Trip Report And We’re Back! – A March Trip Report

Well, I’m back! I’ve been pretty MIA from the boards for the last few months. It has been a crazy busy Fall and Winter and it’s about time that things slowed down. We sold our townhouse in September and moved in with my parents for 4 months while we waited for our new home to be built. All that plus the regular busyness of the holiday season meant little time to go online.

My last trip to WDW was in November of 2012 so I was itching to go back. My next trip wasn’t scheduled until October 2014 and that was just too long for me to wait. So, I emailed my friend Maggie who went with me in 2010 and asked if she would want to go again. She was in and suggested we stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge. Sounds good to me!

The Details:

Who: Me (Ashley) and my best friend from college (Maggie)

I'm the short one.

When: March 5-9, 2014

Where: Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge

Wednesday March 5th – Disney World and Warm Weather Here We Come!

Today was a very early morning for both of us. At my old house, I used to live 8 minutes away from the airport. The new house is 35 minutes from the airport, which isn’t bad for most people, but when you used to be 8, it now seems a lot farther. I didn’t think about the new drive to the airport when I booked my flight for 6:45am.

So I woke up super early and made it to the airport about an hour before my departure time. I barely slept at all the night before so I was extremely tired. I think I woke up every hour or so worried that I had overslept. I got about 3 hours of sleep in total. But I was on my way to WDW so who’s complaining!

The flight was uneventful and we landed on time. Maggie’s flight didn’t land for another hour so I had some time to kill. At first, I thought I was going to kill time by browsing the shops but then I figured I would just head down to the DME area and wait there. An hour wasn’t too bad. I made it all the way down to the DME area and decided I should check on Maggie’s flight to see if it was on time. And what do you know…her flight was delayed…45 minutes.

So I went back up to the shops, looked around and grabbed some breakfast from McDonald’s. Then it was back down to the DME counter to wait for Maggie. Her flight landed at the newly scheduled, delayed time and we were finally ready to board the bus. I had been at the airport for 2 hours so I couldn’t wait to get this vacation started!

We made our way to the DME counter to check in with our fancy, new MagicBands! This was the first time I got to use the bands so I was super excited!

Animal Kingdom Lodge here we come!

Obligatory Instagram shot

The Animal Kingdom Lodge was one of only two deluxe resorts I had never stayed at before so I was really excited to stay at this resort! First we had to stop at Pop Century and then Art of Animation before we arrived at our destination.

We’re finally here!

I had done online check in so it was a pretty smooth process once we arrived. I was very pleased that our room was ready. That was the only request I made when doing online check in. We already had booked an Arusha view room so as long as it was ready when we arrived, I was fine with the luck of the draw. Knock on wood, I have always been pleased with our room placements without having any special requests.

We were in room 3415 located along Zebra Trail and on the same floor as the lobby. I was already pleased with the location of our room and I hadn’t even seen it yet.

Feels like a Disney vacation when I see one of these

View from our room

 

[KingdomofDreams]

We've stayed at AKL at least 4 times and have never detected an unpleasant odor anywhere. There is a delicious aroma when you walk into the lobby. It's either from the fireplace or the spices and woods used in Boma and Jiko. My family won't stay anywhere else. Every time we walk through the doors into the lobby we take it all in and just stand there with stupid grins on our faces.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Next stop was the Tangled restrooms. It wasn’t completed the last time when I was there so I was beyond excited to see it. Talk about some beautifully themed restrooms. Again, only Disney could make something like a restroom a site worth visiting. And it has an AMAZING restroom sign.

How cute is that?! LOVE it.

The inside of the restroom is also really cute but I felt a little weird taking pictures in there with so many people. Maybe next time I will be braver and take some pictures.

We made our way to Adventureland for a ride on Pirates (classic), then to Tomorrowland for a spin on the PeopleMover and to use our Space Mountain FP+s.

I wanted to get a good spot for the first parade but Maggie didn’t want to have to stake out a spot for more than 30 minutes. So, we ended up not being able to find a spot on the right side of the hub. We found a spot on the other side of the parade route but I knew that we would have a good view from there for Celebrate the Magic and Wishes so we stayed there. We caught the parade from a distance but that was okay. I’m not a huge fan of the MSEP. I want to love it but I just don’t. I prefer SpectroMagic.

Celebrate the Magic is my absolute favorite! The technology is just so awesome. The projection right on the castle. Crazy awesome. And I really love the music. As soon as the Frozen segment started, the crowd went wild! Hahaha It was so funny hearing all the excited screams when “Let It Go” started. I recorded that part and sent the video to my husband. He doesn’t love the song but he knows that I sang it for like a month after I bought the soundtrack. He can’t say, “let it go” without me breaking out in song.

