We woke up at 5:30 and got dressed. Dominic found a surprise on the bed for him:
We had reservations to eat inside the castle at Magic Kingdom with the princesses before the park opened. I got these reservations only 3 weeks out from our trip which is pretty much unheard of. I got sooo lucky to find someone who was cancelling and was able to scoop them up. This place usually sells out 6 months in advance. I'm not sure who was more excited, Dominic or myself.
We were out the door and checking out at the front desk by 6am :( Then we had a bit of time to waste in the lobby so we hung out in the kid's area for awhile and watched some cartoons.
Dominic loved the touch screen beaver game.
He kept moving around the stools to make Mickey head shapes.
Then we took a walk to the gift shop. While we were walking through the lobby, Hanson's 'MMMBop" started playing. How perfect.
A little before 7:00, we headed over to the bus stop and headed to Magic Kingdom. The sun was just starting to come up when we got there.
They had even more Christmas decorations up since we were there a day earlier. The poinsettia trees were so beautiful and reminded me of my mom. She loved poinsettias.
We lined up for the early entry... even the gift shops were decorated for the holidays.
At 8:00 we were let in (the park opened for the public at 9:00)... Main Street was empty. So cool.
It was completely decorated for Christmas. That night they were lighting the castle with the Christmas lights. We were going to miss it but at least we got to see all of this.
We stopped for a few Photopass pics:
We had to wait a bit for a large family in front of us to get our pics by the famous statue, but it was well worth it:
We started making our way to the castle.
I love this picture of just Dominic & the castle:
Looking back down Main Street.
We checked in and were taken immediately to meet Cinderella.
Dominic was so excited!
Cinderella's Christmas tree.
Dominic & his princess. I also got my picture taken with the both of them and they gave us a bunch of copies (which they normally charge $29.99 at the other restaurants for). This was all included in the price (or in our case, 2 dining plan credits each).
Then we headed up the swirly staircase to eat inside Cinderella's castle!
We were seated at the middle window which is the biggest and main focal point of the entire dining room. In my opinion, this was the best seat in the house!
Dominic got a sword & I got a magic wand. We also had a wishing star on our table and shortly after we were seated, they did a cute little presentation with the stars (even though it was so loud we couldn't hear half of it in there).
We had a view of an empty Fantasyland... beautiful.
Then the princesses starting coming around. They were so charming and Dominic ate it right up. He loved it... you can tell by his smile.
Sleeping Beauty:
The Little Mermaid:
Snow White:
Belle:
and now onto the food... there was a bowl of fruit served to both of us when we were seated:
and a plate of danishes... super yummy!
I ordered the blueberry french toast... it was amazingly good.
Dominic got french toast sticks, bacon & scrambled eggs... he loved it.
4 table service credits used - 0 table service credits left
Actual Cost - $72.41
Grand Dining Total - $763.27
After we were done eating, we went downstairs and waited for the park to open. They put a rope up to keep anyone from taking off too early. I asked which way to Rapunzel's line since that's the rarest character to meet right now and they gave me directions. There was a lady next to us who had the same thing in mind so I knew we had competition.
They dropped the rope and we started walking really fast down the ramp to the side of the castle. We got about halfway there and the lady told her girls to start running so I told Dominic to run to the line. Dominic won :) They let the first 5 people in the line into the meetngreet area first and we were the last ones of the 5 to get in. This was the meetngreet area empty:
and after all the kids were let in to color. The CM's came around and handed out crayons & coloring pages to the kids who were too far up in line to go color so Dominic got some of those.
Then this CM brought over Pasqual to meet Dominic first.
There were 2 guys in front of us in line who worked at Disney but they had a day off and they had never met Rapunzel so they were super excited to be in line.
Before we knew it, it was our turn.
She loved my hair so I had to get a picture with her too:
After conquering such a feat that early in the day, we decided to reward ourselves with some Buzz Lighyear Space Ranger Spin action.
The ride got stuck twice while we were on it. It's not so bad when you're inside and able to shoot more things to rack up the points though :)
Dominic is just a tad bit too short for the picture yet...
Then we saw this guy by the teacups:
and we just had to ride Haunted Mansion one last time (yes, we really love that ride!)
Dominic doing the double hitch hiker thumbs!
Christmas ornaments... all princesses!
We were waiting in line to meet Princess Tiana (Princess & the Frog) and Dominic decided to work on his balancing act. His gym teacher told him to balance wherever he could so here's proof... practicing at Disney World:
The Photopass photographer was doing magic shots while everyone waited for Tiana so I got one done:
Then Tiana came out and she was gracious as ever... super sweet!
After that we walked right into a line dancing frenzy.
and of course, Dominic got picked out to go dance with this nice lady:
Then they did the hokey pokey & turned all around..
and this is what it's all about:
Dole Whip Float time!!! YUMMMMMMMMY!
1 snack credit used - 4 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $4.49
Grand Dining Total - $767.76
and we caught the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! parade:
Then we made our way back down Main Street and got a few Photopass pics taken:
One last view of the castle:
The nutcrackers:
and that was it, we were out :(
BUT we stood in line to purchase an annual pass for me (yes me!) Woohoo! We figured this saves us money on parking for our next trip. We would've spent the money on my tickets anyways and since they deduct the total price of your current ticket, it turned out to be a great deal!
We got back to Pop and I had to go to the luggage area to get my laptop and carryons back so Dominic played with the big lego blocks outside.
We went to the gift shop and bought these using our snack credits:
3 snack credits used - 1 snack credit left
Actual Cost - $3.19 each x3 = $9.57
Grand Dining Total - $777.33
Then we headed to the food court to use up our last snack credit on nachos :)
1 snack credit used - 0 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $3.99
Grand Dining Total - $781.32
We got on the Magical Express which took us to the airport at 1:00 and we walked around for awhile taking pictures here and there...
The middle of the Orlando airport:
our flight got delayed by about 40 minutes due to a door needing to be fixed. Once we got up in the air, everything was fine. We had a great flight home and were so happy to be back. Dominic & Lucy ran to each other in the airport... it was the cutest thing ever.
All in all, the "free" dinnig plan = AWESOMEness!
We loved it. It was a lot of food but next time I would plan for that and try to get more 2 credit meals in... we ended up getting $531.32 in free food. Not bad.
After our next trip which was planned before this one, I will never go to Disney unless it's during Food & Wine & free dining. I loved it.
