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March 2024 (Part 01)

Walt Disney World Vacation Day 1-2: Disney Springs and Magic Kingdom

Penn State's spring break was really early compared to other schools, from 4-8 March.  Over Christmas, Nancy and Alexa were discussing her break and Alexa was saying she was looking forward to some downtime and just wanted to stay home.  Nancy said that was too bad, as she was thinking they could have and mother-daughter trip to Disney World.  Alexa immediately said that sounded good too.  Pretty soon both dad and Alexa's friend Tess were going too.  Tess is in graduate school at NC State and didn't have her break until the next week, but her class schedule would allow her to go.  We got to Disney on Saturday afternoon.  After checking into our room at Coronado Springs, we headed to Disney Springs.

Love the statues outside the Lego store.

We had a good dinner at the Raglan Road Irish Pub restaurant, enjoying both the meal and entertainment.

The next day we headed to the Magic Kingdom.  Glad we stopped at the Customer Service in Disney Springs the night before to get our military passes figured out, allowing us to walk in and bypass some of the early crowds.  Of course, we forgot to clear up the PhotoPass, so still had to go to customer service just inside.  Customer Service gave us a birthday button for Nancy and "un-birthday" buttons for the rest of us.  Almost every employee wished all of us "happy birthday" all day long, which made for a lot of fun.

So, so excited to be here.

First stop was Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Had to stop at the "no whistling" sign with Steve, who is always whistling much to Alexa's annoyance.

Next up was Pirates of the Caribbean, then the Haunted Mansion, and It's A Small World, and the Tiki Room, then finally back to a Lightning Lane at the Jungle Cruise.

Had not noticed the personalized "good-byes" at the end of the ride.

We also climbed through the nearby Swiss Family Robinson tree house for the great view it provides over the rest of the park.  On our way out of Frontierland we ran into the afternoon Festival of Fantasy Parade parade,

The golden statues from the 50th Anniversary are still in the parks. 

Took some pictures with a PhotoPass photographer, who added some pixie dust to a couple of the images.

Simply laughed at the bulleting board for the Monsters Inc! Laugh Floor.

Had to take a picture inline for Buzz Lightyear's Ranger Spin.  Nancy's still wondering how these scores were possible in her battle with Steve.

Here is Alexa vs Tess.  Alexa was pretty excited until she saw dad's score.

Tomorrowland also meant a ride on Space Mountain.

It also meant we got to ride the new Tron rollercoaster.

The girls rode the teacup ride in Fantasyland.

We had a little time at the end of the day to wonder through the kid oriented sideshow area of Fantasyland, stopping at Pete' Carnival to take pictures with Donald and Goofy

Got to the park early, and still at it well into the evening.  We had dinner reservations at Jungle Navigation Co Skipper Canteen.  We finished our desert just as the fireworks started over the castle, running out to catch the end of the show from Liberty Square.  It was interesting how the crowd cleared out after that (and a decent rain shower).  But we still had a couple rides to go, including the Seven Dwarves Mine Train.  While walking around, we found a PhotoPass photographer with no line, so why not take some more pictures.