Life with Mrs C

MAGIC KINGDOM

So at this point in the holiday were just over half way and have hit up every park at least once – apart from the water parks. We wanted a full day in Magic Kingdom to be able to watch Happily Ever After (my personal fave) so we decided to add that in at the middle point.

We had a dining reservation for Tony’s for lunch so we could use the Festival of Fantasy dining package which gets you in the prime spot at the bottom of Main Street USA for the daily parade. We also had fast passes booked for Buzz Lightyear, Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain. As we’d had a few hectic days we made sure we had a later start and only booked the first FP for 10:00 meaning we had between 10:00am and 11:00 to hit the ride, so we were able to have a lazier morning before heading for a bus to the park.

Once there we did our first fast pass as well as a turn around on the People Mover. We headed back to Main Street and had another wander around the bigger stores – looking at you Emporium – as a lot of the merchandise had changed from the last time we were here due to the season switch from Halloween to Christmas. Once it was time for lunch we headed to Tony’s, which is located on the right next to the Mickey Mouse meet and greet and you first enter Magic Kingdom.

The restaurant is based on the place from Lady and the Tramp that serves up the infamous meatballs dish to the two loved up pups. As you would expect it is very traditional Italian fayre, it is worth noting if you are using a DDP credit you get 3 courses here rather than the usual two. I ordered a caprese salad to start, followed by meatballs and spaghetti then finally tiramisu. The food was nice overall, however we do have better Italians back home.

After this we watched the parade from our spot in the designated area reserved for people with the tickets from the package run with Tony’s. Admittedly it was a great spot as you can see the floats coming towards you down Main street, but I wouldn’t say its a necessity to have this as there are plenty of spaces and tricks to getting a good parade spot. We did our other two fast passes after, this and found some more same day for Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Under the Sea: journey of the Little Mermaid, Haunted Mansion and Buzz Lightyear again. As it was getting dark we grabbed some fries from Caseys on the corner of Main Street and found our spots for the fire works.

As this was our only night being able to see Happily Ever After we wanted a good spot, so we waited about half way down Main Street around the middle so we were square on to the castle as a large part of the show is the projections against it. By this point of the season the Christmas lights had appeared on Cinderella’s castle, and its simply magical – I would highly recommend going towards Christmas if you can as the parks have an extra magic to them.

Happily Ever After is a highly anticipated show, shown every night except party nights, meaning there were some fair crowds – its worth the wait to get a good spot though. The soundtrack that goes along with the show is simply feel inducing – I honestly end up with goose bumps when I see this show. We have snippets and projections from everyone’s favourite Disney films all played alongside some spectacular fireworks. Its really is a must do for any trip! Following this is a mass exit from the park as everyone rushes for their way home – be it shuttle bus, monorail, boat or car. We were very lucky staying where we were as its the smallest resort onsite so we never waited long for a bus, even this night.

Next time we have a relaxing day as we head to Typhoon Lagoon and then Epcot for the evening

Xxx