We Came, We Saw, We NAILED It! 2 BFFs Take On The World **9/1 One Man's Dream**

[disneymomma2two]

Um loving your TR!!!! Such an awesome trip to share with your best friend

 

[JessicaKnits]

I love Illuminations! Great update!

Thank you! Illuminations is one of my favorites too, but I feel like it's so short!

It sounds like a great day at Epcot - I am glad you guys were able to stay well-hydrated!

We were definitely well-hydrated! It was a hot day, so lots of water was very important!

Loving your report so far

How nice that the two of you are getting to spend such a wonderful vacation together oh and I love your fireworks photos

Thank you!

I'm really enjoying your trip report, Jessica!

I think I've gained about ten pounds just looking at the photos of your fabulous meals and cocktails!!!

All I have to say is THANK GOODNESS for all of that walking! Otherwise I may not have fit in the seat on the plane ride home!

Yum! I'm going to drink myself around the world one of these days.

Everyone should do it at least once!

Going on Mexican It's a Small World is a definite must!

Your shrimp appetizer looks and sounds awesome!

Sorry you were a little underwhelmed by your ice cream sandwich - they sound like they would be delicious, though $6.50 does sound a little pricey

Nice illuminations shots - especially the ones less zoomed in

Lol @ Mexican It's a Small World! That is exactly what I was thinking of as we rode!

Great trip report. Can't wait for the next installment.

Thank you!

Um loving your TR!!!! Such an awesome trip to share with your best friend

It was such a great time! Can't wait to tell you all about the next trip in the works!

 

[JessicaKnits]

We were off this morning for an Animal Kingdom day! You can tell it was humid by just watching my hair evolve throughout the day...

The mandatory picture in front of the sign...

I'm obsessed with all light fixtures at Disney!

I absolutely love the picture taking opportunity in this park! We continued making our way towards Africa...

The flamingos were already out and about...

And this bird was out building a HUGE nest!

Finally we arrived in...

As you can see it was pretty much desserted. So we checked in for our breakfast here...

And here's our review...

Tusker House is absolutely one of my favorite pre-park opening breakfasts. It is a solid second behind Crystal Palace. The food at Tusker House is hands down better than Crystal Palace though!!

So now onto what I affectionately like to call "The One Where They Have Margaritas for Breakfast."

We were seated at Tusker House and told that a chef would be sent out for us. We had a bit of a wait, because the chef had to work with two other families as well. She came over to us and we explained no land animals, and no dairy for Megan. She was super awesome! I wish that we had taken down her name! I'm glad we had her come out, at other restaurants we would have been fine without a chef, but Tusker House was more of a challenge.

While we were waiting for the chef, we had time to look over the drink menu. Last time I was here I was lucky enough to have a Jungle Juice Mimosa and was keen on having that again...until I spotted this on the menu...

I don't remember exactly what it was called now. African Margarita sounds right. It really was a basic margarita with (I believe) elderflower liquer? added in...which had been imported all the way from...you guessed it, Africa.

Being somewhat of a margarita connoisseur (self proclaimed) I couldn't pass up the chance to try a margarita with very very rare (potentially scarce!) African liquer! So, that is how we both ended up with margaritas at our table. One other waiter gave us a fist bump for having margaritas for breakfast and asked us where we were from. "Wisconsin." we replied. "Oh, well that makes sense then." and he walked away. Sorry Wisconsin, we're not helping out with stereotypes AT. ALL. on this trip.

We made our way up to the buffet.

I started with this (so sorry about the bite!)

Counter-clockwise from far right...

Cherry-cheese blintzes (I LOVE them!), yams (or sweet potatoes, I can't remember for sure, but I think they were yams) with coconut, veggie quiche, fried plantain, mealie bread (which I did not care for, it was like sawdust) and potato and leek frittata, which was the special for the day.

I LOVED both the quiche and the frittata. Both were super flavorful.

Megan started with this...

Breakfast potatoes, a banana, some melon and veggie quiche.

Then the characters were making their rounds...

Then I had to go back for more, and end up with some grits and cheese, more blintz, more frittata, and bread pudding with vanilla sauce. But just a smidge!

Overall, everything here was excellent. Can't wait to go back again!

The most unfortunate thing about our meal was that our server completely disappeared for about 20 minutes. I had to walk around to find her and tell her we needed the check to go. By the time we were done it was almost 9:30!!! We had an 8 AM reservation! This was just so so disappointing to me.

We walked furiously towards Kilimanjaro Safaris....

