I am a good planner, don’t get me wrong, I just can’t believe how much we got accomplished on this day with the crowds as high as they were.
We had an early breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table at 8:20 am. If you can book a breakfast before the park opens (reservations start at 8 am and the park opens at 9 am), you can walk down Main Street with hardly any crowds. Plus the Photopass photographers are out to snap your picture. We got a couple great shots of us with Main Street practically empty behind us.
We got a wonderful table at Cinderella’s Royal Table and enjoyed a delicious meal and were even given a sword and a scepter since it was our Anniversary. However, we didn’t wait on the Princesses to get to our table. We did meet Cinderella in the lobby though and got a great photo with her.
We were out of the restaurant and waiting in Fantasyland by 8:50 am and we were the first people on Dumbo. It was the first time we had shared an elephant and it was nice to be able to enjoy that together and even catch some sneak peeks of the Fantasyland Expansion.
After Dumbo, we rode Peter Pan, grabbed a Fastpass to it and made our way over to Pooh, another one of our favorites. Then we skipped over to Big Thunder Mountain and rode it twice, fastpassed it for later and rode Splash Mountain. Of course I am a chicken and was scared to death of Splash Mountain and I could live the rest of my life without riding it again. I only rode it because my husband wanted me too and I knew he wouldn’t ride it without me.
We posed for a picture with Goofy and then grabbed a set of Fastpasses to Splash Mountain before heading over to ride Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. The new special effects on Haunted Mansion are awesome! I also ran into a longtime reader while I was on the ride. That was a nice surprise!
We grabbed a snack and enjoyed it while we people watched. Then it was time for the Hall of Presidents. We had never seen the show and it was amazing. Disney really out did themselves on this show. If you haven’t taken the time to see it, I highly suggest you do. It’s awesome!
We even had time to go see the Carousel of Progress, ride the Peoplemover and do Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin and still arrive 20 minutes early for our lunch at Tony’s.
Tony’s was good and they decorated our table in honor of our anniversary. The food took a while to arrive though (we ordered spaghetti), so it took almost 1.5 hours for the meal from start to finish. We probably won’t eat here again as we find the food at our local Italian Restaurant to be a lot better.
It started raining again while we were at Tony’s, so we decided to head back to the resort of a siesta before heading to Epcot to tour the countries.
We arrived at Epcot at 4 pm and decided to check out the line for the private Visa Meet and Greet. It was only 3 people deep, so we got in line. I am so glad that we did! Mickey, Minnie and Goofy were there and they went crazy over us. Goofy even convinced Mickey to propose to Minnie while Jason proposed to me. We got an incredible shot and got it printed for FREE at the Camera Center.
We then headed over to tour the countries. We stopped in each country and talked with a Cast Member and even enjoyed an order of Nachos from Mexico before heading back to our resort. Did you know that it is 1.3 miles around the World Showcase if you don’t detour off the path? That is a lot of walking!
For dinner we went to the Spirit of Aloha show at the Polynessian. We had paid for a Category 3 seating and they upgraded us to a category 1. We enjoyed the food and the show, but it isn’t something we would do again. We did get to enjoy a romantic dance though. That was really nice.
We saw Wishes from the beach before we refreshed in the room and headed to the Magic Kingdom for a late evening of fun.
We managed to get front row seats to the Main Street Electrical Parade (a must do!). We then followed the parade down Main Street until we were able to dodge into Tomorrowland to start using our Fastpasses and enjoying the Extra Magic Hours they offered that night. We had gathered up Fastpasses to 6 rides that morning, so we made our way around the park using them up. Our first stop at Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin where I stomped Jason (he had beaten me earlier that day).
We rode the Tomorrowland Speedway and it was really hard to steer that car with my left hand. Jason laughed so hard watching me bump all over the track. We then rode the Mad Tea Cups, Pooh, It’s a Small World, Peter Pan’s Flight, Big Thunder (which is a completely different experience in the dark), and Aladdin before calling it a night at 1:15 am.
It was such a wonderful day and the weather was cool and perfect. I’d much rather deal with a little rain then sweltering temps.
