#NoahsDisneyBirthday {Day 2}

Click the link to read about our first day {Day 1} adventures at Disney World, if you haven’t already.

Saturday, Day 2, was a very exciting day because it was the day that our family would be joining us at Disney World AND our first day at Magic Kingdom. MaMarsh and Granddaddy Jer (Tommy’s parents) met us at Art of Animation while we were having breakfast and rode the shuttle to Magic Kingdom with us. Thankfully, we checked the weather beforehand and brought our raincoats along “just in case.” (A BIG THANKS to Amazon Prime for getting said raincoats to us the day before we left for Disney! What would we do without 2-day shipping?!) Noah had noticed kids trading pins on Friday and wanted to use his birthday money for his own lanyard and trading pins before we left for the park.

Most of the pins in that above picture were traded for cooler ones 🙂

Our first Fast Pass was for the Seven Dwarf’s Mine Train. Noah rode the first time with Granddaddy Jer, Tommy and me. That ride was really fun! As someone that likes fast rides, but not free-fall drops, Disney rollercoasters are awesome for me because there are not very many rides with big drops. Noah got to ride the second time with MaMarsh. We learned the next day at Hollywood Studios that you can take 2 people with you on a Rider Switch pass so we took advantage of that throughout the rest of the trip, allowing more people in our group to ride twice! We took Eli and Emry Jane on the “neighs” (carousel) while Noah was riding the Mine Train with MaMarsh. The carousel was probably Emry Jane’s favorite ride. She was so excited about it. Eli loved it too– just not as much as It’s a Small World.

The rain started about the time we got off the carousel. We jumped from indoor ride to indoor ride and updated our Fast Passes as we went because none of the outdoor rides were running do to the rain/thunder. The babies did all the inside stuff with us, except for the Mad Hatter Tea Cups. They even rode Haunted Mansion. It rained a LOT throughout the day, so we pretty much looked like drowned rats, but we were determined to still have a great time! There weren’t as many people in the park, so we got to ride a lot of rides while it was raining. We just kept updating our FastPasses to new indoor rides until the outdoor rides opened.

The twins fell asleep in the stroller right before the 3pm Festival of Fantasy parade was about to start, so I watched/took pictures of the parade while the rest of our group waited in line to ride Splash Mountain. That’s a ride that I am very okay with missing, i.e. big drop = not for me.

Once they were awake, the rest of our group was still in line for Splash Mountain, so we found a little play area to entertain us while we waited for everyone. I also changed the poor babies out of all their wet clothes. The stroller had gotten soaked in the rain during all our indoor ride time, which meant the babies were also pretty wet. In hindsight, we should have gotten a poncho to cover the stroller (at least the seats) while we were inside. The twins didn’t fuss about it at all. They truly were troopers about everything. After the rain stopped, we rode Pirates of the Caribbean with our Fast Passes. Then, Noah completed a pirate training (complete with apprentice certificate!) with Captain Jack Sparrow before our turn on the Magic Carpet ride. I don’t have a ton of photos from our afternoon at Magic Kingdom because Disney zaps an iPhone battery like crazy. Meema and PawPaw (my grandparents) got to the park about 30 minutes before our dinner reservation.

Our Be Our Guest reservation was only for the five of us (the reinforcements had decided not to go) so we went to that while the grandparents and the great-grandparents went to eat and to watch a bird show. When we originally booked our Be Our Guest dinner, I expected Belle to be at the dinner. I found out about a month before our trip that it was just the Beast at dinner, which was pretty disappointing. We decided to bring our own Belle 🙂 My cousin, Kristi, sent us a Belle dress that her daughter had worn to Disney when she was close to Emry Jane’s age. I think Emry Jane might be the cutest Belle EVER.

Maybe it was because we were wet and hangry (you know, how you get angry when you haven’t eaten in a while,) but we did not enjoy Be Our Guest. It was not theatrical, like we were told that it would be. Our server was new and I think our fussy children made her uncomfortable. She stayed away from the table for very extended periods of time. Eli was TERRIFIED of the Beast (see picture above.) Emry Jane liked him and called “Hi Beast, hi Beast” and waved when he walked through the dining room. Noah wins best picture with the Beast, for sure. The service took forever– that is something that we will know for future Disney trips: table service will always take longer than you expect it to. I’d say at least 1.5 hours… and not just at Magic Kingdom. We had MaMarsh and Granddaddy Jer push back our Fast Passes because we weren’t going to make it on time. An 1.5 hour dinner is really hard on the kids, especially the twins. We even took our dessert to go because they were so OVER the waiting. We will not do Be Our Guest again.

We rode It’s a Small World twice, a second time after dinner when Meema and PawPaw were with us. Eli LOVED that ride! He was making the animal noises, dancing with the hula girls, waving and pointing at everything. It was definitely another one of those “awww, this chaos is worth it” moments. Our last Fast Pass was for the Jungle Cruise. Noah was convinced that the animals were real. Eli did not like them. Our guide’s dry humor was hilarious. Also, they let Meema and PawPaw ride with us, even though they didn’t have the same Fast Passes. I really appreciated that because there were not many rides that we could all do together.

After the Jungle Cruise, Meema and PawPaw went back to their resort, Shades of Green. MaMarsh and Granddaddy Jer took Eli and Emry Jane back to our room and put them to bed for us. Noah, Tommy and I stayed so that we could see the lights on the castle, the fireworks and the Electrical Parade. The lights on the castle were SO cool! We rode the Buzz Lightyear ride while we waited for the Electrical Parade to start. That parade was neat too, but I think we were all just exhausted at that point. We didn’t make it back to our resort until after 11pm. I think we were all asleep before our heads hit the pillow.

Click {Day 3} to keep reading about our trip!