Before we arrived in Florida, we already had reservations for a character lunch on Wednesday at the Crystal Palace.  Obviously, this was a day we needed to be at the Magic Kingdom.  It is still just an amazing place to be.  Since we tried to get up and out early, we cut straight through the middle to reach Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain first.  Thunder Mountain is Mason’s all time favorite ride.

After seeing what Frontierland had to offer, We went over to Tom Sawyer island to explore for a bit, then landed in Liberty Square, where we hit the Haunted Mansion and a few other dark rides.  Finally, it was time for our late lunch, which we didn’t even get seated until another 40 minutes past our reservation.  The whole gang from the Hundred acre wood was there.

We spent the afternoon in Adventureland.  We had mixed feelings after hearing the Pirates of the Caribbean had been updated to include the movie themes.  Hmmm, you can’t mess with Reagan’s favorite ride.  There was an awesome new effect with Davey Jones starting the ride, and you could hear them looking for Jack Sparrow a few times, and could spotting him hiding around twice.  There was a room at the very end with him sitting amongst the treasure and talking and singing…..”and really bad eggs”.  Otherwise, the ride had not changed.  It was good.

Mason ended up doing the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse a 2nd time by himself as we had a snack at the bottom.  Took in the show at the Tiki room, and went for a Jungle Cruise.  We did a short loop catching Snow White and a ride on the Astro Orbiter.  We also took in seconds on Thunder Mountain and Pirates.  We found some food and waited in Liberty Square for the night time parade,  Spectromagic.  Very cool parade.  Everyone was wearing white, and hundreds of bulbs.  The giant demon float from Fantasia stopped, spewed smoke, and spread it’s wings right in front of us.   We went to a site next to the castle for the fireworks.  Had an excellent view of the castle, and of Tinkerbell, but most of the fireworks were behind the tree we were under.  The sprinklers were going next to us to hose off the building they were launching from, and we kept finding firework casing all around us.  How can you be that close and not see much?  Before retiring for the night, we did fly with Peter Pan, and Reagan and I kept catching some of the smallest details that we never noticed before.

Day 2.  The return.  We had been setting out to cover each park in a day, but realized that our extra day would be best served at the Magic Kingdom.  We could take our time and enjoy things more.  Just because it had been updated, we gave It’s a Small World a try.  Nice and fun still does not excuse getting that song stuck in your head.  Mickey’s PhilharMagic was next.  It is about the most amazing 4D experience here. It was Reagan’s pick.  The show has Mickey has a conductor, but Donald gets a hold of his magical wand and makes a mess of things and starts bouncing from most classic Disney films.  There are great special effects, fun 3D sights, and winds that shift along with the action.  Very cool!

We had lunch reservations at the Kona Cafe, which is at the Polynesian Resort across the lake.  We could re-enter the same park on our tickets, so this was no big deal.  We got to take a ride on the Monorail, which Mason had ranked nearly as cool as any of the regular rides.
Tomorrowland keeps getting the most updates.  Space Mountain was closed, again!  I think it was closed 5 years ago too!  Buzz Lightyears Space spin is a great game/ride.  Mason got the high score this year.  We did manage a couple of rides, but the lines were too long to keep trying to best each other.  Stitch’s Great Escape is a great dark experience.  Just don’t eat chili dogs before you go, hehe.  The newest thing was the Laugh Floor, from Monsters Inc.  We heard it was the monsters telling jokes and that it was interactive.  You could text in your own jokes for them to use. I will not give away how interactive this one really was.  Luckily, none of us got picked…or picked on.  We all like the Carousel of Progress, but it needs another new update, as the last one seemed a little to 1990.

We finally wrapped up the day by going back deeper into the park and seeing Ariels Grotto and Pooh’s spot, which are both for little kids, and wandered around the Toontown fair for a bit.  We took the easy way, by hopping one the big train and riding it back to the front gates.  We used our extra time this afternoon by taking a bus to the Boardwalk, to have diner and drinks there, then took their bus directly to Downtown Disney to finish our shopping.  Mason came home with….Legos.