Hello, lovelies! I went to Disney World back in October with two of my best friends, Kat and Stellah, for Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival and the park’s 50th Anniversary celebration. Today, I’m talking about our second day there in Magic Kingdom. I hope you enjoy!

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Day 2 // Magic Kingdom

Chill Morning At Magic Kingdom

We all slept in a bit because we weren’t planning on being at the park before rope drop and running to a popular ride first. Kat wanted to get a specific pair of 50th anniversary ears before they sold out, so we knew we were going to shop on Mainstreet (the front part of the park) for a bit before getting in line anywhere. We were still at the park within the first twenty minutes of opening.

Walking into the park was magical. I love the feeling and ambiance of Magic Kingdom with the oldies music scores and the beautiful architecture. We found the ears Kat was looking for very quickly, and Stellah loved them so much that she bought a pair too. The only souvenir I bought was a 50th Anniversary pin because I wanted something to bring back from this trip, and already had my own pair of Minnie ears. Kat ended up buying the same pair for her mom, too, so there are pictures of the three of us in matching ears later that night.

After walking around the shop enjoying all the cute nerdy merchandise, we walked toward the castle to find a booth for breakfast. We decided to get giant Mickey pretzels with cheese sauce for breakfast, and sat to the side of the castle to eat them. There weren’t many people around where we were, but we had a perfect view of the castle and the cavalcades of characters that would randomly pass by. Disney World isn’t doing their parade right now to prevent too many people gathering, so random floats will go out throughout the day with the characters waving hi to the patrons.

Frontierland & Adventureland

After eating and wandering around for a bit, we headed over to Frontierland to ride the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster. Stellah bought a pair of sunglasses in Adventureland on the way there because it was super sunny. The line for the ride looked longer than it was. We sped through it. Kat told us that they were overestimating the wait times in the app, and that was definitely the case. Big Thunder Mountain is one of my favorite roller coasters at Disney. Honestly, roller coasters aren’t my thing. I was deathly afraid of them until I was 17 and I’m still terrified of the giant flipping over ones, but Disney roller coasters are the perfect amount of thrilling-without-heart-attack-inducing for me.

We skipped Splash Mountain because I don’t really like that ride. It’s not that it’s scary. I just don’t love the feeling of dropping down a waterfall in a log. I’ve been on the same type of ride at Universal, the Jurassic Park ride, several times because that line is usually ten-minutes, but the one hour wait for Splash Mountain isn’t worth it for me. Stellah and Kat were indifferent towards riding it, so we skipped it and headed back towards Adventureland.

After that, we rode Pirates of the Caribbean. It said there was a 50-minute wait time, but we got through the line in like twelve minutes. It was insane. I really enjoyed the ride and can understand why they made a movie out of it. A lot of people don’t know this, but the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is based on this ride, not the other way around. The same goes for the Haunted Mansion film. People have been complaining that Disney is trying to milk out money out of us by making live action movies for rides like Jungle Cruise and Tower of Terror. They are doing it for that reason, but there’s precedent of ride-based movies being successful. They can be as creative as they want with the story or plot since they can have it revolve around an existing setting.

Speaking of which, the next ride we went on was Jungle Cruise. which was by far the WORST LINE of the trip. We debated whether or not to ride it, but decided to go since it was a ride Stellah and I had never been on. This was right before the Jungle Cruise movie came out, so more people were in line than usual. It took 50-minutes to get through and was the longest line of our day. The length of the line wasn’t really the problem, but the way the line was. It was an outdoor line under a shade with overhead fans, and there wasn’t a lot of room the way they had it roped off. We were literally in single file.

This was the only time on the trip where I thought, “this is how I’m going to get covid.” Up until this point, I had felt very safe since masks were HEAVILY ENFOCED indoors and on rides. The park also wasn’t at capacity (hence the shorter lines) so it was easy to social distance, but since it was an outdoor line, not everyone was wearing masks. This was the only time I was freaking out a bit. The three of us couldn’t talk to each other because we literally couldn’t hear each other and were lined up one behind the other, so we were just on our devices. Kat was reading on her Kindle and Stellah was reading an eBook on her phone. I’m not really an eBook person, so I was jamming out to 1989 on my phone and watching You. Funny story, the physical book I was reading at the time was Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo, but I decided not to bring it with me because reading a book about a plane crash on a plane would be bad juju. I had just started the audiobook for Anna Kerenina at the time. I listened to it for like five minutes then stopped because it wasn’t fitting my Disney mood (Not that a Netflix show about a murderous stalker was, lol), so I went back to listening to Taylor Swift.

