The Magic Kingdom has their parking lot split into Heroes and Villians sections and the Villains lot was already full when we got there. We headed to the Heroes side and parked in a pretty good spot. Their parking lots are incredibly sprawled out, but if you squint you can just about see the entrance from our parking spot. We decided to wait for the tram even though we could have walked. It's fun to ride the tram anyway. :)
We got on the tram and listened to the normal safety messages and such and then the girl said we were headed to the Ticket & Transportation Center, which is about a mile and half from the front entrance gates. Wait, what?! Did she say what I think she just said? Once we got off the tram I could see that we now had two options to get to Disney World, either a monorail or a ferry boat across a giant lake. We opted for the monorail because it seemed quicker but were surprised to find ourselves crammed in the monorail compartment with a ton of other people. None of us had a seat but just stood, holding on to poles and trying not to bump into the other people around us. Luckily it was a short ride and we got off and headed over to the front gate area. Despite our best efforts, it was about noon by the time we got to the park today. We're just not so good at getting up early in the morning anymore.
One thing I didn't mention before is that Disney World uses fingerprint scanning as part of your entry. Probably designed as a way to deter the sale of unused pass days or the sharing of season passes, you have to put your ticket into the machine and then hold your finger on the scanner to gain entry. Each ticket is assigned to each person's fingerprint, so we had to be sure to label the tickets so they wouldn't get mixed up. It is nice for the season passholders, however, who can just put their card into the machine and use their fingerprint to gain access. They don't have to wait in line at the gates or even go to a manned station to get in. With Mike's silver pass we had to get new tickets each day, so we had to use the special Cast Member entrance and wait in line for just a few minutes each time.
Once we were through the turnstiles, I felt like I had finally arrived at a Disney park. Passing under the train tunnel and on to Main Street was just what I was looking for. Our first stop was at City Hall, where we picked up our "1st Time at Disney World" buttons, my only chance to legitimately own one of those, and then wandered into the fire station next door where they had a "Help Wanted" sign. It turned out to be another game of sorts (like the Perry quests we played at Epcot), only these had trading cards (like Pokemon cards) and involved going to certain locations around the Magic Kingdom that had the game symbol and using a Magic Key Card to activate light-up portals. The storyline was that Merlin was trying to stop Hades from stealing a crystal and Hades was getting all of the villains involved (Scar, Cruella DeVil, Jafar, Yzma, etc) to help him get it.
The portals looked like a regular window, but then lit up when the key card was placed in front of the keyhole.
We started off with 5 packs of cards (one for each entrance ticket), and could get more each day we came into the park. The cards had different levels of attack, shield and boost on them, and you would hold them up to the portal to use their attacks. The cameras in the window would see your card and your spell would show up on the movie screen, defeating the enemy. Some of the attacks were Bolt's Super Bark, Rapunzels' Hair Whip, Simba's Roar, Monstro's Water Spout, and Robin Hood's Magic Arrow. The cards were really cute and the girls had so much fun playing it and collecting all the different cards.
The portals were on Main Street and in Adventureland, Frontierland and Fantasyland, so that's where we spent our entire day today. The girls had us walking from portal to portal and we rode or visited whatever we passed by on the way. Since we did a lot of walking back and forth, I'm just going to talk about the lands here in sections, rather than in the order that we did them.
Adventureland: This area has the Swiss Family treehouse (which we didn't visit today), the Tiki Room (which we also didn't do today), the Jungle Cruise, the Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Magic Carpets of Aladdin (basically the Dumbo ride with carpets instead of elephants). In this area, we were surprised to find that the Pirates of the Caribbean pretty much always had a short line. When we rode it, we found that it was not nearly as good as the Pirates ride at Disneyland as it had no waterfall (just one small hill that is smaller than the "mini" second waterfall in the DL ride) and no mention of "Dead Men Tell No Tales" anywhere! No talking skull either. :( Much of the scenery was similar, but of all the rides in the Magic Kingdom, this was one of only two rides we experienced that were significantly inferior to their counterparts at Disneyland. The Jungle Cruise was very similar to the one at DL. It was a little longer but that's probably mostly because some of the area at DL was given to the Indiana Jones ride. Our guide told a lot more jokes throughout the ride, and the girls got a big kick out of his silly charade.
