Chapter 9
I Always Cry During Wishes

(Originally posted July 26, 2012)

We bade farewell to the Grand Floridian as the monorail pulled away.

I love the look of the monorail resorts at night. They’re so pretty all lit up. And seeing the lit up castle shining like a beacon was the perfect invitation back to the Magic Kingdom for us to enjoy the rest of the night there. We arrived and strolled down Main Street.

We stopped to pose for some nighttime castle Photopass pictures.

Getting pictures with the park icons at night is one of the best reasons to get the Photopass CD. My point-and-shoot, despite being really good, just can’t figure out how to take a good castle shot like the ones those photographers can get. I was able to snap some good pictures of the lit-up castle on its own though.

Now that the crowds were thinning out, we made our way to Fantasyland.

We may have happened to grab some Fastpasses for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh before we went to dinner because I can’t imagine it had a short enough line that we were willing to wait in it. Regardless, it was our first ride after heading back into the Magic Kingdom.

Tracy doesn’t like bees.

Oh, the honey walls. So… unsanitary.

After journeying with our good friends into the Hundred-Acre Wood (we really like Winnie the Pooh), we took a spin on Prince Charming Regal Carrousel.

We finally found the fake “Cinderella horse” on this trip, but it was always snatched up before we could ride it.

Next we made our way to everyone’s favorite/least favorite attraction, it’s a small world.

Between our last WDW trip and this one, we experienced Disneyland’s version of the ride, and I must say I prefer it over the WDW version. Between the façade and the inclusion of the Disney characters, the west coast ride simply trumps the one here. It was still fun, nonetheless, and I must say I can never truly dislike this attraction despite the song sticking in my head for days on end. Luckily I kept my mind off the Kingdom Keepers scene in this ride, or it probably would have gone from annoying to terrifying!

After we escaped from the singing dolls of the world, we realized it was just about time to head to the hub if we wanted to catch Wishes. This would be the only day when we planned to be in the Magic Kingdom to view the show, though we would be catching it from other locations throughout the trip. Oddly, we had never watched Wishes from the obvious location right in front of the castle. We usually watch from the Rose Garden because the crowds are thinner. This time, however, we wanted to try to get the full effect.

We entered the hub from Liberty Square right as The Magic, The Memories and You was entering its finale. Blast! I knew I had forgotten something! We usually don’t care about sitting to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade, so I had thought we could just show up at the castle right before Wishes, and I completely forgot about the castle show. What we saw of it was pretty fun and next time, we’ll be sure to include it in our plan. Once the show was done, we were able to squeeze into the hub and found a place to sit to wait the ten minutes before Wishes started up. We were just to the left of the main hub/Partners statue, facing the castle.

We all stood up as the voice of the Blue Fairy started to announce the beginning of Wishes. “When stars are born, they posses a gift or two. One of them is this—they have the power to make a wish come true.” And then the children start singing. And I start to lose it. Every trip, the first time I see Wishes, it makes me cry. Especially the finale. I think I just realize in that moment that there is nowhere else in the world I would rather be. The music is beautiful; the fireworks are thrilling; it’s just the perfect show for me. And I’m not ashamed to shed a few tears.

Once the cry fest wrapped up, we decided what we wanted to do. Originally our plan had been to leave the park after Wishes so as not to exhaust ourselves on the first day. In the moment, though, I can never convince myself to leave the parks while they’re still open. We decided to ride “just a few more rides” and then head back to the hotel.

We started in Liberty Square where the Haunted Mansion was looking especially spooky in the dark.

While waiting in the non-interactive queue (we figured we could do the interactive one in the daylight), we saw a toad hanging out on the fence. I tried to get a picture of him but didn’t want to scare him with the flash, so here’s the best I could do.

When we went to Disneyland last year, the Haunted Mansion had the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay, and while that was awesome, it meant that it had been almost two years since we had seen the classic version of the Mansion. We were excited to experience it again as we both think it’s one of the best classic attractions.

Another ride we had been told to hit at night was the new Dumbo because of all the new lighting effects. So we headed to Storybook Circus next.

It really is very cool all lit up, and I imagine even more spectacular now that both sides are open.

We enjoyed our flight after a minimal wait.

After Dumbo, we had planned on leaving the Magic Kingdom. But then we saw the Barnstormer right next to Dumbo, and it had literally no wait. We’d never done the Barnstormer before its refurb, but decided it looked like some harmless fun. We walked through the nicely themed new queue.

The ride is just so short! Right as it’s getting started it’s basically over. It was fun though. And the drop, while little, still gives that little thrill in your stomach.

Now it really way time to leave, if mostly because we had almost closed the Magic Kingdom already. We made our way toward the front of the park.

The second showing of the Main Street Electrical Parade had just started going, so while we walked down Main Street, we basically saw the whole parade in fast forward. It was still enough exposure to get the song stuck in our heads though…

We left the park and walked to our bus stop.

Luckily the wait wasn’t too long before we saw a Port Orleans Riverside bus.

There were no seats on the bus by the time we got on board, which was very sad after our long day. Luckily the trip from the Magic Kingdom to our resort was relatively short. But once we got on resort property, we had to go to every other bus stop before finally going to the main one. Needless to say, by the time we pulled up to our stop, we were ready to get off. We took the walk back to our room and found Duffy sitting and enjoying his spot on our Mickey towel.