Our first day at the Magic Kingdom

Although we got the park hopper option, we ended up visiting only one park per day while we were there. We never rode the monorail because the kids kept opting to go back to the hotel and play in the pool and sand. Our first day was at the Magic Kingdom. Here are some of the attractions we did:

• Spinning tea cups - Doug sat out and took these pictures
• Ariel's grotto - We thought we were waiting in line for the new ride that we saw in the Bonus Features of the latest The Little Mermaid 2-disc DVD set (which Dova lost and I replaced with the 1999 version from eBay - the new enhanced version is definitely better in picture quality and sound). In reality there was no such ride yet in any of the parks and the line was only for autographs and pictures with this somewhat tired looking Ariel. This pleased our Ariel-loving daughter to no end, but good sport Adam was bored.
• Haunted Mansion - In an effort to have a good ride for Adam after the 50 minute wait for Ariel, we herded the kids into the Haunted Mansion which had no wait. Adam was reluctant to go into the first dark room, but we insisted that he would like it. Unfortunately, he simply started to break down because it was too dark and scary. The ride stopped twice in really dark spots and by the end he was in tears.

After lunch, Adam was still too spooked to try any rollercoasters or any other rides so we simply went back to the pool at the hotel. It was in the low 70s (degrees F), comfortable but not really pool weather in my book. Dova refused to put on the nicely supplied life vests so I had to stay in the water with her the entire time. After the pool, they took their wet bodies and played in the beautiful white sand, getting completely covered. Here is our bathing beauty, happy and carefree:

After some nice warm baths, we simply got some tasteless dinner (salmon) at the hotel food court before heading out again for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party.