Trip Report I Wanna Stuff Some Chocolate in My Face!

First and foremost, I want to thank Disney for a character I really relate to. Regardless of the fact that I don't love Frozen, Anna is a blessing. Trust me when I tell you I've tried my best to imitate Julie Andrews.

But unfortunately, I just can't be her. So it was nice when a princess came around that I could relate to. Anna is clumsy, silly, and frankly a bit weird... but that's what makes her great. I love that she's not perfect.

So anyway... I leave for Disney in two days. I cannot. wait. My goal is to post a few things while I'm there -pictures, small blurbs, etc.

This forum helped me a lot when I was counting down the days until I left. Hopefully I can help somebody else in return.

 

[IAmMoana]

October 28th (cont)
Animal Kingdom is my favorite park. I love being able to walk around and not really feel like you're in an amusement park. Kind of lose yourself for a while. Not to mention their focus on sustainability. I think the other three parks should move in the same direction. Did you know America alone uses about 5 million plastic straws each day? And most of them end up in the ocean. But I digress..
We step off the bus and take in all the sights and sounds. Animal Kingdom. We were finally here. On our way in, we swing by a photopass photographer. We split memory maker and decided we were going to make the most of it this trip.

The tree of life.. that beautiful, wonderful fake tree.. hello!

Skirting around it, we headed over for lunch. That crappy airport breakfast was a thought of the past. It was time for some real food. Flame Tree BBQ! C and I split the combo, M and K did the same. Then we got a side of onion rings to share along with the first alcoholic beverage of the trip -vodka orange lemonade.

Delicious. And plenty of food to share.

 

[kaitertot5249]

I think I have the same camera strap as you! Mine just a blue denim looking background not a black one.

Sounds like a great start to your trip!

 

[IAmMoana]

October 28th
After that, we headed over to our fast pass for Dinosaur. I remember loving this ride when I was a kid. It was a little upsetting to see how much less scary they made the Carnotaurus at the end. I was expecting C to be in for a real shock. But it's not even slightly frightening anymore.. I guess they're trying to be more family-friendly.

After Dinosaur, we saw that we didn't have much time before our Everest fastpass window was open. So we headed towards Kali to kill some time. But first a photopass.

I thought I remembered this ride having a pouch in the middle for bags. I also remembered not really getting wet. I was apparently wrong on both counts. Luckily my camera and our electronic were safe and it was warm out; no damage done.

 

[IAmMoana]

I think I have the same camera strap as you! Mine just a blue denim looking background not a black one.

Sounds like a great start to your trip!

Did you get it from amazon? That seems to be where I do all my shopping anymore.

 

[IAmMoana]

October 28th
Slightly wet, some more than others, we made our way to the Jungle Trek trails. We honestly didn't have a ton of luck with animals either of our animal kingdom days. Our timing was just a bit off.

Very regal.

I asked C to hold my camera for two seconds. And he gives me this gem. Well. Don't take pictures on other people's camera's that you don't want the whole world to see. Apparently his friends from work got a hold of it and now have several memes based off it. Totally not sorry.

 

[IAmMoana]

October 28th
After the trek, we did Everest. As one of my favorites, I was excited for C to experience it since he hasn't been to WDW in years. It was pretty fun experiencing things with him since he either didn't do them or didn't remember doing them when he was younger.

Once we hit up the dance party with the yeti, we went in search of something M saw on the internet. And the internet did not fail us. Coconut rum dole whip. Delicious. Just make sure you mix it or you'll get straight rum at the bottom.

After that, we went to one of my favorites. I requested this knowing it might be ending soon: Flights of Wonder. I have a weird relationship with birds. They terrify me. Like if a pigeon is coming near me when I have food, I can't handle it and start to panic. But I always go out of my way to see shows like this. Because they fascinate me at the same time.

There was a bit of a dodgy moment during the show where the owl would not fly to the stage. You know the time. It was when the bird was supposed to swoop down to the stage over the heads of the people with cameras. He was staring intently into the woods there for about 5 minutes straight. They tried everything from trying to break the owl's concentration to physically picking him up and turning him around. Eventually he found his way to the stage. But it took some time.

 

[IAmMoana]

October 28th
We had some time to kill after the show and before our dinner reservation so we took a quick detour to the tree of life to see It's Tough to Be a Bug. But first, a photopass..

There was a summer where ITtBaB was all my little brother wanted to do. Let me tell you: it gets pretty old pretty fast. But it was nice to see again since it was down for our last trip.
After the show, we headed to our dinner reservation. Rainforest Cafe was somewhat of a tradition in both mine and K's families. I remember going there often as a kid -but only to the one in Disney. C had never been. So when we were making our restaurant decisions, we picked there purely for nostalgic reasons. We weren't expecting the food to be great. But honestly, it was alright.. We were surprised at how much we really did enjoy this meal.

C with his dragonberry mule.

C's blue mountain chicken sandwich.

My Caesar salad. I also got a side of fries.
I think K got the ribs, steak, and shrimp trio and M got the steak and shrimp since they were on the dining plan. Both of them really enjoyed their meal.

 

[IAmMoana]

A bit of info on the dining plan:
C and I were also on the dining plan -but not for all of our stay. We ended up doing a split stay so we could take advantage of the 20% off room discount. So we had 2 nights (sat & sun) without the dining plan or 20% discount. The rest of our stay had both. I didn't add the dining plan for the first few days of our stay since we didn't have any expensive dining options. So. One of the things I'd like to cover for the later days is how cost effective the dining plan actually was.

 

[kaitertot5249]

Did you get it from amazon? That seems to be where I do all my shopping anymore.

I believe I did, it was a few years ago but most of my camera accessories are from Amazon!

 

[IAmMoana]

October 28th
After our dinner, it was finally time to head into Pandora. We had waited this long. But it was finally time..

Unfortunately, it was pretty dreary that first night. So my pictures didn't really turn out.
After spending some time walking around, we headed to our last fast pass of the day -Navi River Journey.

Yes -this ride was short. But the colors, the sounds, the shaman were amazing. It was pretty magical.

 

[IAmMoana]

October 28
After our ride, we walked around and explored a bit more at night.

In the store, I bought a pandora puzzle. I'm a huge puzzle person. I used to do them with my grandmother very often. I probably buy at least 5 or six new puzzles every year. When I was in the store in Pandora and saw these puzzles, I was struck with the idea that I had to have a puzzle from each park. I could even frame them and hang them together some day. Unfortunately, neither Hollywood Studios nor Epcot sell puzzles. I have a Star Wars puzzle I could easily use for Hollywood Studios... but what am I to do for Epcot?? I'm currently toying with the idea of just making one online, but the quality isn't always great there. Super disappointed.
Anyway. After exploring, we were getting pretty tired and it was raining a little. We stayed long enough to watch a tree of life awakening and started making our way to the front of the park. The original plan was originally to hop over to MK and watch HEA, but we were thinking they might cancel them with the weather conditions. So we decided to go see Yehaa Bob instead at 10:30. We got back, showered, aaaaannndd.. fell asleep immediately. I'm slightly upset we didn't get to see Yehaa Bob, but not upset we got the extra sleep. Especially with the long day we were heading for next.

Saturday wrap-up
Steps: 16,930
My favorite ride: Na'vi River Journey
C's favorite ride: Na'vi River Journey
Best meal: Flame Tree BBQ