Before we knew it, it was Friday and our last day in the parks. Funny how fast a vacation can pass, isn’t it?
For our last day, we planned to spend the morning at Magic Kingdom, go back to the hotel for loooong naps, and then head back for dinner and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.
The weather gods finally heard my pleas for cooler temps and sent us this little gift:
That’s the kind of weather I was hoping for all week. Perfect capris/shorts weather for those of us not used to seeing so much sunshine and 80 degree temperatures in November. LOL
We arrived to the park about 15 minutes after it opened. If I remember correctly, we just missed a ferry to Magic Kingdom and had to wait for the next boat. That resulted in us arriving just after rope drop.
Who dressed up in matching tie-dye Mickey shirts?
That would be the Samulski family! LOL
I think I got stopped about 4-5 times during our walk down Main Street that morning by people asking where I got the shirts. They were all disappointed to find out that they weren’t selling them in the gift shops. Since I had to do a bit of convincing to get Mike to agree to wear matching shirts, I was completely humored by the compliments. The only thing that surprised me was that we got more compliments on the tie-dye shirts than we did the embroidered shirts we wore the first day.
Our first stop was to get fast passes for Buzz and then ride the Tomorrowland Speedway.
Heading to use our Buzz fast passes:
Where’s Ian? LOL
After we rode Buzz, a Photo Pass photographer stopped us to ask for my card. Apparently he took a candid picture of us walking by.
This was the picture that he took:
Candid shot indeed! Look at us walk like nobody’s business! LOL
(I’m easily amused. LOL)
While we were walking through Tomorrowland, we came across Push the talking trashcan (another one of those things I didn’t expect to see). I didn’t take a picture. LOL
I did take this nice picture of the boys….
….then a cast member asked if I wanted him to take a picture of the four of us:
After that, we tried to get on a few rides we hadn’t seen or wanted to re-ride:
Pirates of the Caribbean (with a stop for a Dole Whip after 🙂 )
It’s a Small World
Mickey’s Philharmagic (the boys REALLY loved this one)
We checked out a couple of gift shops by the castle and I took a few pictures of the boys by the fountain.
If you squat down to the height of a child (or in my case, a short adult), it appears as though the crown (on the wall behind Cinderella) is resting on her head.
After a quick lunch at Pinocchio Village Haus, we decided to head back to the hotel to get a long nap. The castle was blocked off so we had to go the long way and we kind of got stuck in the crowd for the “Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! street party”. Yet another thing I didn’t expect to see. LOL We got around the crowd and left the park.
We stopped to get our picture taken in front of the train station….
….which ended up causing us to miss the next ferry to our resort by about 1.1 seconds. They literally took the rope off the dock and pushed away after we were already there. OMG, I was NOT a happy camper. The boat wasn’t full and they easily could have waited 30 seconds for us to get on but they didn’t. I think the cast members at the dock felt bad (and knew I was ticked off) because they tried to perk me up by saying we’d be the first people on the next ferry. Yeah, not amused. LOL They gave the boys about 90 Mickey stickers which helped to keep them occupied while we waited for the next boat to show up.
On a happier note, we had an enjoyable ride back to the hotel. A monorail train passed overhead as we were going underneath the bridge. The monorail driver tooted his horn at us a few times and the boat captain tooted his horn in return. When we laughed, he said “Hey! He started it!” The boys thought that was the funniest thing ever.
Approaching the boat dock at the Wilderness Lodge:
Since we left a little later than planned AND missed the boat, nap time started out later than expected and wasn’t going to be any longer than normal. Since we had a long night, this worried me a bit. Oh well, nothing could be done about it at that point.
After naps we headed back to the park for our dinner reservations.
We had plans to eat at Liberty Tree Tavern with my friend Scott. Scott and I worked together a million years ago and he moved to Florida several years back. He used to be a cast member (he worked Space Mountain) and was the lovely soul that went with me on my one and only other trip to WDW in 2002. I hadn’t seen him in YEARS so it was really nice to be able to catch up. 🙂
Heading back in:
Look how cute the cast members looked in their Christmas gear!
We got to the park a little early so we rode the Tomorrowland Speedway AGAIN and then rode on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover while we waited to go check in for dinner.
We were getting close to our reservation time so we checked in and waited to be seated/Scott to arrive.
