USA '14 – Day 7 – A Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom is huge, busy and the most difficult park to get in to. You drive to the car park and then either walk or take the tram to the “ticketing & transportation” centre where you have to transfer either to a monorail or boat to actually get to the main gate. I don’t know whether this is to artificially restrict the numbers turning up at the main gate or to make it a more “magical” arrival but either way the outcome is the same – it is slow…

I guess the wait is worth it as the view when you arrive is just so classically Disney. Looking down the Main Street there at the end is Cinderella’s castle as seen at the start of every Disney animated feature. It was looking slightly less stunning today given the couple of cranes that were up against it repairing the roof.

I don’t know what it is about our visit this year but it seems to have coincided with everything being repaired or replaced. Quite often green boards are hiding the location of a new Starbucks which seems to have managed to get the coffee concession at the parks. The strange thing is that this seems to be happening in every park all at once, maybe 2014 has been designated renew and repair year. The unfortunate thing is that much of this work is due to complete in “Spring 2014” so after we have left.

We headed straight to Pirates of the Caribbean, a ride for which we had no Fastpass and on which the film was based. We needn’t have rushed as it was dead and we travelled round in a boat with only us with both the proceeding and following boats empty – very eerie.

Then we did both the “Mountain” rides in the park. Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain are basically the same ride the only difference being that the former is in the dark. I am still to decide if it is better to see what’s coming or not.

Dinner was at Red Lobster where Helen decided that she fancied a reminder of home and ordered Fish and Chips. We had to check with the server what exactly she was going to be getting as chips over here are crisps and that would be an odd combination. We were reassured that it was French fries that she would be receiving. Dessert is something normally skipped as by that point you are too stuffed for anything else but today I had gone for a smaller portion of main and so had room for a delicious Key Lime Pie, which Helen assured me tasted of Lemons…