When I learned that we would be attending Disney Social Media Moms Celebration I looked into staying a few days after the conference so that we could spend more time in the parks. I also wanted the kids to be able to spend time with their grandparents in the parks. Eva has been to Walt Disney World three times so far and this would be her fourth trip. Andrew has never been and this would be his very first trip to the Magic Kingdom. I saved this park so that we could all share in his enjoyment and excitement of the park.

We started off the morning driving over to the park. We had two cars because one would not hold everyone. We got in and took the boat from the transportation and ticket center to the Magic Kingdom. We had some fast passes to go on the Jungle Cruise first thing in the morning. Riding the Jungle Cruise as an adult sort of loses its magic, but it all comes back when you are riding along with your kids and they are cracking up over every corny joke. It was a good start to the morning.

After the jungle cruise we went and watched the birds at the Enchanted Tiki Room. The show looks like it has gone back to the original format without Iago from Aladdin. I like the original more and am glad that things have gone back to that format. After the show we tried Dole Whips. We’ll everyone else tried them, I can’t have pineapple and I was going to try the citrus swirl later but we never got around to it.

It was a beautiful day to be in the park. It was 80 degrees, no humidity and it wasn’t incredibly packed. I tried to have us get photographs as often as possible by the Disney Photographers. That is easier when trying to photograph larger groups. For the morning and on into the afternoon we were a group of 6, us and Allison’s parents. We cut across the park to Tomorrowland to go on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger ride and while we were there we also went to the Monsters Inc. comedy show and the Journey into Tomorrow revolving theater. The kids seemed to like all of those rides. I had booked three Fast Passes for the day, we no longer had those super special ones that allowed us to go on anything immediately like we had during the conference. However, it wasn’t that busy and so it was pretty easy to get on anything that we really wanted to ride on.

We zipped back across the park to Adventureland once again because our lunch was at the Skipper Canteen, a Jungle Cruise themed restaurant. This was probably the best meal in the park that I had our entire trip. I had the Tastes Like Chicken.. Because it is! and it was excellent.

It was during this meal that Eva and I had another talk about her values. Or rather, how she was raised to tell the truth and I wanted her to say she was 9 instead of 10. This time we talked it out and I told her that I would speak to the waitress and ask if she could order from the kid’s menu even though she was 10. She was content with that, but I could tell that she was still a little nervous and felt uncomfortable. We continued to talk about it and discuss that it was not dishonest to ask if she could order from the kid’s menu if we told the waitress that she was 10. It was no problem and she ordered some chicken as well and got this beautiful little lava cake.

After lunch we were supposed to meet my parents but they went on the Journey into Tomorrow and while they were on the ride some kid got up and left the ride so they had to reset the whole thing. So, they met us later on after we went to visit with Belle. Belle is Eva’s favorite princess and now you can go and have storytime with Belle. They have done a great job of this in that as you are waiting the kids get different roles to play in the story. Andrew was Philippe, Belle’s father’s horse and Eva was Mrs. Potts. Eva had made Belle some special earrings which she gave to Belle. Belle saw them and said that they reminded her of her father because they were made out of gears. Eva was over the moon at that!

When we got out of Storytime with Belle we met up with my parents and then walked over to Mickey’s Toon Town. We had our last Fast Passes set for the Barnstormer. This was a fun roller coaster and we probably didn’t need fast passes for it because we could have gotten right back on it. The kids liked it but didn’t want to do it twice. They wanted to do something else. We went on the Ariel ride and afterwards Eva and Andrew bought a few things at the gift shop. I got us some popcorn and got myself a Mickey Mouse Ice Cream Sandwich. I had to keep up with my Mickey shaped treats.

After that we went over and all went on It’s a Small World together. This was the first time in many, many years that Allison was able to go on the ride. It was closed almost every other visit we had. It is Allison’s favorite ride in the park.

On the way out of the park we got a few more group photos taken. We had to hustle out and over to the Wilderness Lodge because we had reservations for dinner for everyone. I did make sure that we tried to get a lot of family shots with the Disney Photographer and also on our own. I wanted to make sure that we had one of Andrew, Me and Grandfather.

We were hustling out of the park and I flew through the gift shop to pick up the game that Andrew had wanted. He saw a Pirates of the Caribbean Battleship game on the cruise and we learned that it was available in the park. As we were walking in along Main street we saw it in the window and rather than have everyone wander the store I laser focused to find it, buy it and meet everyone at the exit of the park. We had good timing, too because as we walked out of the park we found the boat that would take us over to the wilderness Lodge for dinner.

The Whispering Canyon Cafe is one of my favorite places to eat at Disney. We have been a few times in the past with family and it is a loud silly place. They also have tons of food. It comes family style on a large platter and plenty more food comes out if you want more. There are also some funny things about the place. The wait staff often gives everyone a hard time. Ours had a great attitude and knew when to be a wise guy and when to be serious with us. Andrew loved this place because of one special thing, ketchup. If you need ketchup in the restaurant the whole table has to yell, we need ketchup. then every other table that has ketchup brings you their ketchup. Andrew helped out every single time people called for ketchup. He thought it was the greatest thing.