Hey everyone! Thank you so much for all of your sweet comments and encouragement!
Tonight we are going to finally finish off our first park day! Where we last left off, we were in the Magic Kingdom and we had just enjoyed watching Festival of Fantasy for the first time. We had picked up a Little Mermaid fastpass reservation for 2:45 to 3:45 and now that the parade had passed, we decided to head to New Fantasyland to use it. Cast Members refer to this area of the park as Fantasyland Forest and I really hope that name becomes used by all instead of “New Fantasyland.”
I remember being amazed by this park expansion when it first opened. My family visited just a few weeks after its official opening and I thought it was just an all around beautiful area to walk around. Scott and I worked stroller parking shifts in Fantasyland a handful of times and Little Mermaid was our preferred assignment. The exterior and queue is simply perfection, especially now that the food stand and DVC kiosk are opened and there are no walls. Funny story: So when Scott and I first met we had just moved to Orlando for the DCP and Scott had not been to see New Fantasyland yet. So one of the first times we hung out was to go to Magic Kingdom to visit New Fantasyland and do the attractions there and visit Gaston’s Tavern etc.
Well it was January and there were no lines anywhere, so as we were walking through the Little Mermaid queue, I don’t know WHY but I decided to step over one of those large sandstone formations that form the lines of the queue. I really don’t know what possessed me, because I would never normally do that. But as I was stepping over, I realized that I was wearing skinny jeans (it was January) and they did not stretch as far as I needed. So, I just kind of fell/plopped down right onto the sandstone queue wall. Yup. It hurt. But I guess making a fool of myself worked because Scott is still around, years later.
Anyways, back to riding Little Mermaid in 2015…
Do you guys have feelings about this ride? We sure do. It’s not a terrible ride. I like the cool breeze as you go under water, the music, and the queue, but it has its issues. 1) If you even tried to parse the story of the Little Mermaid from this ride alone and no prior knowledge, you would have no clue what was going on. 2) Fish Statues. Everything besides a handful of animatronics is statues. Like those birds holding back the greenery as you enter the “Kiss the Girl” scene…just statues. You guys! So..many…fish statues. 3) Ariel looks decidedly nervous in every scene.
"Oh no.. Don't sneeze… Hold it in, girl…"
OK WHY IS TRITON SO JACKED IN THIS LAST SCENE?!
The ride had undergone a refurbishment and the major change was that the “Under the Sea” scene was dark and utilizing Disney’s beloved black light paint. Also, they added more freakin' fish statues. Have you ever noticed that the walls in the “Under the Sea” scene are massive screens? There had to be a different original plan for those walls! So after the always interesting Little Mermaid ride, we headed into a much under appreciated land: Storybook Circus.
I realize this area only has “kiddie rides” but it is gorgeous! We love just walking around Storybook Circus and appreciating the details. I love when it’s around sunset but all of the lights in the area are on. We were after a sweet snack so we headed into Big Top Souvenirs.
We love this shop! We wanted to try a Mickey Macaron. Though there were only a few people in front of us in line, I believe we waited around twenty minutes. That was because the man attempting to check out at the register did not know how his
Disney Dining Plan worked, at all. He just had no clue. The only person with less of a clue was the woman ringing him up. Oh boy, it was a mess. I fought the urge to pipe up and try to get the altercation figured out, because well I don’t know anything about ringing up a snack on a meal plan. But we put in a lot of good hard work for that Macaron. I believe this snack costs $3.49. We had two options in flavor, lemon or orange. We chose lemon, which was lavender in color.
We took our snack to the sitting area under the tent near the character meet and greet. If you haven’t checked this area out, it’s a really nice place for an in park break.
It's themed to be sort of the backstage break room/dressing room for the characters who are employed by the circus. The furniture is mismatched and seemingly out of place, just as a circus sideshow rest area should be. Madame Daisy Fortuna's crystal ball even makes an appearance.
There are outlets available to charge and many different groups of chairs to sit in. In fact, there was a woman laid out completely asleep in that area. We enjoyed our macaron. We split it and it was very sweet, definitely a good thing to split.
While exploring the Storybook Circus area, check out the Casey Jr. Splash 'n' Soak Station. Be sure to stay a good 50 feet away because this splash zone spews water unlike any other splash zone I've ever seen. However, if you can get close enough, take note of the numbers on each of the train cars. 71, 82, 89, and 98. The opening years of MK, Epcot, DHS, and DAK respectively.
After finishing our snack we headed to get on the railroad from the Storybook Circus stop.
We had to wait a bit, but the line moved the entire time. Something interesting happened once we were on the train. When we were seated, I was looking over at the queue area. Along the gate, something scary happened. A boy was playing with a gate in the queue that had a clasp on it to open and close. Well, he opened the gate and once he did, a woman who (might have been his mother) watched him open the gate, grabbed her children, and started pushing through the gate right when the train was about to take off. A cast member came running, but that could have been a bad situation. Who thinks that a kid opening a gate is an invitation onto an attraction?!
I love the Magic Kingdom railroad! There’s a nice breeze, a story, and you can stay on as long as you please.
We got off the railroad back in Storybook Circus and decided to head to Mickey’s Philharmagic. This show is always a good one to catch in the afternoon when rides are packed.
After Philharmagic, we went to visit another “people eater” attraction, Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor.
If you want to be a part of the show, sit along the main aisle. We’ve never had speaking parts but Scott has been picked multiple times to be the guy who “has the sudden urge to get up and dance.” What is it about him that looks so danceable?! We also participated in the bit where we made facial expressions for the monsters to imitate once. Scott fake offered me a ring that turned out to be a slug. Good times.
When we exited the show, the sky was a million shades of terrible Florida storm. It looked downright scary, even by the standards of people who used to live there. Our plan from that morning was to parkhop over to Hollywood Studios to catch Fantasmic! during evening extra magic hours. Well, we were exhausted from a long day starting at rope drop and the storm made us think that Fantasmic! wouldn’t happen that night. So, we decided to head back to Pop Century. Once we were just about to get to our bus stop, the skies opened up. We waited a little while for a bus and then headed to our room to relax and see how the storm turned out.
Well, when it was still lightning and pouring at 8pm, we knew we’d rather just hang at Pop. We had a whole day at Hollywood Studios planned for later in our trip and we had accomplished so much that day. We had a ton of fun just talking and catching up in our room anyway.
We went to Everything Pop for dinner that night, where we each got something from a different station. I went Asian with the sesame chicken with rice and broccoli. My food was good but I got it first and I waited a little while for the others to bring their food over before I ate. So, it was kind of cold. I should’ve microwaved it in the food court microwave but I didn’t. It tasted good and I would get it again.
Scott got a brisket sandwich. I just asked Scott what he thought and he said it was “forgettable.” Meaning, it was fine but nothing memorable.
After dinner, we checked out the hotel gift shop where Scott and Chrissy had some fun playing dress up. Why we saw nobody else wearing these stuffed animal scarves or the adult sized Sulley tail is beyond me.
After the gift shop exploration, we headed back to our room to rest up for morning EMH at Epcot the next day!
Thank you so much for reading! We’ll see ya real soon!
