Cute picture of Daddy and Sophia on the ferry.
Sort of cute picture of Mommy and Sophia on the ferry, haha. She always smiles more when she's in a pic with Daddy for some reason. Maybe cause she is smiling at me?? ;-)
First view of the castle...Soph was SO excited when she saw it. I was a little disappointed with the huge crane in the view. Oh well.
We got there super early so we had some time to kill before the train arrived to signal the opening of the park. Thanks photopass people for this great group shot (I think Michael's dad was sitting in the shade somewhere).
So we took pictures to pass the time!
With Nana...very excited to start the day. As you can see in the background we were there before a lot of other people, haha.
With Daddy and all excited and ready for the train to come with Mickey Mouse...
And as soon as she heard the train approaching Mommy had to hold her and she became a little clingy for whatever reason, haha. But she was pretty excited to see Mickey and for the park to finally open.
As soon as the park opened, we rushed over to the area that had the Princess meet and greet. And it turned out to be a very short wait...maybe 10 minutes?? It was awesome. This was something we had talked up for several weeks leading up to the trip. And she was really really looking forward to meeting Belle. We didn't really have any idea which princesses would be there (apparently they switch off at different times and in different areas) so we were just praying that Belle was there. And we were more than happy to see Rapunzel, Belle and Cinderella. Sophia was SO excited as we waited in line. We could see all the princesses as the few people in front of us went and she kept saying "Is it ME's turn??!" It was so cute. I took a cute video of her waiting in line and holding my hand...but I have no idea how to post that, haha, so you'll have to take my word and just look at all the cute still pictures. :-)
She loved 'Punzel
Big hug. I think she was already looking at Belle, who was next, haha.
I'm pretty sure she would've just walked off anywhere with Belle.
I don't think she was excited that they couldn't spend even more time together, haha.
But Cinderella was next....
And she loved her!!
Big smile with her new friend!
And another hug before saying goodbye.
As soon as we walked outside, planning to head straight to the rides, we pretty much walked right into Snow White!
Chatting a little bit...
Posing and a big smile. :-)
And another big hug. I was SO happy with how the princess meet and greet turned out. I don't think it could've gone any better. I'm glad we decided to get it out of the way first, so she was still excited about it, and so we didn't have to wait long at all. Perfect.
Then we really did head back to Fantasy Land to ride some rides. Although we did stop to get some pictures in front of the castle. Can't go to Magic Kingdom without them!!
This picture is so funny....the photopass lady set her up like this...I was definitely laughing at the pose, but it actually turned out cute. :-)
We figured that since we had spent the time meeting the Princesses that the lines for the rides would already be long....well, we were wrong. Practically NO lines. We knocked out Fantasy Land fast! And rode everything we thought Sophia would like (and that we liked too)....she can ride pretty much everything in that land. I didn't take a ton of pictures (we were having fun riding!) but here are a few that I got.
Sophia LOVED the carousel (or the carrot-self, as she calls it, hahaha)
Waving to Mommy!
Such a sweet Daddy....
And on It's A Small World. We had been singing the song long before we went to Disney...she loved all the little dancing dolls and stuff. Clearly I was interrupting her enjoyment of the ride by trying to capture a picture, ha!
After we were done in Fantasy Land, we walked over to Tomorrow Land. Not quite as many rides for her in this land but we still had fun. The boys rode Space Mountain and we met Chip and Dale...Soph was not impressed. And so I had to participate in this meet and greet. :-)
Not super happy to be in this photo! I thought they were nice though. I guess human sized chipmunks are scary?!
I didn't initiate this hug (and Sophia definitely didn't!)...it was all Chip (or Dale, whichever one that is). I think this picture is pretty hilarious and it was even more funny how Soph was not loving it!
We also rode the Buzz Lightyear ride, which Sophia really really liked (side story...in the song Boyfriend by Justin Bieber...no she is not a teenager yet....he says some lyric about Buzz Lightyear and every time she hears it she says 'WE rode Buzz Lightyear too!!' Ha!) and then rode on the people mover.
Soph wanted to be a big girl and ride all by herself. See how my foot is obviously going to keep her from falling, haha.
As soon as it got dark she decided being a big girl wasn't her best idea...and she ended up on our side. So as soon as I got light again I attempted a photo of the three of us. :-)
We rode a couple rides in Frontierland but had to get back over to Main Street for our lunch reservation. We noticed that the timing of the parade would be close to when we figured we'd be done with lunch...so we decided that if we made it, we'd leave the restaurant, sit on the curb right there and watch the parade and then go home for a nap. If we didn't quite catch the parade we were ok with that too. We were just a little early for our reservation and happened to notice that the Mickey and Minnie meet and greet that was right there had a super short wait time...awesome luck. We raced back, literally waited 5 minutes or so, and met Mr. and Mrs. Mouse.
She was SO excited. If she was excited to meet the princesses (definitely) then she was 10 times more excited to meet Mickey and Minnie. It was one of the highlights of the day for sure.
And this Mickey and Minnie were awesome. Minnie loved Sophia's dress and was compared it to hers. Soph even twirled around for her...I almost died, it was SO cute.
She gave Mickey a hug...
And then hugged Minnie for dear life! She was totally in heaven!
Even for the shot of all three of them she did NOT let Minnie go for a second. Mickey was a good sport about pretty much being forgotten, haha.
