Mickey's Toontown Fair Memories (and pictures!)

One of the things we are most looking forward to on our upcoming trip to Disney World is experiencing the parts of the new Fantasyland expansion that will be open. I've been having a ball reading all the reports and looking at pictures and watching videos of the section that opened a couple weeks ago, and by the time we arrive I believe the water play area will have been opened as well as the second Dumbo ride. But all this excitement over the new additions has made me remember the old Mickey's Toontown Fair that had to be torn down to make way. I'll not lie and say it was ever one of my favorite parts of the Magic Kingdom, I'm a sentimentalist and it was just too new for me, but we certainly enjoyed visiting Mickey's house and Minnie's house and their gardens and I particularly liked Donald's boat. I thought it would be fun to share some of the pictures I found of our last two trips to the Magic Kingdom, when Toontown was still bustling.

In November of 2009, we hit Toontown after dark, which was kind of fun in itself. This is the welcome sign on the way into Mickey's Toontown Fair from Fantasyland.

It being November, Disney had it's Christmas decorations up, and Toontown got the treatment! Here is Minnie's house all decked out in Christmas lights. Those are some BIG bulbs, huh?

And inside, we were lucky enough to see Mickey's very own Christmas tree! It appears Mickey has gone the artificial tree route.

Minnie had these family photos on display. I'm not sure if it was her living room or bedroom. 

Wearing my new Goofy shirt, I just HAD to have a picture in front of Mickey's painting of Goofy's Barnstorming. We see here what the water tower outside looked like before Goofy's unconventional landing. And if you look close, you'll see I'm wearing my button proclaiming me as "That Guy" from the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. It was a good day.

Mickey's meet and greet was in the Expo Tent in Toontown. November was a great time to visit, we had almost zero wait for anything, including this face time with The Mouse.

And here we see the unfortunate results of Goofy's barnstorming. This was taken on a trip in August of 2006. Obviously, it was daylight that time :-)

Minnie Mouse's house. I love the attention to detail here, and throughout Toontown in fact. Minnie's mailbox still makes me smile.

This isn't the best view of Mickey's house, but it IS a good view of my son. There are so many Mickey's around this house, like the one on the fence post, that they hardly qualify as "hidden."

I am now and always have been a HUGE Donald Duck fan. You can have your Mickey and Minnie house all day, for my money, give me the Miss Daisy, Donald's boat!

Of course Donald's front yard is a water play area. That's because Donald is way cool. John here doesn't believe water is coming.

Sure enough, it was!

Here is Mickey's back door. See what I mean about the Not-So-Hidden Mickeys?

Mickey's garden featured some unusually shaped cacti. They look strangely familiar....

Now that Toontown is no longer, I'm wishing I took more photos while it was around. All the pictures of the new train station look spectacular, but I'd love to have a few of the old one for my personal comparison.

I'm very excited about the new Fantasyland expansion, to see this new piece of Disney magic, especially as the part that has opened is circus-themed and I love the circus with a passion. I wasn't so attached to the old Toontown that I'll mourn it's passing (it's not like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride or anything!), but it is fun to look back before looking forward.