Best! Day! EVER! ~*~October 2015~*~ (Completed 12/22/15)

[Cirlonde]

Tuesday, October 26th
Day Four: Part 1​

Rope drop at Hollywood Studios was quite the experience! We (like 90% of the other park-goers) were anxious to hit Toy Story Midway Mania. We were all let into the park about 8:40 and then held for a few minutes within the park before being slowly walked towards TSMM. Unfortunately, it started drizzling and spitting rain which kept up for most of the morning. On the positive side, at least we weren’t being forced to stand in blazing sun on hot concrete! However, the most “entertaining” part of rope drop was a very loud gentlemen who insisted on shouting across the heads of about a dozen people to his father.

This was mildly aggravating for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t really understand why he didn’t just weave his way over to his father. They were basically parallel to each other across the crowd, so “cutting” through the group wouldn’t have put him any further ahead in line and would have been much less disrupting. Second, the father was apparently having difficulty understanding his son anyway. So this shouted exchange went on for a good 5-7 minutes. Third, the son was about six feet tall, standing almost right next to me and had one of those voices that resonates. And lastly, why not make your plans for the day before you get inside the park?

Justice was served though, because (as the entire crowd soon found out) the son was explaining to his father that he was going to run over and get his child signed up for the Star Wars show, after which he would meet them back at TSMM in time to use his FastPass which would allow the rest of his group to ride TSMM at least twice. Now, this sounds like a pretty decent plan, right? Well, I have to admit that I chuckled quietly to myself because no one bothered to speak up and let the son know that the Star Wars show was currently closed! Also, he didn’t appear to have his child with him and I’m pretty sure they won’t let you sign up without the kid being present.

Why didn’t I politely mention it to him? Well, mostly because that’s totally not in my nature. I’m very much an introvert and generally go out of my way to keep to myself and avoid confrontation. On top of that, I got the distinct impression that this was the type of man who would have argued (loudly) with me anyway and it would have served no purpose. A very small part of me sort of wanted to follow the guy and see how the whole thing played out! Do your research, people!

Anyway, that was really the only even slightly negative experience we had the whole trip and it was just a mild annoyance. And soon enough, we were shuffling our way into the TSMM queue, gearing up to shoot things!

This was our first time to experience the stand-by queue as last year we only rode once with our FastPasses. But in hopes of getting a couple of rides in, we did stand-by first and then planned to use our FastPass. The line moved relatively quickly and within about 10-15 minutes, we were hopping into our car.

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I don’t have much hand-eye coordination and I really suck at this game, but I still had the most amazing time! It’s just so fun!! I wish it was longer, I wish the lines didn’t get so long, I wish my arm was up to pulling that string for a longer period of time, haha! We actually ended up riding three times in a row – twice stand-by and once with our FastPass.

The first time through stand-by, there was a family doing their best to take a family photo in front of each section of the queue but the line was really just moving too fast and they were holding everyone up. There was one group between us and the picture-taking family. After about ten photos, the woman right in front of us darted up and threw her arm around one of the guys getting his picture taken just at the last second. It was the most hilarious photobomb I’ve ever witnessed! I’m not entirely sure how the family felt about it, but the woman definitely pulled it off well. She had them laughing with her about it and it stopped them taking pictures every two feet!.

The second time through stand-by, I spent a few minutes FaceTiming with my three year old niece. She’s absolutely adorable and I had sent her the video from our Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride. She loved it (especially Sleepy and the skunk) and she wanted to show me the video, because you know…that’s how toddlers are, haha! I couldn’t turn that down and we had plenty of time while we stood in line. She sure helped the wait go by a little quicker! This time, there was a couple ahead of us who were probably in their late 60s, maybe early 70s. And they each had a paperback book in hand that they were reading as we shuffled along. This just warms my heart because I’m huge bookworm and I love to see other people who will take any opportunity to pull out a book.

Okay, I guess I’ve stalled as long as I can and I’ve finally got to show our embarrassing scores! The top right picture was our first ride on which I was blue and Jeremy was red. The bottom left picture was our second ride; I was green, Jeremy was yellow. And finally, the bottom right picture, I’m blue and Jeremy was red.

