Grimes Safari

From September 27th through October 4th my wife and I had the privilege of staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and experience the magic that is Disney. Here is part one of our trip report:

Sat. (Sept. 27)
We left Atlanta driving to Orlando. We got to the AKL about 4:30 PM and pulled up to the valet. Our room was ready and bell services took us up and gave us our keys and other items. We were staying at the Concierge level (room 5413). We went out to the balcony and took in the view that would be our first sight every day for the next week. The cattle and giraffes were out along with the zebras and other animals were out and about as well. We had 5:30 reservations at Boma so we headed down stairs and enjoyed the buffet. The variety of food was astounding. My wife tries to eat vegetarian whenever she can so the options she had were great. The desserts were wonderful (everyone was right on the Zebra domes) and while the restaurant was very noisy it was a great experience.

Now its off to the Magic Kingdom for Spectromagic and Fantasy in the Sky. We took the Disney bus to Epcot (the Magic Kingdom bus was full) and took the monorail to the TTC. From there we took the ferryboat to the Kingdom and enjoyed our evening. We skipped the 8:00 showing of Spectro and went and caught the Pirates of the Caribbean. Then we went and tried to find a spot to watch Fantasy in the Sky. We parked on the bridge to Adventure Land which turned out to be a mistake. There were some trees in our way that blocked part of our view of the castle and some of the fireworks. Overall the show was good, but from what I read Wishes will just blow it away. Then my wife and I parked ourselves in front of the castle for the 10:00 showing of Spectro. Great parade and a lot of fun to see all the kids excited about seeing the characters with all the lights. After the parade we went hung around the park for a while to let the crowd thin out a little. Then we hopped a bus back to the AKL to end our night.

 

[swordsman_24]

Grimes Safari Day 2

Sun (Sept 28)
We got up and headed up to the concierge lounge for breakfast. Then it was off to Epcot. We drove our car because we had left some of our camera equipment in the trunk. We got through security without any real issues and started our day. The first stop was checking out the waits for Test Track and Mission Space. The wait for Test track was already up to 30 minutes. We jumped over to the Journey to Imagination and caught the ride and then saw Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Then it was over to Mission Space. The ride was fantastic. My wife and I did feel a little queasy during the ride, but we recovered very quickly. Then we grabbed a fast pass for Test Track (they were already up to 6:05 PM), and then we headed off for lunch at the lounge in Japan. After some wonderful sushi we continued our World Showcase. Just for fun we tried to take a unique shot in each of the countries that would represent our world tour. We also got some great shots of the lizards that seemed to be everywhere in the miniature German village. Since the village is to scale the pictures make it look like dinosaurs are attacking a small alpine village. We caught the American adventure and worked our way back around to Test Track for our ride. Then it was off to the Rose and Crown for 7:50 Priority Seating. We lucked out and got a seat out on the patio for Illuminations. We had a very nice dinner (mmmmm fish and chips) and hung out waiting for the show to start. The view was great (but the canopy over the patio blocked our cameras from taking some shots). After the fireworks we hung out for a long time in the United Kingdom and Canada taking some night pictures. We had a lot of fun taking pictures and sobering up from our beers over dinner. We drove back over to the AKL and called it a night.

 

[swordsman_24]

Grimes Safari Day 3

Mon (Sep 29)
After another quick breakfast at AKL we headed toward the Magic Kingdom. After getting to the Magic Kingdom we headed toward Philharmagic. We walked right into the waiting area and had about a 5-minute wait before the show started. The show was great. It had all the elements of a great 3D movie at Disney and looked really good as well. I think it may be some of the best 3D animation that I have seen Disney do for a movie. After hitting Philharmagic we toured the rest of Fantasy Land and made our way over to Liberty Square, Adventure Land, and Frontier Land. We then swung back through Fantasy Land and caught Pooh (it was not running when we were there earlier in the day). Then it was on to Tomorrow Land. We caught Alien Encounter one last time and then hit Buzz and Space Mountain. We also caught the Share a Dream Come True parade for the first time. It is really one of the better parades I’ve seen Disney do during the day. (The old Electric Light Parade still holds up as my all time favorite Disney parade.) I’m glad kept the parade around after the end of the celebration last year.

After we left the park we headed back to the AKL and ran a “quick” errand to pick-up some photography equipment for my wife. The Ritz camera outside the Florida Mall had everything we needed and was very helpful in getting us setup. (Thanks to Andrea at the concierge desk for helping us find the store and getting us directions.) Once we got back to the hotel it was time for dinner at Jiko. This was a very good meal. Our server (Shellie) was great and made some wonderful recommendations for wine parings and our entrée selections. My wife loved the bowl of grains and I had the monkfish. Overall this meal was one of the better ones that we had on our trip.

After dinner it was back to the concierge lounge for a nightcap and a snack.

 

[aim]

:sohappy: Sounds like great fun so far! Can't wait to read more!