Disney Graduation Trip Part 7: The Final Day at MK

I don't know if you're counting, but I managed to get to the Magic Kingdom all four days of the trip! New record. If you hadn't figured it out, favorite park, by far.

We had packed up most everything after doing laundry at the Lodge the afternoon before, so we were downstairs and leaving our bags with Bell Services by 8:00 Monday morning and catching the ferry over to the Magic Kingdom for rope drop, AKA park opening. 

Any time you arrive before the ropes drop, your first ride, no matter how popular or how long the waits will grow during the day (some get up to insane numbers of hours to stand in a single line . . . no thanks), is generally going to be a walk-on. We already had Space Mountain fast passes set for our last of the day, but since we'd done so much the night before, we opted to hit Space Mountain first as well, since it's loads of fun, but typically has very long waits without the fast pass option. 

when we exited from our brunch, it was raining, but nothing terrible. A light cool rain that was quite pleasant. 

but by the time we walked off Pan, lightning had moved into the area and shut down most of the outdoor rides. So we ducked into Philharmagic for a bit 

and made our way over to the Carousel of Progress, in still steady, but not super heavy rain, to sit inside there for another twenty minutes. We were biding our time until our final fast pass for Space Mountain came open and Carousel is very close to it.

side note: they really need to update their kitchen bulletin board. These memos are dated from 2011

when we went to exit the Carousel Theater we ran into a wall of people, taking shelter under the overhang of the building. Because now, it was coming a monsoon. Walls of rain were pouring and everyone was ducking under whatever roof they could find. 

so we set out to get to Space Mountain next door and got completely soaked in the process. And it's COLD inside. 

so after we squished off of there, the rain had let up a bit, but the black clouds indicated it was a momentary respite and we were soggy and chilled and had done everything we wanted to do, so we headed through the Emporium one last time, exited, ferried back to the Lodge to get our bags, and got a Lyft ride to Bill and Julies to dry out, take a hot shower, and get into our PJs at 4:00 in the afternoon. We caught up on the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones from the night before when we were running around the MK and argued over the problems of wrapping up the series the way things are shaping up, and then all went to bed early. 

We got up at 4:00 to see Nick and Ali off for the airport. Bill and Julie just kept going above and beyond, taking us in multiple to trips to the airport, even at these ungodly hours. 

A few hours later, we left with Julie on her way to work to catch our flight back to Denver. 

I managed all of one photo between Space Mountain and leaving, that I snapped on the tram to the terminal that morning.

goodbye, swamp. 

and hello home

from this angle, you can almost see what the architects were intending with their white peaked "tent" airport, huh?

Disney Graduation Trip Part 6: Mothers Day at MK by Night

My favorite part of the trip was undoubtedly Sunday night. 

In the dark, the park becomes completely different. And cooler. And because we weren't sitting for the fireworks that draws away much of the crowd, we had very shorts waits for many rides.

our first no-wait ride was Haunted Mansion

our second was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which we managed to walk through and ride on DURING the fireworks

and then, since Splash Mountain was also a walk-on, we managed to watch more fireworks from that ride

we also managed to get Nick seated in the front row in a flume where the rows behind us were smaller people. So Nick and Ali got soaked on the big drop

after that, walk on to Pirates of the Caribbean

if you haven't noticed, I don't have my camera around my neck for the first time, ever, on a Disney trip. Because it was shorter than our usual full week at the parks, and because it was hotter, MUCH HOTTER, than our usual December days, I had decided to just depend on my phone camera. 

And man, how far we have come with phone cameras. My Pixel 2 camera caught shots I've never gotten as clear on multiple attempts with the best lenses in my arsenal. I've never been able to get even a remotely clear shot of the skeleton pirate, until now. 

as we were approaching the toll of 10:00 when the park closed, we bypassed Pan, which we had Fast Pass reservations for the next day, and hopped on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh to close out our night. 

good night, Castle

even with the crowds of people seen above, we managed to be some of the first onto our ferry and took the back row outside. As we waited for the boat to fill up, to my delight, the Electrical Water Pageant appeared on the lake right behind us. This has been running since opening month, October 1971 and is one of the few original shows still going. 

as we headed up to the room, I stopped by the waterfall one last time

last up: our final day at the Magic Kingdom, in a downpour