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See, I am very competitive, to put it mildly and Jeremy is not. So it was killing me to keep losing to him!! I finally got my act together on the final ride (or Jeremy was afraid he was never going to be allowed off of TSMM and let me win, but he swears not). Plus, it’s pretty obvious from the scores that I was at least getting progressively better over time. So we (I) decided that this meant I was the overall winner since (even though I did lose two out of three) my final score was far higher than any of his three scores. RAWR!

By the time we finished our three rides (battles), it was only 10am but was still sprinkling. So we decided to get in line for the Great Movie Ride, which we had skipped last year. I have to admit, the best thing about that ride was getting to sit down and be out of the rain. I was just not really all that impressed. However, I’m also not a movie buff, so I can see how it would probably be more entertaining for someone who was.

By the time we got off, the rain was starting to pass which meant it was getting even more humid. We had a FastPass for Tower of Terror so we started working our way that direction. Tower of Terror was one of the rides I was most intimidated by last year but I ended up quite enjoying it, so I was looking forward to a second chance on that elevator. Boy, was I in for a totally different ride this time!?! Last year, we were on the front row, which made for a much better ride photo and we only dropped two or three times and never a full fall. This time though…wow! I swear we fell at least five times and at least two of those falls were the full height of the building or at least close. Talk about exhilarating! My legs were shaking when we got off! I hadn't noticed the poor little girl in front of me while we were on the ride, but after I saw the picture I felt so sorry for her! She seems terrified!

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After that, we went on the hunt for Mr. Gold’s Pawnshop from the ABC show Once Upon a Time which we are both huge fans of! It took a bit (mostly because I had misunderstood where it was located). But we did find it! I wish we could have seen it without the Osborne Lights, but it was still neat although difficult to get a good picture of. The second picture is just of some big trees I liked!

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By this time, we were getting hungry but nothing really sounded good in the park and it was getting hot. So we decided to skip our last FastPass (which I think I’d gotten for the Muppets Show) and make our way back to the hotel. On the way out, we stopped for several PhotoPass photographers.

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Back at Art of Animation, we headed for Landscape of Flavors. I had the “create your own pasta” with bowtie pasta, Alfredo sauce, chicken, and green peas. Jeremy had a burger. We had some annoying issues with the “smart” cups because the machine we tried to use was broken, but eventually got that worked out. Jeremy was happy enough with his burger and I loved my pasta. However, I tasted the garlic bread for the rest of the day and that was highly unpleasant!! After lunch, we went back to the room so I could change and fix what the humidity had broken (my hair!) Then we set out to explore the resort!

~*~Continued in Day Four: Part 2~*~​

 

[Cirlonde]

Tuesday, October 26th
Day Four: Part 2
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I'll apologize in advance, but this post is going to be pretty picture heavy as we didn't really "do" much but just walk around Art of Animation and Pop Century posing for pictures.

First up, can you believe I only took ONE picture of the Little Mermaid section?! I think I just kept thinking "oh, I'll grab a picture of that tomorrow" but never got around to it. But here's Jeremy, flexing with Prince Eric while King Triton looks on in the background.

Next up, is the Lion King area! I loved this section mostly due to childhood nostalgia. The Lion King is the first movie I can remember seeing on opening day and it made such an impact on me as a kid.

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After leaving the jungle, we visited the ocean and Nemo's friends!

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The Lion King area may rank number one with me due to nostalgia, but there's no doubt that the Cars section is easily the best themed. It was so amazing! We just couldn't get over it!

Jeremy was playing Mr. Mechanic in this first one!

And then we made our way across the bridge and managed to snap a couple of pictures around Pop Century before it got too dark. Also, can I just say...holy snails and lizards, ya'll! They were EVERYWHERE! Lizards during the day and snails at night. Luckily, we didn't see any puppy dog tails! (You know...what little boys are made of? Lizards, snails and puppy dog tails?)

And so we come to the end of another wonderful day! Thanks for following along! Tomorrow, we go back to the Magic Kingdom and the one with all the FastPasses.

~*~Continued in Day Five: Part 1~*~​

 

[Victoriasmom98]

I've never been to rope drop ---- tried, just have never made it. Would you believe my family doesn't like TSMM?? Yeah, I really dislike that rope you have to pull to shoot the targets. I'm not very good at it and I couldn't even tell you what our scores were. I think we've done it twice since it opened and just weren't all that impressed. Plus is really swings you around!!