 

[JessicaKnits]

With me still slightly (read: VERY) annoyed about our delay at breakfast, we found that the line for the safari seemed crazy long. In reality we waited no more than 10 minutes, and I realized that I really needed to grow up, put my big girl pants on and realize that we are on vacation and that a thirty minute delay in the grand scheme of a 12 day vacation is a tiny little nothing.

My attitude greatly improved, we made our way through the queue...

The nice thing about actually having to wait in line is that I noticed a few details I hadn't paid attention to before. I was SO excited for Megan to be able to experience this park. She is big into animals and has a degree in veterinary science. I always take WAY too many pictures on the safari...so forgive me.

But this was one of the best ones I have been on. That delay at breakfast ended up being a great thing.

To be continued...

 

[JessicaKnits]

(Continued from previous post)

The giraffes were SUPER active this morning! I've never seen so many of them!

(Continued in next post...)

 

[JessicaKnits]

Sorry...I know some of those turned out really really blurry. They look great when they are super tiny on the camera though!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

So many good pictures!!!

 

[JessicaKnits]

So many good pictures!!!

Thank you!

 

[archdandy]

Following along! You got some great shots on the safari

 

[JessicaKnits]

Following along! You got some great shots on the safari

Thank you! I'm hoping to get a better camera for next trip. These were all taken on a Sony point and shoot!

 

[annie170]

Tusker House is my favorite buffet in all of wdw. I always suggest a late breakfast adr for about 10:30 - 11:00. Your first plate will be the breakfast foods and the second will be the lunch selections. If you think breakfast is good there, you should see the lunch!

Great safari photos! I love when the animals are active.

 

[DisneyJo]

What a shame you got held up at Tusker House but I'm glad it didn't spoil your day as your safari looked great

 

[Rosco1]

You got to see BOTH lions on the Safari! How awesome!

Loving your report! Thank you for taking the time to write it.

 

[JessicaKnits]

Tusker House is my favorite buffet in all of wdw. I always suggest a late breakfast adr for about 10:30 - 11:00. Your first plate will be the breakfast foods and the second will be the lunch selections. If you think breakfast is good there, you should see the lunch!

Great safari photos! I love when the animals are active.

Great tip about Tusker House! I have done breakfast three times now, it might be nice to change it up with lunch!

What a shame you got held up at Tusker House but I'm glad it didn't spoil your day as your safari looked great

It was great! I don't know if it was because the weather wasn't all that warm yet, but the animals were all so active!

You got to see BOTH lions on the Safari! How awesome!

Loving your report! Thank you for taking the time to write it.

Thank you! My goal is to get this finished so that I can get the next PTR started!

 

[JessicaKnits]

After our amazing safari, we decided to check out the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. This is always one of my favorites, mostly because you never really know what to expect.

Luck was definitely on our side today.

First up, we got a look at these guys. Don't even ask me how to spell them...but they were right there!

Someone was being bashful...

I love this picture of all the bird's nests.

Next up was the pond with all the fish in it, can you see the big surprise?

It was here that we stopped and played a round of Mancala...

Next up were the gorillas...

Then the boss man came out too...

It always amazes me how life-like the gorillas are...

The little one was rolling around and being sassy, and so that's when the big guy came out. You could tell he was in charge because then the little one went and sat in the corner and ate his leaves like a good boy (or girl.)

 

[JessicaKnits]

After Pangani, we headed out to the streets of Harambe and things were quite festive!

We decided it was a good idea to head over to Asia, and see how the wait for Expedition Everest was. I think the theming in Asia is by far my favorite theming of any of the areas in all of the Disney parks!

There were some weird things happening with the sky, because this was the view to the right...

And this was the view to the left...

The Standby line said it was 15 minutes, but it was more like a walk-on.

So we rode it not once, not twice, but three times in a row, because we had some time to kill before Nemo.

We still had some time to kill...so we decided to spend it getting some Photopass pictures taken.

We still had some time left, so we headed over to Dinosaur to check things out, and this was also a walk on!

We had just enough time after Dinosaur to head over to our FastPass for Nemo, which is where we encountered our first real draw back with the FastPass+ system!

 

[annie170]

I love the family in front of you in the second Expedition Everest photo. Mom, Dad and daughter are having a great time, while son appears to be twiddling his thumbs!

You two take some really cute photopass pics!

 

[bellesBFF]

I'm late in joining, but I'm reading along!!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

I didn't get a chance to see Nemo last trip! Next time, next time

 

[DisneyJo]

Loving your EE photos, you can tell you're having fun