Magic Kingdom

Sorry for the long delay in updating the blog. It’s been a busy week, sadly, with nothing really worth blogging about! Matt and I were both getting over colds and would pretty much crash in the evening and we’ve both been busy at work so no time for side projects like blogging! Now that furloughs are over, they expect us to work all 5 days!

So, I promise this is not going to be a Disney Blog, even though that it what it looks like so far. I do have a couple more ideas but we are almost done with the Disney World thing! Matt has one final blog on the topic and I have one more wrap up piece on the trip, then we will move on to different things. Or at least Disneyland, does that count? Anyways, here we go…

This is my favorite picture from the trip, taken from the boat on the way to the park.

We did Magic Kingdom over two afternoons, so instead of just recapping I thought I would just compare it to Disneyland since that was mostly what we both did the whole time.

Main Street is nearly identical, if not slightly bigger. The layout is definitely different as the ice cream shop is at the end on the right opposed to the middle left in Disneyland. Please notice my priorities in exploring…

The first thing you notice is simply how large and beautiful their castle is at Magic Kingdom.

The difference was actually more prominent the following week when Matt and I went to Disneyland and turned down Main Street to see our castle. It looked so small and pink! We didn’t expect that!

One thing we did that has no Disneyland counterpart was Mickey’s PhilharMagic. If you are going to Disney World, honestly, don’t miss this. It also doesn’t hurt that you get to sit in A/C for 20 minutes. It’s a really cute show.

Hidden Mickey!

It starts on the premise you are there to see a concert by Mickey with the help of the Sorcerer’s Hat, but Donald finds the hat and nothing goes right from there. Donald is propelled into various Disney movies/songs (Aladdin, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, etc.) trying to chase the Hat down. It’s a great overview of some of Disney’s best music and it’s honestly just fun.

Overall, everything in Magic Kingdom is much larger than its Disneyland counterpart, except It’s A Small World.

Ours is a focal point of the park. Magic Kingdom’s is the size of a strip mall storefront. Inside is nearly identical, just as long, just as annoying.

The only reason Matt and I went on was because I had been on the one in Disneyland Paris and I needed to complete the set. I just decided to take Matt down with me. He was less than pleased.

Due to long lines, we skipped most of the Fantasyland rides, which was sad. I wanted to go on Peter Pan but the line was never shorter than an hour.

Big Thunder Mountain was pretty much identical, but shorter than ours.

This seemed to be a common theme with the rides. They all seemed shorter to me than the ones at Disneyland.

Overall, it seemed to me that Disney World puts a lot more time and investment in theme and atmosphere.  The lands all seemed similar to Disneyland’s, just more detailed with a lot more to look at and explore. Adventureland might have been helped by the Florida heat and humidity, so you felt like we were actually in a deep jungle.

Jungle Cruise had the same bad jokes but was just a little longer, which can be good or bad depending on your opinion of Jungle Cruise. They added this whole temple ruins thing that you go through, it was pretty cool because it adds a dark element to the ride.

 It was also cool to be on a Jungle Cruise where I didn’t know exactly what was coming next.

With a couple exceptions, like Jungle Cruise, in general,  the rides were shorter, but the queues were A LOT more detailed atmosphere and longer. I’m not sure if this is partly to accommodate larger crowds or what. The best example was Pirates.

The queue was HUGE, there was no line so we went through kinda fast but it just went on forever!

Still the queue

But when we finally got to the ride, it was half as long as Disneyland’s. Matt and I were both confused when it ended, we are so used to the long .

Space Mountain was similar but more so to version before they redid it a few years back. It was much, much darker, almost to the point where you can’t see. Disneyland’s used to be like that, they lightened it within the last ten years or so. The cars were also the older ones, similar to the Matterhorn. One thing makes the Disneyland version better though. Music. There was no music on the Magic Kingdom version which was disappointing.

So overall, everything was fairly similar. There were two sides though that easily blew the other park’s version out of the water.

Disneyland’s Buzz Lightyear’s Blasters is 100 times better than Magic Kingdom’s. When we got there, we were planning on riding that ride all night. (If you haven’t been, Buzz Lightyear is a laser shooting game. You are playing against the other person in your car to hit the most targets and get the most points.) At Disneyland, Matt and I have gone to the park and just gone on this ride. We have also gone on 5 times in a row. So this is definitely one of my favorite rides and Matt’s hands down favorite. Magic Kingdom’s version was horrible. The guns were attached to the car, so you couldn’t move them around (Disneyland’s are connected with a cable so you can have range of motion). The trigger was a button on top opposed to a traditional trigger, which made it more difficult to shoot. And the atmosphere was too… well glowy.

Remember that horrible blacklight scene from Batman and Robin? Kinda like that…. We rode it once and then cried from disappointment. Okay, not really, but it was still sad.

On the flip side, Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion is A-Maz-Ing. I LOVE the Haunted Mansion, it’s my favorite ride at Disneyland. Everything at Magic Kingdom’s version is better. The house itself is large and imposing.

The queue was really short and the ride longer than Disneyland. I wish I had taken the camera on, not that you are supposed to take pictures inside. A lot of the stuff that is the in the queue at Disneyland is part of the ride at Magic Kingdom. The busts that follow you, they have a library full of them that follow your doom buggy. The changing pictures are in a hallway during the ride. The best part was the Escher Room. There was a room FULL of impossible staircases, including above you (upside down). They had glowing footprints that went with the eerie sound of footsteps. It was incredible!! The rest of the ride had the same dedication to atmosphere. The cemetery scene was darker, more “realistic” as far as ghosts go. Ours is more “Cartoony” in my opinion.

It was great, I’m completely jealous. This is the only thing I regret from the trip, I didn’t go on a second time. I really should have. I think it was because we always were in Magic Kingdom after we had been someplace else. My energy was just gone by that point and I was willing to say “I don’t have to go on, I’d rather go sit down/go back to the hotel.”  I think the fact I could say, “It’s ok, we have one back in CA…” didn’t help either. If/When we go again, I’d go to Magic Kingdom first and do more in that park.

Honestly, now that we have done Disney World, I could comfortably go back and just do Magic Kingdom and EPCOT since those were our favorites.

The whole trip was great! We had absolutely the best time.

My biggest impressions were with the people, everyone there, all the Cast Members, genuinely seemed like they were there to make our stay better. Everyone was kind and attentive and went beyond the call of duty to help us out. And that was something I honestly have rarely seen at Disneyland, at least to that level. But then again, I have a feeling that I really haven’t been looking. That seems to be an overall problem, but that’s a topic for another blog….