Spring Break 2023 - Day 6 - Disney World Magic Kingdom

There are a few benefits of staying at a Disney World hotel. The first is that there is early park entry for Disney World hotel guests. For Magic Kingdom this meant we got to enter the park at 8:30am. The other benefit is that you are able to use their buses to get to the parks. Disney World is the same size as San Fransisco so it can take 20 minutes to get there. Rather than having to rent a car you can just take a bus for free. We almost didn't get on the first bus but it would have been okay as another showed up as we were loading.

One major change for park entry this year was security. Since 9/11 they have had metal detectors and bag checks for all guests. It started with a second row of tents but over the years they've added permanent structures. This year instead of every guest being stopped they have some sort of AI that scans all guests and decides which bags are at risk. For us that meant Kerry's backpack was safe but Callie's backpack purse got flagged every time. We figure it was the aerosol deodorant.

The park doors open around 8:00am but they have ropes stopping you from getting to the rides so we had a bit of time to to wait until our first ride which was Seven Dwarves Mine Train. The line up ended up indicating 70 minutes by the time we got there but the estimates early in the day are a bit generous so it was only about 45 minutes. One odd thing was the hair band graveyard we saw on the ride near the end. I guess people get bored when they are stopped and once one person does it everyone does it.

While waiting in line for Seven Dwarves we saw our first 'Karen'. A father and daughter were making their way through the line to catch up with their party and the 'Karen' started yelling 'Sir... Sir...' to one of the Disney attendants saying they were cutting in the line. No action was taken. Carter's comment was 'Oooh. A real live Karen in the wild'. Next up was Space Mountain. I don't mind this ride but I really hate the down parts of roller coasters. I tolerate Space Mountain once on each trip.

One thing we noticed on all the rides was that the water marks on the automatic pictures were much bigger. I guess too many people just took pictures of their picture rather than buying. 

Another change this time was a return to refillable popcorn. For $13 you can get a bucket with $2.50 refills vs $5.50 for a cardboard bucket. The way Carter likes to eat popcorn, refillable is definitely the way to go.

On our way to Pirates of the Caribbean we walked by Splash Mountain which for Disney World was being retuned. It was previously based on a movie called Song of the South which is a fairly tone deaf portrayal of the south in the early years after slavery. They are retooling it to be based on Tiana which is a Disney princess. I'm assuming it will still be a log ride but it will be sad not to have zippity do dah as the main song. Hopefully they pay tribute to the old Splash Mountain in some way.

We stopped for churros by the water though I wasn't very impressed. They were not fresh and had lots of icing and sprinkles on them. They are always better fresh. We then headed over to the Haunted Mansion. Some good ideas for gravestones for Halloween. This is where we started to see the flaw in not getting the Genie Pass and the apparent greediness of Disney. They've made it more expensive to use the Fast Lanes but with a very high limit for the number they sell. We found they let way more fast lanes through and it really slowed things for us.

Our next ride was Goofy's Barn Stormer which is a roller coaster geared for kids. It's short and not very fast. I like to scream on this one as if it's the worst ride ever to see if I can frighten any kids. Best line I heard as I got off was 'Why is that man screaming. It's not that scary." It was now time for lunch which has sort of gotten easier as they have mobile ordering. As long as your phone has good wifi, you can order on the app and pick up right away. I had a chicken Caesar salad which was not very good. We finished the morning off with the magic carpet ride.

The start and end time for Magic Kingdom is enough that it makes sense to head back to the hotel for the afternoon for some time by the pool. We also had to wash clothes as it's difficult to pack for 10 days without washing clothes at least once. We wandered over to the sister hotel which is Port Orleans Riverside to check out their pool. We had thought our pool was going to be closed and we would have had to use Riverside but turns out that is next year.

We went back to the park around 6:00pm and tried to go on the Monsters Inc ride which we assumed was like Disneyland but turned out to be a life action comedy show. It was pretty funny with a bit of video interaction with the audience. One poor guy kept getting picked on. We also did the people movers where we saw the fireworks and Autopia where it's very noticeable they still use gas engines. I would not want to work on that ride in the pits. Hot and smelly. 

We also got to see the Tron ride at night. It wasn't open yet but was scheduled to open before we came to Magic Kingdom again. If we can get a spot in the virtual queue we'd be some of the first regular park goers on it. The outside looks amazing at night and you could see the cars running empty which you ride as if you are riding one of the Tron motorcycles. Probably too much for me. We headed back to Barnstormer which I decided to sit out. Apparently I was too busy on my phone because the family did it three times walking by me each time as there was no line up.