Disney 2016: Magic Kingdom, Day 1 (part 2)

12:20 pm-- After the Belle show, we had a Fastpass to meet Anna and Elsa.  Isla loves Elsa especially, and she was excited to meet her.  We waited about five minutes in the Fastpass line before it was our turn.  While we were waiting, I booked another Fastpass for the Haunted Mansion.  Disney allows you to book 3 fastpasses per day, but after you have used those three, then you can get a new one.  And after you use that one, then you can get another one.  As soon as we had scanned our bands for Anna/Elsa, I started looking for our next Fastpass while still in line to meet them.  The Fastpass selection gets worse as the day goes on, so booking them quickly and early in the day is important!

On to Anna/Elsa, Isla still wasn't ready to pose by herself, but I think she might be looking at the camera with at least one eye in the first picture with Elsa!

 12:55 pm--  We walked over to Liberty Square Market and grabbed a snack.  Then Daniel and Audrey went off to brave the Haunted Mansion, while Isla and I staked out a spot in the shade to eat and wait for them and take a few silly pictures.  I've found that Isla is much more cooperative with selfies when there is not someone else pointing the camera at her.  So we took a lot of selfies on this trip!

That spray bottle/fan was purchased for a whopping $20 on this trip.  Audrey was SO hot and kept seeing everyone with these fan/bottle things.  We eventually agreed with her that it really was SO hot, and bought the fan.  We got a lot of use out of it, so I guess it was a good purchase.

Daniel and Audrey came back from Haunted Mansion, and I immediately book our next Fastpass for Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride.  Audrey was not a fan of Haunted Mansion, but I'm proud of her for being brave and trying it!  Next, we wanted to meet Tiana.  She was the one princess that we didn't meet on our last trip.  According to Kenny the Pirate's Character Locator (highly recommend subscribing to that if you want to meet Disney characters on your trip!), Tiana would start meeting at 1:40, so we walked towards her meeting spot.  Our mistake on the last trip was that we showed up at the beginning of the greet time.  You really need to get there before the time starts, at least 10-15 minutes before, because the lines fill up really quickly!

1:25 pm--  We got in line for Tiana.  There were about 10 people in front of us, and behind us the line grew quickly!

1:50 pm--  Our turn to meet Tiana. Isla was feeling a little shy on this one.

2:00 pm-- We walked over to Adventureland to use our Fastpass for Magic Carpets of Aladdin.  This ride is just like Dumbo, except with magic carpets instead of elephants.  Wait times are usually not more than 15-20 minutes, but I didn't want to wait that long, so we got a Fastpass for a 5 minute wait.  Daniel took the girls on the ride, while I went over to Aloha Isle and got Daniel his favorite Disney World snack--Dole Whip!  I don't really like Dole Whip at all, but everyone raves about it, so I'm definitely in the minority.  I think Daniel had it at least 3 times on our trip.

2:15 pm--  We walked over to Frontierland to stake out a spot for the 3:00 Festival of Fantasy parade.  We used to watch the parade on Main Street, but there are less crowds in Frontierland, and I like that.  It took us a little time to find a front row spot in the shade, but we got one!  I walked over to an ice cream stand and got Mickey Mouse ice cream bars for the girls.  They melted so fast, and made a complete mess, but they were yummy!

 3:00 pm-- Time for the parade to start!  We were all a little tired and a lot hot at this point, so our goal was to watch the parade and then get out of the park!  My character loving kids always love the parade.

This creepy thing from the Maleficent dragon part walked right up to Audrey and stared her down:

We also were greeted by some of the seven dwarves.  Saying hi to Audrey.

And saying hi to Isla.  I love Dopey's bashful look when he saw that Isla was being bashful too.

 

3:20 pm-- As soon as the parade was over, we hurried out back towards Main Street.  Our goal was to make it across Main Street at the front of the park and exit before the parade passed.  This was almost a brilliant plan.  Almost, because we didn't quite make it.  We were so close!  The family in front of us made it across Main Street, but as we got there, the cast member was pulling the rope and wouldn't let us cross.  So instead, we had to stand and watch the parade AGAIN, only this time in the blazing hot sun.  We tried so hard to get a spot in the shade to watch the parade, and we succeeded only to fail and have to watch it a second time in the heat.  This might have been the worst part of our trip.  That parade took forever the second time!  I still think we had a good idea.  My advice to you, if you want to watch the parade in Frontierland and then exit the park:  move faster than we did!!

3:50  pm--  After the parade finally passed and we walked to the bus stop, we were so, so hot!

But soon we were on an air conditioned bus back to our air conditioned resort, so all was good.  Isla crashed on the bus ride back.

4:16 pm-- Back at the resort with just a little bit of time to relax before our dinner reservation at Sanaa.

Here are the girls headed downstairs to Sanaa,and one of my favorite pictures from the trip!

5:20 pm-- Dinner reservation at Sanaa.  We only waited about two minutes, but we still had time to take a few pictures while we waited.

Sanaa is an African/Indian inspired restaurant located at Animal Kingdom Lodge-Kidani Village.  It is a neat restaurant, with windows that overlook the animals on the savanna.  We didn't sit right next to a window, but we were close enough to see outside.

 This bird spent most of the meal hanging out at our window and showing off.

Sanaa is famous for its bread service, and for good reason!  It was delicious!  I could have eaten that Naan bread all night long.  We were all big fans!

6:15 pm--  After finishing our delicious dinner, it was time to hit up the pool and the waterslide!

8:30 pm-- Bedtime for everyone!  It was a busy day, and we had plans to be up early the next day.

Next Up:  Our day at Animal Kingdom!