It's Disney Day!! This was the Bahls first time at Disney. After presenting a presentation to them prior to the trip about the different parks back home, we decided on Magic Kingdom and hopping to Epcot.
We got up early and AIS was 7:00am. My goal was to get into the park before many others to be able to do some rides. I had read that the parking lots always open 2 hours before so I figured if we got there at 7:30 we would be good. We arrived in the line at 7:26, but had to wait until 8:00am before they would let anybody through. Once we parked, we went had to walk to the transportation center, where again, we had to wait for 15 minutes before going through security. Then once security the monorail was not functioning so everyone was loaded on the ferry to head to Magic Kingdom. We were able to get into the park with ease and started to head directly to Splash Mountain which was Cooper's number 1 ride. We were then stopped before we could enter Liberty Square because they weren't going to let people in until rope drop. I had never seen rope drop before and truly thought it dropped before the actual time they say the park opens. Once we experienced rope drop we tried to get quickly to Frontierland, however, we were stopped again! I have never experienced anything like it! The workers gave a little talk and told people to remain behind them and then we were guided to Frontierland where we were stopped outside of Splash Mountain.
We knew we wanted to do child swap so I tried to head over toward the workers at the fast pass area to do rider swap. During that time I noticed a woman who was looking faint. I could hear a man in her party asking for water saying she was about to faint and she needed water. I didn't have the bag with me that had water in it, but just then Thom made his way through the crowd with Rocky and he had the bag. I pointed out the woman and he took her water and stayed with her while Teddy and I caught up with the Bahls. Thom ended up receiving some free water bottles from Disney and the head of Frontierland told Thom to name drop her and he could get our group on any ride in Frontierland without waiting. It has been years since I went on Splash Mountain, but it was fun to go on it again. Teddy was initially scared to go on the ride but quickly realized it was fun and Jean's scream as we went down the big hill gave Thom a clue when to take some pictures. Splash Mountain will be changing themes to Princess and the Frog although it has not been announced when that would be.
After Splash Mountain we headed to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Jean waited with Rocky. Everyone seemed to enjoy both of the rides. We decided to head to Pirates of the Caribbean from there. By this point it was getting very hot in the day. We stopped for some Cinderella Castle pics before heading to Space Mountain. Jean and I took the boys on the Peoplemover while Thom, Tom and Cooper waited for Space Mountain. Lunch and sitting in air condition was quickly in our future and we decided to head to Cosmic Ray's for lunch before swinging back around to re-ride some rides.
The last ride we had rider swap for was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Thom, Cooper and Teddy went on that ride while Tom, Jean, Rocky and I looked for some shade. We parked ourselves under the Big Country Bears awning and saw a little parade drive by. Right after the parade went by the rain started. It just so happened that the boys were caught in the rainstorm on the rollercoaster. Tom, Jean, Rocky and I hid under the awning until the boys found us and the storm lightened. We then decided to head toward Epcot.
We made our way through the park to get to the monorail. On the monorail the rain really picked up and started to pour. By the time we arrived at the transportation center it was a major downpour. Luckily, the transfer to the Epcot monorail was directly next to the monorail we just got off and was waiting for us! As we headed to Epcot it really started to pour. When we got off the monorail we poncho-ed up and made our way to the entrance. Many people were starting to empty out at this point because of the rain. I had packed extra shoes for the boys to change into and Teddy LOVED splashing his way through Epcot (although he has a couple blisters from it).
Our first stop was "The Land" to do Soarin' which only had a 25 minute wait. Rocky and I did Living with the Land while everyone else did Soarin'. We got off our rides at the exact same time. Jean and I then got to do Soarin' for the rider swap. As a group we then did Living with the Land where Thom got caught touching the sand.
By the time we were done in "The Land" the rain had stopped! Tom, Cooper, Teddy and I headed to Mission Space while Thom, Jean and Rocky headed toward the countries to search down a mimosa flight. Teddy enjoyed Mission Space and thought he truly went to space.
Throughout the day we noticed more and more people wearing masks. The crowds were bad at Magic Kingdom but not so bad at Epcot. Tomorrow, July 30th, Disney will be mandating masks for anyone inside buildings. The workers were already modeling that.
We started our country travels in Mexico with some margaritas before making our way around. We didn't spend much time in each country as people were getting tired, but we did stop in Germany for a brat and pretzel for dinner. We also stopped at a few food and drink stops along the way because it is the "Food and Wine Festival". They had so many great choices. The rain continued to sprinkle throughout the evening. We finished off our Epcot evening by going on Finding Nemo and exploring the aquarium. As we were heading out we saw that Spaceship Earth had a low line so we decided to finish by going up in the ball. Everyone had a great, exhausting day!
It really worked well to hop between the two parks using the monorail. Teddy had a blast jumping in the puddles and riding all the rides and Rocky was a trooper! Good times were had by all!
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