The perfect way to play at the Magic Kingdom - Part 1

We got up around 7am,

showered and prepared breakfast in our room, consisting of sandwiches, chips and potato salad, sat down and had a relaxed breakfast

before getting ready to ride the Monorail around to the resorts. We also were at the lookout for a pin for someone from our cruise group and according to the shop Disney app it was sold at the Contemporary. So since we had to get there anyway we walked right into the shop, looked around, didn’t see it and asked a cast member. He had no idea, but after being shown on the phone, he went to get another cast member. And he then told us that his particular pin was not released yet and to come back on the 13th, as that was the release date. He swore they already had it in the stock room, but were not allowed to sell it before the 13th.

Okay, good, our cruise was not setting sail before the 25th, so it was no problem to pick it up later.

So off we went through security and up to the Monorail to ride it to the Polynesian Resort. Didn’t take long and we arrived and started our walk through the resort, checking out the stores and grounds.

About half an hour later we stopped in at the store and picked up a cute little Stitch, which would later become my pal for the Halloween Party and then we took another Monorail over to the Grand Floridian. Again, we walked around the grounds,

checked out the stores and watched out for another DISboards friend, who now works at the Grand.

He had posted on Facebook that he was on his way to work, so we hung around for a while, but since we were going to meet another friend, we headed back to the Contemporary and since we still had time, we just stopped at the Contempo Café for a little lunch. Again, we had decided to share and it didn’t take long for them to bring out our food. We had ordered the

Cheddar and Bacon Macaroni & Cheese, Blistered Tomatoes, Caramelized Onions, Bacon, Cheddar Sauce, and Cheese Bread Crumbs and the

Meat Lover's Flatbread, Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, and Smoke Bacon, topped with Mozzarella, which were both delicious. We are both not big fans of Mac and Cheese, but this one was really good and we gobbled it all up. Once we were done we headed back to Bay Lake Tower and waited for our friend Pamela who was on her way.

Didn’t take long and she had parked her car and was on her way to the resort.

We met her out in the parking lot and lots of hugs were in order before we returned to our room for a short chat and then we all headed over to the Contemporary to jump on the Monorail and travel over to Epcot. It was nice to have time to catch up on things while we were riding over, then joined the masses who were queueing up for bagcheck and finally we were able to scan our magic bands and head into the park.

We were a bit in a hurry as we were already at the tail end of our first pass and made it to The Land with minutes to spare. We headed inside and down the escalator to get on Living with the Land. There was a LONG line to get on the ride and even a line for the Fast Pass. We only had a few more minutes (we were already inside the grace period) but luckily made it onto the ride.

Again, we just chatted along and enjoyed sitting in the air conditioning and even though we all had been on the ride lots of times it is still so fun and interesting to see all the plants you ride through.

Once off the ride there was time for a restroom break before jumping right into the fast pass line for Soarin.

Funnily enough the line here seemed to be shorter than for Living with the Land and it was a short walk to the second check-point

and from there we joined a queue to get on the ride. When we finally made it to the point where they assign the seats we discovered that we would be seated on the far right side, so we asked if we could wait and get on the middle glider as I am not a fan of leaning landmarks. It wasn’t a problem, so we just stood back and waited for the lines to clear and then it was our turn. We were seated in row one of the middle glider and thoroughly enjoyed our ride, rediscovering all those beautiful landmarks again. Once we got off the ride, we had just a few minutes until our next fast pass was going to open, so we strolled towards the exit into the blistering heat again and then stopped into MouseGear to have a look around and cool off before heading over to Mission Space.