The Orlando Experience - It's all a Fantasy!

The Magic Kingdom - the most splendid and magical of all the parks - am I right? I'm right. As if it wasn't already amazing because it has Cinderella Castle, now that there is New Fantasy Land there are more castles! That just immediately raises the level of awesome and magic because there is more to see and do; some people would say this makes it more difficult because there is more to see and do - but no, that is not the Disney spirit. The more, the better! Yahoo!

The symbol known around the world for Disney World - Cinderella castle!

The Beast's castle - "in the distance"...and the entrance to Be Our Guest, which will have to be for next time.

Prince Eric's castle - I think I'll take a room here; it has a nice seaside view & I like that.

Riding in our clam shell for Journey of the Little Mermaid - we were..."under the sea..."

Just like when we were at Animal Kingdom, there was a plan...a method to the madness if you will and we enacted it with precision! We made our way through all of New Fantasyland and Fantasyland and had ridden every ride and seen Mickey's Philharmagic by the time our lunch reservations at Crystal Palace rolled around at 11:20 - that's what I call good fun! I found my new favorite ride in New Fantasyland - the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train; it was so much fun and I loved that the train cruised through the mine to see all the dwarfs and their jewels, before following them as they "heigh ho...heigh ho..." and we sped down the hill!

Our lunch at the Crystal Palace was another character buffet and this time we shared our meal with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet...who is basically my spirit animal, ha-ha! The food was delicious but I suppose I've not had a meal at Disney World that wasn't pretty yummy!

Hiding out in Eeyore's Gloomy Place while we waited to ride the Winnie the Pooh ride...

Piglet is basically the best!

After lunch, we moved our master plan of Magic Kingdom dominance to Frontierland, Adventureland and Liberty Square to tackle Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain and the Haunted Mansion, among other things! I'm not a huge fan of heights but I decided I'd toughen up and take the plunge down Splash Mountain and I enjoyed almost every minute of it - thankfully I had Lindsey to grab onto when we took the drop, ha-ha! Have I mentioned I'm a pansy? I am...and that's alright. I still had fun. Especially when we rode the Haunted Mansion since it's another favorite ride of mine at the World; I love those happy haunts and I really enjoyed the new features added into the line while you waited - so neat!

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - I do love a good mine train ride!

After the big plunge!

Lindsey playing the creepy keyboard while we wait in line for the Haunted Mansion...

So - as you can see, this "tomb" squirted out water. Right about the time I posed for this, one of the barnacles that I was leaning directly against shot water onto me. So, I was pretending to be shocked and actually got quite the real shock!

The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train zipping down Heigh Ho Hill...

Once we'd conquered the lands of Adventure and the Frontier we spent some time in TomorrowLand - one tip for any future Disney World visitors: don't waste your time on Stitch's Great Escape. We did and even though it only took up about twenty minutes of our time, we were sad we'd spent it on that. Oh well, lesson learned! We also took a train ride around the park before wandering back through new FantasyLand for some pictures and then staking out some seats for the Main Street Electrical Parade - I'm telling you, folks start to stake their places over an hour before anything starts and people get fierce!

Gaston's Tavern - Gaston was always such a dip. Geez!

Supper - a Nutella and fresh fruit waffle sandwich! It was delicious!

The Electrical Parade - I've been watching this one since I was teeny & I still love it!

Pete's Dragon - talk about a throwback!

We ended the night watching the projection show and fireworks in front of the castle. The projection show is like something I've never seen before in my life - they actually project scenes from Disney movies as well as pictures up against the castle and it is absolutely amazing! There is actually a scene where the bricks of the castle seem to "jump" forward off the castle. The fireworks were wonderful as well but the projection show was easily the winner for the night - it was amazing and I'd love to see it again. So cool!

Walt Disney projected onto Cinderella Castle during the show...

Can you spot Ariel as she swims across the front of the castle?

The perfect end to a wonderful day!

And with the Magic Kingdom under our belts, we were left with one more park and one more day of vacation - where did the time go? Our magical weekend and this magical recap has almost come to an end!