This is really just a glowing tribute to my absolute favourite and, in my opinion, the best parade Disney World have ever created. I could honestly sit and watch it all day, every day, burning heat or pouring rain. I’m actually writing this while listening to the soundtrack on Youtube, just to keep the magic going.
If you only spend one day in the Magic Kingdom, do not let yourself miss out on this truly beautiful display of Disney magic!
Ok Mouseketeers, we’re just coming to the end of our first day in the most magical place on earth, and you all wanna know what we got up to, right?
Thanks to jet lag, we were up well before the alarm was due, which meant we could sneak a little lie in before grabbing a snacky breakfast and jumping on a bus to the Magic Kingdom. We had the great perk of being allowed into the park before other guests, not because of a breakfast reservation, but because we were going on the Keys to the Kingdom tour, which began at 8.30am. Now the park didn’t open til 9am today, so Main Street was looking pristine and beautiful, before we watched the hoards of other guests descend.
The tour was incredible – a solid 5 hours long including lunch, and we got to see and learn so much, but we weren’t allowed to take any photos, waa! I’m also not going to go into any details due to spoilers (although I may write something on it another time).
It was about 1.30pm when we finished up, so we headed into Adventureland to do Pirates of the Caribbean, which is one of my favourite rides. I think it was actually the longest I’ve ever waited to go on PotC in any park before, around 30 minutes. That was followed by the glorious feeling of skipping past a 2 hour long queue for Big Thunder Mountain because we had a Fastpass, then we waited for the Festival of Fantasy parade in Liberty Square. Its my all time favourite parade, and before now I’ve only ever watched it from Main Street, and honestly, Liberty Square didn’t do it the justice it deserves!
After fighting through post-parade masses we moved through into Fantasyland, where I picked up Cogsworth and Chip from Village Gifts (yay!) before going on Dumbo the Flying Elephant. From there we did a Carousel of Progress before going back to Fantasyland for our Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Fastpass, which you might have watched on Periscope!
Starting to flag, and also feeling a little chilly, we walked through the now beautifully lit castle, and headed down through the shops of Main Street, before catching the early viewing of Main Street Electrical Parade from a great spot, thanks to a lovely cast member! A quick, and dare I say disappointing ride on Buzz Lightyear Spaceship Spin and we caught a monorail to Contemporary a Resort for our dinner reservation at California Grill.
While initially booking so we could look out over the Magic Kingdom, we were actually seated at the opposite end of the restaurant, so we ended up seeing the Epcot fireworks, and also a bit of Fantasmic pyrotechnics, and the food was amazing!
Exhausted, full of food and content, we bussed it back to the resort. Catch you tomorrow!
If you’re following me on Instagram (@lottiedoesdisney) or Twitter (@lottieanddisney), you’ll see that recently I’ve been suffering major Disney blues in the last week or so. I realised the other day its been over 6 months since I was last at Disney World, and that seems like too long to me, especially as, at the moment, I won’t be going back until January.
So to cheer myself up I’ve been reading my Disney Trip Diaries and going through my endless photos, which inspired this post, the first of a mini series where I’ll be re-living my favourite shows and parades in my photo memories, starting with my absolute favourite: The Festival of Fantasy.
Ok, so I know its a long post, but considering each time I watched this parade I took around 200 photos, I don’t think I’ve done a bad job of cutting it down! To call it amazing would be a total understatement, it honestly brought me to tears, but then again so did quite a few of the parades and displays..
I just love Disney World..
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Another two in one blog.
Yesterday started with cake, wahey! On my adventures the other night, I’d made a trip to the Boardwalk Bakery and placed an order for a cake for a certain special occasion..
So following cake for breakfast, we headed over to Typhoon Lagoon, where we spent the day swimming with sharks, catching some waves and generally splashing around! We had dinner at T-Rex in Downtown Disney; an absolutely fab meal in an awesome location where the Jurassic era is brought to life!
We also headed across to the Magic Kingdom for the Main Street Electrical Parade, Celebrate the Magic and Wishes.
Today we had a lazy morning before heading over to the Magic Kingdom in time to camp out for the Festival of Fantasy Parade, which we’d missed due to rain before.
Wow, wow, wow! Well worth sitting out in scorching heat for 30 mins!
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Lottie Does 