Disney World May 2021 - Day Two
Our second day at Disney World was a jam-packed day that started way too early, to be honest. And honestly, we should have started even earlier, but breakfast was too much of a priority for us.
So the previous night ended semi early with dinner back at the hotel after a day at Epcot and Animal Kingdom. In theory we should have been rested, but that just isn’t Disney life when you are there for only a few days. We were spending this morning and afternoon at Magic Kingdom which opened at 9 am. This mean it really opened closer to 8 am. I had already read about people lining up for the first bus as early as 6:15 at Pop to be the first ones in the park, but that was not feasible for us. Unfortunately the food court didn’t open until 7, and we all needed breakfast before a full day at the parks. I honestly didn’t think breakfast at 7 would throw us too far off. I just assumed we would not be the first bus is all. So we placed our order right at 7 when we could. Brad got the bounty platter, and I just got the Mickey Waffles. I knew it would be a longer day, so we needed to eat more this morning.
Since we knew we were not gonna make that first bus, we didn’t rush through breakfast. We finished and made it to the bus line by 7:30 am. It was INSANELY LONG. Like it just did not make sense to me how Disney is handling things. They won’t cram people on a bus to get more people to the parks quicker, but they will have us all stand in these crazy lines, little to no social distancing, and no masks. The logic just wasn’t there this trip when it came to what they were and were not concerned with. End Rant. We were in line for so long, Melody fell back asleep, ha.
40 minutes later, we made it onto a bus. They were still assigning you to specific numbers on this day.
20 minutes later (8:30 am), we were looking at this magical view. I wasn’t as emotional seeing the castle this trip. I think it was the frustration over the long line/wait to start the morning and the initial crowd when we walked in.
Magic Kingdom is Melody’s park, so we let her decided how the day went. My parents and I headed straight to the teacups while Brad waited to get us all coffee at Starbucks.
I think Melody rode the teacups 3 or maybe 4 times in a row before we moved on. I rode it once. My dad rode it the rest. He even spun the wheel. I just can’t, ha.
We then headed to the carousel. We only rode it once due to the growing line. They don’t fill it up like before so it moves much slower. Instead they put one group per “row”. I do kind of like them assigning you a row simply because you don’t have the crazy rush over a particular horse, but it does move much slower between them assigning you numbers and just not filling it entirely.
At this point, Brad was back with our coffee. The wait was only about 15 minutes for him, it just looks so much longer with social distancing. I sipped on my coffee while Melody rode Dumbo a couple of times with my parents.
Melody then wanted to ride the “race cars”. The wait was only maybe 10-15 minutes at most. I was able to walk over and get some cute pictures of my dad and Melody. For whatever reason Melody didn’t want to drive it like she usually wants. But she said she still had a lot of fun on it.
Then we headed into Tomorrowland and rode both the PeopleMover and Buzz Lightyear before lunch. The PeopleMover was about a 25 minute wait and Buzz was maybe 15. I did quite poorly. I am just not any good at that ride, ha.
We then decided to grab lunch at Tomorrowland Terrace where they are serving Columbia Harbour House food. It was the closet place to eat, and I was happy to have something other than pizza or hamburgers/nuggets. We did mobile ordering and could find a slot immediately. Luckily you can find a seat without having your food, and you could take your strollers to the table. That made lunch go much easier and smoother.
On our way out of lunch, we noticed a photographer with no line. So we asked to take some pictures in our matching shirts.
At this point we head over to the Mine Train to see how long the line really was. It literally wrapped around to the stroller parking for Little Mermaid. So we decided to just skip it and head to Big Thunder. Our original thought was to warm her up to the roller coaster life with the Mine Train, but it wasn’t worth that wait plus the wait of Big Thunder later. Big Thunder was a very, very short wait. We might have waited 10 minutes, but we literally walked the entire time until they separate you into the two sides. Melody screamed the entire time, but she loved it she said.
Melody said no to Splash Mountain, so we decided to go try Pirates. I prefer Pirates over Jungle Cruise, and it was basically between those two rides at that point. This is one thing I missed most about FP+. I felt like we were going from ride to ride and basing it all on wait times and such. It is so unorganized, ha. [Melody doesn’t care for Haunted Mansion, so that is why we left it out]. Pirates took 40 minutes from the time we got in line to when we got on the boat (it had a 35 minute wait time).
After riding, Melody wanted to ride the Magic Carpets, and mom and I got Dole Whips. I actually opted for the float which was super refreshing and delicious. The Magic Carpets were a walk on basically and she rode it two times I believe.
I really wanted to ride Splash Mountain before we left. We rarely get to ride it because we usually come during its refurb in January and February. I was willing to go ride it by myself, but my mom was a brave soul and said she would ride it with me. So my dad and Brad took Melody back over to the teacups. When we got to Splash, it was temporarily closed. So we waited it out for a little bit unsure of when it would reopen. We probably waited 30 minutes, and I was ready to give up. But we noticed some Castmembers whispering to some other guests when they asked about it reopening. We also noticed some shuffling and lots of phone calls with the Castmembers. So we decided to just head to the front of Splash and see what happens. Well within minutes it reopened. We literally walked right on. During that time, Melody and my dad rode the teacups, Dumbo, and the carousel.
We met my dad and Brad on Main Street to walk through the shops. There wasn't a line at that point, but it was just as crowded as it was before COVID in my opinion. We didn't find anything we had to have, so we headed out. Melody was asleep, so we decided to get some pictures of her asleep in her stroller in front of the castle. I nice lady understood why, and she snapped away.
So we originally were gonna head out. We had dinner reservations at 7:25 at Garden Grill. It was already 4 pm, so we knew we might could ride a few things before. But Melody was asleep, and we knew getting on the bus would wake her. So we decided to walk down Main Street and then found a spot outside of Casey’s Corner to sit and eat some snacks. We also saw a few cavalcades in the process. Mom and I refilled our popcorn bucket, and Brad had some tiramisu.
Brad also grabbed these cute pictures of the castle.
Melody woke up on her own around 5 or so. As we were headed out, she remembered she wanted a Mickey balloon, so we caved and let her get one. It only cost us a mere $14 (and many slaps in the face from the wind). But she loved it. We were in line for the bus to Epcot at around 5:30, and we were at Epcot by 6. So that was really efficient compared to past park hopping!
This was the first time we saw the new entrance. I didn’t get great pictures of it, but it does actually look nicer without the Leave a Legacy walls up. We also found another photographer who didn’t have any one using his services, so he snapped some pictures for us. These are some of my favorites.
We did quickly ride Spaceship Earth since it didn’t have a wait before heading to dinner. We used the check in feature in the app 20 minutes prior to our reservation. We were seated about 10 minutes later (10 minutes before our actual reservation time). Melody was all smiles until characters started coming around. They don’t come near you. They are behind a plexiglass on the second level and you eat on the bottom level. Once she realized they couldn’t come to our actual table, she was fine. Although she still refused to take a selfie with them.
There was a fairly short wait for Soarin’ (you walked right to the point they tell you which concourse to go to). Since the day prior, they had removed the plexiglass, so we got to sit next to my parents. Melody sat between them this time and still kept her legs in the chair. Then we rode Living with the Land.
It was after 9 at this point, so we opted to head back to the hotel. We had to take the Skyliner, and we found quite the line (once again with the transportation). While the line looked long, it only took us about 25-30 minutes of waiting. Melody was already passed out (the benefit of the Skyliner is we don’t have to fold up the stroller). I would say we were back to the room within an hour or so of getting in line. In theory, this wasn't really any worse than waiting on a bus to your resort at the end of the night, but it still was a bit shocking.