Here’s a recap of everything we got accomplished on Friday:
Breakfast at Cinderella’s Castle
Dumbo
Peter Pan
Pooh
Big Thunder
Big Thunder
Splash
Met Goofy
Pirates
Haunted Mansion
Hall of Presidents
Carousel of Progress
People Mover
Buzz Lightyear
Lunch at Tony’s
Private Visa Meet and Greet
Toured all 11 countries plus ate a snack in Mexico
Dinner at Spirit of Aloha
Wishes on the beach
Main Street Electrical Parade
Buzz Lightyear
Tomorrowland Speedway
Mad Tea Cups
Pooh
Peter Pan
It’s a Small World
Big Thunder
Aladdin
Wow!!!what an amazing day!
wow, you guys managed to do a lot, especially since it’s busy season!
awesome! Love the pic with yall making a heart with your arms with castle in back!
Thanks for the play-by-play! I’m loving going through your trip and living it vicariously through you. I can’t wait to go back in 2012 – this time I’m hoping to stay at the Poly!
Question for you about the fastpasses though… It looks like you were able to get FP for both Peter Pan and Splash Mountain to use later in the day. I thought you could only get one ride at a time?!? Gotta learn your tricks for our next trip :)
You can only get one FP at a time. BUT you can get another one 2 hrs after you get the previous one or once your return time window begins for the ride you currently have a FP for, whichever comes first. So if you arrive at the park at 9 and get a FP for Peter Pan with a return time of 9:45 , you can get the next one at 9:45 instead of 11. It will always tell you when you can get another one on the bottom of the FP.
Aha! That makes sense – thanks so much for the clarification, Jennifer!
When you get a Fastpass, it has a time listed on it when you can get your next Fastpass. So say you got a Pooh fastpass that was good from 9:40 am to 10:40 am, at 9:40 am, you could go Fastpass Peter Pan since your window is now open. That’s what we did. As soon as we could get the next one, we did. :)
Oh, our family loves Splash Mountain. It is one of our traditions to ride it early in the morning, so we can ask to have our own flume, then we pose for the picture. If we don’t like the picture, we ride it again. We have bought our picture the last 5 times we have been, and they are all hanging up in the house.
Oh fun! I’d love to see the picture!! :)
It’s amazing how much more you can get done without kids in tow. And those Florida rain showers are so sporadic – but they usually pass quickly, so that’s good.
To the Ride attendants ever say anything about using the fastpass way later past the time?
Never to me and I very rarely hear them say it to anyone else. :)
Wow! Lots accomplished! Glad to see others do just about as much as we do in one day….although no way to we get up that early! Haha!
But…Splash is my FAVORITE!!! Was my favorite to begin with but even more so after we got engaged on it 13 yrs ago. :)
Ok you are going to have to elaborate on that story Krista!
Sounds like our day. We always accomplish so much when we go. We went together for the first time a year ago and took advantage of the touring plans on touringplans.com. Now we’re just experts at the routine since we’ve made 6 trips from NC to FL in the last year and don’t have to use them anymore. Of course it means we need a vacation from a vacation when we return LOL. Glad you had fun! And that Disney Visa line is always incredibly long when we go, so perhaps we need to try a different time.
LOL Splash Mountain is my absolute favorite ride! :) So glad ya’ll had fun and got to do so much!
Where is my LIKE button on this site? Love the pics. Looks like you guys made lots of memories.
That was a jam-packed day, but totally awesome that you got so much in on one day. You almost have to have days like that in order to see and do everything… and your day even included 3 sit-down meals!! I’m impressed :-)
That is awesome. Do the fast passes no longer have times on them? They used to (when we went a long time ago :( Boo hoo).
They do have return times on them, but Disney honors them throughout the entire day. So if the Fastpass window was 10 am to 11 am, you can return anytime after 10 am to redeem them all the way up until the park closes.
I didn’t know that!!! WOWZA! that would have been nice to know in january! lol…we never waited for very long though, but it would have been cool for when the kiddos were napping…we could have taken turns in the FP line :) i will know for next for sure!!!!!!
Can you use a child swap ticket in the FP line?
Yep. The Child Swap ticket works just like a fastpass. :)
WOW thats good to know!! Thanks!!
Wow – I don’t think we’ve ever managed that much, even before kids! Thanks for posting about this trip – it’s getting me excited for ours next month!
holy. freaking. cow. ok, your next site needs to be a disney tour planning site. that’s amazing even without summer crowds! i’m so glad you had a great time. you deserved it!