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So, for those of you who paid attention at the beginning of this series, I mentioned something about the Grinch and that he’d find something to grouse about. Unfortunately, this is the part where the grinchiness showed up. But not all was lost – among the lumps of coal were some real gems. Thus went our visit to the second Most Happiest Place on Earth. Magic Kingdom We’re now into our seventh day of the trip and I am tired. My feet really hurt. And I’m coming down with a cold. I send Jeff off on a Singles Tour of the World while I nap in the hotel room and watch daytime television in order to rest up for our visit to Mickey’s House of Christmas. After all, I’m going to a party tonight! The time to leave rolls around and Jeff and I refuel at Wendy’s with cheeseburgers and Cokes. Refreshed and recharged, we are ready to party at the Magic Kingdom. Arriving at the Ticket and Transportation Center (TTC for short) parking lot entrance, the Cast Member (employee, CM for short) asks to see our tickets. We oblige and then he asks for $6 for parking. I’m not expecting that but I respond happily, "I have an AP!" He apologetically says, "This is a special ticket event and the AP parking doesn’t apply here." Grrrrr. $31 for a ticket to a five-hour event and parking isn’t included. We drive into the parking lot and a CM with a glow sword stands there and doesn’t bother to direct us which way to go. We decide to go to the right which turns out to be a section set aside exclusively for members of the Orlando Chamber of Commerce who have special buses waiting to take them directly to MK. Since we’re not members, Jeff and I instead wind up hiking across the parking lot to the TTC. As we arrived at the TTC some 45 minutes before the event, we’re pretty much one of the first people in line at the monorail station. Soon, masses of people line up behind us and we all wait for the monorails to start whisking us to our party. The rope drops around 7:30 p.m. and a surge of humanity sprints towards the monorail. We somehow get on the fourth monorail out and off we go. Unfortunately, we have to ride Monorail Smell. (During our visits to MK, we found out that all the monorails had this lovely scent that has been described as a cross between body odor and cat urine. It was awful. No open windows; no discernible ventilation of fresh air. Afterwards, I found out that evidently the monorails had been recently re- carpeted and it was the glue used on the new carpeting that was giving off the smell.) Doesn’t upper management ever ride these things? If the smell had been there for one or two days, I could understand management tolerating this. But for weeks? Yuk. We alight from the monorail and our spirits are raised – Magic Kingdom has been all dressed up for the event.
Special event brochures are passed out to all partygoers. Scheduled events are Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Parade, Fantasy in the Sky Holiday Fireworks, Mickey’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas show in Tomorrowland, the Wild West Christmas Show at the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon, Celebrate the Season at the Castle and Belle’s Enchanted Christmas in Fantasyland.
Giant candy canes made up of red and white balloons are in the plaza. There’s a tree in Town Square and Christmas carols play over the speakers.
I check with Guest Relations to find out if they serve up special holiday treats in the different restaurants and snack carts as Disneyland does during Christmas. The answer is "no". Darn, no berry churros, no holiday tamales -- I think I really am spoiled by how Disneyland goes all out for the season. We walk down Main Street and admire the Christmas trimmings on the stores.
There, off to the left, is Donald’s Very Merry Christmas Tree Lot. It’s really charming and has the feel of an old-time Christmas tree lot.
We’ve been warned that we should get our complimentary photo done right away as the lines tend to get longer as the evening wears on, so off to Tomorrowland we go. Ah, the outfit taking tonight’s photos is the same company who did my graduation photos – they’re a pretty big outfit, I guess. As we fill out the form for our photos, we read the fine print: One photo per household. What? So we’re each paying the full price for tickets and we get only one photo? Gee, we thought we’d be able to get a photo for each us. Again, grrrrr. Well, at least we’re then each given a pin for the event.
