When we got back to the hotel after our morning adventures at the Magic Kingdom we stopped off at the shop to purchase some warm clothes. Hurricane Sandy was still around and the temperature was noticeably colder and it was very windy. This did change our plans for the Halloween party as we were all going to dress up for it, Ethan as Buzz Lightyear and Darren and I were going as Hawaiian Barbie and Ken. It was not going to be warm enough for our Hawaiian clothes and our wigs wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in the wind but thankfully Ethan’s outfit was big enough that we could put the newly purchased Disney tracksuit underneath it.
We did laugh about these purchases as we never dreamt that we would go to Florida and need to buy warm clothes to wear out there but it could have been worse as the last time we went to visit Mickey it rained for the whole ten days. Cold was easier to deal with than being wet and cold!
We let Ethan sleep for as long as possible as we knew he would be up past his bed time tonight but we also knew we wanted to be back at the Magic Kingdom for 5pm as we were expecting it to be busy. So after about two hours sleep we woke him up and got our little Buzz Lightyear ready.
We didn’t have to wait long for the bus and it was a very interesting journey as it was full of princesses making their way to Mickey’s party.
We arrived at the Magic Kingdom just as the entrance was starting to get busy but quickly got through the security and ticket barriers. After entering the park we made our way to Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe in TOMORROWLAND to get ourselves some dinner. Everyone had the same idea and the restaurant was filled with lots of people in different costumes, people really had gone to town and I was sorry that we didn’t get the chance to wear our costumes. Darren quickly found us a table and I went to get us some food.
Ethan enjoyed eating here as he liked listening to Sonny Eclipse, Ethan even clapped him when he finished each song.
After our dinner we headed over to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin so Ethan could ride it whilst dressed as Buzz Lightyear. I tried to take a photo of them both together but I only managed to get the following photos.
We remembered to put Ethan in the middle of us so that we could see him in the ride photo and on the way out we got it added to our PhotoPass Plus card. I can’t remember who got the highest score but if it was Darren he must have been cheating!
We then made our way to Ethan’s favourite ride the teacups!
And then another flight on Dumbo, its a very pretty ride in the dark.
After our Dumbo flight it was time to collect some candy and we followed a candy walk that was inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Darren was in charge of collecting the candy in our bags, I also need to add that either me or Ethan had any of the candy that was collected during this walk Darren ate it all during the rest of our holiday so I have no idea what was collected!
The candy walk ended near Buzz Lightyear’s character meet and greet but the queue to see him was massive, you could easily have been waiting to see him for over an hour and we knew that just wasn’t possible with Ethan so we decided not to bother looking for any other characters. I must admit I was a little sad about as you can get great photos of the characters in their Halloween costumes at this party but it wouldn’t have been fair on Ethan to do this so we took Ethan over to Club 626 to see Goofy doing some fancy dancing. Ethan loved the bright lights and clapped along to the music but it was too crowded to let him loose so he stayed on Darren’s shoulders.
Time was going really quickly and it was getting close to the start of the parade so we headed over to Main Street to find a spot for us stopping for some PhotoPass pictures on the way and taking some photos of the Halloween decorations.
Main Street was heaving which worried me about how Ethan would react to being so closed in to all of the people. Guest services had already been really understanding of Ethan’s needs and we had been given a GAC card to use during our visit but it didn’t permit us to use the disabled area’s on the parade routes but we talked to one of the cast members managing the route and voiced our concerns, they very nicely let us into one of the disabled areas where we could stand against a rail and Ethan could easily sit on Darren’s shoulders without bothering anyone else.
We actually got talking to another family there and talked about our children and their needs, in-fact we talked so much that I missed taking a photo of the headless horseman at the start of the parade!
We all really enjoyed the parade and Ethan clapped along to the music, they did have a little mishap though as one of the floats got stuck so the parade ended a little later than expected. Somehow during the parade Darren got hold of even more candy, he is a nightmare!
It was then time for the famous fireworks, I already had a plan so we made our way to the rose garden as I knew this would be a quiet place to view them. This was going to be the first time that Ethan had experienced fireworks and I really had no idea how he would react. He of course loved them and laughed or clapped each bang.
The rose garden was a quiet place to view the fireworks but the fireworks are then more to the side of the castle rather than behind it but it was the perfect viewing position for us.
We had already decided that we would leave after the fireworks but the party didn’t end for another three hours, unfortunately with a two and a half year old and an early breakfast ADR we had no choice. I think if we had attended this party on the original day planned we would have stayed longer as the next morning was free of any plans but as we learn daily, planning is a thing of our past!
Darren knew that I was disappointed about our lack of character photos and spotted that there wasn’t a wait to go and see Mickey so we went to visit him and found Mickey and Minnie dressed for the Halloween celebrations. As you can see Ethan was getting used to seeing his new friends…
It was finally time for us to leave the Magic Kingdom and I took a few more photos before we headed to the bus stops and our beds…
