A Disney Day Out

Last week, in an effort to make a good impression on my mother before she headed back home to Pennsylvania (you know – so she’ll want to come back again!), Mark too the day off work, and we took the boys on a Disney Day Out. Our little clan headed to Magic Kingdom to check out the New Fantasyland and enjoy the park before it gets TOO hot and TOO crowded to be appealing.

As we are annual pass holders, we can go whenever we want, and my awesome friend Amy (who works for Disney) gave us a free ticket to use for my mom. This was REALLY appreciated, as it meant that we weren’t paying a big fee just in case we had to leave early due to the kids.

Once we’d arrived, we parked in the Jafar parking lot and gathered the kids in their strollers, loaded down with diaper bags and snacks, and we headed for the tram – where we had to immediately disassemble it all so we could get in! At the entrance, we had to decide whether to take the ferry or the monorail to the gates. We opted for the ferry.

Upon arriving at the Magic Kingdom, we headed down Main Street toward the castle, where we took obligatory photos out front. One of my favorites is this one of my mom with Mark photobombing her. Well, it made ME laugh!

We even managed to bring Daniel into the sunlight for a family shot – unfortunately, you can’t even tell where we are, as mom didn’t manage to get the castle in the background. Ah well!

We soon realised that the odds of any of us getting to ride the rides together was very slim, as with two kids (one a newborn), someone has to stay behind. And most often it needed to be me, since I’m his breakfast, lunch and dinner!

So we let mom have the first honors, and she took Dexter on the Ariel ride. And while the sign said the wait time was 50 minutes, it was closer to 90 minutes before we saw them again!

Mark and I passed the time playing with Daniel and taking photos.

Once they re-emerged (Dexter having taken a short nap while waiting in line!), we headed down the lane to explore some more. Along the way, we checked out the Be Our Guest restaurant, a place I can’t wait to try in future!! No photos of it, sadly, but I did get one of Gaston’s Tavern!

The Gaston cast member was actually outside when we arrived, but he’d gone away by the time I took a picture.

Next up, we headed toward the Storybook Circus, as I wanted to ride the Dumbo ride with Dexter. We decided to take advantage of the Fast Pass feature of Disney, and so I got one for Dumbo and Mark got one for Barnstormer.  Of course, it meant we had to wait until our allotted time, but we were not bored.

We explored some of the shops and watched some performances from cast members.

Dexter ate some cotton candy and mom and I took some silly photos to capture the fun we were having.

Finally, it was time to do Dumbo. Mom watched Daniel while I headed over to stand in line. Mark followed with camera in tow to capture the experience.

And while I have no photos of the Barnstormer ride, I know that the boys had fun on it, too!

Of course, by this time, we’d actually been at the park for nearly SIX HOURS! And despite only riding on three rides, I think it’s safe to say that we all had a great time. I can’t wait to go back again!