Our photo gets taken in front of a minimally- Disney- themed wooden backdrop. [Author’s note: As I was finishing this report, I received our complimentary photo in the mail, only a week and a half after we were there! The photo measures 4"x6" and also enclosed was a form for ordering reprints, ranging in price from $12.99 for the least expensive to $45.99 for the combo laminated / wallet size set. Since the photo wasn’t the most flattering of Jeff and me, we passed on the re-order...] We decide that Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin will put the season’s greetings back into us, so we hop into line. Aaahh, the line is non-existent – we rejoice! Jeff scores major points while I get a paltry 70,000. My laser blaster didn’t work. Honest! We exit from the ride. Tomorrowland is mobbed. As crowded as a Saturday afternoon. We quickly beat a hasty retreat to Fantasyland to ride The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Thankfully, the line is still short so we ride twice because the lines for the Pooh ride were astronomically long during the rest of the week. Lulled into a sense of false complacency, we decide to break for a smackerel of ice cream from Mrs. Potts’ Cupboard. I have the vanilla sundae with caramel sauce. Heavenly. We stroll through Fantasyland and discover Cinderella has left her fairy-tale pumpkin carriage in the area between the Castle and the Carrousel for us to see. A nice touch, and me, a grown-up, felt like a little kid again seeing her beautiful carriage.
We ride Snow White’s Scary Adventures and Peter Pan’s Flight then decide to go on Haunted Mansion next. We round the corner and are stunned: a wall of people as far as we can see. For the rest of the evening, if you wanted to go on any of the rides, you had to get Fastpasses. What happened to the advertisement of the intimate little Christmas party where there were no lines? We knew the evening’s event had been sold out but this sure as heck looked like way more than the purported limit of 35,000 people. At this point, we break down and get Fastpasses for Haunted Mansion. Up ahead is a sign for the Christmas Riverboat Ride.
We board the Liberty Belle and spy a group of Christmas carolers singing on the foredeck. Roaming the decks are three of the Country Bears who greet each and every passenger. Such a nice touch and this isn’t even listed in the party brochure. Zigzagging our way back to Main Street, we wait for the holiday fireworks show. It starts out with the usual fireworks, but quickly changes to red and green fireworks. Goofy comes out on a Castle parapet and wishes the crowd a merry Christmas. Then Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer flies across the sky on Tinker Belle’s wire. He whizzes by so quickly I can’t get a photo of him. For the finale, the big fireworks shells start exploding in a ring around the park. Turning around, fireworks fill the sky everywhere. Oooh! Aahh! Feeling like a smackerel of sweets is once again in order, we head over to Adventureland to get our free hot chocolate (with marshmallows) and cookies. The CMs are very friendly and filled with the Christmas spirit!
Crossing the park once again to Liberty Square, we stop in the queue for Haunted Mansion so that we can see the mysterious light travel from window to window in the Mansion. Spooky. I’m sure the people who passed us by in the queue thought we were just as spooky for just standing and looking at a light in the window. After our trip with 999 ghosts, we exit to discover Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Parade is in full swing. (The parade only runs during the Christmas party. The other nights, the regular patrons get to see Main Street Electrical Parade with a very strange overlay of Christmas carols playing during the Baroque Hoedown, although there are those I know who would argue that this is a vast improvement. Jeff and I could only watch MSEP once – the music was discordant and drowned out the music for the smaller floats like the Caterpillar and the Seven Dwarves mine train.) It is a treat though to see the Christmas parade floats...
We push our way through the crowds and find out we’ve missed the Diamond Horseshoe show. Working our way to the back of Frontierland to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a different stage show is in progress that isn’t listed in the brochure – that is the one thing Disney does really well during high-attendance times – they add special shows and entertainment. At this point, it is almost impossible to go on any rides without a major wait. After going on the wildest ride in the wilderness, we decide at 11:30 to call it a night and leave. Due to the crowds, the fun has gone out of the event and we were tired anyways. On the way out, we bypass all the special- event MVMCP merchandise. At the beginning of the evening, we were really tempted to purchase this stuff but now we can’t be bothered. On the ride back to the hotel, we discuss our reactions to the night. If we had known ahead of time that it would’ve been so crowded and that all we could expect was to watch some shows, then we might not have been so disappointed. However, having been led to believe that this was our chance to have unlimited rides on our favorite attractions (sort of the Christmas version of E-Ride nights), we ultimately felt the money spent wasn’t worth it. Prior to our trip, we had enough money in our budget to either attend MVMCP or purchase the special Pleasure Island dining package – we went with the party because we thought it would be a better value for our money. In hindsight, we wished we would’ve gone for the dinner package. Sigh. Well, you live and you learn.
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Fourth in the series
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