So, you didn't tell him that the Star Wars Jedi Training was closed, huh? Yeah, I don't think I would have either. Let him figure it out himself! Now if he wasn't being irritating I would have probably said something, but such is life!! And I totally agree with you ---- do your research and have your plans laid out prior to going to the parks!

I LOVED your story about the photobombing lady. There was a big debate on the boards about whether photobombing if funny or not. I, myself, think it's funny, but I don't dare to do it to people, but I love it when random people do it to us. We're all there to have fun, afterall!! A lot of the times Victoria will go off and we joke that she went to join another family! Your niece sounds cute!

We like the Great Movie Ride. I really don't like the changes to the ending (with a narrator) but it's still a fun ride. I love movies so this is a nice ride for me. I think that's why I love HS so much ---- I love the movies and all the make believe that goes with it.

Oh, that poor little girl in front of you in the ToT!!! She does look terrified! That's one thing I never did --- force Victoria onto a ride she didn't really want to go on. I like the picture, though.

There you go getting your Photopass on!!! Awesome pics, as usual. They had the "create your own pasta" when we stayed at Riverside. That was a favorite meal all week for all of us. I usually had the spaghetti with shrimp in Alfredo sauce. Yummers!

Love all your pics of both AoA and Pop. We've stayed at PoP before but never AoA. Now that we are DVC members I don't think they'll ever be a chance to stay there unless we do a small "cash" trip in between our normal vacations. It could happen, but we are sending Victoria to college in the Fall, so I'm not sure when. She's my ride buddy since my hubby doesn't do rides. She's staying home for college (the school is an hour's drive away) but still, we would have to work around her schedule and I just don't know what her classload is going to be like.

Your trip report is awesome so far!!! I'm thinking about doing a ptr for my trip in April, but I never seem to get alot of readers and it always seems like I'm talking to myself. LOL!! Which I don't mind talking to myself, so maybe......

Looking forward to your next post!!

 

[Cirlonde]

Wednesday, October 27th
Day Five: Part 1
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Whew, sorry for the delay! The Thanksgiving holiday festivities got in the way of working on my trip report. But I’m back now and just in time for our most productive park day ever! Magic Kingdom opened at 9:00am today, so we headed out bright and early. So bright and early that we were the first people on the first ferry boat over.

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There’s just nothing like watching the castle get closer and closer as you float across the Seven Seas Lagoon on a morning full of possibilities!

We got to see the welcome show again, and from a pretty good vantage point! Although I was disappointed that the train was down for refurbishment while we were on vacation, so we didn’t get to see everyone ride in on the train.

They let us in at about 8:45 and we headed straight for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train to ride stand-by. Talk about a fun way to wake up! However, this was my first time riding in the very last car. It was quite a bit more thrilling back there than towards the front! And so we got this lovely expression as we went over the first hill. (I promise, I’m not nearly as terrified as I look!)

On the way over to Peter Pan’s Flight to use our first Fast Pass of the day, New Fantasyland was so empty and peaceful that we decided to stop off at the Sword in the Stone to let Jeremy try his luck!

There’s a little bit of a back story to this pose. It so happened that by coincidence we were going to be in Orlando the same week as one of Jeremy’s previous supervisors would be there with her husband and six year old son. Earlier in the week, she had posted a picture of her son trying to get the sword out using the pose above. We thought it was so cute that Jeremy had to reenact it!

After this, we headed over to Adventureland to try for Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise. Sadly, Pirates was down when we went by but we were able to get almost right on Jungle Cruise. I was a little disgruntled because we were the last people on the boat and had to sit down on the section of bench that everyone uses to climb in and out of the boat. Since the ground was damp, this mean the seat was muddy and wet. However, the next ride would set me straight and make me wish for a little mud and water…

Yeah, that whole refurbishment that Pirates went through…well, they forgot to fix the boats. We showed up for the ride just a few minutes after it had opened back up and were put in the second row. There were three people in the row ahead of us and together they made our boat a little front heavy, so when we went down the drop…I felt like I was on Kali River Rapids. We all got SOAKED! That’ll teach me to whine (to myself) about having to sit on the entry step on Jungle Cruise! Whatever mud might have been left on my shorts was effectively washed away!

We stopped by my favorite bathrooms on property to try to get cleaned up and Jeremy photobombed my first picture!

