Trip Report Mooooooooove! An Irma-centric first Disney trip

gdisneyfans · Sep 22, 2017

Thank goodness you got a flight out before Irma! I mean who doesn't want extra days at Disney, but when the financial piece has you stressed out, that definitely is no fun

So happy you were able to switch things around!

ScarletBegonias · Sep 22, 2017

I am just loving this report so far! E is just precious and reminds me a lot of my DD when she went the first time. She was 15 months! She's been 3x now and she is a DISNEY FREAK! Always asking to go back!

I cannot imagine the stress of having Irma pushing in on your vacation. I would never be able to afford several more nights in Disney so I don't blame you for cutting the trip short!

clarabellej · Sep 23, 2017

rag88 said:
Jambo everyone!

I'm sure there will be many Irma-impacted trip reports to come in the next few days, but I wanted to get started in sharing my story so that you all can join along for the ride. :welcome:

Our trip was booked many, many months ago when a certain company released a set of really good deals for vacations around Labor Day. I am a life-long Disney addict living in St. Louis, and my husband and I have been to Disney 4 times in our 5 years of marriage, plus a cruise on the Dream. But it had been about 2 years since our last trip ... for a very good reason. Our beautiful daughter, who I'll call E! Neither of us has ever stayed anywhere other than value resorts, and we are typically rope drop to park close type of people. We play the FP+ game, we "walk briskly" from ride-to-ride, and we collapse in our beds at the end of the day. But we knew this first trip with our 19-month-old daughter would be very different! So we took advantage of the great deal and booked our first DELUXE stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge. My husband is a stay-at-home-dad, so even with the great deal we got, this vacation was a bit of a stretch for our budget - and that will come into play later when we had to decide how to handle our friend (enemy) Irma.

Here's our crew on the happiest bus on earth:
View attachment 228620

Our original plan was to fly in on Tuesday, 9/5. We'd hit the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, EPCOT on Thursday for Food and Wine, Animal Kingdom on Friday, then use our free water park ticket at Typhoon Lagoon on Saturday followed by enjoying the resort. And then we'd fly back on Sunday afternoon, 9/10. I'm a data analyst, so you can bet that every day was planned meticulously in order to ensure maximum vacation enjoyment And of course, Irma did her best to try to ruin all of those plans.

I'm still in the middle of editing all of our pictures (somehow managed to take over 900 of them in just three full park days!), so I'll end this for now and be back tomorrow with information about our first travel day. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions about traveling with a little one, the lead-up to Irma, or anything else! Thanks for following along!

Day One: 9/5/2017

Part One: "A-Pain"
Part Two: "Heigh Ho"

Day Two: 9/6/2017

Part One: "Castle"
Part Two: "Off!"
Part Three: "BOOM"

Day Three: 9/7/2017

Part One: "Mittey"
Part Two: "Baboff"
Part Three: "Babies!"
Part Four: "Sim, Sim, Sim"

Day Four: 9/8/2017

Part One: Hurricane Happenings
Part Two: "Isp!"

rag88 said:
Day Two, Part Two: "Off!"

Whenever anyone asks E about her Disney trip, she immediately points to her hair and exclaims, "Off!" The centerpiece of our afternoon was her first haircut at the Main Street Barber Shop - but let's not get ahead of ourselves ...

First we got to get some lunch at Be Our Guest! Jeff and I had been here for dinner on a previous trip, but this was our first lunch experience.
View attachment 229624

Pro Tip: I'm not sure this even qualifies as a "pro" tip, but we saw TONS of people with reservations that had to stand in a significantly long line to place their BOG lunch orders. Just order online prior to arriving, folks! It's easy, you get to take your time to make your decision, and you get to bypass that line and go straight to your table.

