Disney Day 1, Continued...

... Ah, the Magic Kingdom!  :-)

We spent our entire first day at, what turned out to be, Lily's favorite park!  At the time we didn't know this, but we started our vacation here and ended our vacation here!

 We loved everything about the Magic Kingdom and all it had to offer...

 ...the castle being one of our favorite parts, of course.

 We spent the whole first day riding rides.  I think the Magic Kingdom has more "actual" rides than the other parks and more that is focused on smaller children.  It worked out great for us because Lily is pretty timid when it comes to rides and adventures and things that might "tickle her tummy," so the Magic Kingdom was a great "classic Disney" place to start to ease her in to the rides and then ramp up the adventure!  Everywhere we went, she would ask, "is this going to tickle my tummy?" lol.  Chris and I aren't big roller coaster fans, so we were content to focus on the interactive stuff and smaller rides and truth be told there are only a couple "big" rides at the magic kingdom!

 The first thing we did was the carousel of progress!  We loved it - even Lily - as we "rode" in the rotating theater watching one family grow through generations, starting at the turn of the century and growing to present day... it showed how "modern" conveniences of each period had changed.

 We rode the tea cups... this turned out to be Lily's 3rd favorite ride and over the course of our trip we rode 3 times... the first time in a pink cup, the second time in a purple cup, and the third time in a yellow cup!  Her three favorite colors, of course!  Chris doesn't like stuff that "spins" so he was happy to hold our bag and video and take pictures, but by the end of our trip we even had him in on the tea cups! lol.

 Lily's number one favorite ride was the Dumbo ride, we rode it 2 or 3 times as well over the course of the trip.  It's a two seater so she rode once with me and once with Chris.  :-)

 Lily's second favorite ride was The Magic Carpets of Aladdin.  It was really cool because we could all fit!  In the front seat you control if you go up or down  and in the back seat you control if you tilt forward or back!  So fun!

 Other rides and attractions we enjoyed and recommend include The Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (so fun, riding in a honey pot - but you MUST get a fast pass - we learned the hard way, lol), Mickey's PhilharMagic, Peter Pan's Flight (another fast pass ride - we loved it!), It's a small world - what a classic Disney ride, The Haunted Mansion, and Monster's Inc Laugh Floor - SO FUN and funny.  The only thing we wouldn't recommend, in fact, was Stitch's Great Escape.. it was rather dull.

The first day wore us all out, but we were just as excited about our second day!

Things we learned about Disney (within the first 2 hours):

1.  We agreed never to take a child in diapers... or a stroller.

2.  We decided that the only way to go is with a backpack (we had an over the shoulder bag - next time we will be taking a back pack for sure!

3.  You can bring as much food and drink with you to the park as you like.  :-)

4.  Use the FAST PASS machines when available!  AND they do run out, so you should get your fast passes in the morning when possible!  :-)  This saved a lot of waiting in line time.

5.  October is the *perfect* time of year.  It wasn't too crowded, the weather was perfect, and we couldn't have asked for a better time of year to go!  :-)

Day two to come!