Well it's taken me a while to get back and finish this blog. It was just too expensive to work on it every day at the hotel and we also didn't have the time because we left early and got back late each day.
So back to Tuesday 5 January--Jade's birthday! At last her day came. She's been wearing a birthday pin the whole time we've been at Disney World and everyone's been wishing her a Happy Birthday. Finally it actually was her birthday.
We returned to the Magic Kingdom to do the rides we hadn't done on Monday because of the crowds and long lines. The park was much less crowded so my guess is that it was so busy on Monday because people arrive over the weekend and they go to the Magic Kingdom as their first priority. Before we went on the rides we went shopping at the Emporium because I had a voucher that gave us a discount before 12 noon. We had already decided what we were going to buy--Jade got a Stitch toy, Jarrah a Mickey Mouse toy, I bought t-shirts for the cousins and we got lanyards and pins (yes we gave in to the trend), Sleeping Beauty castle soft blankets and a biography of Walt Disney. The sales assistant was an older woman--we've noticed a significant number of older workers--they call them cast members--at Disney--who had a bit of Parkinson's disease. She was very slow and shaking. We were in a hurry to get to the rides but what else could we do?
Anyway, after making our purchases we went back to Fantasyland and rode Snow White's Scary Adventures--an 'in the dark' ride. (Disney pioneered rides in the dark--one of his many innovations). We then went on Peter Pan's Flight before returning to Liberty Square and going on the Haunted Mansion ride. It's funny, I'd forgotten what this ride was like after you go down in the elevator and the pictures get longer and longer. I'm pretty sure we didn't do any of these rides either at Disneyland in 2004 or Hong Kong Disneyland last year. Jade hated the Haunted Mansion. She hid her eyes during the ride. What could we do? We couldn't leave her outside while we went on the ride?
After the Haunted Mansion we went to Tomorrowland and rode Autopia, the car ride. I went with Jade and she drove this time--swerving side to side--but not as bad as Jarrah in HK last year.
So far we've had no to minimal waits today.
We then scooted over to Toontown, the area designed for little kids. The main reason for going there was to meet Mickey. I don't think we'd met Mickey before because of running out of time or the lines involved. Jade and Jarrah rode the Barnstormer roller coaster several times then we went through Minnie's house. She wasn't home so we went into Mickey's house. There was only a couple of minutes wait and both Mickey and Minnie were there so we had photos taken with both of them.
Our next stop was the Judge's Tent for more character meetings and photos. There were separate lines for Fairies and Princesses. Jade, Jarrah and I met the Princesses first since their line was much shorter. I got photos of Jade with three Princesses. Then she decided she wanted to wait for the Fairies too. We had time so we waited. It was probably about 45 minutes before we got in. The boys were very patient and waited for us--Jarrah had said on no account did he want to meet any fairies! I got a lovely photo of Jade with the Asian fairy.
After this we went back to Tomorrowland and Jade and Paul rode Space Mountain. Then we all did Stitch's Great Escape ride which included having Stitch burp and sneeze on us (scent and water sprayed on us). That was fun. Stitch has certainly become one of Disney's major characters. Finally it was lunch time. Hot dogs/burgers and fries again.
After lunch J, J and Paul rode the Astro orbiter--space ships on the top of the Tomorrowland tower. I rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority while they were on then then they joined me afterwards. Then J, J and Paul rode buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, we all went into Mickey's Philharmagic back in Fantasyland as our last ride.
You wouldn't think after already having a full day in the Magic Kingdom that we could have another full day here--but it was easy.
We returned to the hotel room to get our warmer coats then took the bus to Epcot for our dinner booking at Nine Dragons. This was a really nice Chinese restaurant with beautiful decor. Jade got a card and the waiter sang Happy Birthday to her. What a special memory. Afterwards we strolled back through Epcot and decided to do the ride in the Epcot ball (Spaceship Earth) which we hadn't done before. We walked right on. It was a wonderful ride narrated by Dame Judy Dench which told the history of written communication from the stone age onwards. It really highlighted that it is communication which has advanced humanity. It was a fascinating ride.
After this we returned home. It had been a long day.
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