Wishes was wonderful as always. I tried to take some pictures but it’s not even worth trying anymore. I always end up watching Wishes through my camera lens and miss really seeing the show.

Our next stop was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to use our last FP+ for the night. I love riding BTMR at night.

Not so great selfie mid-rid.

We decided to check out some shops after that. I was on a mission to buy a hoodie sweatshirt. I had very specific criteria for what I was looking for so it was hard to find exactly what I wanted. I only brought one lightweight zip-up hoodie on this trip so I would need a heavier one soon. No luck tonight though.

We caught the tale end of the second Celebrate the Magic show and grabbed a spot on Main Street to get a front row view of the second MSEP. I know I said I didn’t love it, but I wanted a good seat to give it another chance.

I still prefer SpectroMagic, but I tried. After the parade, it was time to call it a night. I can’t believe we made it as long as we did, considering we both had gotten up so early! We left the park around 11:20 to take a bus back to AKL.

I made Maggie pose for this one. Not sure why, but I guess I was loopy-tired and thought it was funny.

It wasn’t long until we were back at AKL seeing a very empty lobby. It was midnight, after all.

We were in bed around 1am. At some point during the day, I asked Maggie if she wanted to do four parks in one day tomorrow. She said “sure”. And with that, we would be doing all four parks in one day tomorrow! I have never done that before so I was excited for another first this trip. It’s amazing that after so many trips to WDW, there are still things I have never done before.

Up next: Four parks in one day in the rain!

 

[Disneydreamer23]

Love it keep it coming

 

[DisneyPrincess5]

Love the MK night photos! Were always so tired by night fall to go back to a park but next trip were going to try really hard to go at night!

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Loving the TR, Ashley!!! I'm also so happy to see you back to photographing trash cans. I've found myself doing the same thing with light fixtures. It gets kind of addicting when you start taking pics of these little details Interesting that you guys had a strange aroma in your AKL room. We stayed there back in September and we had no odd odors that we noticed in our room. We were also on the same level as the lobby, but I think we were facing Uzima savannah/Greater Kudu trail. Glad to see that the bedspreads are gone in those rooms.

Congrats on your new house! Can't wait to read more!!!

 

[farrellbarrel]

I am going in May and could not be more excited to use the Tangled theme bathrooms!!!! Its an attraction itself

 

[PartOfYourWorld]

bummed you weren't a huge fan of the noodles...that's my go-to dish there!!! The pot stickers are a really good app at Kona definitely try those next time!!!! And I noticed too all the times I've been to Kona it's always been really fast! Great service I guess! haha

I have to agree with you on the MSEP...not a fan of it, I miss Spectro too!

 

[Zipadeelady]

Your pics are spectacular!!

 

[Dumbo2675]

Liked looking at your most recent trip report back to WDW. Glad to hear that your in your new house now. Since you just went to WDW are you still going in October? We can't wait to enjoy our trip. Hope you had a great time and are enjoying life.

 

[coachwnh]

Still loving the pictures!

 

[MerMom1981]

Good times! I love your goof-ball photo series-es! Totally something I would do!

 

[FlaggNL]

still love your TR! Especially the nighttime pictures!! Keep on going

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

We've stayed at AKL at least 4 times and have never detected an unpleasant odor anywhere. There is a delicious aroma when you walk into the lobby. It's either from the fireplace or the spices and woods used in Boma and Jiko. My family won't stay anywhere else. Every time we walk through the doors into the lobby we take it all in and just stand there with stupid grins on our faces.

I wouldn't say it was unpleasant but it was definitely unusual. It wasn't a smell that I would call delicious and it wasn't the same smell as in the lobby. I wonder if it was because we had a savannah view room? Interesting.

Love it keep it coming

Thanks! Working on more...

Love the MK night photos! Were always so tired by night fall to go back to a park but next trip were going to try really hard to go at night!

Thanks! You really should try to get to a park at night. It's like a whole new world!

Loving the TR, Ashley!!! I'm also so happy to see you back to photographing trash cans. I've found myself doing the same thing with light fixtures. It gets kind of addicting when you start taking pics of these little details Interesting that you guys had a strange aroma in your AKL room. We stayed there back in September and we had no odd odors that we noticed in our room. We were also on the same level as the lobby, but I think we were facing Uzima savannah/Greater Kudu trail. Glad to see that the bedspreads are gone in those rooms.

Congrats on your new house! Can't wait to read more!!!

Thanks for reading! Ooh, light fixtures is a good one. I love the little details in WDW. Interesting that your room didn't have an aroma. I've heard from one person who knows what I'm talking about and two who don't. Maybe it was the room location. Maybe they have different smells. I'll have to stay there again to see.

