Disney World: Exploring Magic Kingdom-Day 1
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. We may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
Ever since my boys have been big enough to know that a place called Disney World exists, they have wanted to go. And luckily for them, ever since their Mama was big enough to know that place existed, she has wanted to go as well. So when my husband asked a couple of years ago what I thought we should do with the boys on his vacation the next summer, I put a brave smile on my face and suggested Disney World. Then I waited for what I thought would more than likely be a no. But much to my surprise, he said if I could plan it, he was game. (Insert me jumping up and down in my head like I’d just won the lottery here!) And thanks to my crazy mad (and maybe a tad bit OCD) teacher planning skills, I did just that!
We spent the first two days of our four days in Disney World at Magic Kingdom, and I have to say that it is my absolute FAVORITE of the parks we went to. There was just something so magical about being where Mickey Mouse, Disney stories, princesses, and a giant castle are. We started our mornings bright and early. And let’s face it, the boys usually get up early anyway, so I figured why not make use of our time and money. We brought breakfast from home with us, so everyone ate a pop tart before we headed out to for the day.
We tried to be at the bus stop by 7:00 each morning when the buses started running. I know it sounds super early, but the later you get started, the lines for the buses get super long, and then by the time you get to the parks, they’re crowded. You get the picture. (And yes, the buses start running before the parks open. You just wait at the entrance of the park among a sea of other people before the parks officially open once the bus drops you off. Plus it gives you time to get through security. Those lines can be brutal if you don’t know how to do it.) We chose to use Disney transportation, so we didn’t have to drive the unknown highways of Florida, and it was the best decision we made for our whole trip. I enjoyed being stress free and letting someone else do the driving while we sat back and relaxed, especially at the end of a very long tiresome day. (Trust me, Florida heat plus a TON of walking makes you very very tired at the end of the day.) And I’m sure it sounds silly, but using Disney transportation just keeps you immersed in that whole magical Disney bubble. You seriously forget that an outside world exists when you’re at Disney. I think they do that on purpose.
Once the park opened, the very first thing we did was to head over to the Town Square to meet Mickey and Minnie. That was a MUST do on our trip, so we figured we’d knock it out early. It was so much fun to stand in line (Who knew a line could be fun?) and watch the reactions of all the little kids meeting them. My favorite reactions were those of the preschoolers who were meeting them for the first time. The little girl in front of us in line couldn’t have been older than 3 or 4, and she cried when she had to leave Mickey and Minnie. It was the cutest thing ever! Mickey and Minnie had on their 90th birthday outfits when we met them, which made our first meeting with them even more special. Since we chose to buy a Memory Maker (I highly recommend. If you take advantage of it, you end up with tons of pictures with everyone in your family in them.), we had some great pictures of the boys and their first meeting with them. (Although I nearly cried when we got back to our hotel that evening, and I realized those pictures were missing! Thankfully there was a very patient cast member at Animal Kingdom who helped us find the missing pictures on our last day in the parks. Disney cast members are seriously awesome and go above and beyond to make a vacation memorable!)
After we met the Mouse, we headed towards the rides. I had used my mad teacher planning and research skills to figure out which rides we needed to head to first before they got super busy. We decided since Magic Kingdom is so big, to break it up into 2 days so we could try and do as much as possible. I’m so glad we did because we all felt like we truly experienced everything the park had to offer over our two days there. (I know there was a lot more to do, and that’s part of the fun of planning a Disney trip. You can pick what works best for your family. And like I told our boys, what we didn’t get to this time gives us a good reason to go back and do another time. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she? Haha!)
We decided to tackle Fantasyland and Tomorrowland on our first day. I had read that Fantasyland gets busy very quickly because all of the people with little kids head there, so we knew to start there.
