Part 2: Tuesday, Destination: Magic Kingdom

(just so it doesn’t get lost… this weeks Thoughts on Thursday post is up!)

We didn’t get going quite as early on Tuesday. Our destination was Magic Kingdom…
“THE PLACE” to see at Disney. And boy,
were the crowds worse… it was so different from the evening before. We had a wait to get on the ferry (you have
to either take a ferry or monorail over to Magic Kingdom),
and the crowds from the get go were bustling.

We decided to spend the day split up and do our own things,
so Ryan, Porter and I headed to Fantasy Land and Toon Town. 

We rode on the Teacups, which Porter
LOVED. Ryan got it spinning pretty fast
and Porter just grinned so big. We went
into Poohs Playland where Porter met a little girl who followed him around. Then we went back to Donald’s boat, but Porter was more interested in
the Disney Train, so we hopped on that and rode it around the park through each
of the different “areas” (Frontierland, Adventureland, Tomorrowland,
Fantasyland etc).

After getting off the train, we ended up running into Ryan,
Jessica and Alyssa and we headed to Casey’s for lunch. It was hotter than hell out and there wasn’t
much shade to sit in to eat. Ryan really
wanted to ride on Space Mountainand some of the
adult rides, but I wasn’t up for standing in line (the lines were like an hour
long) with Porter. They do have this
Baby Swap program, but we didn’t test it out, as we didn’t want to push our luck and try to make Porter wait in the long lines. Anyway, Ryan wanted to ride the adult rides,
and he tried to get the other Ryan to stick around with him, and Jess and I
would take the kids back to the hotel, but that didn’t seem to go over too well
so MyRy just decided to go on the rides alone and I’d ride back to the condo
with Jess and Ry. Well, after we split
up I started to feel guilty for bailing on my hubby and since no one else
wanted to hang out with him I figured I should have at least walked the park
with him and shopped while he was in line. So, I took off after him and it took a bit, but we met up on Main Street and,
since Porter was asleep, we browsed the shops for awhile and then headed back
to the hotel.

Once we were back at the condo, we took a dip in the pool to
cool off and freshen up, and then headed to Downtown Disney for a little
bit. There are some great shops there…
the World of Disney has a ton of themed rooms (girls, boys, t’s and hats, etc)
and about any Disney merchandise you could ever think of. The other favorite place of mine was the Once
Upon a Toy. There is this really cool
Mr. Potato Head “kit” there… there are all sorts of different accessories for the
Mr. Potato Head… pirate, Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Cruella DeVille, Buzz Lightyear,
The Incredibles etc… For $19 you get the Potato Head and get to stuff the box
with as many things as you can fit. We
*thought* we had it stuffed well, and the guy at the register said “Oh, you can
get a lot more in there!” so he dumped it and helped stuff the box. He helped us pick out a bunch of thin
accessories that you can stuff along the edges. Anyway, that was a lot of fun, and a great souvenir for Porter too!

Another cool place at Downtown Disney was the Christmas
store (any Christmas ornament you can think of) and the Lego Store.

We again, went back to the condo to put Porter to
sleep. Mary Ann (Ryan P’s mom) had
brought Hailey to the condo earlier that day and was staying the night with us
to stay with the kids while we 4 parents went out for a drink and
appetizers. We had planned to go to the
Wide World of Sports and go to the sports bar there, but it was closing as we
arrived. So, after a little driving we
decided to go to Bahama Breeze. Great
atmosphere, great service, but just not the kind of food I really like. I had a delish margarita, and then just
ordered fries since everything else was kind of “fancy” for me. Ryan enjoyed it
(and even got a free shrimp meal when another waiter mistakenly delivered it to
our table), though.