And then the family photo. It's kinda like Mickey, Michael and I photo-bombed a picture of Minnie and Soph, but I think it turned out super cute. She did NOT want to leave them and waved goodbye the entire time we dragged her away. :-) If I could recreate that 5-10 minutes we spent with Mickey and Minnie every single day, I totally would...Sophia was SO happy and excited and adorable.
Finally it was time for lunch....I was almost nervous that in the many years since I had eaten at Tony's something would've changed...nope. It was awesome. I ate every single bite off my plate (and probably barely resisted licking the plate). The even more awesome part was that the service was just as awesome as the food. Our waiter was nice and prompt and took our orders and brought our food fast and even paid special attention to Sophia. I could eat there every day. And hopefully will be able to every time we go back to Magic Kingdom. Surprisingly, we were able to finish our lunch and be on the curb in the perfect spot just before the parade started.
Love, love, LOVE this place!
Perfect spot, right on the curb.
We were practically in the parade. Soph quickly decided that was probably too close. I am about to give Goofy a high five. I am glad he didn't step on my feet. Soph did NOT want Goofy that close to her, haha.
She did wave and wave and wave when she saw Mickey and Minnie coming though. I guess then we were the perfect distance. :-)
And she loved this float with several of the princesses and their guys. She did wave to Beast...but really wanted to be able to wave to Belle, who was on the other side.
When the parade was over, we chased down a balloon person and bought Soph this huge balloon that she had her eye on all day. It was $10. Yikes. Oh, well. She loved it and the thing lasted for months before the air started going out of it. In fact, I think there is still a tiny bit of life left in the pink ears part of it. So I guess we got our money's worth, haha.
The guy in the red must know how much the balloons cost and is looking at us like we are crazy. Either that or he knows the lady walking beside me, haha.
We left the park then to go back to the condo to nap. The weather had been literally perfect so far. We weren't nearly as hot as we were at Animal Kingdom and the only time it really felt warm was when we were sitting on the curb watching the parade. But it wasn't a sweating your butt off heat, it was just a nice warm sun beating down. Plus, we left after that, so if it got hotter, we weren't there.
We had never been to any of the extra events that Disney does, like the Not So Scary Halloween party, so we were very excited about it. Supposedly it started around 6 or 7 (I think) and we planned to be back right around 6. We didn't know that you could come back as early as 4, but we were napping at that time anyway and since we planned to stay as late as we could that turned out to be a good idea. I had planned in advance for Sophia to wear her Halloween costume...especially since she was going to be Minnie! I really didn't take a ton of pictures while we were at the Halloween party thing. Soph and I went through some of the trick-or-treat lines to get candy while Michael and his brother rode some rides. It seemed a lot more crowded than it had been all day long. I was so surprised at how many adults dressed up, as well as the kids. Soph and I parked it near the (closed down for renovations) Country Bear Jamboree for the night parade and waited for Michael and his brother to meet us...it got packed really quick and I was worried they wouldn't be able to get to us. A super cute family was near us and the little girl couldn't see so I had her come and sit next to me and Sophia. She was sooo sweet to Sophia and her and her brother were so polite and friendly. The night parade was The Boo to You Halloween Parade....I thought it was pretty cool, but Soph was pretty scared. Maybe because it was dark, maybe because there were a few fairly scary things. She could not have gotten any closer to me throughout the whole thing, haha. That song they played over and over during the parade is literally still stuck in my head...sometimes I just randomly find myself humming or singing it. Michael actually took lots of pictures of the parade...I'll just post some of them.
Soph stayed cuddled up to me the entire parade, haha. Our little friend was the blond with the striped shirt on the left. Such a sweet girl...wish I could remember her name...Madison or something like that??
All the friendly characters started off the parade, which she did like and would wave to her favorites...like Mickey.
But then it got a little spooky. You can kinda see the guys in the green jackets? Well they had these shovels and they were dancing around with them and then banging them on the ground and scraping them across to make sparks....uh, yeah, pretty scary, especially right in front of us.
All the villains came as a group....directly by us. We got Jafar and some other creeper I didn't know (maybe a weird wizard/sorcerer from Princess and the Frog?? I haven't seen that one so I just guessed that was what he was from) right up in our faces. Soph decided she was done with the parade at that point, haha. Luckily they ended it a little happier with some cast members handing out lollipops.
Then we just wanted to watch the fireworks and pretty much call it a night. The front of the castle was already a mob scene with people waiting to see the fireworks so another nice cast member said that a good watching point was actually behind the castle near the carousel (carrot-self). It may have been a tad close, they were practically exploding over our heads!! Still pretty awesome. Soph was huddled in my lap the whole time. :-)
After the parade, we were all pretty tired. It had been a looonnngg day. But a totally awesome day. We did everything we wanted to do, had great weather, low crowds during the early part of the day and almost no wait for the rides we wanted. I am used to going the week of Thanksgiving (like we will this year) and it is MUCH more packed during that time. I think when we went (late September) was perfect, although it could still be very hot then, we just got super lucky. I cannot wait to take Sophia back to Magic Kingdom. We still talk about our trip all the time and I am glad because I hope that means she will remember how much fun we had. And look forward to when we go back!! Sorry that this was a super long post....it was just too awesome of a day to leave anything out! :-)
