Magic Kingdom Day 1

So the next day in the parks we headed to the Magic Kingdom;  by some weird chance last trip, we never got to the MK in the morning.  We ended up doing 2 afternoon / evenings there.  This year we wanted to try and make a morning, and it was great b/c we saw the little park opening show and when we first got there, we actually got to ride Splash Mountain twice in a row with no wait.  That was the best - so proud of my Katie who now loves Splash Mountain.  I will post our ride pics at the end of all these trip blogs.

Here is a quiet morning pic on our way to Splash Mountain - notice no one is around!  It was ghostly quiet.

We walked right on to the Magic Carpets ride:

After we rode Splash Mountain (did I mention we rode it twice with no wait?) and Big Thunder Mountain, we found out Tiana was meeting guests in this old store.  We were the first in line to meet Louisiana's favorite princess:

She was so great and talked to the girls for quite a while about gumbo and things like that:

Random small door in Fantasyland while we waited to meet Gaston:

So this was one of our funnest character interactions.  Gaston really talks with you and jokes with you.  So much fun:

Best Mark pic this trip.  He told Mark he had been waiting for a big strong guy to help him hold up the door - ha ha!

Best Fast Pass of the trip - meeting Anna and Elsa which waits go up to over 2 hours in the "normal" line.  When we walked up to our Fast Pass line, we waited about 2 minutes, then they let us in directly to their little room.  It was amazing.  They also talk and interact with the guests for awhile.  Anna was hilarious and did all kinds of silly pics with the girls cell phones and our Picture mat.  

Katie snapped up this picture of Mark and I as we were leaving for the afternoon rest.  Not bad!

Also love this picture of Mark and Emma.

So we went back to the hotel for a while to rest, then headed back to the park around dinner time.  It looks like I didn't take any pics that evening.  Its funny how I've noticed we take so many more pics with our phones, that I didn't have a million on my regular camera.  We did most of the rides in Tomorrowland and the rest of Fantasyland that night.  We managed to catch the fireworks that night (although Emma still does NOT like them) and then headed back to the hotel around 11.  The next day was our late sleep day.  Whew!