said he really liked it. (this line was about 10 min long). While DS and DH were on Barnstormer, DD fell asleep so when they returned I left DH with the stroller while DS and I went to see Donald, Goofy, Daisy, and Minnie at Pete’s Silly Sideshow. Once again DS was terrified and wouldn’t even look at Donald or Goofy. Fortunately he perked up by the time we made it to Daisy and Minnie. This time he was his usual cuddly self. Hugging them and not wanting to let go. Minnie was even waving me away, telling me to leave him with her. It was adorable!
By now it was almost noon so we had just enough time to walk over to Peter Pan, park the stroller, ride, and then head over to Crystal Palace for our ADR. Before leaving Fantasy Land we stopped at the FP kiosk and got Jungle Cruise FPs for 2pm. Our ADR was for 12:45 but I read that you should get there early. We checked in at CP at 12:15 and were seated almost immediately. It was getting pretty hot out by now so we were happy to sit down in the air conditioning. Our server was very nice and told us it would take about an hour and a half for all the characters to make their way around and that we should take our time and not feel like we had to rush out once we were done eating. I’m glad she said that because that’s exactly what we did. On the walk over from to Crystal Palace DD had fallen asleep again so DH sat at the table holding her while I got DS and myself food. Once I was done eating Dh handed DD over to me (still sleeping) and got himself a plate. She finally woke up in time to see the characters. The characters didn’t start coming around till we were almost done eating but we didn’t mind. It was nice to sit and relax, plus the food was really good so we were happy to go up for 2nds and 3rds. The character interaction here was great, they made sure to stop at each table and spend a good amount of time with the kids. They even came over and interacted with DD even though she was still groggy from her nap.