For this meal, Jeff got the Croque Monsieur ($13.99) and I got the Braised Pork ($16.99). We each shared some things with E and supplemented with snacks we brought in the saddle bag for the stroller. The Braised Pork is definitely a good value - lots of meat. That being said, the description online doesn't mention any peppers, but it was well-laden with red peppers. If you're not a pepper fan, you may want to stay away. The Croque Monsieur was a bit disappointing - it was more like a nice grilled cheese than anything else. We also all split The Master's Cupcake ($4.99). Jeff and I were given the grey stuff during our dinner since it was our anniversary, and we liked it so we wanted to try some again. The cupcake really isn't the same stuff, and I think we were all a little let down by it. But we'd probably still order it again if we come back

After lunch, we exited into a major downpour. We were expecting lots of rain every day of our trip, so we had come prepared with ponchos. We had a little bit of familial contention because we didn't purchase a rain cover for our stroller - we just brought another poncho for it instead. But, we hadn't thought ahead about how to secure the poncho to the stroller, so our stroller was getting SOAKED, right before we wanted to put E in it for her stroller nap. Eek. But we left it where it was and trudged along to Little Mermaid. It was chilly since we were wet, but E likes that movie (as any redhead girl should), so we had fun. By the time we exited the ride, the downpour was over and we made it back to our stroller. As Jeff was removing the poncho and trying to dry things out as best he could, E passed the time saying "splash!" and playing in the puddles on the ground. It's the little things in life ...
View attachment 229625

We re-applied sunscreen (we're pale, pale folk) and stuck E in her stroller with the sunshade pulled and the fan running. Jeff and I had FP+ for 7DMT (neither of us has been), so we strolled that way. E was out before we even got there, and that was less than a 2 minute walk! Score! Jeff and I knew this vacation was going to be focused on E and what she wanted to do (as it should be), but there were a couple of rides that we had never been on and had height restrictions, so we agreed to make one FP+ per day for one of those height-restricted rides. Minimal time away from E, and it let us do our must-tries. After we both rode 7DMT (we could've each done it twice with rider swap, but it wasn't *that* great), we meandered and let E get her beauty sleep. The best beauty sleep happens under a castle, right?
View attachment 229626

I really wanted E to see Festival of Fantasy, and we had never seen it either, but she was still asleep. Since the crowds were so low, E and Jeff strolled in circles near the hub/Crystal Palace, and I quickly ran up when the parade was passing. It was fun! Especially love the Tangled and Merida floats. As soon as the parade was over, E woke up (napped for *almost* an hour and a half) and it started to drizzle again. Crowds were beginning to pick up a little, so we decided to head to Tom Sawyer's Island. I hadn't "wasted" time here in many, many years, but had seen it suggested as a good place to avoid some drizzle. It was the best decision!
View attachment 229627

Pro Tip: If your littles are just in that toddling stage, head to TSI. They get bored of being in the stroller, and your arms/back get tired of carting them through lines. TSI is a GREAT place that they can run around and not worry about being run into/over. And all of the trees do provide great cover from a light drizzle.
View attachment 229628

I think we could've stayed here for hours, honestly. E was seriously enjoying her freedom, and it felt like there were maybe 10 other people on the whole island with us. It definitely isn't our typical Disney touring style, but where else in a Disney park are you going to find scenes like these were you can't even hear another person? Amazing.
View attachment 229629

After E's nap we had all been feeling a little worn down and tired, but the trip to TSI really refreshed us and kept us going. We eventually did have to come back to the mainland, though - for a VERY important appointment!
View attachment 229630

Since you've been seeing our pictures, you already know that E definitely wasn't in *need* of a haircut, but she was born with a total baby mullet, so I justified the first haircut expenditure by saying it'd be so much better if we could even her out a bit. Plus, Disney folks are experts at entertaining kids and giving first haircuts, and E never sits still, so we surely needed some experts. I mean, check out the pure joy on that kid's face.
View attachment 229631

What a smart move! This is one of those memories that we'll have forever and ever. The actual haircutting lasted less than 5 minutes, and she really only took off about half an inch in a couple of places, but E obviously remembers it more than any other part of the trip, and Mama and Dada both count this as a highlight too. It's just one of those unique things that most people in the general public don't even know about. The price is seriously reasonable considering the exceptional service and that you get an embroidered ear hat (because, come on, we were going to buy one for her anyway).