About this time, the powers that be decided we hadn’t experienced enough water and it started raining. Not to be deterred, we dug out our ponchos and headed for Tomorrowland. We road Buzz Lightyear via FastPass (and did so terribly that I didn’t even get a picture of our scores)! But boy do we look determined in our ride photo! Mostly, we just spent the ride being very confused. It’s so hard for me to tell where my laser is hitting! I wish they’d fill that ride with some fog or something. It would help tremendously if I could follow the beam.

The line for the PeopleMover was super short so we decided to relax on it while we watched the rain come down. Here’s the obligatory feet-in-the-seat picture!

One of the many things we’d missed out during our 2014 trip was the inside of Cinderella’s Castle, so we slogged through the rain in that direction. I was totally not prepared for how gorgeous and breathtaking the murals are. Pictures just don’t do them justice.

After touring the Castle, we headed back to Seven Dwarfs to ride with a FastPass, this time in the front row. And let me admit, after comparing the front and back cars I found the front to be almost boring! I’ve never considered myself a thrill seeker, but the more we rode Seven Dwarfs, the braver I felt. We still enjoyed this round, but not as much as we had that first ride of the day when we were in the last car. Sadly, I’d had to take my ears off because of the rain but don’t we look adorable in our ponchos!

By this time, it was almost 11:00am and we were hungry. So we made a beeline for one of our favorite quick service restaurants in Magic Kingdom…Sleepy Hollow! We shared the ham with Swiss waffle sandwich and the Nutella with fruit waffle sandwich. Both were good, but the Nutella definitely took home the gold. It was so delicious, even with rain dripping on us while we ate.

We had to ask for directions, but finally found the FastPass Kiosk nearest Sleepy Hollow. We were able to get a Haunted Mansion FastPass for 11:30am, so we headed straight that way. Sadly, the “ghost will follow you home” effect was still broken, but we loved every minute of the ride anyway! We went back to the kiosk and got a FastPass for Winnie the Pooh. We had a few minutes to kill before we could use it, so we boarded the Liberty Bell for a leisurely cruise.

The Liberty Bell was another thing we’d missed in 2014, so I was really excited to get this different perspective. It was also nice to take another break out of the rain. At least the temperature was very pleasant!

While we were watching the shore scroll by, I got an email that Pooh was down and we could use our FastPass for something else. Bummer, right? No way! It was one of the best things to happen to us all day! This meant we could use our FastPass for a second ride on Peter Pan’s Flight! I’ve never been so thrilled for a ride to go down. Pan didn’t have any remaining day-of FastPasses, so this was some serious pixie dust, to be able to skip that 75+ minute line.

By the time we got off Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh was back up so we swung by the kiosk again and picked up Pooh FastPasses for 12:30 and went straight over to bounce with Tigger. Between the rain and the lunch hour, the Seven Dwarfs line was posted at 30 minutes so we decided to ride it for a third time via stand-by after we got off Pooh. Then we got our seventh FastPass of the day, this time for Dumbo since we wanted to ride it later in the evening when we got back from our afternoon break.

It was around 1:00pm by this time and the sun was starting to peek out. We stopped by a PhotoPass photographer to commemorate our rainy day with a picture of us in our ponchos looking bedraggled. Less than five minutes after we got our pictures taken, it started raining again! So we couldn’t have timed that better. Looking at the sky in this picture, you’d never believe it had been wet and cloudy all day!

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We made our way out of the park and back to the hotel to dry out before returning to Magic Kingdom later that evening.

~*~Continued in Day Five: Part 2~*~​

 

[Cirlonde]

I've never been to rope drop ---- tried, just have never made it. Would you believe my family doesn't like TSMM?? Yeah, I really dislike that rope you have to pull to shoot the targets. I'm not very good at it and I couldn't even tell you what our scores were. I think we've done it twice since it opened and just weren't all that impressed. Plus is really swings you around!!

We've missed rope drop once or twice and I don't think I ever will again. It's just so much more pleasant during the first couple of hours of the day. However, I'm very much a morning person! So I'd be up and at 'em early on a regular day. Definitely makes vacationing at Disney easier for us! Plus, only having ourselves to get ready means it's not a nightmare. I can't imagine if we had kids or a group to get gathered up and out the door on time!

I LOVED your story about the photobombing lady. There was a big debate on the boards about whether photobombing if funny or not. I, myself, think it's funny, but I don't dare to do it to people, but I love it when random people do it to us. We're all there to have fun, afterall!! A lot of the times Victoria will go off and we joke that she went to join another family! Your niece sounds cute!