Thank you! Adding more in a moment.

I am going in May and could not be more excited to use the Tangled theme bathrooms!!!! Its an attraction itself

Those Tangled bathrooms are the COOLEST!

bummed you weren't a huge fan of the noodles...that's my go-to dish there!!! The pot stickers are a really good app at Kona definitely try those next time!!!! And I noticed too all the times I've been to Kona it's always been really fast! Great service I guess! haha

I have to agree with you on the MSEP...not a fan of it, I miss Spectro too!

I know...I saw in your report that you loved them and I just wasn't impressed. I'll have to try the pot stickers next time.

I hope they bring Spectro back soon. I miss that song! Good thing I have it on my phone so I can listen whenever I want.

Your pics are spectacular!!

Thank you so much!

Liked looking at your most recent trip report back to WDW. Glad to hear that your in your new house now. Since you just went to WDW are you still going in October? We can't wait to enjoy our trip. Hope you had a great time and are enjoying life.

Thanks Bruce! Yes, we are still going in October and we are actually going in 17 days too! We got a little out of control this year with the trips. We won't be able to do this for long so we might as well enjoy it while we can. I hope you all have a great time on your trip!

Still loving the pictures!

Thank you!

Good times! I love your goof-ball photo series-es! Totally something I would do!

I love taking funny pictures. It's fun to be a goof ball sometimes!

still love your TR! Especially the nighttime pictures!! Keep on going

Thanks for following along!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Thursday, March 6th – Four parks in One Day! We think we can! We think we can!

Today we got a slightly later start than we were hoping for. We had a long day yesterday and I just couldn’t get myself up and out of bed, which is unusual for me when I am in WDW. We were going to all four parks today and the forecast was calling for rain. Boo. I finally got up out of bed and we got ready for our busy day today. The “rules” we had today for doing all four parks was that we went on at least one attraction and ate something in each park.

View from our balcony this morning

The first park we were going to today was Animal Kingdom. Luckily, we caught a bus minutes after arriving at the bus stop and arrived to the park a few minutes before its 9am opening. As soon as we arrived, the raindrops started.

Since it looked like it was going to rain all day, we decided to go ahead and buy some Mickey ponchos. It would turn out to be the best $8.95 we spent all day. After picking up our ponchos, we made our way to Asia to ride Expedition Everest. We had a FP+ to use between 9-10, which wasn’t really needed but it was nice to not have to rush to the queue.

Hahaha The ponchos really make the picture

After EE, the rain was coming down harder. We decided to head over to Africa to grab some breakfast and then go on a safari.

I love croissants. Mmmm. So good.

We had a FP+ for the safari but it wasn’t for another 30 minutes and we didn’t feel like waiting. The wait time for standby was 20 minutes but we really didn’t mind waiting since the queue is covered from the rain. We ended up lucking out and getting a row in the Jeep all to ourselves.

ADORABLE

Look at all of those giraffes

I spy a lioness

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

We had a really great safari and saw a ton of animals! The giraffes were so close to our jeep and one of them even started running. It was really cool. We had one more FP+ to use before leaving AK. We made our way to Dinosaur.

Hahaha I love Maggie’s face. She had a similar reaction on our last trip.

And with that, we were ready to head to our next park. We decided that we would get a picture in front of each of the park icons since we were going to all four parks today.

The ponchos add some extra flair to the picture, don’t you think?

We left AK at 11:05 and made our way to the next park, Hollywood Studios.

The rain continued but it gave a really cool vibe to the Tower of Terror.

We decided to go in the single rider line for RnR. The single rider line ended up taking forever. We weren’t too upset about it though because at least we were out of the rain.

Hey Maggie!

With that, we were hungry for lunch. On our last trip, we ate lunch at the Backlot Express and Maggie loved it. So that’s where we went today. Maggie ordered the grilled turkey and cheese sandwich and I went with my favorite, a hot dog.

After lunch we decided to head to one more attraction. A quick stop first to take a picture.

You are about to enter…the Twilight Zone

Once we emerged from the Twilight Zone, it was pouring outside! I mean, real torrential stuff. We decided to leave Hollywood Studios and head to the next park on our list, Magic Kingdom. We did our best to cut through every gift shop on the way out of the park but it didn’t do much good. My shoes were completely soaked and I had to take them off on our way to the bus stop. Of course the MK bus stop is one of the ones farthest away from the park entrance and one without a cover.

At least someone was enjoying the rain

It felt like the bus would never get there but really I think we waited about 5 minutes. The rain made it feel a lot longer. We arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 2:15. Luckily, the rain had let up and was now only sprinkling but we still needed the ponchos.

No hoods. We are making progress.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Our first attraction at the MK was Buzz. It was indoors and got us out of the rain. Sounds good.

