Drew at Fourty

Today Drew celebrates his 40th birthday. We came to Disney World because Drew decided the place in the world he would most want to be when he was 40 was here in Disney World. So the day began with Drew opening his cards.

Drew also agreed to wear the badges Disney gave to celebrate his birthday. It took some persuasion for him to wear them, but I'm sure it enhanced the birthday experience as the day progressed. It certainly meant that almost all the Disney Cast Members we passed took the time to wish him Happy Birthday. 

Back to the Magic Kingdom

As with the other days this week I woke at 5.00am and Drew woke a few minutes later and opened his cards. We went down to breakfast at 7.00am.

After breakfast we caught the Monorail to the Magic Kingdom, it is a lovely sunny day and I was able to get a shot of our hotel the Grand Floridian from the monorail, though with a bit of reflection from the monorail window. 

We arrived at the Park at 8.30am and were able to benefit from the 'Magic' Hours available to Disney Hotel residents to get into the park before the formal 9.00am start time.

Onto the Rides of Childhood Memory

Today's rides are all about Drew's selection and reliving our childhood this began with the lovely ride The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh clearly targeted at children, but great fun for us too. We ride in a Honey Pot and sing along with the songs while watching Winnie, Piglet, Christopher Robin, Eeyore and Tigger in their activities. Many more pictures of us enjoying acting like kids are available on Flickr for this and other rides.

I then relived my childhood by enjoying a ride on Prince Charming's Carousel. It was relaxed fun riding on a Carousel originally built in 1917 and later redesigned with a Disney theme. One day I'm sure the horses will head off as they do in Mary Poppins. 

Drew was happy sitting this out, or standing alongside taking the photos.

But it wasn't long before we were on another of Drew's favorite ride. A second visit for this holiday on It's a small world. Drew focused on taking photos that he had missed on the last occasion and these can also be seen on Flickr.

FrontierLand

Our first FastPass of the day was on Splash Mountain one of Drew's favorite rides and one I enjoy a lot too. I have commented on it earlier in the week. Drew was additionally pleased to get such a good picture of the Vultures that appear before the big drop in Splash Mountain. He had read that it is not an easy task to take this photo as people prepare for the drop, so he was very pleased with this one. 

And here we are on the drop as the water leaps up towards us. Amazingly the newly mature Drew held his hands up as we went down the hill. This is a first for him too, so his birthday clearly have a good effect on him. The angle of the guy's hands in front of me mean my face is not visible - which many may think is an improvement to the picture!!

Our next ride was another of our favorites, we had a 35 minute stand-by queue for the ride on Big Thunder Mountain which was another thrilling ride which we enjoyed a great deal. I do love a good roller coaster and Big Thunder really is a good roller coaster. 

Our next FastPass had been used to select a ride we had not managed to fit in on our earlier visit to the Magic Kingdom this week - The Haunted Mansion - the ride is a bit dated now, but the ghosts caused a few shouts and a scream or two.

As we left the Mansion we came to Liberty Square just in time (11.30am) to watch a Muppet Live Action Show called Great Moments in American History. The particular show we watched was about the Declaration of Independence and took a slightly alternative approach to the history. It was great fun and we had plenty of laughs during it. It is strange that live action could feel so much like a TV programme - one of the ways Disney plays with your mind. Here in the parks fantasy characters seem real and physical objects/characters seem like broadcast material - as I've said in earlier posts, it is best not to over think it, just enjoy the moment.

Cinderella's Castle and Main Street

As we walked away from the Muppets we had another of those Disney serendipitous moments when we walked towards TomorrowLand and instead found ourselves looking up at Mickey and Minnie on the stage of the Castle. This was towards the end of Mickey's Royal Friendship Fair 

but we got plenty of chances to take photos of Tiana, Prince Naveen and Louis from The Princess and the Frog. Rapunzel, Flynn Rider and the Pub Thugs from Tangled and Olaf, Anna and Elsa from Frozen.


As the Fair ended we walked through the lovely grounds in this area and then down Main Street where the serendipity continued as we met Pluto walking along Main Street Square. Then noticed a queue to meet Chip and Dale, the Rescue Rangers which Drew joined and ten minutes later was able to meet the two of them, who took a liking to his Birthday badge.