We started with a spin on the teacups. Thanks to the Dramamine, no one got sick. Then we headed over for a flight on Dumbo, and the boys braved their first roller coaster ride on Barnstormer. I had always heard that Disney totally immersed you in their world, but I had absolutely no idea how much until we got in the que to ride the Dumbo ride. Wow! I felt like I was IN the movie from my childhood. Thankfully I didn’t burst into tears thinking about Dumbo’s mom going to jail like I did every single time I watched the movie as a little girl.
Then we were off to meet some more characters and get some autographs (We ordered Disney autograph books off Amazon. It turned out to be a great keepsake that the boys enjoy looking back on.) One thing I keep currently hearing is that with Covid-19 you can’t meet characters at the moment. So if you’re planning a current trip, and it’s your first trip, keep that in mind. Meeting characters was definitely one of our highlights on the trip and just makes Disney all the more magical!
We made a quick stop by Gaston’s Tavern for some more free iced cold water to refill our water bottles with and picked up a quick snack of one of their giant, heavenly cinnamon rolls.
Then we were off to do some more exploring! The remainder of our morning was spent enjoying a few more rides before lunch. I had tried my hardest to make sure the boys were familiar with each Disney movie that had a ride before we took our trip, and this proved to be successful. They enjoyed and understood all of our rides that morning.
We enjoyed our lunch seated in the upstairs of an air conditioned (Hallelujah!!!!) restaurant called Pinocchio Village House. We each got our own personal pepperoni flatbread pizza that wasn’t too heavy or greasy for the rest of the very HOT day. And since we had done a dining plan (sadly with Covid-19, they’re not currently being offered), I could let the boys order almost anything they wanted to drink. Since they don’t get slushies too often at home, they both opted for a blue raspberry slushy to enjoy with their pizza. (I guess I was so hungry that I forgot to take any pictures. Oops.) (On a side note, if you dislike paper straws like I do, bring your own straws from home. We weren’t even halfway through our drinks and our straws were wet, frustrating, crumbled messes that wouldn’t work.)
It was afternoon by this point, and we had done almost all of the rides we were dying to do in that half of the park. See? Crazy planning and arriving early sure does pay off!
We rode It’s a Small World, walked through the castle (The stained glass mosaic tiles were just as beautiful as I’d imagined!!!), and we visited some of the souvenir shops. We were also able to escape some of the heat of the afternoon by visiting some of the indoor shows and attractions since we’d done most of our rides in the morning. And since we were staying on Disney property, anything we bought could be delivered back to our room. Score!!!!!!
As the early evening settled in, we took a ride on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and even managed to get another ride on Dumbo. Then we stopped for dinner at Cosmic Ray’s. This place was definitely worth our stop. Everyone in our family found something they enjoyed eating here.
After dinner, it was time to stake out a place near the castle to view the nightly fireworks show. I’ll admit, I was a little worried because I knew the boys would have to wait almost an hour and a half before the show started, and I wasn’t sure they’d have the patience. But they did great! We passed the time talking, people watching, and admiring the beauty around us.
Staying true to the theme of our magical day, the fireworks show did NOT disappoint! You’ve never seen fireworks until you’ve seen the way Disney does fireworks! I honestly don’t know if I could even consider going back to Disney right now since I know they aren’t doing fireworks because of Covid. They were THAT good! The only complaint we had was some lady butted her way right in front of us about halfway through the show and proceeded to hold her cell phone up right in front of our 9 year old’s view. Ugh!
We decided to wait and let the traffic clear some after the show before heading back to catch our bus. BAD IDEA! (But it was the first time all day I could say that, so if that’s the only mistake of the day for the first trip, I’d say that wasn’t too bad.) Lots of other people had that idea too, and we ended up waiting in line about an hour just to get on our bus back to the resort. But honestly, I’m not sure if it would’ve mattered if we’d made a bee line straight for the bus after the show. It’s just that packed!
At the end of the day, we all agreed that we were exhausted (We logged almost 16,000 steps on our fitness trackers!), sweaty messes. But we also agreed that it was worth every single moment. We couldn’t wait to get up and do the second day back at Magic Kingdom in the morning!
