Day 1, Part 1 - Animal Kingdom
Like I said, we ended up waking up earlier than we wanted to in order to figure out the mishap from the night before. But after all that was sorted out, we went to the bus stop to head to our first park... Animal Kingdom! Since we normally drive, we always have our car with us. We always drive to the parks, so using the buses consistently is pretty new for us. We've done it here and there, but not for an entire trip. As you'll hear throughout the report... we are NOT bus people. We totally missed having our car down there. But I'll get more into that later.
I believe this is the first time we have done AK as our first park of the trip. It was also very cold this morning. It was in the low 50s and breezy. A total change from what we're used to on our June trips, which is when we normally go down. Even when we used to go down in March several years ago, I don't think we've ever had it that chilly before. And we're Wisconsinites... we can handle the cold!
My dad and I went to rope drop Na'vi River Journey first. My mom doesn't care for the ride, so she headed back to meet us at our next ride, Kilimanjaro Safaris. My dad and I walked right on Na'vi. This ride was always underwhelming for me the first few times, but I've grown to enjoy it for what it is. It's a mid-tier attraction, nothing more, nothing less. The music is starting to become more nostalgic, and I enjoy the animatronic at the end.
After Na'vi, we took the path back to the Safari. Once we got back there, we learned that the ride didn't open until 8:15, even though the park opening was 8:00 for normal guests and 7:30 for resort guests. So we had to wait a little while, but once we got on, the animals were pretty active. The only animal we didn't really see were the giraffes, which are my mom's favorites. We saw a tiny glimpse of one through the trees, but the rest must not have been out. In total, I think we saw 22 different species of animals. A lot of them were very close to the truck.
After the Safari, my dad and I hiked over to Everest. When we started the walk, it was a 15 minute wait. By the time we got over, it was up to 35. The spring break crowds were in full effect. We decided to do single rider. I always love Everest. I feel like it's a forgotten ride, but it's one of the best. I think it's my favorite at AK.
After Everest, we walked over to Dinosaur. It was a little weird with Chester and Hester torn down, but I'm also happy we're getting the Tropical Americas. Although, I think the dinosaur theme is great, but it was done totally wrong. Dinosaur is a good ride when the effects are working properly. Unfortunately, they never kept up with the proper maintenance. But I'll be sad that they couldn't keep some type of dinosaur theme in the park... seems like an easy theme to bring people to the parks. Again, if done right.
Anywho... after Dinosaur, we were hungry. We hadn't eaten anything to that point, and it was around 10:15. However, Animal Kingdom is awful in terms of quick service breakfast options. So we started walking to see what we could find, but didn't find much. We ended up just heading back to Pandora for our Flight of Passage lightning lane (yes, we splurged to save time on our short trip). This is always a fun ride. I wish I could experience it for the first time again. Also, Pandora is just a beautiful land to walk around.
After Flight of Passage, we were getting really hungry, and at that time the quick services were starting to open for lunch. It was about 10:45. We went to the closest one to us, which was Pizzafari. Big thumbs down.
I know, I know... this has never been a good restaurant. But it was worse than I had expected. I got the chicken parmesan. It tasted like a Lean Cuisine microwaved meal. Even the chicken was bad. I won't be going here again.
After our "brunch", we did some shopping at the main stores. This is where I first saw a gray button-down shirt I really liked, but they didn't have it in my size.. It started my hunt in every store I went to for the next 24 hours.
On our way out of the shops, we saw Kevin. We then took the little hidden bridge on your way out, which we had never seen before. It's crazy that after 23 years of going to the parks (my first trip was October 2002), and we still find things we didn't know existed.
On the bus ride back to the resort, we kept checking to see if our new room was done. No luck. At least right until we got to the bus stop. Then it showed us the room number. I was able to use my phone to scan the Magic Bands to give us access to the room. I never knew you could do that, as a CM normally does it for us.
So we got our luggage from bell services and went to our room. It was a river view room (which is was we originally booked, because it was all that way available). Right next to the bridge to Ol' Man Island (where the main pool is, and it leads to the main building). The room was nice, as usual, but they are starting full refurbs of the rooms next month. I'm interested to see what they will look like.
We got unpacked and sat for a little bit before heading to our next park.
Up next... Day 1, Part 2, where we visit Epcot!