I definitely think you have to be the right "type" of person to pull it off. I imagine most people just come off as obnoxious. But if you've got a personality that is good with people and can have everyone in a room laughing five minutes after you enter it, I think it can make for a great memory.

Oh, that poor little girl in front of you in the ToT!!! She does look terrified! That's one thing I never did --- force Victoria onto a ride she didn't really want to go on. I like the picture, though.

Yeah, as a kid I was never forced to ride something. I was terrified of any sort of roller coaster or even something as tame as the sombrero at Six Flags that just go around in circles and tilts a bit. Although my dad did trick me into getting on that one by telling me it was just a carousel. I probably would have enjoyed it except I was so furious at him for tricking me that I refused to admit it!

I think the prevalence of Point-of-View ride videos has really helped me to branch out and ride things I wouldn't have as a child. I was more terrified of not knowing what the ride experience was going to be than I was of the actual ride. Being able to watch a ride video and know ahead of time when the drops are coming or how many hills there are really made a difference for me.

Love all your pics of both AoA and Pop. We've stayed at PoP before but never AoA. Now that we are DVC members I don't think they'll ever be a chance to stay there unless we do a small "cash" trip in between our normal vacations. It could happen, but we are sending Victoria to college in the Fall, so I'm not sure when. She's my ride buddy since my hubby doesn't do rides. She's staying home for college (the school is an hour's drive away) but still, we would have to work around her schedule and I just don't know what her classload is going to be like.

We have talked about becoming DVC members. I think in the long run it would be a financially sound idea for us, but right now it's not feasible. Maybe once we get the last of my husband's student loan debt paid off...so glad you guys are able to help Victoria out with her education! We both paid our own way through college (and graduate college for him). That debt follows you like a dark cloud! We pay quite a lot extra every month on ours and are thankfully making a good sized dent. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Your trip report is awesome so far!!! I'm thinking about doing a ptr for my trip in April, but I never seem to get alot of readers and it always seems like I'm talking to myself. LOL!! Which I don't mind talking to myself, so maybe......

I'm so glad you're following along! I know what you mean about feeling like you're talking to yourself. I was hesitant to start one because I wasn't sure I'd get many readers or people replying. But honestly, I'm doing it more for myself than anyone else. I wanted to have a written account of the trip because you forget so much over time! So I'm saving each post in a Word document. Even if few other people read it, it will always be there for me to go back through and help get me by in between trips, haha!!

I also think a lot more people read the trip reports (or threads in general) than reply to them. I know that's how I am. I love to read trip reports, I just don't usually post anything on those threads.

 

[Cirlonde]

Wednesday, October 27th
Day Five: Part 2
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Apparently, I should have waited until after the holidays were over before I started this trip report! I'm having trouble finding the spare moments to finish it up. However, we're so close to the end! My goal is to get the last two or three posts up before Christmas. Wish me luck!

So, just a quick reminder that so far we’d used a total of six fast passes and had our seventh one booked to ride Dumbo later in the evening. Also, a photo I forgot to add in my last post…I really want to buy one of these wreaths!! I just love them!

We hung out at the hotel, re-energizing and napping. Around 3 or 4pm, we walked over to Landscape of Flavors and had pepperoni pizzas. By 6pm, we were back in the parks with a long night ahead of us since the parks didn’t close until 1am! Our plan was to stop at every PhotoPass Photographer we saw along the way before heading for Dumbo.

First up was the main entrance. I just love how the station and the flowerbed looks when it’s decorated up for Fall. It looks even better during the day.

We got another shot looking down Main Street with the pumpkin towers. This definitely works great at night with the spooky lighting but I wish we’d stopped by during the day as well. Night shots just never turn out as well as I’d like them too.

We made our way down Main Street, getting increasingly closer to Cinderella’s Castle.

By this time, our fast pass window was open for Dumbo so we made our way to the Big Top. Oddly enough, we somehow completely skipped this entire section of the park during our first trip. So we took our time exploring! Obviously, this was also our first time to ride Dumbo. It’s probably not something I’d stand in line for but with the fast pass it was totally worth it. It was really amazing to get to see out over the park from on top of a flying elephant, especially at night with everything lit up and twinkling. We took a quick selfie to commemorate the flight!

