Our Doodle's First Disney Adventure: Day Four

The fourth day was our big Magic Kingdom Day. We went before and after but this was our serious day, as well as the one that convinced us that THIS was the park for toddlers.

First of all, it's almost a a fifth the size of the Animal Kingdom. There's just less walking to do. Second, it's full of frenetic stuff. Bored with one attraction? Walk fifteen feet. Third, it has easily most kiddy friendly rides.

We started with the Mad Tea Party, where you sit in giant tea cups and you can turn a wheel in the middle of the cup to make it spin like an old-school round about. It's one of the older rides and something of an icon. We, as grown ups, hadn't been on it before. But the doodle really liked it and it was fun for us too. 

That is a trick that the Magic Kingdom pulls off well, as we learned on this trip. Making rides for the little ones that the adults can have fun on too. 

After that, we had our second Dumbo ride, the first for the day. It's another one of those iconic ride that actually turns out to be fun and one we'd go back to a lot.

Since the doodle was in such a good mood and the line was short, we took one of the few real chances we took on his limits on the trip and got him to go on the Goofy Barnstormer, which was right next to the Dumbo ride, also part of the Story Book Circus, which was one of the corner stones of our Disney experience.

The Goofy Barnstormer is a little roller coaster but still a roller coaster. The doodle had made it clear he didn't want to ride any roller coasters. We had to convince him planes weren't roller coasters, even though he's flown close to twenty times in his three years. 

And, while it never gets very high, I have to say that the Goofy Barnstormer was actually a real roller coaster. But he was in such a good mood from Dumbo, we took the chance. And it worked. He had fun. He didn't want to ride it again after he calmed down but he wasn't scared and he had first roller coaster.

Our last ride before lunch was the Little Mermaid Ride, which is a gentle ride through an animator retelling of the movie. The doodle knows who Ariel is but he isn't his princess/queen (Hi, Elsa!) so he was simply amused.

Lunch was at the Beauty and Beast-themed Be Our Guest, which is probably the king of the quick services. Very thematic, higher-end food, and actually requires reservations. We managed to get a table in the West Room, which is dark with the magic rose and tastefully shredded pictures and tapestries.

Leaving Be Our Guest, we got one of our biggest surprises of the entire trip. We saw two of our favorite YouTube celebrities, George and Ken of Crafting by Two getting their pictures taken. After they were done, we had to go over and meet them.

They specialize in Cricut crafting. My wife does a lot more than I do but even I do paper craft with the Cricut. Those two have made a real difference in our Cricut lives. Meeting them and getting pictures of them was a legitimate big thrill.

After that, the doodle started asking about getting ears so we went to the hat shop near the front of the park. Remember how I mentioned his special princess/queen was Elsa? Can you guess what kind of ears he ended up demanding?

We then decided it was time to do the ride that you always have to do, even though I personally dread it because the low seats make my back ache. It's a Small World. Although I have to admit that learning the song started out as a plea for peace after the Cuban Missile Crisis is cool.

Fifteen minute wait in line. Not too bad. Doodle falls asleep in my arms in line and sleeps through the entire ride. Which was just as surreal as I remembered it. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who have full color vision.

After he woke up, we split a kitchen sink sundae three ways while watching the Flight of Fantasy parade again, this time with him awake. 

Our next Fast Pass was for the Winnie the Pooh ride. We were worried he would be scared by the times the car shakes or the nightmare sequence with the Huphalumps and the Woozles but he enjoyed it enough that he was disappointed we couldn't go on it again.

But we used a Fast Pass to go back on Buzz Lightyear where this time, the doodle realized he could make the car spin around with the lever in the middle. Let's just say that a little knowledge can go a long way.

In relatively rapid succession, we rode on the People Mover again, Dumbo again and Peter Pan again.

What made this day our _big_ day was we stayed late enough to watch the closing show. Which started with an animated movie projected onto Cinderella's Castle and ended with the fireworks show which is yet another icon of the Disney.

