Kingdom Keepers Quest

Friday was Cindy's 4th grade field trip to Magic Kingdom at Disney World.  I have gone to Disney every year since 2008 with her, usually in January for my birthday, but I decided the $200 I had to fork over for this little outing was going to have suffice for this year's trip.  The educational connection is that the kids read the book Kingdom Keepers, a book series about how kids fight the Disney villains at the Magic Kingdom, and so they were going to the park to participate in the Kingdom Keepers Quest, which is a program where they solve puzzles in the park by going on rides, visiting special spots, etc.  So from 10:30 to 4:30 we were supposed to be doing the Quest and then after that we could stay with our child until the park closed if we wanted.  The park was closing at 11pm that night and Cindy was DETERMINED to stay until, and I quote, "the Disney people have to kick us out."   And wouldn't you know that at 8pm they made a special park announcement that the Magic Kingdom was going to stay open for an extra hour until midnight that night! NOOOOOOO!  I mean, YAY, what a bargain!  Honestly, my feet were just screaming and my contacts were a little worn out after 16 hours.  But we made it til the bitter end :)  And I decided to give myself 7 bonus miles over there on my chart for all the walking I did.  It's my blog and I'll cheat if I want to.


Since I have been to Magic Kingdom every year for 6 years now, there were some things that were totally the same and other things we did that were totally different.


SAME:

I got my picture in front of the castle with my favorite girl :)  That will never change no matter how many times we go.




It's A Small World (multiple times)

(You can see how empty the place was by 8pm...)

Cindy loves this ride. After we were going to go for a third time, I finally had to confess to Cindy that I don't really like that ride all that much.  You would have thought I just insulted Barbie or said I hate cats because she was SO offended.  Hey, in the book they read, the dolls come to life and bite people, so  you can't tell me there isn't just a little bit of a creepiness factor at work here. I actually did read the book too.  (Or listened, using my free book on tape I got with my trial version of audible.com).  I think I was the only parent that read it, so my nerd status is still safe.



Speedway


Cindy never LOVED this ride before, but this year she did.  We rode it about four times and finally she told me, "You are SO lucky you get to drive in real life!"  I need to remember that sometimes, I guess.










Not riding Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain or Splash Mountain. Peer pressure was not enough to change her ways :) 



The Royal Carousel

We have to do this ride every time we go.  On the left is what happens Cindy does not get "Cinderella's Horse" (the one with the gold ribbon in its tail).  On the right is what happens when she does.  I wish that Disney employee had never told us that secret five years ago...


























DIFFERENT:

No funnel cake this year.  I know! We decided to be wild and crazy and get the infamous "Dole Whip."  Cindy thought it was the most delicious thing in the entire world.  I thought it was about an 8 out of 10.  It's hard for anything without chocolate to get above a 7.  (Excluding cherry dump cake, which always gets a solid 9.5)

I got photo bombed by a stranger

See that guy in the back, just over Cindy's head?  He was totally making a face and leaning in, however, he was just tucked in enough for me to not notice at the time I checked the results.  I can't believe I was the victim here!

GIANT TURKEY LEG!

Okay, no picture, but it was a great low carb choice.  And super delicious. And bonus, we ate it together, sitting down by a tree in Fronteirland and there was a crazy bold Ibis bird that kept peaking over my shoulder to try and take the turkey from me!!

Wait, paint to the rescue again!  This is pretty much exactly what it looked like:

Turkey leg, not a club.  Although a club would have been helpful.

I did accidentally drop some turkey skin and that thing came and stole it quicker than you can say Jeepers Cannibals!  It was quite creepy.

NO Princesses

I guess my little girl is officially over character meet and greets.  Which is a dang good thing because the wait time for Ana and Elsa from Frozen was 180 minutes. (No wonder it's located in "Fantasy" Land.) And this was a day where pretty much no one was at the park.  I cannot imagine what some poor parents are going to have to endure this summer for their daughters...  

At last, a souvenir!

When my doctor brother came down to Florida last year for his uppity Pediatrics conference, we all got to go to Hollywood Studios for free AND they gave everyone a $10 gift card.  My parents gave me their cards and I convinced Cindy to save hers and so we actually had $40 to blow on whatever we wanted!  Cindy really wanted some ears, sand so finally I caved and let her get some.  We settled on these.  $16.95.  Well played, Disney.

Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor

We had never been to this little show before, but we gave it a try and it is hilarious!  As part of the schtick, they spotlight, on live camera, different people in the audience, and put ridiculous captions underneath you.  One guy's said, "Is going to buy everyone churros!"  (which got a lot of applause), one said, "Feels the urge to dance, RIGHT NOW" and he did, and then they spotlighted ME and mine said, "Isn't afraid of Monsters."  So I just shook my head as if to say, No Way!  A very funny show.  If you love Mike Wuh-zow-skee, you have to do it.

Finally, here are a few pictures from the Quest, which was very well done and interesting, yet very difficult to focus on when you have ten kids and 12 parents that just want to ride rides and go crazy at Disney World.

Waiting for the madness to begin...

Inside the castle's tunnel

Looking for clues

Solving the riddles....

So glad they were there to take my place on this ride :)

On the hunt for more clues!

A great time with a great group of kids :)

Farewell, Disney.  See ya real soon!