Halloween time in Walt Disney World!

It's been over six months since Halloween, so at this point we are half way to Halloween!  Better start thinking about costumes for this year.  Belle's Blue dress?  Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas?

I have a bit of time until October 31st.  For now it's time to recap the end of my Walt Disney World Adventures.

Rachel left work a bit early so that we could change back at her apartment.  She went as Cousin June from Katamari damacy.  It's a video game character.  She made her dress herself!  

I went as Mary Poppins.  I found everything at thrift stores.  I added flowers and berries to the hat, pin stripes to the jacket, and a bow to the shirt.

We came into the park before official party time and went to take a picture with the mouse himself.  Minnie was there too.  From there we joined the princess line.  For Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party the Princes hang out with the Princesses.  After waiting for an hour and half we met Snow White, Snow Prince, Cinderella, Prince Charming, Flynn Rider and Rapunzel.  Word to the wise, don't wait in that line.  Not worth it!

And to top off my Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom card set we got the limited edition Bag of Tricks card.  61 cards and counting!

From there we found characters that neither of us had taken photos with.  It had been since 2005 since I had seen Jane, not very long since seeing Terk and I've never seen Tarzan.  Rachel waiting in line as I met some other characters.  By the time we got to the front Tarzan had wondered off.  NOOOOO!  So after the fireworks we came back and found all three together.  They were the most entertaining gang of the night!

While Rachel was waiting in line for the Tarzan gang I went over to Pixie Hollow to meet Tinkerbelle.  She always has a friend with her.  With the new movie coming out soon after my visit her friend was her long lost sister Periwinkle.  Both were very cute and I make it back in time to meet Jane and Terk.

Right after meeting with the Tarzan gang we walked deeper into Adventureland to get photos with the Aladdin gang.  Another first was getting a photo with Abu!  Two new characters so far!

Fireworks, or as Disney cast members call it Pyro, was not as good as Disneyland.  The next time I visit for the party, which I'm sure I will, I will skip it!  And I love fireworks way more than parades but the Boo to You parade changed my mind, at least for the night.

Wow!  This is the best parade that I've ever seen.  There were tons of characters in the show that you never get to see in the parks, either in other parades or meet and greets.  All of the lost boys, lots of villains, the hitchhiking ghosts, Kanga and Roo, and more Haunted Mansion awesomeness.  What a parade.  Maybe next time, watch it twice, skip the pyro.

One more new character for me.  Maleficent.  After working in the parks to almost three years and more visiting I've never seen her!  Finally!  And we also saw her nemesis of Aurora and her Prince Phillip.

As the clock was coming closer to striking midnight we found two more characters.  Another first for me was Experiment 626.  Buzz was our final character of the night.

We missed out on so many characters!  No princess line for me next time.  There were Minnie, Mickey, Donald and Daisy in costume.  Gaston was around plus more villains.  Next time...

After collecting many character's autographs and photos we headed out.  Even with broken shoes, 100 percent humidity, and bruised toes we had a fantastic time.  But it was a bit light on the candy.  So I guess I will have to go to Disneyland's Halloween party to make up for it!

Walt Disney World for the third time in one year!

Ahh the Magic Kingdom.  I got there before the official park opening to find that they open the park with tons of characters on the train every morning.  How fun is that!  If only I were selected to open the park with them.  My guess is that they don't often choose a single person to do it.  Sadness.  

Anyways once I was in the park I was happy to see all of the Main Street vehicles out and taking guests to Cinderella castle.  And the Dapper Dans doing a show on the horse drawn street car too.  Where was this on my last three visits?

The relocation of Dumbo was new to me.  I don't think that I ever made it to Toontown Fair but that is where Storybook Circus is now.  And these days there are two Dumbos spinning next to each other, Barnstormer (a small kiddie coaster), Casey Jr. Soak zone water play area, and a huge shop in the land.  I'll have to say that I think that the painting on the Dumbo attraction is garish.  Clashing colors and too much gold does not make me happy!  And I just missed the opening of the New Fantasyland with the Be Our Restaurant, now open!

Of course there were characters.  I couldn't help myself than to join every character line I could find.  Princesses, Mice, Ducks, Pixar characters, and every other one I could find and get their autograph!

This time around I saw the Main Street parade.  Mainly just to see the characters.

