Monday - Day Three

We woke up at a decent time, ran downstairs to eat breakfast and ran into the rest of the family. For some reason, we didn't get our acts together early on, so we hit the Magic Kingdom at 9:30 am. We thought that the crowds would be smaller, since it was a Monday. We were wrong.

Since it was so crowded, we headed over to the Jungle Cruise. The line went surprisingly quickly and the kids had fun. M got scared when we went through an old "temple" that was dark, but all in all, I think she enjoyed it.

The Aladdin Flying Carpet ride was just next door, so we rode it. The kids were great as each kid got a turn to control the carpet.

Of course, for me, a trip to Disney isn't complete without riding the Pirates of the Caribbean. The ride has been updated to include Johnny Depp's "Captain Jack" and the hill you slide down was longer than I remembered. The updates are very small and the ride is essentially the same as when I was a kid. Poor J, he sat it out with M.

Next up was Splash Mountain. M is okay on roller coaster stuff and loves the log ride at the local Six Flags so she was receptive on going on the Splash Mountain ride. The ride has a lot more puppets and dark places than I remembered - it's also surprisingly a long ride. I guess this has more to do with worrying about M's fear of the puppets, but it seemed like the ride kept on going. She did great on the steep drops.

We then tried to get on the Thunder Mountain Rail as M has ridden similar rides with no problems. She panicked as soon as she saw the cars go through a couple of tunnels. As we were in line, one of the workers said that they will not start the ride if a kid is screaming that they don't want to ride. M was almost to this stage as we got closer to the front. J, once again, took M to sit out the ride. He's a great dad. The first part of the ride would have sent M into fits, but the rest was just fine and she would have had fun. Oh, well.

We were hungry about this time and had a mediocre meal. Afterwards we watched a parade. The in-laws got tired and we started back towards the hotel but decided to ride the Monorails to go see Epcot. The kids and my SIL got to sit in the front of one of the legs of the Monorail rides and the kids all got cute "Monorail Co-Pilot" cards. Sitting on the Monorail wasn't enough down time for my SIL's kids, so they headed back to the hotel, too. We stayed behind and went to watch a show that was put on in front of Cinderella's castle. We then did another ride on the carousel and It's a Small World. By this time, we needed to head over to the final character dinner held at the Liberty Tree Inn. This was where the kids got to see Chip n Dale (my youngest nephew was really cute and kept hugging them when they came by), Goofy, Pluto, and Minnie. The food was really great (beef, ham, & pork with corn bread dressing, mashed potatoes, & string beans topped off with an apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream). I think it was my favorite dinner the whole time we were there.

The SpectraMagic parade was going on and we actually found the BEST observation point where we could see everything. M hit the wall, so we headed home and got into bed around 9:30 pm again.

Since M was so distressed with most of the rides, I have to say that the Magic Kingdom wasn't all that magic for her. I am looking forward to when M is a little older and braver. Her 7 year old cousin was really great and tried to encourage her to go on the rides. I am always impressed at how well the nephews and her get along.