I’m back. Last edition, I told y’all about the food, the overall experience, booking your trip and Bippity Boppity Boutique. This time I’m going to break down two of the parks, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom and tell you what we liked and didn’t like...there isn’t much we didn’t like.
Magic Kingdom
We only allotted one day for each park, but this is definitely a two-day park if you can swing it in the budget.
However, we got there prior to early entry at 8:30 a.m. and shut the park down with the firework show. Open to close!
We were extremely fortunate with rain clouds throughout the day that provided free shade and extremely low and really unheard of wait times for rides and character interactions.
We got into the park took some pictures down pain street in front of the castle and then Marisa, Natalia and I headed to her Bippity Boppity Boutique appointment, while Nana and Papa took Jaden on the big carousel. Apparently, also while we were in our BBB appointment, Jaden, Nana and Papa pretty much walked on to the Winnie the Pooh ride, only waited 20 minutes for Seven Dwarfs Mine train, which is a ride most people spend money on a lightning lane for, and rode the carousel again.
After we got out of Natalia’s appointment, we hopped in line to meet Tianna and a mystery person, which ended up being Merida from Brave and we also got to meet Cinderalla and Snow White, both lines were about five-minute waits. We all tried to pull the Sword from the Stone, but were unsuccessful. We rode the carousel with Jaden and Natalia, where we saw Cinderella’s step sisters, which was cool. I had never seen them before.
We happened to see Captain Hook walking around and were able to snag and autograph and Jaden took a pic with him. Another character I had never gotten to interact with. We took the kids on Winnie The Pooh, before heading to our lunch reservation at Crystal Palace where we got to meet Eyore, Pigglet, Tigger and Pooh Bear.
After lunch we headed to Adventure land where we walked on to the Magic Carpet ride, ate some Dole Whip, while waiting for Aladdin and Jasmine, who we were first in line for and Marisa and Jaden rode the Magic Carpets a second time, because Aladdin is Marisa’s favorite. Natalia missed out on this part, because she was snoozing in the shade with Nana and Papa. We might have been on vacation, but that girl did not miss nap time.
Also in Adventureland, we swapped kids, because Natalia woke up and Jaden passed out in the stroller, so I went and met Captain Jack Sparrow, which was really cool. That was an interaction that eluded me in the past. Then we took Natalia on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was only a 10 min wait; again unheard of to have such a low wait time.
After that we headed back towards the castle and across the park to Tomorrowland, where we met Mirabel from Encanto. We also rode the Teacups and each kid rode the old fashion cars with Marisa on Speedway. Marisa and Nana took the kids to ride Dumbo and the jetted over to Fantasyland where we met Ariel from the Little Mermaid and rode the Under the Sea ride. We Went back to Tomorrowland and got a Quick service meal from Cosmic Ray’s Diner before headed back towards the castle.
Nana and Papa took the kids to go find a spot for the Fireworks show, while Marisa and I went to go ride the Haunted Mansion ride, which again we only waited about 20 minutes.
All-in-all, we did way more than I ever could have imagined without purchasing any lightning lanes or really having a plan. We kind of just winged it, but it all worked out. The only character we missed that we really wanted to meet was Mulan.
I say this is a two-day park, because we didn’t even make it to one whole section of the park, which was Frontierland and is where Tianna’s Bayou ride is and we barely scratched the surface of Fantasyland. But, Magic Kingdom is a staple and of course the main park of Disney World and a must do, when you visit.
Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom is the park that opens the earliest and closes the earliest. I do think if you’ve never been to Disney World you need to experience it at least once. With little kids, I feel it was better to take our time and take all day, rather than rush through and try and get done in a half a day and try to jump to another park. On the flip side, if we weren’t so tired, I think we definitely could of hopped over to Magic Kingdom of Hollywood Studios to try and do some stuff we missed the first time.
With that being said, again we got there during early entry, which is a perk of staying on property at one of the Disney Resorts and skipped the Tree of Life picture to go straight to Africa to get in line for the Kilimanjaro Safari. We waited about 20 minutes for the ride to actually open and then once it did we walked right on. It was really cool and takes you through where they have live animals at and we got to see Rhinos, lions, a cheetah, giraffes, zebras and a few other animals. It’s best to try to knock this out first thing when you get to the park, because it tends to be when the animals are most active.
After the safari, we booked it over to Pandora, because the Navi River Journey ride was only a 15 minute wait. We lucked out because we looked later in the day on the app, and it was up to an hour wait. It was really cool, and the details on all of these rides were insane. After this we went and ate our lunch at Tusker House, before taking the Wildlife Express Train to Rafiki’s Planet Watch, where Jaden got to become a Wildlife explorer and pet some animals. Again, Natalia missed out because it was nap time.
When we got back from Rafiki’s Planet Watch after another ride on the Wildlife Express Train, we found where Pocahontas was meeting and waited about 15 minutes for her and then we went and got it line to meet Russell and Dug from the movie Up. The kids also got to see Kevin from the movie Up, who was just walking around.
Another must-do at Animal Kingdom is the Festival of the Lion King show. It was incredible! On our way back towards the front of the park, we got our pictures in front of the Tree of Life to close out our day at Animal Kingdom.
I definitely think, if you have been before and know what you want to do, this park can get knocked out by 1 or 2 o’clock, so you can hop over to another park if you have the park hopper.
Next edition of the D.L. with Derek Lopez, I will talk about our adventures at Epcot and Hollywood Studios.