(Stellah was reading A Conspiracy of Mothers by Colleen van Niekerk, which is a historical fiction book set in South Africa during apartheid, and Kat was reading the second or third book to a fairytale retelling series I can’t remember the name of.)

The Jungle Cruise ride was fine. I enjoyed it, but the terrible line wasn’t worth it. I am glad we went on it though because it was a new ride, and by the end of this trip, I had finally ridden all the rides at Magic Kingdom (It only took four trips to make that happen). I’m also glad I rode it because I’ll understand the references when I eventually watch the movie.

Fantasyland

We had initially planned on riding Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride after Jungle Cruise, but we were kind of over Adventureland at that point, so we headed back towards Cinderella’s Castle. We took a shit ton of pictures and enjoyed walking around and admiring the pretty architecture of Fantasyland.

The first thing we road on was Prince Charming’s Royal Carousel, which is the best merry go round ever because it’s huge and plays Disney movie scores. (I think the song we had was either Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast or A Whole New World from Aladdin.)

After that, we rode It’s a Small World. I’m not the biggest fan of it, but it’s a classic and Stellah and Kat really wanted to. Plus, it was air conditioned :). I still had fun on the ride.

After It’s a Small World, we headed to Pinocchio’s Village House for lunch. Pinocchio is one of my brother’s favorite movies that he watches on repeat, so I noticed a lot of details in the theming of the restaurant (“Look, Figuero the cat and Cleo the goldfish!”) I ate tomato soup and chicken strips for lunch. This was probably the hottest point in the day, so we were enjoying the air conditioning.

Dumbo’s Flying Elephants was our next stop. This was by far the best line because it wasn’t fully a line. The inside of the line is a massive circus tent with a climbing playground in it. Once you get through the first half of the line, you’re handed a buzzer that will go off when it’s time for you to get on the ride. So we just sat on the benches in air conditioning, while kids played on the playground until it was our turn for the ride. It was great! The ride was also fun, with the wind in our hair and view of the castle.

Tomorrowland

Our next stop was Space Mountain, which is an indoor roller coaster in the dark. I haven’t gone in this ride on recent trips, so I barely remembered it. I was super excited to ride it since it’s such a classic and I quite enjoy roller coasters in the dark. The ride was fun, but I got major whiplash from it. I held the bar with one hand and the back of my neck with the other.

After Space Mountain, we headed back over to Fantasyland to get dole whip. I wanted to get a Peter Pan Float, which is essentially lime soft serve, sprite, and a read chocolate feather. It looked super cool, but they unfortunately, they didn’t sell it anymore. I ended up getting a Snow White themed dole whip, which was lemon flavored and very good.

We headed back towards Tomorrowland. I ate outside, while Stellah and Kat went into a store because you had to wear masks indoors and I wouldn’t be able to eat while walking around with them. Funny story, we knew that they were going into the store after I got the ice-cream. While walking back, I was a bit in front of them, so I didn’t notice them walk into the store. They said they were going in, but I didn’t hear them since it was loud and I think a man bumped into me. I started talking to them and walked at least ten feet before turning around and seeing they weren’t behind me. It was sit-com level spinning around in surprise thinking they disappeared. I called them, but they didn’t pick up, so I just plopped myself down on the curb and ate my ice-cream waiting for them to walk by because I didn’t know what store they were in. I got lucky and sat near their store. When we reunited, they said they thought I nodded after they called out to me that they were going inside because my head bobbed when the guy bumped into me.

After that, headed to the Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor because it’s fun and air conditioned. Philharmagic is the other great air conditioned indoor show, but it was closed for refurbishment since they’re adding a Coco part to it. We enjoyed the show and headed towards the castle to take a professional picture in front of it with a photographer.

Once we took the pictures, we checked in the Enchantment Dessert Party.

Enchantment Dessert Party & Fireworks

I had heard of these dessert parties before, so I was excited to go to one after Kat said one was available for the new fireworks show Enchantment. Disney created a new fireworks show for the 50th Anniversary that had just come out the week before, so we were excited to see it for the first time. The dessert party had unlimited food and drinks, so we didn’t bother buying dinner. We filled up on fruits, cheese, crackers, and a lot of dessert for an hour before heading to the reserved area outside for us to watch the fireworks show. We had a great view and we didn’t have to camp out for an hour before to get a good seat.

