December 2018 Disney World Trip Day 1 - Magic Kingdom and Merida Amazes

Welcome to the first day of our December 2018 Disney World trip! As per usual, it was an early morning, and this time it was our first time leaving our vehicle on the lot at the airport, so there was  a lot of new bleary-eyed information to take in.

But trust me, despite it being about 4:30am in this photo, we were still quite excited.

And before we knew it (actually a really rough plane ride with a screaming child later), we were on the Magical Express on our way to our home resort, Art of Animation.

Our first stop in the Magic Kingdom was to pick up our Annual Passes, so that we could actually get into the park! The ticket center had a bit of a line, and I just wanted to beeeee in the kingdom, but it was still exciting to get this gorgeous little pass that lets me get into Disney World any time till early December 2019. Yesssssss.

Our first stop in the Magic Kingdom was to the Emporium to check out the holiday merchandise. I was tempted by this sweater, but passed on it.

I DID get this one though:

And this stretching portrait bag was tempting too, but I refrained.

Next, it was time for our tradition: on the first day of our trip, we go to Magic Kingdom, and our first stop is to meet Merida. This time, as we were packing for our trip, Tom lamented "man, I wish I had a Merida shirt to wear when we meet her." I looked at him and said "if you did, would you wear it?" Needless to say, I had bought him a Merida shirt for Christmas, and had it waiting right there in the closet for the holiday. So he got his wish.

Waiting in line for Merida:

I also was dressed in Merida-themed finery. I had my Mum-Bear mouse ears, my Merida sweater, and my Mum-Bear purse. My magic band was also holiday-themed with a festive Santa hat wearing Mum-Bear. 

We were finally let in to meet Merida, and oh my goodness. It ended up being one of the best meet and greets we've had at Disney. She must have given us at least five minutes or more of time, exclaiming over all our clothes and accessories themed to her story. Many photos commence, because there was plenty of time for the photographer to take them.

She loved the magic band!

And the purse.

Here she was telling us a story about her brothers carrying as many cakes as they could fit in their paws.

This was our favorite picture from the trip, and the one we put in our trip magnet for the fridge.

Photopass photographers will sometimes take "portraits" of just one person as they talk to the character. Normally they're awkward and I don't care for them, but I actually like this one.

And this photo is an absolute gem, showing my ears (One of my favorite pairs I own) with the banner design from the left ear right behind. Nice job, photographer!!

 
But no, even after we took our photos with her, we weren't done yet. Merida started telling us another story, about how her brothers decided to start a new competition in DunBroch...one they were calling "The Great Scottish Bake Off." Ok, I died laughing, especially since we had just been watching episodes of the Great British Baking Show on the plane that morning.

I asked for details about the competition, how they judged the winners. And she explained that they didn't even worry about that part, they just used it as an excuse to encourage all the people of the kingdom to bring their best baked goods, cookies, pies, and cakes to them.

"Judging? Nae, they dinna worry about that part."

What a wonderful experience, and one of my favorite parts of the whole vacation.

One of my favorite places to take castle pictures is the bridge right near Merida's area. So we stopped and got photos there, with a very nice and friendly photo pass photographer who you will hear more about in another post.

So much fun, and it was only about 11am at this point. We had a Haunted Mansion Fast Pass, but the Mansion was down, so we popped over to Tomorrowland to try to be a Galactic Hero, stopping by the Purple Wall (tm) on our way there for outfit photos.

This photo isn't as good, but shows the Mum-Bear bag a little better.

I swear, someday we'll get a Buzz Lightyear ride photo where we don't look half-angry and half-bored. We just focus intensely on the ride.

After a late breakfast/brunch at Sleepy Hollow (Nutella and fruit waffle,....mmmmm, but request a regular plate for it...pro tip) the Mansion came back up, and we popped over into line. I saw people looking from the queue over to the animal cemetery, and there was a Coopers Hawk sitting on the left brick pedestal at the back of the area. How neat!

I was tickled pink to discover the bat stanchions were back. Last trip they had taken away some of them. I am sad, however, that there are now 16 of them and no longer 13. :( But at least I can continue my tradition of tapping their heads and counting them off as we wait in line.

After the ride, we went to get our photo, and THIS TIME WE HITCHED THE RIGHT WAY. We've taken this photo two or three times before on previous trips, and *every time* we hitch the wrong way. Not this time, baby! Hitch toward the queue. Just remember that tip.

Then we did something quite unprecedented, but my dears, we are getting older with every trip. We decided to head back to the resort mid-day, and unpack our luggage in the room. It was a wonderful idea, though we did end up having to track down Tom's checked bag, which arrived a little later than the rest of our luggage because the Magical Express tag was torn off somehow. But it felt good to get unpacked, take a little rest, and decorate the window and door.

We came back to the Magic Kingdom that evening, in awe of how COLD it had been all day. It was time for our Be Our Guest dinner reservation, another tradition we have when we go to Disney World...Be Our Guest, first night's dinner. But this was the first time we went that they had changed to a prix fix menu, so we were quite curious to try it.

But first, we explored New Fantasyland, since we hadn't gone there yet that day.

We asked for a table in the West Wing, and settled in to wait (and to shiver...we had not brought clothes for cold weather)

We seem to always get late reservations for Be Our Guest on the first night, and we end up either walking in while the fireworks are going off, or watching them as we wait. But it is rather neat to see them launched from right above the restaurant.

Dinner was a delight, and the best part was the dessert plate.

Mandatory across-the-table photos of both of us:

 The West Wing is dark, but that's part of what I love about it. Sure, the ballroom is awe-inspiring, and straight from the movie, but it's huge, with awful acoustics, and very loud with many many tables inside. The West Wing is far more atmospheric, and they play slowed-down instrumental gothic versions of the songs from the movie with storm sounds in the background that I'd kill to have a recording of to listen to at night.

Then after dinner, it was time to meet our host. It was the first time I'd met him with his new VERY handsome look, and Tom made me laugh in line when he pointed out that Beast now has very intense, Paul Hollywood eyes.

I'm not too proud to ask for a dance.

Once dinner was over, we had to leave the park, because it was a special ticketed after hours night. But we took our time doing so, reveling in the mostly-empty park. Tom took pictures.

Incidentally, I really love this outfit I wore to dinner.

Time for bed, and getting up quite early the next morning to rope drop Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom since I didn't manage to get us a Fast Pass, and I can't bear to skip that ride on any Disney trip.

Stay tuned to hear how that went!