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11/6/2020 Part 6: Magic Kingdom - October 13, 2020 As the wedding celebration continued, this was the final day for our visits to the parks of Disney World as we'd move on to another resort the next day, we enjoyed the Magic Kingdom. We had some more folks joining who had not yet been with us, so we waited near the entrance a bit longer to give everyone a chance to catch-up. As we waited near guest relations, we saw one of the modified experiences because of the pandemic, which was the Character Cavalcade. Since they were trying to avoid having large crowds gathering close to each other for long periods of time, they held the cavalcades as a sort of mini-parade to replace the main parades. It was difficult to not notice them as they seemed to be running them down the main parade route what seemed like once every half-hour. It was kind of nice to be able to avoid having to find a spot a ways ahead of the parades as you normally would have to when they only have one or two showings of the afternoon and morning parades.    As we went for our rides, we went to the back of the park first to enjoy a ride on Splash Mountain. Seeing as I'm not sure of when I'll be back to the resort in the future, this might have been my last chance to see the current version of the ride with the retheme to Princess and the Frog coming in the near future. While I enjoyed the original version of the ride, I've enjoyed how Disney has been enhancing several of their attractions over the past few years, such as the changes made to the rides at Disneyland, and my hope is that they will make this retheme in the same spirit. Plus I'm a huge fan of the music from Princess and the Frog, so I'd love it if as your about the board the ride, there was a loop instrumental version of the song "Almost There", and a segment dedicated to one of my favorite Disney villain songs, "Friends on the Other Side".  We had a chance to enjoy a ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad next, and while it's not the most thrilling coaster in Florida, it can offer a bit more of a wild ride than some may anticipate from the small pops of airtime offered, and some of the close encounters with the scenery through the layout.   After that, there was a split of the group as some went on to a different part of the park, our part made its way to the Haunted Mansion for a ride. This was one of the more fascinating queue layouts for the sake of distancing, as it stretched along the Rivers of America and weaved through the station for the Liberty Bell steamboat which was closed for the time being. It was another good spot for seeing the occasional cavalcade, or the Magic Kingdom marching band as we saw while we waited. The line seem incredibly long, but it went pretty quickly thanks to the current lack of Fast Pass not slowing the line down.   There was a point where we made our way to the Jungle Cruise, which gave me a nice bit of nostalgia from my days as a former Skipper of the Jungle Cruise. Afterward, there was one more Disney coaster for the day as we went on to ride Space Mountain. I decided to go for a second round as the line was relatively short at around 25ish minutes at the time, and so I could attempt to ride both sides since we did the Omega side first.  And that was the end of our time at Magic Kingdom, and the last of our visits to the parks of Disney World for the Wedding Celebration. Disney was on top of the protocols that they had in place to keep visitors safe while in the parks during the pandemic, and I never felt too concerned about it (and never exhibited any symptoms after the trip, nor did anyone in our group to my knowledge). While the Disney magic was finished for this trip, the celebration would continue on heading to the Universal Resort for a pair of days enjoying the other major theme park resort of the Orlando area. |