[Lemap760]

It was now 9:45 and we had to meet at the tour garden by City Hall by 9:50. Main street was still jammed packed with people so I had to do a little clever maneuvering to swim upstream so to speak.

We made it to the tour gardens the same time as just about everyone else who was going on the tour. We were offered bottles of water and told to wait outside in the little garden area. We were also given Peter Pan name tags to wear. Well, the name wasn’t Peter Pan. It was a sticker with a picture of Peter Pan with our names on it. It took me awhile to get the backing off the stickers. Boy those suckers are difficult. After a few minutes everyone was checked in and we were ready to begin.

Spoiler Warning – the following is a description of the Family Magic Tour as my memory serves me.

Our tour guide was Karen. Or was it Kate? Let’s just say it was a girls name that started with a “K”. So, I’ll just call her as K. I'm really bad with names.


K came out and had everyone introduce themselves and who their favorite character was. Andrew said Peter Pan. He’s been on a Peter Pan kick lately and we read the book almost every night. I said Goofy. Mainly because no one else had said Goofy and I was the last to go. I had to get Goofy the 10 minutes of fame he deserves.



"K" the tour guide

Then K went into a story of how we were all there because she needed help with a project. She had a whole bunch of stickers and that she had to go around and put a sticker on unsuspecting guests in the Magic Kingdom. Hee hee. That sounded like fun to me and I was wishing we would actually get to do this.


K got called away for a minute and came back with news that Captain Hook had lost his favorite hook and was holding the MK hostage. Unless he got the hook back he would turn all of the MK into a pirate land. That also doesn’t sound too bad. Especially with my pirate loving son and all the popularity surrounding pirate themes nowadays. But I guess Walt didn't want his theme park to be taken over by pirates, so we went on our way to find the missing hook.


Anyway, one of the kids was chosen to read the first clue. The answer was the harmony barbershop. I waited a few seconds to see if any of the kids knew the answer. There was complete silence, so I whispered the barber shop into Andrew’s ear. Andrew blurted out the answer and he received a couple of Mickey stickers.

Andrew is a very honest kid most of the time, so he didn’t hesitate to tell K that his mom told him the answer. This resulted in K giving me Mickey stickers too.


We walked over to the barbershop which was a crowded area with people waiting to get haircuts and Daisy was doing a character greet there as well. The group had to sing When You Wish Upon A Star in order to get to the next clue. All the adults kind of looked at each other with looks of toned deaf doom. Even though K told everyone the words, none of the kids were willing to sing. All of the adults kind of sang along with K very softly so as not to embarrass ourselves around the 50 or so strangers milling about. We also didn’t want to break any windows or get thrown out of the park for disturbing the peace with off key singing. Why oh why can’t they pick a song that doesn’t require hitting high notes? I won't be winning any American Idol contests anytime soon. Neither will any of my tour mates for that matter.


With the embarrassing singing over and done with, the next clue was read. We were headed to the partners statue. After the first clue of the barbershop, the other kids knew the clues so I didn’t have to whisper any more answers to Andrew.

Along the way to the partners statue we stopped in front of Casey’s. K asked someone what their favorite food was. It was then decided that the phrase “I would like some macaroni and cheese” would be the code to see if someone was a pirate. To check to see if someone was a pirate we would walk by them and turn our finger into a hook and say “Aaaargh”. If that person reacted then they were a pirate. The first person we tried this on was a CM by the tip board helping out some guests. Well the CM was playful, and a pirate, but the guests looked at us like we were all crazy.

We had to go to the right of the hub to read the next clue because the area by the partners statue was a zoo. The next couple of clues led us to the Claw by Buzz Lightyear and the globe thingy.





After looking at the globe it started to drizzle. Not too bad and it felt good to be cooled off a little bit. We played a game of “how should we walk” to get to our next destination Cosmic Rays.

We skipped, hopped, ran our way to Cosmic Rays. At this point the rain was getting harder. The next clue had us sneaking into Cosmic Rays. Then the sky opened up and it poured. K said we would take a little break in Cosmic Rays and she took off to somewhere unknown. We were all sitting there watching Sunny Eclipse do his thing and wondering when K was coming back.

Andrew had a snack of some pretzels I had with me while we waited. After about 5 minutes K returned and the rain had slowed to a drizzle again.

We went over to the wishing well by the castle where K gave a penny to everyone. We went around in a group to say what we were thankful for. Kind of like it was Thanksgiving. A lot of people said they were happy to be spending time with their family, taking a vacation together and all that mushy stuff. Andrew said that he was happy to be with me because he loved me. Aaaawww. Makes me feel kind of guilty that I said I was grateful for air conditioning. Hey, give me a break. It was hot, humid and I was sweating to death under a plastic poncho. Another woman was grateful for the Cleveland Indians so I wasn’t the only one who didn’t gush about quality family time.


The details get a bit fuzzy from here. I remember playing follow the leader after the wishing well. Then we went to the Cinderella fountain, the area outside the Pirates of Caribbean ride and the tiki statues. We also stopped somewhere in frontierland but I can’t remember where.

We made our way over to Liberty Square and stopped at the tree with the lanterns hanging on it. The story was that Tinkerbell was somewhere in the tree and we were to call for her to come out of hiding. We walked around the tree yelling for Tinkerbell at the tops of our lungs. This was made funnier by some families who joined us to see what we were doing before realizing we were on some sort of tour.


We got to a point in the tree where one of the bottoms was out of the lantern. Tinkerbell must have escaped. Our next task was to go hunt for Tinkerbell when Peter Pan and Wendy showed up out of nowhere. We all went to the little underpass area next to the Hall of Presidents to have our moment with Peter and Wendy. First we needed to check to see if the CMs in front of the HoP were pirates. They just stood there and gave us curious looks so I guess they weren’t pirates.

K was explaining to Peter and Wendy that we were looking for Captain Hook’s hook before he turned the MK over to the pirates. This is where I became disappointed with this tour. Peter just took the hook out from behind his back and said something about having the hook right there with him all along, so why were we looking for it. In my opinion this was a very lame way to end this. Couldn’t they come up with something more creative like having Peter help us “find” the hook in a hiding spot right there. It just seemed to end abruptly. Tour’s over folks, go home.

We all got a chance to have pictures taken with Peter and Wendy and they gave us a magical moments certificate signed by them and Tinkerbell. I guess that’s why they don’t sign autograph books at this time.


Peter reading our name on our magical moment certificate


picture time with Peter and Wendy.

Please excuse the drowned rat look. I didn't bother with the poncho while it was just drizzling out.

Another funny moment was when some families saw Peter Pan and Wendy and thought they could run over for pics and autographs. They stopped dead in their tracks when they realized it was part of a tour and would be turned away. I would have felt bad if it was the child who was running to see Peter and Wendy, but it was the Dad who was dragging his kid along at top speeds in hopes of a picture. It amazes me when I see parents rushing their child over to a character when all the child wants to do is something completely different.

All in all Andrew and I both had fun doing this. I’m glad I did it, but I think it’s a one time thing. I didn't take too many pictures because of the rain. I had told Andrew ahead of time about Peter Pan and going on a “treasure hunt” so that he would be excited about the tour. If I had just referred to it as the Family Magic Tour I’m sure I would have been met with resistance to do it.


End of Spoiler

Up next: more of the MK and the BEST RIDE EVER