WDW Sisters' Trip II -- Day 2

 

(this was the "logo" for our Sisters' Trip II that I made stickers of for our trip journals)

We started our first full day in Walt Disney World (3 November 2013) bright and early, leaving the hotel around 8 am and arriving at the Magic Kingdom about a half hour later. We watched the welcome ceremony and made our way to the Main Street bakery to get some coffee (I had a cinnamon dolce latte). Next we wandered over to Tomorrowland in search of a breakfast pretzel (but the pretzel shop didn’t open until 11 am so we crossed the main hub into Adventureland.

We rode the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean. After those classics, we rode my favorite fast ride in the Magic Kingdom--Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We next wandered around Frontierland and Liberty Square (we bought some Mickey head-shaped licorice pieces in a shop there) before making our way to the Haunted Mansion. Because it was still pretty early (maybe around 10:45 am at this point), we walked to the new Be Our Guest Restauurant to see if there was a line for lunch--and it stretched as far as the eye could see. NOPE!

 

We rode It’s a Small World and followed that quiet little cruise with lunch at Columbia Harbor House. We found a really nice little table upstairs near a window where we could people-watch while eating lunch (shrimp, coleslaw, and fries for me).

We attempted to ride the Liberty Belle boat that departed at noon, but it was broken so we were out of luck for now. To console herself, Shannon had her first dill pickle of the trip! We caught the train in Frontierland and rode it to Main Street where we toured the shops in search of souvenirs. After a while, we hopped aboard the train again and headed back to Frontierland where we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad with Fast Passes we secured earlier in the day.

 

Feeling a little hot (it was pretty sunny out that day!), we stopped by Aloha Isle to eat the first Dole Whip of the trip! After our snack in the shade, we ventured over to Tomorrowland and had a relaxing ride on the Peoplemover. Finally, the Lunching Pad was open and we were able to snack on a sweet cream cheese-filled pretzel (Shannon wasn’t a big fan of this one, preferring the jalapeño cheese pretzel). We toured around Fantasyland, enjoying all of the new scenery there before seeing a Philharmagic show.

 

 

 

At this point in the day (around 5:30 pm), we decided to hop over to EPCOT for our dinner in Germany (we hadn’t eaten here before and were very excited to try a meal at Biergarten!). We rode monorail black from the Magic Kingdom to the Transportation and Ticket Center and from there we rode monorail orange to EPCOT.

We tasted the new drinks at Club Cool (my favorite was Melon Frosty) before riding Living with the Land. At that point, we made our way around the world showcase to Germany where we had dinner reservations at Biergarten for 6:10 pm. We had a very lovely buffet dinner (one of my favorite meals from the trip!) where my favorites were mushroom soup, pretzel rolls, tomato salad, cheese assortment, and Bavarian cheesecake. Shannon also was called to the stage to participate as an Alpine bell ringer--she did a nice job!

 

 

 

  

After our time at EPCOT, we walked to the nearby Boardwalk hotel to catch a bus to Downtown Disney (~8 pm). We browsed lots of stores and decided to make our way (via bus) back to our hotel around 10 pm--this was quite a long, but fun day!