We got to our room, dropped our stuff and quickly got ready to leave again. Within 20 minutes, we were out the door again and walking back to the bus stops. We only had to wait a few minutes before a bus pulled up to take us to our first park of the trip – Magic Kingdom! It was pushing 6pm by this point, but the park had extra magic hours until 3am. We knew we’d never make it that late after traveling all day, but our aim was to see the midnight fireworks.
Once we reached Magic Kingdom, we had to stop at guest services. Luke had purchased his 10 day park hopper tickets with the Canadian discount, so he had to show his Passport to prove he was Canadian in order to activate them. I had purchased a Premier Passport the previous year (the annual pass which allows you access to both WDW and Disneyland – we had been to Disneyland twice in 2017, and when we did the math we knew I would save money by buying it once we factored in park tickets for the three trips, plus Photopass/Memory Maker plus AP discounts). Since we were already in line at guest services, I took the opportunity to purchase a Tables in Wonderland card. I actually tracked our savings with this card so you can see if it’s worth it, just check my dining reports to see the math!
We finally entered our first park of the trip! We didn’t have much time to soak in the atmosphere though, we had to hurry if we wanted to make it to our first Fastpass, we were already closing in on the end of our window. We walked down Main Street, pausing to take in the beauty that is Cinderella’s Castle at Christmas before entering Adventureland. As we were speed walking along, I stopped. I looked over my shoulder at a man we had just walked past, then looked at Luke and said ‘I think I know him! I’m pretty sure it’s someone from the Disboards who writes trip reports that I follow!’ I had never had never met anyone in person from the Disney websites I follow, so I shyly turned around and asked ‘are you Adam?’ It was, I told him who I was (I had commented on his planning report, so he knew who I was too). We chatted for a few minutes, but we had to get going in order to make our first fastpass, so we said goodbye. I totally didn’t think to get a picture with him to prove the Dismeet had happened!
Luke and I made it to Splash Mountain and scanned our Magicbands. The Mickey on the scanner turned green, we had made it in time! We knew the ride was going to be closed for a lengthy refurbishment starting in the second week of our vacation, so it was important to us to get on it before that. Also, Splash Mountain was our very first ride at Walt Disney World back on our 2016 trip, so it just felt right for it to be the first ride on this trip.
By the time we got off Splash, we were within our next fastpass window so we walked straight over to Big Thunder Mountain.
We didn’t ask for it, but we lucked out and were assigned the back row – the best row on BTMR! This trip was off to a great start 🙂
After our wildest ride in the wilderness, we had some time to kill before our third fastpass. We walked around, revelling in the fact that after months of insane planning for this trip and wedding, there was nothing left we could do and our vacation had begun! It was a bit surreal, and I was very excited for the next two weeks.
We made our way over to Fantasyland where I snapped this picture of the back of the castle. So pretty!
Our third fastpass was for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. This is such a cute ride, I’d prefer it to be a bit longer but it’s such a smooth roller coaster.
Afterwards, we started making our way to the front of the park. Of course, I had to stop to take more castle pictures along the way, the Christmas lights are my favourite!
We walked down Main Street –
and checked in for our 9:20pm dining reservation at Tony’s.
After our meal, we stopped for our first (of many) Photopass pictures of the trip.
We still had some time before the fireworks display at midnight, and the hub around the castle wasn’t too crowded yet, so we spent some time just walking around, soaking everything in. We knew the show started about 10 minutes before midnight, but we didn’t head over to the Hub until about 11:35. Since it was just the rehearsal for the real NYE, and they had shot off the same fireworks earlier that evening (I believe at 6pm, before we arrived at the park), we were able to get a really great spot to stand and watch from – and less than a 15 minute wait until it started!
I don’t consider myself a huge fan of fireworks (don’t let the number of times I watched Happily Ever After on this trip fool you haha), but this show – whoa. Just, whoa. Incredible. I would never in a million years brave the crowds on NYE to see it, but in a decent-sized crowd on December 30th? Absolutely.
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Once the fireworks ended, I decided I was ready to leave. The park was open until 1am, with Extra Magic Hours until 3am, but I was exhausted after travelling, and just wanted to go to sleep. We probably should have went and waited in line for something, it ended up taking quite awhile to get down Main Street and out of Magic Kingdom to the buses. Of course I had to stop for a picture of the train station with the red and green Christmas lights…
But, we made it to the bus stop eventually and didn’t have too long of a wait for a bus to take us back to Pop Century. It was after 1am by the time we got to our room though, I was falling asleep on my feet and crashed pretty quickly. Day one was in the books!
Total Fitbit Steps: 7820
Next: December 31, 2017