Day 2 - Wednesday, November 29th 2000 - Magic Kingdom (Jen's Birthday)
I woke up at 6am...Jen woke up at 7am. I was usually the first one to wake up during this entire trip. It was a sunny day and it was Jen's birthday! I gave her the birthday card I had bought for her back home. Then we got ready and went to eat breakfast at the Food Court. Jen had a cinnamon roll and we headed for the bus stop. It was exciting! It was our first day at the parks plus we had some birthday plans.
The bus stops in front of the hotel can get rather annoying at times. There are seperate lines for each park and once in a while, you will see buses come for every park except for the one you are going to. Sometimes 2 or 3 buses will come for another park before you get your's. But we didn't have to wait long this time. The ride from the All-Stars to the Magic Kingdom is probably one of the longest trips from any hotel to park on Disney property and it was only about 15-20 minutes. Staying on property has it's perks! :o) During our ride, we saw some of the more expensive deluxe resorts, such as the Contemporary and Grand Floridian, which are much closer to the parks. Then we could see the top of Space Mountain and other attractions at the MK as we got closer. We arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 10am...an hour or so after opening. I don't think we ever made it to a park before opening during our whole trip.
We walked into the park and, of course, saw Cinderella's Castle. It is the most popular icon in any of the Disney Parks, I think, and it makes you feel like you just walked into a fairytale. Our first order of business was to go to City Hall, which is guest services for the MK. I informed the CM that it was Jen's birthday. She pulled out a Birthday Button and gave it to Jen to put on so everyone could know it was her special day. Then, she made a "phone call" on speaker phone and Goofy sang Happy Birthday to Jen! Hehe...how cute!
The park was a bit crowded but oh well. Our first ride of the day was on the Walt Disney World Railroad. This was a little train ride around the entire park. There is the option of getting off at 2 other spots in the park but we stayed on for the entire trip. It's a nice, quiet, relaxing way to start off the day and has become sort of a tradition as my 1st ride in the MK.
From there, we headed to Adventureland. It is said that most people head to the right into Tomorrowland making Adventureland less crowded in the morning. I really don't think it matters either way. We walked through the Swiss Family Treehouse twice. It's a walking attraction built like a treehouse based on the movie, Swiss Family Robinson. There are a lot of stairs to climb and little exibits to see. The first time, we went kinda fast, so we went again to see if we missed any details. After we finished our 2nd walk-through, Jen bought a lei at the little gift shop near the exit.
Swiss Family Treehouse - Entrance
Swiss Family Treehouse - Kitchen/Dining Room
Swiss Family Treehouse - Waterwheel
Next up for us was The Enchanted Tiki Room - Under New Management. On our way there, we saw a huge wall on our right (see picture), which was where they were building the new Aladdin ride. In the Tiki Room, we missed the little pre-show they had with some talking animatronic birds. We walked inside and took a seat. This show had been updated just recently to include Zazu, from The Lion King, and Iago, the pesky parrot from Aladdin. They are the new owners of the Tiki Room. The show has singing birds and Tiki gods, with Iago & Zazu joining in on some of the musical numbers. It was a cute little show.
Once out of there, we saw some characters nearby posing for photos. We were going to go on the Jungle Cruise next but the line was kinda long. We could have grabbed some FASTPASSES but the return time was during our lunch...so we skipped it for the time being. Instead we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. This is a slow, dark boat ride through a town being plundered by pirates. This is one of the classic Disney World rides and is filled with audio-animatronics. We exited and saw Captain Hook and Mr. Smee posing for photos. But now it was time for our lunch...