WDW - Magic Kingdom (Part One)

Out of the four main theme parks at WDW, Magic Kingdom tops my list of favorites.  This trip I was able to take in more of the sights and sounds of the park and really absorb it. I have to say that I am quickly growing to enjoy the park more and more.

  

One of the lovely surprises to Magic Kingdom is that they have some Disneyland faves of yesterday. So when we are in the park, we tend to ride them as much as we can.

Of course we had to see those Country Bears and all their wonderfulness. It's been cleaned up and PC'd a bit with the removal of most of the banter as well. But it was still great to see them. 

As much as I don't mind Tarzan's Tree house, they have the Swiss Family Tree House looking all overly and awesome. It also has a great view of the overall park! It was pretty much a line up and down, but everyone was nice and allowed people to stop for photos. 

We also rode the awesometimes People Mover and watched the Carousel of Progress, but somehow we have zero photos of these happenings. I do have to say, I really love the People Mover. So much love.

I very much made it a point to get the much buzzed about "citrus swirl" and an Orange Bird cup. So this was the very first place we hit up on my first day in the park. There was a unbelievable slow line but eventually I got both. I have to sadly admit that I did not enjoy the citrus swirl as much as I expected. It was too acidic and tart. Not in a good way. I'm sorry. But I got my little cup and spotted the bird!

Over to New Fantasyland!

This new extension to Fantasyland currently has two themed sections. A Beauty and The Beast and Little Mermaid section. Opening soon is a Snow White attraction that seems to take up a lot of space, so it felt a little more cramped than I'm sure it should be. I'm also not sure if Storybook Circus is considered part of the NF expansion or if it's own offshoot.

Anywho, we had reservations on Sunday for dinner at Be Our Guest and headed over to check out the castle during the day. 

Detailed and simple, it is remarkable and beautiful. Needless to say, we were very excited for our dinner reservations. From there we headed over to Gaston's Tavern.



The center piece of this area is a wonderful and humble statue of our villain Gaston. 




The tavern is dressed in horns and pelts with a humble painting of that handsome Gaston.



We didn't try any of the offerings since it was too close to dinner but we did sit in this chair and continued to check out the tavern and surrounding areas. We located a tiny door to... Wonderland? But I think that's in England and we were obviously in France New Fantasyland.



We saw that the lovely and humble my Gaston was greeting guests and for some reason just stood by and watched his shenanigans. I don't know why I didn't get in line with all the other women and wait to talk a photo with this obviously sweet and unassuming man.


LOOK AT THAT SMILE


NBD, just a ghost orb... chillin'

The Little Mermaid section of the new expansion is anchored by Prince Eric's castle that holds Under the Sea, Journey of the Little Mermaid. From what we were told, the queue is interactive and amazing. The lines were long all day and we opted to wait until the extra magic hours to check out the queue and attraction. Well, we were denied the queue due to the wait being a walk on at that hour and were immediately set in our clams.  This turned out to be our only chance to go on and I was really disappointed to not be able to go through the queue.



The attraction itself is exactly to DCA's version.

Before leaving NF we stopped by Enchanted Tales with Belle. We were able to walk right into Belle's childhood home and into her fathers workshop. From here one of the most amazing Disney special effects transported us to the Beasts Castle where we joined the castles inhabitants to surprise Belle on the night she falls in love with the Beast.
It was super adorable and has a stunning Lumiere and Wardrobe animatronic that I would recommend not missing.



Next up, Storybook Circus! However, that's for the next post as well as all over park goodies.

Cheers!

*i