Our Florida Vacation - Part 3

It was Thanksgiving and I was up at 6:30, but not to put the turkey in. We were going to be having Thanksgiving Dinner at The Crystal Palace at Magic Kingdom, but that wasn’t going to be until 4:30 pm. I got up and got ready and then helped prepare lunches (PBJ sandwiches and chips) to take to the park. We were at the park by 9 am and we knew that we had lots of hours to do things, but Magic Kingdom has lots and lots of things to do, and we hadn’t done hardly any of the Disney “classics” rides last time we were at Magic Kingdom.

A view of Cinderella's Castle as
we walked in

Jelly Bean and Super by the Castle

Jelly Bean after she was
sprinkled with pixie dust at
Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boutique

We did The Speedway, Stitch’s Great Escape, and Space Mountain. Flower and Jelly Bean did the Teacups and we all went on It’s A Small World. We watched the PhilHarMagic show (loved this!) and went to The Haunted Mansion. We watched a short parade. We went to go get Fast Passes for Splash Mountain (more about this later!) for after dinner and by this time, it was 4:30 and time for dinner.

At the beginning of It's A Small World

Some of the dolls

At the end of It's A Small World

The Princess float during the short parade

The girls in mid-spin on the Teacup ride.
(I did NOT ride this ride LOL)

The girls by The Castle

The dinner was buffet style and it had all the Thanksgiving fixings – turkey, dressing, vegetables, and pumpkin pie as well as tons of other choices. Another benefit to eating at the Crystal Palace is that you get to have some Disney Characters come right to your table. We got to meet and take pictures with Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore.

A view of The Castle from The Crystal Palace.

Don't the clouds look like they were painted
in or something? It looked so magical, I had to
take a picture.

The kids and Piglet

Tigger playing with Flower's cap

The kids and Pooh

The kids and Eeyore

Brain Freeze!

After dinner, it was time for Splash Mountain. Flower wasn’t sure she wanted to do this ride – she had seen the big drop from the outside – but we talked her into it. We got on the ride and we were just floating along and we were almost to the drop off point. There were 3 logs in front of us. The first log stopped and then the next log bumped into them, and then we bumped into them, and so on and so on. Someone came over the intercom and said that there was a little problem, but the ride would start again in just a moment. 15 minutes later, the lights went up, and then some Disney Cast Members came and helped us off the ride. Flower said “Well, I was wishing that I hadn’t gone on this ride. I guess I wished so hard it came true!” We all laughed. Everybody that had been stuck on the ride got a “universal” Fast Pass that you could use on any ride in that park at any time between when we got off Splash Mountain and when the park closed that day. We decided to just go to the ride right next to Splash Mountain, which was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (ok, but not that exciting in terms of a ride). From there, we went to Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jungle Cruise (I thought both of these were pretty lame.)

We went to find a spot to watch the Electric Lights Parade. The parade was o.k., but not great. The night ended with the Wishes Nighttime Spectacular – an awesome firework show with the castle in the background.

Oh, after we rode Splash Mountain, I noticed that Super seemed really warm. We walked over to First Aid and they were able to give us some Motrin. We went next door to the Child Care Center and watched a Disney cartoon for a half hour and he seemed to feel quite a bit better. After dinner, the fever started creeping back, so we went to the First Aid Station again and they gave him some Tylenol. We also rented a stroller so that he didn’t have to walk. He napped for a little while in the stroller before the evening parade started.

Cinderella's coach in the
Electric Lights Parade

Jelly Bean fell asleep while we were waiting
for the parade to start.

By this time, it was 11 pm and everybody was exhausted. However, it still took awhile for us to get home to bed. There was some miscommunication, and four of us ended up having a bit of delay getting on the monorail back to the parking lot, and so it was over an hour before we left Magic Kingdom, and almost 2 hours before everyone was in bed that night. We decided to sleep in a little bit before we went to the last park, Epcot.

Next in Part 4: Epcot and the end of Vacation :(