I took some really terrible pictures of Scott and this was one of the best. I should have paid better attention to the camera settings. LOL
Scott and Ian really bonded. It was so funny watching them together. 🙂
Matthew really didn’t care to linger around dinner and was impatient to get going to Mickey’s ‘Cwistmas Pahty”. LOL
After dinner, Scott gave us interesting facts on some of the attractions near the restaurant but had to leave pretty quickly. He didn’t have a ticket to the party and they really wouldn’t let him go anywhere but the entrance to the park. Hopefully we’ll have more time to visit together next time. 🙂
We said our goodbyes and then headed into Fantasyland to look for Peter Pan and Wendy.
We found them quickly and I took some more really terrible pictures!!! LOL
Matthew asked Peter if he was going to the “Cwistmas Pahty” and it makes Peter laugh (0:20):
I love how Matthew held Peter’s hand while posing for pictures. 🙂
The boys had a lot of fun play games and hula-hooping with cast members.
After meeting with Peter and Wendy (and playing games/hula-hooping), we rode the carousel, Winnie the Pooh, the Tomorrowland Speedway (again – seriously, it is really that much fun? LOL).
(Like the marker all over his eyebrow and forehead? Those boys would NOT keep the autograph marker closed. LOL)
By the way, this time we rode Winnie the Pooh, we made sure to let the boys play in the new interactive queue area all they wanted. We played in the queue longer than we stood in line for the ride. LOL No tears and grouchy faces this time!
After the Tomorrowland Speedway, we picked up some complimentary hot chocolate, apple juice and cookies and then made our way to Main Street to get in place for The Magic, The Memories, and You show, fireworks and second parade.
We got okay spots for the castle show and fireworks. Not bad for walking up about 30 minutes before the show started. LOL
The castle was stunning, as usual.
I just wanted to enjoy the castle show and fireworks so we didn’t record them.
Here is a video of the castle show (Magic, Memories and You – Holiday Edition):
(I think the holiday stuff starts around 7 minutes in.)
I did take some fireworks pictures with my phone:
The fireworks were a Christmas-themed, Holiday Wishes and absolutely unbelievable. I literally sent the following text: “O. M. G. The fireworks were unreal.”
Here is a video I found online:
After that, we moved to the curb to stake a spot for the parade. Mike had (unbeknownst to me) promised to take the boys on Buzz after the fireworks so things got a little tense (I was upset at the prospect of leaving our spot, my overtired and 2 hrs past bed time boys were PO’d they couldn’t go on the ride, Mike was ready to throw us all overboard). I told Mike to take the boys and that I would stay put to save our spot. He left for a little bit but then came back. He managed to convince the boys that we would ride AFTER the parade and he got them some popcorn as a compromise.
Matthew was pretty fidgety during the parade and driving me crazy. As the parade continued, a large group of kids pushed forward and stood beside us. (We were sitting on the ground since we were up front and the kids pushed through the crowd to get up front. After first they were off to the side but soon they were standing right in front of us. After a while, we couldn’t see a darn thing and I was in the second “row” of people at the curb! )
Eventually I got so frustrated that I handed Matthew back to Mike (standing way behind us) and I stood up to watch the rest of the parade. Thankfully no one gave me a hard time about blocking their view – an unexpected benefit to being short?!?
The parade was really cool but it would have been nice to watch without all the excess drama, tension and anger. LOL
Here are a bunch of video:
Here’s a video someone else took that is a bit better than mine! LOL
After the parade, we rode Buzz and Ian and Matthew rejoiced. With Scott’s insider tips, Mike and I got some spectacular scores! We took pictures with my cell phone because we didn’t think anyone would believe us. LOL
My score (probably will never get this high of a score ever again LOL):
Mike’s score:
We went back over to Fantasyland to ride Peter Pan:
There was a slight issue with the ride – a couple couldn’t get out so we waited a while for them to figure it out. Eventually we got on and had fun.
After this, we walked over to see if the boys could get the sword out of the stone:
No such luck!
We took one more Photo Pass picture….
A few more pretty castle pictures….
….and then it was time to go.
It was a couple of minutes after midnight, the park was closed, and we were all exhausted.
On the ferry:
Goodbye Magic Kingdom!
I was worried I would be sad when we left that last night but I really wasn’t. We had pretty much the best trip ever and I felt like the last day was the perfect ending to our vacation.
Shockingly, the boys did not fall asleep on the boat and were in good moods.
We got back to the hotel and were in bed in record time. We were all exhausted and we had a long day the next day!