The doodle has seen fireworks before but never so close or so many. So this was yet another time we were holding our breath to see how he would react. Which was with glee, thankfully. 

We looked at the lines to get on the buses to the resorts and decided to go to Disney Springs again. This time, the Lego Store got a lot of attention and the doodle fell asleep waiting for the bus to the resort from Disney Springs and I carried him to our room and he never woke up.

 

Our Doodle's First Disney Adventure: Day Three

Our first trip to Disney World was for our honeymoon and we stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. So the Animal Kingdom, which is a cross between a theme-park and borderline free-range zoo, is a park we have a lot of happy associations with.

However, it also the biggest single park out of all of the Disney parks world-wide. It is sprawling, in no small part due to the need to give the animals a lot of space. Even with the stroller (never go on vacation without one), it was a haul. And it was also the single hottest, most humid day of our trip. Heat, we are used to that in Arizona. Humidity? That is brutal.

We started off with the Triceratops Spin, which is basically a dinosaur retheme of Dumbo, in the dinosaur part of the park. We also got our picture taken at the photo-booth in the dinosaur area.

For us, the highlight ride had been the Kilimanjaro Safaris. It is literally get in a truck and drive through large, cage-free animal habitats. You get to see a wide variety of animals and get to appreciate how big the park really is. Unfortunately, it is also a long ride. The doodle started out excited but got fidgety and bored. By the end of the truck ride, he was over it.

We then went on the Wild Africa Trek, to get him back in a better mood. It's a trail and zoo. He fell asleep in his stroller and it was really a nap stroll. Still, we got to see some gorillas and other wildlife.

Our last Fast Pass we reserved for the day was to have pictures taken with Safari-themed Mickey and Minnie at the Adventure Outpost, which exists just as a place to take pictures. The doodle handled that fairly well. Out of all the costumed characters, Minnie and Daisy were the best at drawing him out of his cute shy pose so Minnie helped for some good pictures.

One of the things the doodle's fascinations is fountains (and ceiling fans) and he insisted we stop when we past a touch fountain in Asia. He proceeded to get soaked but we made a point of carrying a spare of clothes for him at Disney.

With him now in dry clothes, we then had our second character meal, an African buffet at Tusker House where Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Daisy were featured. It wasn't bad but suffered in comparison to Chef Mickey due to having less food a three-year old would eat.

What ended up being the last thing we would do at the Animal Kingdom was visit Rafiki's Planet Watch. You take a train to the back of the park where there are some character meets, an animal hospital you can see in action from the other side of the glass (remember, operating theaters got their name from having seating for medical students to watch), more animal displays and a petting zoo where you could brush goats.

By far and away, the doodle's favorite part of this park was brushing goats. He had a _blast_.

After that, we went back to the Pop Century resort to relax before our diner reservations at the Animal Kingdom Lodge's buffet Boma. Which used to be one of our favorite restaurants at Disney World but two buffets in one day and having to take two buses to get to it (since there is no resort-to-resort bus service) made it meh.

To get back to our resort, with the parks closed, we had to take a bus to Disney Springs. Since almost the get go, Disney World has had basically a strip mall on the edge, with shops and restaurants and such. The last time we were there, it was called Downtown Disney and was nice, almost quaint. Since then, it had a big build out and is now called Disney Springs. 

We got off the bus and wanted to take a look around. Boy had it changed. It was walking into Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. It must have doubled in size and i had a lot more fancy restaurants, street performers and open air stages. It was amazing and all three of us had a blast just wandering around for a couple hours.

I have to make a special note about Pokémon Go, which my wife plays. Disney Springs was full of stops and people putting lures out. It was Pokémon heaven.

As much as I hate to say it, the Animal Kingdom is too big for a three-year old, even one that loves zoos. But Disney Springs is a party for all ages and it was the highlight of the day.