After this, we went into the gift shop to soak up some AC and browse around. We found the most adorable little Minnie Mouse doll that rattled and was super soft. So we bought her for my baby niece, Kenley, who was born in July. We stopped off at the fast pass kiosk in New Fantasyland and got an eighth fast pass for Haunted Mansion with a window that opened in 10 minutes. So we made our way that direction after stopping for a quick photo of Prince Eric’s castle.

At this point…sleep deprivation must have gotten to me because I lost track of exactly what order everything happened in. I know we got a ninth fast pass after Haunted Mansion but I can’t recall if it was for another ride on Haunted Mansion or for Pooh. Either way, I do know that we rode Haunted Mansion a total of three times. We rode Pooh and Pan once each.

And we rode Seven Dwarfs FOUR TIMES without waiting in line for more than 15 or 20 minutes per ride. I won’t bore you with all the ride photos, but here was my favorite:

In between rides on the Mine Train, we stopped to watch Wishes from the bridge near Beast’s castle. But first, we grabbed a giant cinnamon roll to eat while we watched and for the sugar rush to keep us awake!

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I’ve read mixed reviews about these cinnamon rolls, but we both love them! Watching Wishes from behind the Castle was an interesting experience. It’s not as “picturesque” and we had to do a lot of turning back and forth because some of the fireworks were in the sky over the Castle and others were behind us, looking towards Gaston’s. However, a wonderful cast member was standing on the bridge watching the show as well and he would kindly point whenever something was fixing to go off in a direction we weren’t looking. I can’t imagine having the opportunity to watch Wishes so often that you can predict each explosion! Overall, I’m really glad we chose to watch from the bridge as the lack of crowds was really pleasant. However, I don’t think I’d ever recommend it to someone seeing Wishes for the first time.

We managed to get a really decent view of Main Street Electrical Parade even though we walked up barely five minutes before it started. We were able to lean against the railing behind us but because the walkways were kept open, there was only one row of people ahead of us and they were sitting on the curb. We snuck out just as the last float came into view and headed back for another ride on the Mine Train. I was quite addicted by this time!

We passed the next couple of hours with at least one more Mine Train ride…I’m pretty sure we rode at least a couple of more rides but I’m very foggy by this time! Eventually, 1:00am rolled around and we started making our way towards the front of the park for the thing I’d been aiming towards the whole evening…the Kiss Goodnight. I’d read about it but we didn’t have the energy to stick around late enough to see it on our last trip. It did not disappoint! While it’s not breathtaking like Wishes, the feeling of being one of a few people left in the parks and the ambience while you’re listening/watching was well worth the late night.

After this, we dragged ourselves out of the parks, stopping to snap a quick picture of City Hall.

We made our way to the Ferry, and got a kick out of watching sleep kids who could barely keep their eyes open. I gotta admit, I was a little jealous…I’d have loved to sink down to the floor and dose! Eventually, we made it back out to our car and then our hotel room where we both passed out. Animal Kingdom opened at 9am the next morning and we needed our beauty sleep!

~*~Continued in Day Six: Part 1~*~​

 

[Cirlonde]

Thursday, October 28th
Day Six: Part 1

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It was a struggle to get up the next morning after our late night at Magic Kingdom the day before (using a total of *NINE* fast passes, woohoo!) But we still made it in plenty of time for rope drop. We were held inside the park on the path leading towards Kilimanjaro Safaris for a while but it was well worth the wait when we got to see the macaws fly right over our heads just before they let us through! What an awesome and magical way to start the morning!

We went straight to the Safari and got a really wonderful guide which definitely adds to the experience. She was just the right amount of funny without crossing over the line to corny and she had interesting information to share on all of the animals. I didn’t take any pictures during the safari but I did get some really great video of three baby giraffes kicking up their heels on their way to breakfast!

We also saw some baby warthog piglets, the lions were out but not super active (per usual, lazy old cats!) and our three week trip was over before we knew it. After the Safari, we wandered through the animal trails, really taking our time and soaking it all in which we hadn’t done a very good job of last year. Our first fast pass wasn’t until almost 11am, so we weren’t in any rush. We spent quite a bit of time in the aviary where all these adorable little yellow birds were showing off. I took video but it’s really long, so I haven’t put it on YouTube. I probably would have stayed there all day but Jeremy was ready to move on!