As Drew finished with Chip and Dale so the Move It! Shake It! Dance & Play It! Street Party began. We were well placed to take photos of the floats as they moved up Main Street. The photos start here if you want to see more, I've selected my favorite with Baloo and King Louis from The Jungle Book.  

I suspect it is worth noting that all this time when we have been walking about the temperature with the effect of the humidity has been touching 102.5F (40C) - very, very hot. It was time to go indoors and enjoy air-conditioning. We opted to go into Main Street Bakery which is actually a Starbucks store. While there are no seats in the store, we were able to sit on a window ledge and enjoy the coffee in a lovely cool environment. It took about 15 minutes to begin to feel human again after all that heat. 

While we sat there another amazing moment occurred when the Mayor of Main Street came into the store to cool down. He spotted Drew's Birthday badge and came over to greet him. 

It turns out that the man in this role knew was Wales was, when he asked where we were from. It turns out that he lives next door to a Welsh Man who is married to a Yorkshire Women and said she made great Yorkshire puddings! There are not many American's who would know about that wonderful food.

Leaving the Bakery we walked back up Main Street to the Castle and watched the beginning of the Royal Friendship Fair we had seen the start of earlier. This was disrupted due to one of the typical mid-afternoon Florida Thunder Storms. While this only lasted for 10 minutes it was enough to need to cancel the show but also enough to bring the oppressive heat down a little.

As we still had time before our last FastPass of the day we walked up to a character meeting place we had seen earlier. This was for a new character to us - Merida, a Scottish Princess who is a character from Brave. As ever Drew really got into the engagement with the character as you will see from the photos. Drew was particularly pleased that Merida tried guessing his age and was way to low! 

TomorrowLand

From Merida we went into the 10 minute stand-by queue for Stitch's Great Escape this was a gentle 'theatre-in-the-round' operated by animatronics and with an audio, video, olfactory and physical engagement with Stitch, who, technologically, feels like he is jumping on your head. Lightly amusing and a good way of getting over the wait for the next ride.

The next ride, our last booked FastPass of the day was Space Mountain, the Stand-by queue here was 140 minutes, so we were grateful to have fastpassed and got onto the ride in 5 minutes. This remains a great roller coaster - I prefer being able to see where I am going, it seems to add to the excitement for me, but the absence of visual stimuli in the darkness of Space Mountain does have its own impact as does the sudden appearance of other cars going in the opposite direction which always makes Drew scream, as the photo shows. 

Pirates of the Caribbean

Having used our last FastPass to enter Space Mountain we are able to select another one, and were surprised to see that the Pirates of the Caribbean ride had a FastPass entry for 20 minutes later. So having thought we had done our last ride, we had one final gentle trip singing Yo, Ho, Yo, Ho, A Pirate's Life for me. 

Back to the Grand Floridian

The Boat coming into the hotel dock

We left the park at 3.30 and headed for the Monorail, which was unfortunately down for repairs, so we made out way to the ferry boat that travels between the Magic Kingdom and Grand Floridian. The boat arrived at 3.45pm and we travelled across the lagoon getting to the Grand Floridian at 4.15pm getting in to our room in time to see some amazing lighting and see some heavy pouring rain. Obviously we just got the time right. 

Down came the rain

Walking around the Parks

Those readers who know me will know that I have lost a lot of weight in the last 18 months through the simple expedient of walking 4 miles five days a week to and from Church. When coming on holiday I was worried that I might put on weight, with lots of good eating and less exercise. Well I shouldn't have worried at Disney. My Apple iPod records walking without me having to set anything, so I noted this afternoon that we had managed the following walks just by strolling around the parks:

Sunday - Epcot - 2.8 miles

Monday - Magic Kingdom - 4.5 miles

Tuesday - Epcot - 7.3 miles

Wednesday - Animal Kingdom - 7.2 miles

Thursday - Hollywood Studios - 6.2 miles

Friday - Magic Kingdom - 5.2 miles

So we had done more than my usual walking each day!