Anyways, we did Disney for one day. It was crowded. It was HOT (heat index over 100). It took a lot of planning! By the time we did decide to go (persuaded by Nathan's mom), I only had a day or two to do the actual research what with packing for the trip and doing Legoland. There is just an incredible amount of stuff to do and see and there is definitely a better and a worse way to do it.
We were 20 min out so we drove over and parked. Parking my friends...even parking in the front of the non-VIP lot...still involves walking because they don't run the trams as often in the mornings and they don't stop in that closest park of the parking lot!! So, 15 min walking to ticketing and waiting. Then, 10 min boat or slightly shorter tram ride over the lake to the actual park! Then, 10-15 min waiting to get every bag searched. Then, 5-10min ticketing plus more time for our second stroller rental. Then, trying to make it through a main street that looked like this and walking 20 min to fantasyland:
It was really time consuming walking. We arrived there just after it opened for us but it was 10am before we got to do anything at the park. I toyed around with the idea of getting a reservation at Beauty and the Beast and that would have been a smart thing to do to get in the park early and eat there even though it is a little $$. We would have gotten some nice pictures in an empty park!!
I also got a little caught up in the fastpass thing without looking around the park first to see where everything was located. I knew Nathan didn't want to deal with lines and that he and Samuel wanted rides (7 dwarves/Space Mtn) so I got them fastpasses to the most popular rides. Then, I got a group fastpass to the PeterPan midday as well as a princess Belle fastpass early in the day for Rosie and me and Mutti as well as a splash mountain pass. It turned out I had scheduled us for places across the park. Walking places in a certain time frame took time and was a little stressful. I also tried out the rider exchange for both Rosie and Flint. It worked but it was time consuming to break up the group and have one half wait on the other half then switch with half the kids.
I had this plan for the day that recommended doing a whole lot of shows for the hottest part of the day so you can relax. http://www.disneytouristblog.com/1-day-magic-kingdom-plans/ It would have been a great idea but the fastpasses kind of threw me and we should have gotten to the park at an hour before they opened to get to where we needed to be to do this plan! Well, more to know next time. ;) We did not buy the photopass thing where they take tons of pics of you and we honestly did not see people taking pictures with characters much in the streets. If we had I would have recommended buying one mickey band because the pictures for all the rides will assign themselves to your band as it registers it on the ride. Otherwise you have to wait for your pic to show up afterwards then scan your ticket.
Much learned! We still had fun. It was a long day! We left at 5pm for supper and returned just in time for the electric parade and stayed until 11:30pm. Rosie did take a nap in the parks in the stroller but Jon did not! He was out of it at the end. HA! We did this thing for snacks that worked well in the heat. We froze water bottles and put lots of deli meat, cheese and cheese sticks, and peanut butter crackers in there. It worked really well to fill us up!!! I had a few fun things in there too for the kids like fruit leather and frozen applesauce pouches.
I think the most interesting part of the park was that Flint - the guide dog - was able to go on many of the rides. He was kind of treated like a child in the 0-3 range so as long as there wasn't a 'bar' on the ride he got to hop on and come along. He rode things like the "People Mover", "It's a Small World", "Pirates", and he even met a Princess. He took every opportunity to sit down and relax when he could.
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