So every new year starts with a reflection on your past and a commitment to be a better person, like getting a gym membership. Rese and I had the typical discussion on whether we should get gym memberships and go to 5:00 AM cycling classes…however, our discussion led to getting Disney World Annual Passes. 😀
A nice, long day at Disney can do wonders for your legs right?
Before purchasing, we did a little research to determine the most beneficial time for us to purchase the tickets. We didn’t want them to immediately start right after purchasing, but we found out that the passes are not initiated until you go to the park! That was good news.
We are born and raised Floridians, so we are pretty familiar with Disney in a sense. We have lovely family members that can bring us into the park with Park Hopper tickets. So we always experienced a super fun and super fast way through all four parks in a day. We tend to spend the least amount of time in Magic Kingdom, due to that one always being the most popular and overcrowded.
I had the bright idea we should spend our first day at Disney at Magic Kingdom, since we would finally be able to experience it fully (NOTE: this was a bad idea). The first step was parking. We left the house at 10:00 and it took us 30 minutes to park the car. We then hopped on the park transportation that took us to the ticket center. If there wasn’t that transportation service, that walk would have made me lose 10 pounds (Disney> gym). At the ticket center, we had to wait in line for 1 WHOLE HOUR to get our annual passes. I don’t know how I forgot how crowded Magic Kingdom was. I really wished we had decided to go to Epcot to pick up our passes. The lines there would have definitely been shorter.
We also weren’t sure if the MagicBand were included in our passholder ticket or not. Good news, they were!! The cast member issuing our passes explained that I can order them the app and they would take about a week to arrive. I’m a little bummed I didn’t order them before trip. I ordered them immediately and decided to get gray and Rese got purple. I figured I wouldn’t get sick of the color and it looked the tiniest bit of chic. Rese took forever in deciding and went for purple after seeing everyone’s wrist at the park.
After that brutal wait time, we boarded the ferry to go to Magic Kingdom. I had gotten us two Fast Passes, one for Thunder Mountain @ 11:15 and one for Space Mountain @ 5:15. We had missed the time for Thunder Mountain since we didn’t know getting our tickets would take so long. Our first step was getting Mickey ears! We found the primary hat shop a little off of Main Street and started to try on alll the ears. Most ears are $19.99 and $24.99 (but pass holders receive a 20% discount!). They had a bunch of new ears that I never saw before, but Rese and I decided to stick the traditional ones. I got the plush ones and Rese got the sequined black and red ones. It’s great–we can always trade. Honestly, these ears look super cute and comfy on everyone, but wow they’re tight. I felt super cute in them, but at what expense?! The new spring time (orange and flowers) ears felt the most loose though, so if you have a big head I would recommend those.
So we ventured out with our ears, and somehow ended a past a churro stand. It smelled amazing and you get chocolate dipping sauce with each churro! So we shared a $5 churro, which was pretty tasty but should a churro ever cost $5? The dipping sauce was also okay. Next, we wandered some more and really had no idea where we wanted to go. I decided I wanted to try the Pineapple Dole Whip at Aloha Isle in Adventureland that everyone raves about. Find this location was a bit tricky. I tried to use the paper map but I suck at map reading and spatial awareness…somehow Rese found it.
I recommend trying out the Dole Whip! It’s very light and pleasant. It’s super creamy, but I read somewhere that it is dairy free so that that’s pretty neat! After enjoying the whip, we stumbled into the Enchanted Tiki Show thinking that it was a bird show. I have a big fear of birds but somehow I wanted to watch the show. I was disappointed but also relieved when we found out that the show was made of robot birds singing. This is a good attraction for when you want to get out of the heat and not have to bear a long wait time.
After that show, we decided we might as well grab lunch since the parade would start in an hour. We ended at Mexican Place and got burgers. The topping station is super generous with lots of salsas, corn salsa, and endless helpings of guacamole!!! The burger was $15, but the 20% discount applied! After eating, we stepped out of the dining establishment to watch the parade. It started to rain right then, luckily we had some covering from the restaurant’s pavilion. We learned that at the end of the parade, you can start walking behind it and become a part of the parade. We were just trying to get to Space Mountain, but saw that trailing behind the parade was much faster than going through the crowded spectators on the sidewalk. I think the little ones would love to ‘be in the parade!’ Once we go to Space Mountain, the wait time was 175 minutes. I was so happy I got us fast passes! Waiting in that line would be miserable. Fast pass allowed us to dash through the line. We only waited about 15 minutes.
It had been years since I’ve been on Space Mountain and it’s pretty different from what I remember. It is a fun ride and def a lighter rollercoaster. You should be careful with your ears though, it is super easy for them to fly off. After the ride, I was feeling pretty tired and didn’t want to spend the whole day there (I missed my dog too). So we decided to start heading out from the park, and not feeling guilty since we can return to the park any time with our passes. When we had the park hopper tickets, we utilize every single minute as to not waste the ticket.
Before leaving the park, we had a detour into the bakery. It really smells amazing in there, we were practically lured in. They had super cute cute candy apples for sell so we decided to get one and share. The line was kind of long and we got on in it. About 3/4 of the way through, we could then see the price for one apple is $10….we were too far in to go back. They had Minnie Mouse, Nemo, variations of Mickey Mouse, and all of them being so cute. I had the choice of getting it whole or sliced. I was basic and wanted pics so I got it whole. We also got a super big Mickey Mouse chocolate chip cookie. We started eating the cookie, since eating the apple would be near impossible. The cookie was pretty good and super cute.
Overall, spending time with my sister is always super fun. We have busy schedules so having a day at Disney was nice. We mostly spent the time trying all the foods at Magic Kingdom that weren’t at other parks, since we weren’t sure when we would return to this park. Magic Kingdom is the most crowded and the most ‘Disney’ so it’s great to experience but having a nice, leisure time would be found in other parks. They’re all great parks, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. However, I was also looking for a gym membership here so my arguments are pretty weak (maybe we should’ve skipped the cookie haha). I’m also pretty introverted and hate crowds, so I defintely have bias.
PS: We ate the apple next day and it was surprisingly delicious. Honestly, they have their candy apples DOWN. The caramel and chocolate layers were done to perfection.
Rese & Ry 