View attachment 229632
We had such a fun time, it didn't eat up much time in our day at all, and E's baby mullet is at least slightly more even now. :rotfl2: And, you've probably noticed that E doesn't smile in pictures, like at all. She's a very serious studious little soul, but when the PhotoPass photographer grabbed my camera to take some pictures of all of us after the cut, E was so happy with her life, we actually grabbed this:
View attachment 229633

Seriously! That's the best family photo I think we've ever gotten, and we've had professional pictures taken 3 times in E's 19 months of life.

That brings us to about 4:15 during our MK - so several hours to go, assuming we make it all the way to HEA! Next up was the chance to show off E's new look to the Main Mouse himself!

Really

rag88 said:
Jambo everyone!

I'm sure there will be many Irma-impacted trip reports to come in the next few days, but I wanted to get started in sharing my story so that you all can join along for the ride. :welcome:

Our trip was booked many, many months ago when a certain company released a set of really good deals for vacations around Labor Day. I am a life-long Disney addict living in St. Louis, and my husband and I have been to Disney 4 times in our 5 years of marriage, plus a cruise on the Dream. But it had been about 2 years since our last trip ... for a very good reason. Our beautiful daughter, who I'll call E! Neither of us has ever stayed anywhere other than value resorts, and we are typically rope drop to park close type of people. We play the FP+ game, we "walk briskly" from ride-to-ride, and we collapse in our beds at the end of the day. But we knew this first trip with our 19-month-old daughter would be very different! So we took advantage of the great deal and booked our first DELUXE stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge. My husband is a stay-at-home-dad, so even with the great deal we got, this vacation was a bit of a stretch for our budget - and that will come into play later when we had to decide how to handle our friend (enemy) Irma.

Here's our crew on the happiest bus on earth:
View attachment 228620

Our original plan was to fly in on Tuesday, 9/5. We'd hit the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, EPCOT on Thursday for Food and Wine, Animal Kingdom on Friday, then use our free water park ticket at Typhoon Lagoon on Saturday followed by enjoying the resort. And then we'd fly back on Sunday afternoon, 9/10. I'm a data analyst, so you can bet that every day was planned meticulously in order to ensure maximum vacation enjoyment And of course, Irma did her best to try to ruin all of those plans.

I'm still in the middle of editing all of our pictures (somehow managed to take over 900 of them in just three full park days!), so I'll end this for now and be back tomorrow with information about our first travel day. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions about traveling with a little one, the lead-up to Irma, or anything else! Thanks for following along!

Day One: 9/5/2017

Part One: "A-Pain"
Part Two: "Heigh Ho"

Day Two: 9/6/2017

Part One: "Castle"
Part Two: "Off!"
Part Three: "BOOM"

Day Three: 9/7/2017

Part One: "Mittey"
Part Two: "Baboff"
Part Three: "Babies!"
Part Four: "Sim, Sim, Sim"

Day Four: 9/8/2017

Part One: Hurricane Happenings
Part Two: "Isp!"

Really loved your trip report!!! Glad you were able to enjoy your 1st Disney family visit despite Irma.

rag88 · Sep 23, 2017

gdisneyfans said:
Thank goodness you got a flight out before Irma! I mean who doesn't want extra days at Disney, but when the financial piece has you stressed out, that definitely is no fun So happy you were able to switch things around!

Exactly. After everything was over and Orlando was mostly fine, there was some regret because the resort entertainment offerings on Sunday looked spectacular and it could've been one of those "I Was There When ..." moments. BUT, safety is number one priority in all natural disaster type situations, and it really allowed me to enjoy Friday with E.

ScarletBegonias said:
I am just loving this report so far! E is just precious and reminds me a lot of my DD when she went the first time. She was 15 months! She's been 3x now and she is a DISNEY FREAK! Always asking to go back!