The stepsisters were having a bit too much fun as they were booty scooting down the street.  Cinderella was not amused!

And the finale float with the rest of the princesses and princes.  I can't help it.  I just love those couples!

Now for my favorite picture of the trip.  Walt Disney World band, clear day, open street and the castle in the background.  What's not to love!

And more characters.  My favorite interaction was with the evil stepmother and step sisters.  The mom and child infront of me asked someone to hold onto their ice cream while they were taking their photo.  Being the former Disneyland cast member as I am I offered my help. They thanked me and the next two groups cut in front of me.  I finally made my way up to them.  They though that someone should buy me an ice cream and that everyone else was being very rude.  The evil stepsister and stepmother may be evil but they notice things!

And as always I finished my adventures in the Magic Kingdom with Minnie and Mickey.  Gotta say goodbye to the boss.

The Two Kingdoms

My mom and my favorite park is probably the Animal Kingdom.  We always love the placemaking of the park and most of the attractions are great.  As always we started at Kilimanjaro Safaris.  Can't go wrong with a savanna adventure to start the day.

So many giraffes and other wild animals on a day that would almost set record highs!

It's very impressive to hear about the return of the white rhino's population coming back from endangered and seeing many of them in the swamps of Florida

Plus you gotta love running into some real characters along the trails of the park.

We tried Dinosaur again from our last visit last year.  My face on the upper right basically says really, this is what you did with the Indiana Jones adventure... classic!

We had lunch at Restaurantosaurus.  The salad was fanstastic, like nachos with lettuce but the veggie sandwich was horrible!   We got our money back on the sandwich to use again at another restaurant.

We started our last day hitting each park at the Animal Kingdom.  The park had extra magic hours in the morning so we could start an hour before any other guest who was not staying at the resort.

After going on Kilimanjaro safari again and Expedition Everest three times we needed breakfast to start the day off well.  My sandwich was excellent from Pizzafari.

A character I haven't seen in a while is Flik.  Love his autograph!

We had visited a couple days before looking for more characters.  We found Miss Bunny in Camp Minnie Mickey and lets just say that Miss Bunny was not is the best of moods.  

After the moody Miss Bunny we found Daisy, got here autograph and a photo with no line!  

Thumper was in a much better mood then Miss Bunny!

On our way out of Mickey Minnie we found Pocahontas.  Always nice to see a powerful lady!

We even found Timon.  I've never even heard of him as a meet and greet character before.  Totally worth waiting in line and delaying our adventure to our next park!

We actually started our Adventure in the Magic Kingdom.  A good way to start the day is meeting with Mickey and Minnie!  The Main Street Theater is the new home for Mickey and Minnie along with a temporary home for the Princesses.  It's always great to see the couple together with only a 5 minute line!

Found a little nod to all the all of the Walt Disney World parks while in the theater.  Very cleaver Imagineers.

The one thing that I got terribly distracted by was a new game in the Magic Kingdom called the Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom.  You collect and use playing cards to assist Merlin to beat Hades from taking over the Magic Kingdom.  I'll admit I got a little obsessed.   You go to "portals" set up around the park to beat Hades.  Ton of Fun.  Please come to Disneyland!

I collected 30 of the 60 cards available and was a little sad that I didn't get them all. 

I guess I will have to go back to play some more!

We found Pinocchio on Main Street and had to get a photo! 

Right across the Street there was Pooh and Tigger!

And to finish the Main Street Adventure we went to the Walt Disney World Railroad.  Their engines are so much bigger than Disneyland's.   I assume they are full scale engines with a deep whistle.  After waiting about 10 minutes to leave the station.  That would not be ok in Disneyland attractions... but that is a whole other story!

A bigger station with not as much to look at.  Oh Disneyland Main Street Station I missed thee...

Another attraction we had to try and compare was the Jungle Cruise.  Everything is so much closer to you, which make it more difficult to believe the illusion.  It seems so strange to me that WDW has so much more space and everything is so much closer to you.  Rant over... for now.

One thing that I love in the attention to detail in many of the shops.  This dress changes colors with the continuing argument between Flora and Merryweather.  Now that's Magical!

To continue the comparisons we went to Liberty Squre and watched the Hall of Presidents.  After watching Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln so many times the figures aren't quite a cool.  But to have all of them together is impressive.

More Walt Disney World photos and adventures to continue tomorrow!