I am so terrible at Buzz but Maggie was even worse. Hahaha We can never see the darn laser.

When we left Buzz, the rain had stopped! Woo hoo! Since the rain stopped, we decided to go on Dumbo.

And right before we boarded our elephant, the rain started again. Darn. This rain was really annoying today. So we went into Big Top Souvenirs to get out of the rain.

We made our way through the rest of New Fantasyland on our way to it’s a small world.

The ponchos really add to the shot.

I wish this had opened when we were there!

After IASW, we made our way through the Tangled restroom area to the Haunted Mansion. I just can’t get enough of this restroom area. So pretty.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

After HM, it was time for browsing in one of our favorites shops.

I somehow managed to resist and not buy a Christmas ornament this trip. I’m not sure how I did it but it was hard. (That’s what she said…Sorry, couldn’t resist. I love the Office).

It was time to get a snack. Popcorn sounded really good. First we wanted to get some pictures of the castle. You can never have too many pictures of the castle.

Nothing gets past these ducks

We strolled down Main Street enjoying our popcorn and made our way to our fourth and final park of the day, Epcot.

The rain finally stopped and we were able to put our ponchos away. We took the ferry to the TTC and then hopped on the Monorail.

We arrived at Epcot at 5pm. We did it! All four parks in one day!

I gotta admit, I’m kind of sad we weren’t wearing the ponchos in this picture.

We still had some exhibits left in our F&G passport to get stamped so we decided to check those out first.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Since we were close by, we decided to go Find Nemo.

Once we got to World Showcase, I wanted to stop at the Refreshment Port to get a croissant doughnut, aka a cronut. If you haven’t heard about these, they are all the craze right now. People line up for hours in New York bakeries to get them. When I heard that Epcot had one, I knew I had to try it.

O.M.G. AMAZING! It was delicious. I contemplated getting another one but there were other treats we wanted to try tonight so I resisted. If you love doughnuts and croissants, you MUST try this! I highly recommend.

We continued our journey around World Showcase to get more food from the F&G outdoor kitchens.

They made this out of sand. So cool.

We decided to try a bunch of different dishes that sounded good. We were going to switch off and each order one item and share. Maggie wanted to get the gnocchi from France so that was our first stop.

The dish was good. Not my absolute favorite but it was tasty.

I couldn’t resist

Our next dish was frushi from Japan. It was fruit made to look like sushi. I liked the frushi. It was very light.

After Japan, we went to America and got the Smoked Beef Brisket with Collard Greens and Jalapeno Corn Bread and Piggylicious" bacon cupcake with maple frosting and pretzel crunch featuring Nueske's Applewood smoked bacon.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

We were really excited for this food, especially the cupcake. The brisket was delicious and so was the corn bread but I didn’t like the cupcake. It sounded so good in the description but it didn’t live up to the hype in my head. I think the maple frosting was just too overpowering of a flavor that you really couldn’t taste anything else.

We were getting pretty tired after our long day so we finished our tour around World Showcase with a ride on Maelstrom. Before we left World Showcase, there was one more outdoor kitchen I wanted to try, Pineapple Promenade.

We got the Dole Whip soft serve with Parrot Bay Rum. Yum. It was a great treat to end our tour of all four parks.

I wanted to stay for IllumiNations but Maggie didn’t feel up to it. We were going to see it tomorrow night so I didn’t mind heading back to the resort. Before we left though, I wanted to stop at MouseGear to find a sweatshirt.

I totally should have bought this dress.

I didn’t buy the dress but I did find a sweatshirt that met all of my criteria. Sweet.

I also bought a Vinylmation. I decided to go ahead and open it on the bus. I ended up getting the one I wanted!

Yay! Mr. Pricklepants!!

We got back to the resort and decided that a swim in the pool sounded really nice after a long day in all four parks. It was a little chilly to be swimming but we did it. The pool felt nice but we really wanted to get in the hot tub. Sadly, everyone else also had that idea and it was way too crowded for my liking. So we called it a night and got to bed at a reasonable hour.

Overall thoughts on doing all four parks in one day – We had a great time going to all four parks in one day but I am in no hurry to do it again. It’s one of those bucket list items that I am glad to say I did it but I don’t need to again. If someone else asked me to go with them, I would probably say sure but for now I’m good. We used Disney transportation all day and we really didn’t have to wait that long for any of the modes of transportation we used. We really lucked out.

Up next: A much more relaxed day, with only two parks.

 

[LisaBelle]

All four parks in one day sounds like so much fun! My sister and I are planning a trip in 2016 and I think I could convince her to try it! The cronut looks delish. I have been dying to try one since I heard about the craze. Glad it didn't disappoint!