Winter Break at Disney World - Day 2

December 27, 2011 - Today we will spend a little time at the Magic Kingdom, before going to spend some time with my dad, about a 90 minute drive from here.

After breakfast at the resort food court, we took the bus to the Magic Kingdom. It was about 11:00 AM by the time we got into the park. As we passed under the train station, we saw that they were getting set up for the Move it! Shake it! Celebrate it! parade to come through, so we settled in to watch it before we headed deeper into the park.

Once the parade was finished, we headed down Main Street towards the castle. Since we knew we were not going to be here for more than a few hours, and that the park was very crowded, my wife wanted to see the Dreams Come True show at the castle. We found ourselves a good spot to watch, but it was not to be. A bit of drizzle earlier had made the stage quite slippery, and all efforts to dry it off were not enough. The announcement was made that the show was being cancelled. We decided that we would come back for a later show and hope that it was able to be performed then.

Next goal was the Haunted Mansion, my favorite since I first saw it in Disneyland in 1969. The queue was listed at 35 minutes, but experience tells us that what we saw would not be nearly that long, so we got in line. Since I have been having trouble with my foot and am traveling with a scooter this trip, we decided to take the path of least resistance, and bypass the interactive graveyard and head directly into the foyer. Total time until we were in the attraction - about 15 minutes.

When we went back outside, we could tell that it had rained a bit while we were in the Haunted Mansion, but it had stopped. It was now time to think about having lunch, something which I thought might be an effort as crowded as the park was, but since it was right here, we decided to see how crowded Columbia Harbor House was. I parked the scooter out front while my wife went in to check it out, and while I was doing that the greeter came over to talk with me. He let me know that it was not terribly crowded (which my wife also said when she came out) and asked me if I knew that there was a handicapped section of the restaurant (I did not). So we had lunch at Columbia Harbor House.

After lunch we decided to see if the Dreams Come True show scheduled to be performed shortly would actually take place. We returned to the front of the castle and took our place as it appeared that the show would indeed go on. And right on time, it did!

However, as the show was almost over, I felt a few quick drops of rain. At first, it was nothing to worry about, but as rain tends to do, it became a heavy downpour within seconds. Naturally the show was immediately cancelled - it was almost over anyway - and my wife and I headed for cover, which we found under the Peoplemover track between Tomorrowland and the Tomorrowland Terrace restaurant. We waited the rain out for a bit more than a half hour until it stopped, and then decided that rather than take a chance and get caught again, since we would have to leave shortly anyway, we headed out and took the bus back to our room, where we dried off.

Soon it was time to head out to see my dad, but tomorrow we would be at EPCOT.


(More pictures of our day in the Magic Kingdom can be seen here.)