WDW 06 – Day 4 – Monday

Notes and scribbles:

1. Today was Magic Kingdom day. We skipped the whole breakfast routine, and headed off, taking the MK bus up to the front doors of the park.

   Crowds were noticeably down today. A go-home day for the Memorial Day weekend, no doubt. The parks were hardly empty, but the throngs of humanity from Saturday and Sunday had been reduced from incredibly packed to simply expectedly full.

2. First stop was City Hall, where Katherine got a “Today is My Birthday!” badge. Since this trip was sort of a birthday gift to her, it seemed reasonable for her to wear it for at least a day or two. That stop for the the badge put her and me behind the rest. We hustled down Main Street — but stopped long enough for Katherine to be serenaded by the Barbershop Quartet.

   We hung a left in mid-park and headed off to ride on Aladdin’s Magic Carpets, thence to the Jungle Cruise. Alas, with the Jack Sparrow retrofit going on, Pirates was closed down. Instead, we grabbed a family’s worth of FastPasses to Splash Mountain, then queued up for Thunder Mountain (Margie, Katherine and me). Fairly quick line (it was still early in the day), and good fun. It was still too early after that for the FP onto Splash Mountain, so the three of us headed there by the regular line. About 15-20 minutes, but fun.

   Margie and the ‘rents headed off to order lunch at Buffalo Bill’s. Katherine and I went on Splash Mountian again (FPs were ready). The FP line had already gotten longer, and we decided to only go onto it once more. We gave the extra FPs to another family.

3. After lunch (yummy, but overcrowded), we edged around the rivierside, ignoring, as usual, Liberty Square, and heading into the Haunted Mansion. Not as good (I maintain) as the Anaheim version, but still enjoyable. Cut from there into Fantasy Land and onto It’s a Small World, which just got a makeover and looks dazzling (as dazzling as can Small World can be).

   Quick spin on the Teacups, then over to Toon Town Fair, where Katherine got to ride on her beloved Goofy’s Barnstormer, then spend about half an hour splashing around the SS Miss Daisy Duck, one of several dozen water-play-areas for kids scattered around WDW. Around this point, the ‘rents decided to retire back to the hotel, leaving us on our own. Woo-hoo!

4. Took the pathway long the train tracks to skip over to Tomorrow Land (without passing by a face painting kiosk, ahem). We queued up for about 15 minutes for Space Mountain, in the dead-on sun, and without any line movement before word came back that the ride was down. *sigh* We hotfooted it over to Buzz Lightyear, and y thi, which was, as always, great fun (and almost no wait at that point). From there, we went through Stitch’s Great Escape.

   Quick ice cream break, and the finis for the park, three FPed rides in a row on Peter Pan (since we had the FastPasses from the ‘rents). Headed out of the park, stopping only long enough to pick up a cast complement card for Bruce the bus driver from the previous evening.

5. We had about half an hour to shower and freshen up before the sitter arrived. Sitter? Ah, yes, this was to be Grown-Ups Night Out, so we had an in-room sitter coming for Katherine. In this case, we used a recommended service called “Fairy Godmothers” that does this for the Orlando area (407-277-3724) and the lady they sent out, named Vivian, did a marvelous job with Katherine. Not cheap, but highly recommended.

6. Margie and I and the ‘rents took the boat down to Downtown Disney and barely made our 7:40 reservations to the Portabello Yacht Club, a nice Italian restaurant down there. Excellent filet, nummy dessert, friendly and competent service. Couldn’t ask for more.

   From there? Off to the Adventurers Club, the one place on Pleasure Island really worth visiting if you’re not into dance and/or comedy clubs. It, fortunately, will be surviving the current round of rebuilding at PI, but the whole PI business model, though better than it once was — you don’t need a ticket to walk through — still sucks. You need a quite expensive “cover charge” ticket to go into any of the clubs (including the AC).

   It’s a puzzlement, because, really, there’s not much at PI that most park visitors would find unique or interesting or something you couldn’t find elsewhere (if not qiute as convenient) as the Adventurers Club. It’s the one themed entertainment there — great fun, not kiddie fare by any means, but something unique to WDW. Why it isn’t better support (or emulated) elswhere, I have no idea.

   As another side note, the first year we went, they sold their signature “Kungaloosh!” drink in an odd-shaped souvenir cup that resembled the yakoose head on the wall. We’ve brought back our souvenir mugs each year. Last time, they’d dropped those mugs in favor of a more generic coconut tiki kinda thing, and this year it was just glassware. The bartender, however, greatly appreciated our having the old mugs, and gave me a smile and an Adventurers Club pen. Woot!

   We spent a couple of hours there, sitting through a variety of the shows — I was still up for more, but everyone else was fading (which was the right decision, likely) — then we took the boat back up to PO. We found Kitten fast asleep, in which state we soon joined her.

Actually posted 6 June, but backdated to the day it actually happened.