The fireworks show was of course beautiful and we enjoyed them a lot. We talked to a cast member while waiting and learned that the reason we have to stand during the fireworks is to prevent a stampede after when everyone leaves the park. When I was a kid, everyone sat during the fireworks show.

I personally prefer the previous fireworks show Happily Ever After over Enchantment because that one included more older movie references. I was expecting more from the 50th Anniversary fireworks since they had so much to work with, but they spent a lot of time showing newer projects and songs.

Rides After The Children Left

The park stays open after the fireworks, so while many people in the park left, we speed walked straight towards Fantasyland. We had originally planned on doing Tea Cups then heading towards Seven Dwarfs Mine Train but decided we didn’t want to wait in line for the latter. Instead, we wanted to go through all the non-roller coaster rides geared towards younger kids now that those would have shorter lines.

First we rode on Mad Tea Party and tried to spin as fast as we could.

After that, we rode on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Whenever I went with my family, we’d use the disability pass for my brother, so I’ve never seen most of the interactive activities within the regular lines. I took a picture in front of Winnie the Pooh’s house and even went inside it. I was surprisingly able to stand up in there (I’m 5’9″) and walk around. It was bigger than I thought it would be. The ride itself is a slow track ride where you ride inside a honey pot through scenes in the first movie.

After Winnie the Pooh, we dashed over to Peter Pan’s Flight. This line is usually over an 90-minutes long pre-pandemic, but it took less than 30-minutes that night. They added this cool shadow technology thing in the queue where when you stand in front of a light and things happen to your shadow (Ex. Tinker Bell’s shadow flies in and puts a hat on you). We had a lot of fun in that part of the line. I can’t remember the last time I rode Peter Pan’s Flight since I usually avoid it due to the line, so it was nice riding it.

Then finally, we ran over to the other side of Fantasy Land to ride on Journey of the Little Mermaid ten minutes before the park closed. I have great memories of this ride because in 2016, I went to the park with like 10 of my cousins and we got stuck at the exit because it was pouring rain outside. The cast members just let us come back inside and ride it continuously because no one was in line to get on it.

The park had officially closed by the time we finished. The section by Beast’s Castle and Eric’s Castle were basically empty by then. We walked around there and wanted to rush to the Tangled section before leaving because the Tower and the lanterns look cool at night, but the workers had started clearing people out of the park by then.

Window Shopping on Main Street

Main Street stays open for an hour after the rides close, so we walked around there for awhile. We looked at all the cute Disney merch and displays and walked passed all the restaurants. It was really nice. I video called my parents there then we all headed to the exit. We also met a few of Kat’s co-workers.

Back At The Hotel

It was my turn to shower first that night, so I headed straight for the bathroom, but when I got out, the room was empty. I went to my phone and saw that they had both walked to the pool. The only other time I stayed at a Disney hotel was in 2015, and the pool was at the main central building and had a water park behind it.

I had assumed they had driven there since Coronado Springs is such a large resort, but Stellah told me to just walk outside. I assumed I wouldn’t be able to find it, then Stellah knocked on the door. Turns out there was a pool like fifteen steps away from our door that we hadn’t noticed because the bus stop was in the opposite direction.

Basically, Kat posted a snap that we were at Coronado Springs while I was in the shower, and one of her friends messaged her like, “You’re here? I’m here too!” Turns out his friend from his hometown was also visiting him and they were staying a few rooms away from us. It was such a coincidence! (I’ll call him A and his friend E from here on out)

The four of us hung out by the pool for awhile. My hair was still wrapped in a towel. A was the only one outside with us since his friend was working on her schoolwork in their hotel room. They were going to go to Hollywood Studios in the morning and Epcot in the afternoon, so we made plans to meet up in the morning since we were also going to Hollywood Studios.

It was almost midnight by then, so we told A we’d meet them outside our hotel room at 8:30 since we weren’t planning on waking up before 8 AM. We headed back to our hotel room, and I packed my bag since we were going to the airport the next night.

Well, that’s it for now. Sorry for not getting this out earlier this week. I have all three days written, but I didn’t have time to edit and add pictures until now. My next post will be a recap of our last day at the parks, so stay tuned!

Disney Trip Recap 2021 | Magic Kingdom 50th Anniversary Celebration