[Joy J]

This morning marked the beginning of the day Kirk had been most looking forward to - our first day of the trip in the Magic Kingdom. We left bright and early and watched the opening ceremony before they let us in the gates. We got a wee bit of a shock when we sat down on Goofy’s bench outside Tony’s Town Square restaurant for a minute while looking over the day‘s park schedule. No sooner had we seated ourselves, than Goofy began talking to us. Nothing quite starts a magical day off the right way like a Goofy statue chatting with you. There were no crowds to speak of gathering in the town square yet so we had nice visits with Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, and Pinocchio before heading over to Fantasyland. On our way down Main Street, we stopped to watch the Barbershop Quartet perform - that is always a rare treat. Once in Fantasyland, we rode Winnie the Pooh, Snow
White, It’s a Small World and Mickey’s PhilharMagic before zipping over to Toontown just in time for its opening. Here we spent some quality time with Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto. I think you can see a theme developing for this trip - this was our majorly character-oriented vacation.
Kirk had waited long enough so now it was time for his favourite ride at WDW - the Haunted Mansion. He loved all the changes and thought the new improved version was even better than his beloved original. After narrowly escaping a dastardly fate at the hands of all those 999 ghosts, we braved the perils of the swashbuckling pirate world on Pirates of the Caribbean. This old standard never loses its appeal for either of us.
After all that adventure, our tummies were now rumbling badly so we grabbed a bite to eat at Pecos Bill’s. We both had bacon double cheeseburgers, fries and chocolate chip cookies. One truly has to love the fixings bar at this establishment. You could just about make a meal of the fixings alone.
It was now time for our afternoon break so we could be well rested for tonight’s Pirate and Princess Party - another first for Kirk. However, we did make a few stops on our way out - first to socialize with Rafiki and Timon, next to watch the Dream Along with Mickey show (another thing Kirk had never experienced before). He was in agreement that this is definitely the best show they’ve had at the castle since we’ve started coming to WDW regularly over five years ago. Then we spotted Jiminy Cricket meeting and greeting guests in Town Square so we just had to get an autograph and photo with him. Finally, we checked at the barber shop and there was no line so Kirk got his hair cut. This time around, he opted not to get the whole coloured gel thing done as they were calling for rain for the evening and he didn’t want to deal with a gooey meltdown on his head as a result. Instead, he got liberally sprinkled with pixie dust.
We rested and relaxed at our hotel until it was time for our dinner reservation at Tony’s. Once again we had a fantastic meal here! Kirk ordered the beef and spinach cannelloni and I had the New York Strip Loin Steak while we both had the amaretto cheesecake for dessert. We were blown away by the presentation of the dessert. It was served on plates that had the Lady and the Tramp eating spaghetti scene etched on them in chocolate.
Now it was time to start enjoying the party in earnest. We began with the Laugh Floor Comedy Club since Kirk had yet to experience this attraction. It was hysterically funny, particularly when Kirk got singled out on screen as “the guy who’s going to buy everyone churros.” They then made fun of his glittery head (compliments of all that pixie dust from the barber shop) and his strange attire (methinks they were referring to his fully loaded pin vest).
By the time we got out of the Laugh Club, we barely had time to hit a couple of the treat places from the treasure map before we had to grab our favourite spot for the parade (the ledge outside Pecos Bill’s). Normally we would wait for the second parade but due to sparse attendance, they had only scheduled one parade for this evening. I had feared that would mean there would be hordes of people crowding the streets to watch it but not so. I gather this particular party didn’t sell terribly well as we didn’t encounter any large crowds all evening.
The parade was delightful and Kirk thoroughly enjoyed his first viewing of it. As for me, I still find this parade a little too short for my liking. We still had lots of time before the special fireworks were scheduled to begin so we spent it doing what Kirk loves best: character hunting. First we spotted Jasmine and, once Kirk stopped hyperventilating over her attire, we got our autographs and photo ops. Then it was off to Toontown to socialize with Princess Minnie and Princess Daisy who were looking particularly fetching in their lovely princess garb.
As we were making our way around the park, we used our treasure map to locate the various spots to pick up pirate treasure. Actually, that whole scenario was a little disappointing this time around. Firstly, they did not supply guests with any of those cute little black velvet souvenir loot bags in which to store their treasure so carrying around the goodies quickly became problematic. Secondly, horror of horrors, there was no chocolate being distributed. There were the mandatory beads of course and in place of the aforementioned chocolate, there were such things as candy necklaces and lollipops, etc.
Our feet were feeling a little weary by this point so we looked for someplace that we could sit down and still have a decent view of the fireworks. We found it over at the Noodle Terrace. We grabbed a table right by the railing and had a fantastic view of the spectacle. These particular fireworks remain my favourite of all that Disney has to offer in the fireworks realm.
Although the party was now starting to wind down, we still had time to get some photos taken with Mickey, Pluto, Donald and Goofy, all dressed in their best pirate gear. On our way back to Main Street, we encountered an unexpected character greeting opportunity - the Genie and Abu from Aladdin. Abu was absolutely spectacular - he got so into his part that he was stealing items from people and hiding them all over the set. He was a sheer bundle of energy, bouncing up and down and in general being the true monkey that he is.
We had one last stop to make before calling it a night and that was in the shops to buy our special Princess and Pirate Party pins. Then, totally exhausted but exceptionally happy, we headed back to the Boardwalk Villas for the night.

Joy