Day 5: The Magic Kingdom

Friday, our last day in Disney World, we got up bright and early once again to spend the day at the Magic Kingdom. This was our only day in the Magic Kingdom, but we had spent the evening of the Not-So-Scary Halloween Party there on Tuesday night and got to ride many rides already. Unfortunately, my previously favorite ride, Space Mountain, was closed for renovations. However, we still found a lot of other fun rides. One of our unexpected favorites of the day was Monsters Inc., Comedy Club. We all enjoyed that, I think. Tessa loved the Haunted Mansion. Jesikah really enjoyed "It's a Small World".

Of course, coming into the park, we had to get the mandatory picture of the castle.

My camera lens was a fogged up from the condensation, but I took this picture right off.

Then, I asked a "photographer" (you know the ones that are all around the park to take pictures) to take this picture of us. She appeared to be in a crabby mood, but took it, looked at it, and gave the camera back to us. We didn't look at it right away, but later when we went through our pictures, we were very disappointed in how blurry this shot was. This was probably the worst picture of the week, and it was taken by the "photographer". It was disappointing for me, because I was really looking forward to having a good family picture with the castle. Oh well!

Eric ended up getting a good one later with Alex when they went to get fastpasses.

Another one of them...they obviously found a better photographer. :)

Near the Magic Carpet ride, Peter Pan was waiting to give autographs.

And pictures...

Riding Aladdin's Magic Carpet, all the kids were on the same magic carpet, and Eric and I got to have our romantic carpet ride on the carpet behind...at least until the camel spit on us.

The kids during the ride, taken from above.

Getting autographs from Aladdin and Jasmine afterwards...had to wait awhile for this one.

We finally got to get the picture...they were very friendly and talkative though.

Tessa looking into a mirror in one of the restrooms. Odd to take a picture in a bathroom (I know), but I just thought it was interesting that the princess theme even carried through into some of the restrooms.

I believe this was one of Jarem's favorite things of the day...driving the car in the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway. I was sitting in the passenger seat, and he asked me to push the pedal while he drove. I can't express in words, how ecstatic he was to be DRIVING the car. It was fun to see his excitement.

Ahead of us were, Eric and Jesikah in the red and yellow car, and Tessa and Alex in the blue car. Tessa, Jesikah and Jarem were the drivers.

Here you can see Jesikah and Tessa driving

Jesikah and Eric leaning out for the picture while waiting to exit.

We took a break for a little lunch...Jesikah had the camera and was taking pictures of all of us.

I love this one she took of Eric

Here's part of our lunch...we each took a chunk off this turkey leg. It was quite the leg! It was very tasty too.

Jarem was trying to wander off after lunch

And then he was just too tired to go anymore, it had been a long week.

The Magic Kingdom was really decked all out for Halloween, even Mickey and Minnie had their costumes on. Here are us girls with Minnie...

And, the boys with Mickey.

Here comes the parade down Main Street USA...you can see some of the orange decorations that lined the streets.

The beginning of the "Celebrate Today" parade with Mickey and Minnie kicking it off.

Chip n Dale

And the princesses start to arrive...Snow White

The mice from Cinderella
The evil step-mother and step-sisters...Eric made the comment, "How would to feel if you went to audition for a part and you got selected to be the step-sisters?"...something to think about. :)

Cinderella and Prince Charming

Beauty and the Beast (with the girls) Jesikah was so upset that I took this picture and made her miss the parade that I told her we could run down the street to get the view they missed. On the way back, with our hurrying and holding hands to keep track of each other through the crowds, Tessa hit her head on a trash can and ended up with a really bad headache before the end of the day.

Ariel and Prince Eric

The girls and Jarem with Walt Disney and Minnie Mouse

Jesikah especially liked Minnie at Disney World. She even bought a stuffed Minnie souvenir with her money.

A quick pitstop while Eric helps Tessa get her shoe tied.

We had driven our car to the park this day. In the late afternoon, we decided to head back to the cabin for a nap and dinner and then we would go back until the park closed at 11pm. Well, there was a boat that went directly from Magic Kingdom to Fort Wilderness so we figured it would save us time to go and come back on the boat and then drive our car back that night. So, we had our nap, went to dinner at the Fort Wilderness buffet (which we did have reservations this time--but was still WAY overpriced), and headed on the boat back to Magic Kingdom. This was our beautiful sunset as we waited to get on the boat back to the Magic Kingdom. That night we enjoyed many rides on the Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain, and also Pirates of the Caribbean. This was probably the funnest night of the week, because even Alex had decided that he wanted to go on both Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain!! Jarem got to go on these also, so we went as a family, and that was fun! We even bought the picture to document that Alex enjoyed Splash Mountain (he usually doesn't like any rollercoasters or thrillrides of any kind). We also enjoyed the fireworks show by the castle before heading back.

As we were heading back to the the car, Eric said, "I just realized that I don't have the keys". He had accidentally left them at the cabin when we took the boat back. Well, that really stunk because the park was closing. So we took the boat back to the cabin, and Eric was lucky to get the last bus back to pick up our car after he recovered the keys from the cabin. He was incredibly calm and patient even in a frustrating situation. He made it back within about an hour. We were wiped out after a long week of fun, so we slept in Saturday morning.