Day 2- Magic Kingdom

Finally!  It was time to make our way into the most magical of all kingdoms.  We were up and ready to go with the sun on our first day- stroller, snacks, magic bands, costumes, lights sabers, scepters, and matching Mickey shirts all in tow.  Our hopes were high and our energy levels were too.   If I don't mention this a hundred more times before I'm done posting about this trip, I'll say it now- there is nothing relaxing about a DisneyWorld vacation, at least not the way we did it.  There was so much to do and see and eat and meet and enjoy- and we were ready to go!

I'll declare it right now- this was my favorite of all of our days in the parks.  Starting at the castle.

 Look who joined us!

The day was very nicely and carefully scheduled out, we were all rested and ready to go, and everything was new and pure magic, from the first sighting of Mickey Mouse at 8:45 in the morning to the last princess we met just before the park closed at 11:00 at night- this was a perfect day of Disney.

 After asking and asking, Noah finally got to see what he'd been looking for- this was Disney World!

 Once the lands officially opened, we started out on the traditional Henscheid family route- to the left!

We did Aladdin's magic carpets, the jungle cruise, the tiki room, and Pirates of the Caribbean with hardly any wait on any of them.

And then we made our first mistake of the trip- we stopped for a snack.  It was in our schedule, and it felt good to sit down in the shade for a minute (this was the coolest day we had with a high of 78 and we were all wearing jeans for the only time of the trip) but then we headed over to Frontierland and proceeded to stand in line for Splash Mountain for a good 40 minutes.  Lesson learned- whenever possible snacks were brought snacks into the line with us and ate as we inched forward.  That would have been a good distraction for this ride in particular- while some were excited to get wet and volunteered to sit in the front-

some of us were just a little worried about the 50 foot plunge.

Poor Leah was about to have a full-blown anxiety attack by the time we sat down in the log.  She doesn't like log rides, and I know that, but I also know that she sometimes talks herself into making something worse than it really is.  And that she was going to miss out on a lot of the big kid fun of Disney World if she wasn't willing to give these rides a try.  So I snapped this picture then talked to her about things we could see, hear, smell, touch, and even taste to help her get control over the situation as best she could.

It was definitely a scary drop, but we all came out alive and- another spoiler alert- it gave Leah the confidence to try every other ride in every park that she wanted to.  She rode Splash Mountain 3 times, Big Thunder Mountain once, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 3 times, Space Mountain once, the Rock-n-Roller Coaster twice, Expedition Everest twice, Test Track twice, and even talked Noah through the Haunted Mansion.  And she loved them all and was super proud of herself.  So this was the band-aid ride for her, and I think she's glad she did it.  And any ride that she was nervous about she grabbed onto me and said, "You helped me so much on Splash Mountain!  I need you to sit with me on this ride!"

The bribe of our first Mickey bars helped, too. which we grabbed after we watched the Bear Country Jamboree.  I think that was the weirdest show we saw all week, and Emma really wanted to know how those mounted heads were talking.  I answered a lot of the kids questions about how things worked with "it's the Disney Magic!" but for this show she said, "I think they killed the animals then stuck a machine inside their heads to make them talk after they died."

Close enough.

It's funny, but for as silly as the show was we've had a good time laughing about it ever since.

We enjoyed a special treat with our first Mickey Bars- the cast member working the cart asked us if it was really our first time at Disney World (the kids were wearing "1st Time" buttons, since it was our first time as our family, and the first time by most of their memories) and then he gave us our ice cream for free!  Anything free at Disney World is pretty hard to come by, and that was a fun way to make the day feel even more special.  

Side note on food- we opted not to pay for the $275/day dining plan, not only because there is no way our kids would eat enough food to justify that expense (Leah was considered an adult, so she would have needed to order- and probably throw away half of- $68 of food a day), but also because we didn't want to spend a huge chunk of our day in restaurants waiting for food.  We've vacationed enough that I knew what to expect from my kids eating habits and planned accordingly.  We had breakfast in our hotel- either food from our grocery run or in the cafeteria (which served Mickey waffles!) and had one dining experience planned each day.  That combined with lots of snacks from our stroller and a few treats from the parks thrown in here and there and no one went hungry, ever.  Hungry babies are grouchy babies, so if they asked for food they got it.  And since we walked an average of 10 miles a day, we had plenty of reasons to need fuel!

So we ate our Mickey bars (except for Noah, who was more interested in the fruit bars and frozen lemonade, and Jason and I, who just finished off what the kids couldn't) while we were in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and also learned that we needed to have water with us at all times.  It was getting hot!  Not that we were complaining- it was the middle of January after all!  That ride had a too-long line and was a bit too jerky for me- I already knew my fearless roller coaster days are behind me, but if I was going to make Leah- and Noah!- do it, I was going to do it too!  

We were all ready for another break after that ride, so we headed over to the "Tangled Toilets" and enjoyed sitting in the shade, eating lunch from the stroller, and feeling like we had landed in Rapunzel's hometown for a bit while we waited for our first FastPass time of the day to arrive- Peter Pan!  The most magical of all rides on which you actually fly!  It was fun watching some of the magic change in Leah's eyes from the last time we went (when she was 6) but also fun to listen to her enjoy the magic with the little kids.  We also watched Mickey's Philharmagic before we split up.

It was time for the most highly anticipated event of the day for the girls- a visit to Cinderella's castle to transform into princesses at the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique.  Leah and Emma both wanted to dress up as Elena of Avalor, which wasn't offered by the boutique when I made the reservation back in October, so we packed in our own beautiful dresses to change into in the castle.  The hair, nails, and makeup were so magical, and I especially loved watching Leah for what will definitely be her last time enjoying such a sweet childhood memory in the making.  And oh, Emma and her sweet sparkling eyes.  These godmothers know how to make an inner princess shine!

I opted not to wait for the 45 minutes plus to get studio pictures of the girls- we had another FastPass to catch!

But these cute girls did a great job posing for me outside Cinderella's castle.  Disney World is tricky because it is so difficult to really slow down and enjoy each thing- there is always another amazing memory waiting to be made in just a few minutes.  But this was an espeically fun pause in the day with my girls- my little princesses!

While we were in the castle, the boys rode on Prince Charming's carousel (Noah's tied-for-top favorite ride of all the parks) and tried to catch the riverboat over to Tom Sawyer's island, but they didn't quite make it in time.  Jason said that was one of his least favorite parts of the day because it was unstructured time- further proof that a detailed day at Disney is the way to do it!

And I'm going to stop this post here.  There is still so much to cover before this day was over- the park didn't close until 11:00 that night because it was a holiday weekend.  But we were definitely off to a wonderful start!