2013 April Vacation - Orlando, Florida - Day 6:

Magic Kingdom

Today was the day that we planned to do the Magic Kingdom.  We anticipated it being our busiest day since we had plans to go to the Electric Light Parade and see the fireworks.  Before heading out though, the boys enjoy the game room in the house!  Have I mentioned how awesome it is having all this space to spread out!

We park the van and head over to the monorail and I told everyone that the first thing I wanted to do before we did anything else was get a picture of all of us in front of Cinderella's castle!  Even though my camera is pretty much attached to me at all times, I still opted to take advantage of the Disney Photo Pass.  They are all set up with the correct settings for the venue they are shooting in.  And it turns out that some of my images came out blurry because I forgot to change my ISO from 200 to 3200 when we went indoors.  So it's worth having the pass just in case!

Disney Photo Pass Image

After we took care of my must have image, we headed straight to the race cars.  We knew that the lines would get long and we knew that the boys would want to race!

David taking Daddy for a ride!

Even the grandmother's got in on the fun!

Next we headed over to Fantasyland to ride on the new Dumbo ride and the Barnstormer!  We would also make a stop to meet Donald and Goofy (who we did not get to meet at Epcot like we did the last time we went to Disney!).  The boys all LOVED the Barnstormer they rode on it twice!

Looks like Auntie Kristin is having the most fun!

Meeting Goofy!

One with all of us!

Scottie and Grammy pose with Goofy too!

The boys and Scottie with Donald Duck

After we did the pictures with the characters we started heading towards MIL's favorite ride, It's a Small World After All.  But first the boys needed to cool off a bit in the splash pad!

Since the lines were not long (yet!) for the Small World and Winnie the Pooh rides, we took advantage of the short line to meet Tigger and Pooh!  MIL's favorite character is Tigger so she made sure to get in this one with the boys!

And now it's time for the ride everyone loves to hate...but Evan thought it was just the best!  That was pretty much what is face looked like the entire ride!  So much to see!

After Small World we did Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan.  At that point we were looking at it being close to lunch time.  And it was HOT!  We had already picked up Milk Shakes to drink while we waited on Peter Pan.  So we decided to finish up then and we'd come back to do the rest of the rides on our list (like Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean).

Daddy and Evan waiting for the plan!

Shaun and I take a picture in front of (my favorite princess!) Rapunzel's Tower!

Taking the monorail back to the van - ready for some lunch and a nap before we do it all over again!

After a nice long rest at the house, we headed back to finish seeing everything else we wanted to see before we would need to get in line for the Electric Light Parade.  Charlie went to get us a Fast Pass for Splash Mountain and while we waited we took some more pictures in front of the castle!  Evan was in the middle of a temper tantrum (which I was ingoring!) so he's not pictured.  Someday he will learn that he is not the boss!  Ha!  

After Charlie came back with our fast passes, we headed over to Adventure Land to ride on the Pirates of the Caribbean.  The boys love Jack Sparrow and all things related to pirates, so I knew they would love this ride!  And of course, it was not surprising, this was the store that they chose to spend some of their Disney gift cards they got from family at Christmas.

Evan tries on a Jake and the Neverland Pirate hat!

It was time to grab a quick bite to eat for dinner so that we could make it over to Splash Mountain in time for our Fast Pass.  MIL and GG, took Shaun and Evan back over to Fantasyland to ride on Small World again, and another ride depending on how long it would take us to ride.  We got over there a little early and decided that if the line for Thunder Mountain wasn't very long that Charlie could take David on before our fast pass expired.  But as it turns out it was shut down due to a mechanical issue so we just headed over to the Splash Mountain line.

Grammy and Scottie ready for the ride!

David is soaked after the big drop!

Soaked!

After we finished on Splash Mountain and saw that Thunder Mountain was still closed we headed back to meet up with MIL and GG.  We still had some time before we figured we needed to get over to Main Street, USA for the parade so we headed over to Tomorrowland so we could check out the Buzz Lightyear ride and as I expected, it was a big hit!

After the ride the boys saw Buzz Lightyear and so we got in line so the boys could get his autograph and picture!

We had time for one more ride, so the boys chose the race cars since it was so close and on our way to where we wanted to be for the Parade.  First they cooled off in the mister!

His Captain America pose, he's still pumped about meeting him during our vacation!

In line for the race cars!

And now it's getting dark, so it's time to find a spot for the parade.  But first we stopped for a family picture in front of the castle!

This was my firs time seeing the Magic Kingdom at night and I was so amazed!  I love how the castle is all lit up and it was really fun to watch it change colors.  It made me wish I had a tripod with me!  But this is good enough for our family vacation album!  

Almost time for the parade!

So pretty!

I am so glad that we got to Main Street, USA when we did because it was already packed.  Luckily we were able to find a spot that fit all of us and Evan's stroller.  I wasn't sure if he would make it but he did and ended up watching the whole parade with Scottie and his brothers up front!  I got them each a light staff to have for the show, which was very impressive!  And again made me wish for my tripod!

Captain Hook!  Evan's favorite!

After the parade we decided that it would be really tough to just sit for another half hour before the fireworks were to start, plus we all wanted to browse the stores.  So instead of waiting we headed over to the stores and looked around and let the boys spend the last of their money.  Evan ended up falling asleep at that point anyway.  As we were finishing up our shopping the fireworks started and we could still see some of them and we didn't end up having to wait in a long line for the monorail back to the parking lot!  It was a long and exhausting day, but totally worth it and the best part was that we planned in an R&R day so we would not have to wake up and rush out like we had been every other morning!

Magical!