{WDW Day 4} Magic Kingdom & A Pirates League

Saturday morning we were up early again for an ADR at Be Our Guest! It's a fairly new restaurant at Beasts' Castle in Magic Kingdom, and a pretty hard res to get! It was a double bonus because that meant that we got into Magic Kingdom before the park opened and got to snag some castle pics before the crowds showed up!

One room in the restaurant, was the rose room. It was a dark room, with the famous rose from Beauty and the Beast, as well as a picture of the beast that changed from man to beast when the rose petal fell! Pretty cool!

After breakfast we still had about 15 minutes before the park opened! We walked over to Seven Dwarfs to get in line (because we didn't have a fast pass for this ride), and much to our surprise the cast members were letting people with ADR's get on!! So we rode it with no wait!! Score!!! Another reason to try and score some early morning ADR's!! 

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The ride is also fairly new, and was so fun! I love my sweet Levi's face!!

We were just hitting up some things we hadn't yet on this day. Our main thing was Pirate's League for that afternoon! I had set this up for the boys and they were so excited!! So after we rode, we walked around, met some characters, and then headed over to Pirates!

But not before this epic picture......

We kinda made him get on Big Thunder Mountain, and he was not too happy with us! He cried the whole line!! At least about 45 minutes!

I mean this is priceless!! We will be sharing this pic with his wife one day! But he rode it, and had a few smiles for us afterwards!!

Then it was time! This is very similar to the Bippity Boppity Boutique for girls, although, lots of girls were here too! They got to be made into mermaids!

You choose a package, choose a pirate name, then get made over!

Then you take a pirate oath!

Ta-da!

After pirates league we were pretty much done with Magic Kingdom!! On our way out we hit the main parade they do! We grabbed seats and waited...

I love this parade!!

It was about 3:30 or so when we left Magic Kingdom. We took our last glimpses of the castle and said goodbye to Magic Kingdom....at least for this trip!
Paul was eager to watch the Texas game, so we detoured over to ESPN Zone at the Boardwalk Resort, and caught the first half of the game...it didn't turn out great, but we had fun!

We decided to take a boat ride from the Boardwalk to Epcot for just a few hours before calling it a day. We would be there on Monday, but wasn't sure if we'd stay all day there, so I was excited we'd get a chance to see it at night! We didn't stay too long, but did manage to catch a few rides and take it in at night!

Favorite thing from this day was Pirates League and Levi on Big Thunder!! Up next Hollywood Studios!!

{WDW Day 3} Animal Kingdom & Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

Friday morning we were off to Animal Kingdom for the day!

Love, love, love all the Christmas trees Disney puts up! Each one so unique to the specific park!

First sighting of the tree of life!

We had an Extra Magic Hour that day, so we grabbed coffee and made our way over to Expedition Everest and walked right on! Other than Dinosaur (which was closed down), this is Animal Kingdom's only roller coaster type ride, so it has big wait times. Paul and I each got to ride it with Lane...and we all LOVED it!! It quickly became all of our new favorite ride!!

After riding that, it was time for our first fast pass for Kilimanjaro Safaris! You get in a bus and ride around a safari and see lots of animals! We all enjoyed this ride!!

After the safari ride, we rode the Wilderness Train out to Rafiki's Planet Watch! 

There we got to meet Rafiki

A little photo pass fun...

Our second FastPass was for Everest, so we all got to ride again!! 

Lane and Paul near the front!

We had lunch reservations at Tusker House. It was a character dinner and pretty decent food!

It happened to be Mickey's birthday that day, so we all signed his birthday card!

Baloo and King Louie!

Right after lunch we watched the Festival of the Lion King! It's a broadwayish type show was amazing!! We all loved it!

Then we ventured over to the other side of the park and hit up Dinoland...

  

 and watched the other musical there...Nemo...again, too cute!!

Lane really wanted to ride the rapid ride, but it was a little cool out and Paul and I definitely did not want to ride it...so he rode it himself!

Around 5 we decided to head out...we had to get over to Magic Kingdom, so on our way out we met Russell from Up...

and took some more Photo Pass pictures!!

On select nights in November and December they have a Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party! This is a special ticketed event. After lots of research, and finding out we'd be at Disney on a party night, we decided to purchase tickets! I heard that this was not to be missed! All the event activities start at 7, but your ticket gets you in at 4! Also, the Magic Kingdom itself closes at 4, so if you don't have a ticket to the party you have to leave! We didn't get there quite as early as i'd hope to, but we still had a great time!

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Once you get there, they usher party goers through a special entrance with fun photo opts and handout these huge sugar cookies!

All Levi had been talking about was wanting to meet Nick and Judy Hops from Zootopia! A few weeks before we left, Disney released "special guests" that would be out during the party and wouldn't you know that these two were going to be there!! Levi was pumped! So first thing we did was go find those two! Let me just say that this was our 3rd Disney trip and we've met ALOT of characters on those trips, and this was BY FAR the longest character line I've ever stood through!! Almost TWO hours! Not kidding...but seeing Levi interact with them (and Lane of course) was priceless and well worth it!

The line was so long that I was afraid that if we all waited we'd miss the Christmas parade! So I sent Paul to get us seats for the BEST parade Disney has!!! Right when we were done, we went to meet Paul, grabbed a churro or two while we waited, and got ready for the parade!!

I seriously loved everything about this parade!! SO magical!!

We've never seen the Wreck it Ralph characters in the parks, so we were excited to see them! 

and of course it ended with Santa!

Right after the parade it was time for "A Frozen Holiday Wish" show and the "Holiday Wishes Fireworks"! Both amazing!! The castle anytime is pretty magical but at Christmastime its something else!!

At the very end of the fireworks it turns into an ice castle...

  

and snow starts falling all over Main Street! That Disney magic!

By that time it was super later and even though we could have stayed longer we called it a night! If you do ever get a chance to go to the Christmas party, I'd try and not do another park that morning...it was a little much to do a park and then the party all night!! But we still had fun!