Day 2: Elsa's Monsoon Part One - January 27, 2019
We woke up bright and early (well, not so bright - it was still dark outside) for EMH at the Magic Kingdom on our first day. For once the weather forecast was right and it was pouring. You always hope that the rain forecast is wrong, but with a 100% chance, we were pretty sure we were in for a wet day. It was literally pouring buckets outside and to make matters worse - it was freezing rain. No, it wasn't going to freeze, but anything below 50 degrees in Florida is cold and it was well below that. I think 50 might have been the high for the day. Never ones to waste a golden opportunity, we packed up the ponchos, doubled up the socks, decked the stroller in its raincoat and off we went to the Magic Kingdom to start our trip. We were the only ones to get on the bus from Sports, but the bus WAS full by the time we pulled out of Movies.
We got inside fairly quickly and went straight to meet Mickey and Minnie in their celebration outfits. It was right inside the park entrance and since we were meeting up with MIL at 9 AM when she could get inside, it made sense to stay near there if we could.
Except we were out the door by 8:15 and Grandma was running behind. We had originally planned to hop next door to meet Tink, but the boys weren't interested. Grandma told us to go ahead and tour the park and she'd catch up with us, so we stopped off for some rainy day pictures with the castle and made our way up to Tomorrowland to see what the wait looked like for Buzz since it's indoors.
Buzz Lightyear was a walk-on, so on we went... when we came out, Grandma was on her way to the park, so we hopped over to Space Mountain - another walk-on.
Those on-ride photos are hideous, so they can stay hidden, but the photobooth pics from the gift shop were great. Some of my favorite from the whole trip - probably because we didn't look like drowned rats yet. Although my absolute faves from the series were the goofy ones.
After we set sail from Tomorrowland, we met up with Grandma in Frontierland. But Grandma had bad news - she fell on the way into Magic Kingdom and hurt herself pretty badly. She tripped on the wet cobblestones and took a hard fall onto her side. She said some strangers helped her up, but she went down a second time! It didn't stop her, but it slowed her down and put her in a good bit of pain throughout the rest of the trip. Once we got to Frontierland, we met up with her in the Briar Patch. it took us literally forever to realize this is an actual place! We thought she meant the bridge over the drop. Once we found her, we went on Splash Mountain. Now, I'm not normally one to wear a poncho for it, but it seemed silly to take it OFF just to ride it, so we left them on. This was Grandma's first real ride at Disney World. She'd always been the baby-holder before and not ridden the rides. Needless to say, she was HOOKED.
We took a rootin', tootin', rainin' good spin on Big Thunder and my youngest two have decided they now love it, which is a huge improvement from last time when Phoenix tried to escape (! Not joking, read my previous trip report to read about it) and Apollo cried because it was "too clacky." Despite the rain (and the kiddo's face in the picture), they LOVED it this time.
By this time, we were pretty wet. We'd flipped the boys' jackets so the sherpa side was against them and the semi-rain resistant side was facing out, but there was no staying dry today. We headed over to Adventureland next where we did Jungle Cruise (MIL LOVED it because she loves puns).
Then we did Pirates, Tiki Room, and Aladdin. All while wearing ponchos. We took a good splashing from Pirates, but we hardly noticed since we were soaked already. It's a funny photo because it looks like I'm ducking, when I was trying to get the kid to look for the picture. And my 10 year old looks totally startled.
We grabbed a quick bite at Aloha Isle and shared Pineapple Upside Down cake before heading into Tiki Room, which is something we skipped last time. The boys LOVED it.
It was around this time that we came back to our stroller to find the rain cover flapping in the breeze and the stroller DRENCHED. It was pretty telling for how the rest of the day would go - WET. We grabbed a return time for Haunted Mansion, then wandered into Fantasyland to ride Small World. This is one of my kids' favorite attractions and they chose it over thrill rides at times.
Then we backtracked and did Haunted Mansion. After this, Grandma took the boys to Pecos Bill's to eat while I sloshed up to Seven Dwarfs to get a return time. PEcos Bill's was excellent food-wise but super busy because by this time, everyone was sick of the rain. We lost a kid poncho at this time, so afterwards, Grandma got kid 1 a nicer poncho, so I went ahead and bought the other two the nicer park ones since we had no plans to give up on the day. At 1 PM on a Sunday, Fantasyland looked like this:
After we ate, we stopped in to see the Country Bear Jamboree because it was at the absolute top of my 10 year old's list. We missed it last time and he was so disappointed, but it was worth it to take the time to see it because he giggled and snorted through the whole thing. After this, we headed back to ride Seven Dwarfs, but to our dismay, it was now down and our return had turned into an Anytime fastpass. We did get to meet Peter Pan though, since he had no line at all!
By this time, Grandma was tapping out and heading back to her hotel, but we still had big plans to finish the night at Epcot. So despite feeling water-logged, we headed over to Epcot. We knew out Test Track fastpass would become anytime because it was pouring. (In fact, it never even opened that day at all.) But we still wanted to stay on-track and get over there, so off we went... but not before snagging one final set of very wet pictures if Magic Kingdom:
Stay tuned to find out how we ended the day and what happened when the sun went down and we had to make a big decision...
Attraction Count: 13 in 6 hours
Mickey/Minnie
Buzz Lightyear
Space Mountain
Splash Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain
Pirates of the Caribbean
Jungle Cruise
Magic Carpets of Aladdin
Enchanted Tiki Room
Small World
Haunted Mansion
Country Bears
Meet Peter Pan
But sounds like she was a trooper. 
