Our first day in the parks was a Saturday and a holiday (Veteran's Day) at that. We were anticipating heavy crowds, but we really wanted to start out our trip at Magic Kingdom. Since the kids had no idea what Disney World actually was, we thought doing the main park first was important. We also knew that the crowds may be crazy, but they would get less and less as the week went on. We went into it with the attitude that we will see and do what we can, and hit the rest another day.
Our day started bright and early and we were there as close to rope drop (8 AM) as possible.
Everyone rents from the same few stroller companies, so all of the strollers look alike. I made a little sign for ours and added ribbons across. It made it very easy to find in the sea of strollers.
Getting ready to ride the monorail for the first time.
We didn't get a ton of great family pictures. We didn't always want to wait in line, and no matter when and where we tried we were always fighting the sun.
I've been to Disney a few times, but never when they had fast passes. That was new to me, and I didn't effectively use the system until a few days in. But I did come with a plan and a strategy! I wrote our schedule (not minute by minute, but suggestions with fast pass times listed). I had a 3 x 5 card for each day that had all of the information I needed. Then each card was laminated and fit easily into my running belt. I'm sure some of you are rolling your eyes at me, but I promise you all of that planning and those cards are what made our trip AMAZING. I had multiple people comment on them when they saw me looking at them. :)
Our first fast pass wasn't until 10 something, so our plan was to ride as many of the kiddie rides as we could. Everyone goes to the big ticket rides, or rides they know will have long lines later. We went and rode Barnstormer, Dumbo, the Tea Cups, the Tomorrowland Speedway... things like that. We knocked out so many in just a short amount of time.
The kids were excited that they could sit together on the Winnie the Pooh ride.
Getting ready to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride
Here is an example of our money saving... We ate cereal in our room for breakfast. Then for lunch, we ate the food that was delivered by Instacart. I even brought some of our leftover Disney themed paper plates. Some days we had Uncrustables (pb&j sandwiches), other days we had hummus. I tried to pack things that were easy, but also high in protein. We had chips, apples, grapes, cookies, fruit snacks, and more. The kids each got a new water bottle in their bags too, so we always had tons of water on hand.
We had a fast pass for Enchanted Tales with Belle. This is one I've never done before, but I had read that it was a must. A fast pass is recommended, because it's actually a little show and they only allow a small amount of people in at a time. First you go in a room and the cast members explain what is going to happen. They asked the kids to roar like the beast. Olivia roared the loudest and most enthusiastic and she was chosen for the Beast--which ended up being just magical.
The casts members tell a story while Belle and the children act it out.
Olivia got to dance with Belle!
I mean... look at that face!
They make sure that every child that wants to participate gets a prop. Michael was even one of the guards.
At the end, each child gets to come up and take a picture with Belle and she gives them a bookmark. Logan had the entire room of parents laughing because he was being so bashful. Plus, when you add in those dimples... :)
These princesses had him blushing! Ha!
And then Belle kissed him!!
This was one of our most favorite things that we got to do!
Michael took a picture of the kiss from Belle. Logan was slightly obsessed. He kept saying throughout the day, "it's a good thing you took a picture of it!"
Here's another budget tip: You can buy a popcorn bucket for around $10. Then you can refill it over and over at all the different parks for only $1.50. The kids loved this.
Also, we heard that in Florida it can rain a little each day, so we came prepared. It really only rained a little on our first day. We had rain coats and ponchos just in case.
Thanks for those bubbles Tinkerbell!
Our last fast pass of the day was kind of late. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is a hot ticket ride. Our travel agent got our fast pass for later in the day. We rode it close to 5 PM. Then we immediately left the park.
And it wasn't a minute too soon. These 2 fell asleep on the way to the car.
But our day wasn't done!!! Here's why-- Disney publishes park hours a few months in advance. Then, as it gets closer to that day, they may change and extend the hours based on crowds. When we originally planned out the day, it was suppose to be open from 9 AM to 9PM with Extra Magic Hours (EMH) from 9 to 11. Extra Magic Hours are when you stay on property, you get to come early or stay late depending on the day and how they are offering it. They aren't available every day and times vary. But a few weeks before our trip, they changed the hours. They made opening at 8 and closing at midnight. Then they had EMH from 12 AM to 2 AM. That is CRAZY!!!! My first thought was that was no good for us. We have two small children!! But when I started looking at our day and when our fast passes were, I thought it actually may work in our favor. Olivia is a night owl and regularly stays up in her room until 11 reading. (Despite her 8 PM bedtime!) I knew if we could get the kids a good nap, then we could take advantage of these crazy hours. Because of our schedule and also only staying on site for a few nights, this was the ONLY night where we could take advantage of the EMH. So we decided to go for it!
By the time we got out of the park it was close to 5:30. We picked up a fast food dinner, ate quickly, and we all headed to bed shortly after 6 PM. We slept until around 8:30. We actually had to wake the kids up! So between that and their nap on the way out of the park, they probably got close to 3 hours of sleep. I don't know about your kids, but if my kids nap, they are up late. Plus, the nap itself was late in the day. They had no problem hanging the rest of the night!
We were back in the park shortly after 9. It was a little rough at first, because Main Street was crowded from the parade and people trying to leave. But after that, we went and rode a ton of rides.
We walked past Ariel's Grotto and saw that the wait was 5 minutes, so we headed in there!
Logan said, "I don't know what to do! I just don't know what to do." LOL! The camera lady and the cast member were both cracking up.
Since there wasn't much of a wait, we got a lot of time with her. It was really nice.
By the end of the night we had rode almost, if not all of the rides in the park. Some of them we rode multiple times. At the end of the night we were on the Barnstormer and the cast member said we could just stay seated if we wanted to ride again. We rode that thing 5 times in a row! The same thing happened on the Tea Cups, only Mommy can only handle that ride 1 time in a row! Logan got so spoiled, because the next day whenever we rode a ride he liked he would say, "I just want to stay on it." Too bad it doesn't work like that!
From 12 to 2 there were very few people there. Apparently no one else is crazy enough like us to keep our kids out that late. Ha! It was crazy and it was an exhausting day, but it was so good!! I would do it the same way all over again.
Day 1 was everything we could have hoped it would be and more. Honestly, even though the crowd calendar said it was an 8 out of 10, we didn't feel like it was that bad. The longest we waited for a ride was an hour and that's because we chose to use it as sort of a break. Everything else was 25 minutes or less. We all went to bed tired, but happy.
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