Frontierland: This area has Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Tom Sawyer Island (which we didn't visit at all), and the Country Bear Jamboree, one of the attractions I miss the most at DL! We rode Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain a couple of times each. It was on Thunder Mountain that I first realized what they did with all the space they had at this park. It was very clear that Disney World has considerably less rides and less things to do than Disneyland, so I was wondering what they did with all their space. Apparently they used some of it to make the rides longer and/or bigger, but they also used a little to make the lines a fun experience themselves. There were so many things to touch and do, spin and look through in the Thunder Mountain line that I kind of wished for a minute that the line was a little longer so I could play with it all. (Just for a minute!) I was also glad to be able to take the girls in to see the Country Bears. They recognized some of the songs from my Disneyland CD's, and the show was cute even though many of the songs were different and instead of being about some vacation-gone-wrong, it was all about love. Oh, how I miss our Country Bears!
Liberty Square: This is the Magic Kingdom's version of New Orleans Square, except it's just a patriotic USA place instead and is basically just a bunch of buildings stuck together right at the edge of Frontierland. In this area they have a hall of US Presidents (that we didn't go into at all), the Haunted Mansion, and the Liberty Square Riverboat - their version of the Mark Twain Riverboat. My girls aren't too crazy about the Haunted Mansion, so we just did it once and that was enough. It's pretty much the exact same as ours back home with just a few things moved around. I think the track was a little longer with more things to see along the way, and they kept some of the haunted-house gags like the popping-up ghosts that Disneyland got rid of a few years back.
Main Street: Disney World's Main Street was surprisingly much smaller than Disneyland's, and had much fewer shops and restaurants along it. None of the cars or carriages were running any of the days we were there. We did notice at the end of Main Street that you can't go through their Sleeping Beauty Castle (although you can pay $60/person to have a meal inside it). Apparently there is somewhere you can walk into and see 5 murals of the Cinderella story made of 14k gold, silver, and a million pieces of glass in 500 colors, but I'm not sure where that was - maybe on the backside? On the front side, they have a stage where the characters come out and do a show several times a day.
On this trip, these shows and the parades were the only way we saw the characters. In Disney World, all of the characters appear at specific times and only in certain places of the park. Those places are marked with a sign and have wait times on them just like the rides do. In fact, those character locations are even listed as 'attractions' on the Magic Kingdom map and their wait times appear on the readerboard on Main Street with all the other rides. Most of the character lines we saw were at least 20 minutes long at any given time.
Fantasyland: This was one area that really surprised me. I had read a little about their recent expansion (that isn't quite done), but was surprised to hear how many rides they've removed from this area since 2005, and how few rides there are in this land. The only rides in Fantasyland are The Little Mermaid (we didn't ride it, but it's like the one in CA), the Prince Charming Regal Carousel, Winnie the Pooh (just like the DL one in Frontierland), Dumbo, Peter Pan, and It's a Small World. Their small world is built like a darkride with the clock face tucked inside a building, barely visible from the outside. The ride is great but so hidden - so much different from the facade it has at DL! Peter Pan had a long line - as always - but was well done inside with a few more scenes than the one at DL. The Small World ride had a short line all day, but was a good ride too, with the countries separated out by continents. It didn't have any of the hidden Disney movie characters like ours has, but had a great variety of dolls. It doesn't seem to be a very popular attraction at the Magic Kingdom. So sad.
If you're wondering what Disney World did with all the space they have at the park if they didn't have that many rides, well, so was I. The Magic Kingdom seems to favor sit down shows in big theaters and had lots and lots of restaurants. Every land in Disney World has more restaurants than attractions. So many, in fact, that they actually list some of the restaurants as attractions on their maps. And these aren't just any restaurants. Many of them come with a hefty pricetag. There are several buffet restaurants for $35/person and some are $60 or more. Many have to be booked months in advance if you want to eat there. If you want to see the characters at Disney World, you're going to have to pay for it - either with all your time in the park, or a big chunk of your money.
While we were in the park, however, I did see something I've never seen before at Disneyland. I saw Jiminy Cricket in a parade! I've never even seen a Jiminy Cricket costumed character before, so this one's for you, Mom! He was so cute!
Well, that's about all we had time for on Day 1 of the Magic Kingdom. Granted we were moving at a snail's pace, but as evening approached we realized why the park had low attendance on Tuesday and Wednesday. Apparently on those days, Disney World closes two hours earlier (at 9pm) and doesn't do any of their nighttime shows, including the Electrical Parade. So we decided to go somewhere else tomorrow and come back here on Thursday when we can see them.
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