I’m glad we did, because we made it to the meerkats just in time to watch a cast member feeding them breakfast. It was so amazing and the video doesn’t do it justice. There were several little baby meetkats who were only a few weeks old and they are so cute! We probably spent 20 minutes or more watching this exhibit. There was also a baby zebra in the back part of the enclosure. Here’s a short video of the meerkats eating:

By the time we’d torn ourselves away from the meerkats and then been captivated by two baby gorillas playing, watched the tiger and the okapi and finally made our way through all of the trails, it was time for a fast pass. And I was nervous! Our first fast pass (and the only one we ended up using that day) was for Expedition Everest. I had completely chickened out last year and couldn’t make myself get on it. Jeremy rode by himself and was a little disappointed that I didn’t go with him. But this year, after having so much fun on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, I just knew I had to work up the nerve to face the Yeti. It’s probably a really good thing we had the fast pass for it because we were through the queue before I really had time to talk myself out of this ridiculous adventure. And here’s the result:

So freaking fun that we rode twice more before the end of the day!!!!! I was sure kicking myself for not riding last year. It’s definitely more thrilling than the Seven Dwarfs but it wasn’t terrifying. Oh, and Jeremy is actually NOT being sick in that ride photo, which is from our second ride. We were just at the front of our car and there wasn’t really anything for him to brace himself on so he’s holding on to the bar. But the picture is just too perfect in the way that it makes it look like I’m having a blast and he’s feeling ill. I chuckle every time I see it.

When we got off the first time and were walking through the gift shop, I fell in love with the round puffball Yeti for sale. This is the first time I’ve ever been “hooked” by the post-ride souvenirs but I was so proud of myself for overcoming my fear of Everest that I wanted to commemorate it. So by the time we got off the second ride, I had talked myself into the purchase. Now whenever I need a little shot of courage, I just look at the Yeti and remind myself that taking chances pays off and often leads to great memories!

So, stuffed Yeti in hand, we wandered the animal trails for a few more minutes as we worked our way towards the front of the park. It was about 1pm by now, so we drove over to Jambo House to eat at the Mara. When we were staying at Kidani last year, we had enjoyed the BBQ chicken flatbread so much that it was worth a special trip back. Well, for that and for those amazingly delicious Zebra Domes! Jeremy bought two packages of them so we could take one back to the hotel with us for later!

After lunch, we went back to Art of Animation to cool off and rest our feet. About two hours before Animal Kingdom closed, we went back to ride Everest and the Safari once more and to get our PhotoPass pictures. It was still miserably hot and humid when we first got there, so we shared a frozen lemonade (which was perfect and really hit the spot) and wandered around the gift shops for a bit. As the crowds cleared out and the sun started to go down, the temperature was much more pleasant. We stopped at a couple of photographers and got some pretty good pictures.

The lines for Everest were super short by this time so we rode one last time and then headed for the Safari. This is really the only place during the whole vacation where I really screwed up with our fast passes. I had booked a late afternoon Safari, for around 3pm. But it was too hot and we decided to just skip, expecting to be able to ride to short lines in the late evening. (And yes, I did try to reschedule once I knew we weren’t going to make the 3pm time slot, but there was no availability left by that time.) So we ended up standing in a long-ish line about 45 minutes before closing. However, it meant we got to meet this little guy, who was apparently jealous that all the African animals were getting more attention than he was!

We finally made it onto our jeep and headed out on our trek. Unfortunately, you could tell that our guide’s heart wasn’t really in it and she was in a hurry to get through. She barely stopped for any animals and kept ending up right on the tail of the jeep in front of us. We were glad to be off our feet and the scenery was still beautiful, but it wasn’t nearly as much fun as our first ride had been.

And now, we had come to the end of our vacation! As sad as we were to leave, I knew we’d be back again someday (just like Frosty the Snowman, haha!! Can you tell I’m listening to Christmas music as I finish up this trip report??) And I was looking forward to seeing our two puppies again! So we slowly made out way out of the park and to our car. We headed back to the hotel and started trying to fit everything we’d brought with us back into the suitcases, which is always a frustrating adventure!

Our flight didn’t leave until noon the next day, so we were able to sleep in a bit and take our time getting to the airport. We dropped the rental car off without a problem and then I gladly just SAT for the next couple of hours until it was time to board the plane and head back to Oklahoma.

Thanks so much for following along! I hope my inexperience with writing trip reports didn’t make this journey too arduous and that you had as much fun reliving our trip as I did. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!