I cannot imagine the stress of having Irma pushing in on your vacation. I would never be able to afford several more nights in Disney so I don't blame you for cutting the trip short!

Aw, glad you're along for the ride. We probably won't be back to Disney for another couple of years, so I'm hugging onto these memories until E's next trip

clarabellej said:
Really loved your trip report!!! Glad you were able to enjoy your 1st Disney family visit despite Irma.

Don't worry - there's still more to come! We have most of an AK day left, plus our SUPER long travel day, including the awesome Boma breakfast.

Minnesota disney fan · Sep 23, 2017

I think we can all see our children when they were young in your photos. Thanks for the memories. Our "children" have children of their own and we were lucky enough to see the wonder of Disney all over again with them

Seeing your daughter enjoying the wonder of Disney is a joy. So glad you got out of Disney before the storm. The deserted parks look spooky and awesome at the same time. What memories you have made

75disney · Sep 23, 2017

I've been in a deserted MK the day before a hurricane hit (late 70s). It is an awesome experience (except for the hurricane part of course).

kimberlymautz · Sep 24, 2017

It stinks that you had some cranky CMs at the resort, but I'm glad those at AK seemed to make up for them! I can't imagine how stressed out everyone would have been.in that situation!

rag88 · Sep 25, 2017

Minnesota disney fan said:
I think we can all see our children when they were young in your photos. Thanks for the memories. ... Seeing your daughter enjoying the wonder of Disney is a joy...

I value this feedback so much - it actually made me tear up a little. So happy I could help with your joyful memories, and actually writing the report is really helping me to look back and see everything in such a positive light after all of the stress that I was worried would "ruin" the magic.

75disney said:
I've been in a deserted MK the day before a hurricane hit (late 70s). It is an awesome experience (except for the hurricane part of course).

Exactly! Other than the hurricane, hurricane-mode Disney is pretty awesome. Ha!

kimberlymautz said:
It stinks that you had some cranky CMs at the resort, but I'm glad those at AK seemed to make up for them! I can't imagine how stressed out everyone would have been.in that situation!

Exactly - I tried to take cranky CMs with a grain of salt and think about how I would've been acting if I was worried about my family and/or my home and was having to deal with folks whose worries were about vacations and not livelihoods. The CMs that were still upbeat and happy were definitely going above and beyond.

rag88 · Sep 25, 2017

Day Four, Part Three: Oofs

Our Friday was already going very well - we had visited Pandora and seen quite a few animal friends. Next up was our (admittedly worthless) Safari FP+. I say worthless, because we walked right on, along with everyone that didn't have a FP+. We expected E to love this ride because the scenery is constantly changing, but she was actually pretty bored by it. I guess she used to the whole zoo set-up where you walk up to an look-out, find the animal and move on? To her it seemed like the train at the MK - just another form of transportation, so she didn't quite get it. We had thought about immediately going on this again because Jeff and I love it (we've even done the Wild Africa Trek in the past), or at least coming back and doing the sunset version, but we quickly decided it would be a one-and-done for this trip. We saw all of the normal wildlife, so I'll just share a couple of pictures. First, a cute baby pelican!

He's so fluffy ... And of course the normal pose for the lions. They lead a difficult life.

After the safari, we caught another view of the gorillas. They were more active this day than I've seen them before, so we spent a few more minutes watching them walk around and find things to munch on.

Jeff had never been to Rafiki's Planet Watch, and I hadn't been for years and years and years. But we knew that it had the Affection Section, and thought that was something E would enjoy, so we hopped on yet another mode of transportation

This was a great decision. There's not much back in this part of the park, and it does eat up some time to get there and back with the train ride and various necessary walking paths. But, it was even MORE deserted than the rest of the park, which meant E got to wander and roam and be in charge of where we went and what we did for a while. In general, we did more of the E-led touring this day than any other day, and it was obvious that she blossomed when she was allowed to be in charge. Ha. So, even though I'm a rigid touring plan follower, I now realize there's something to be said for being flexible and following the whims of a 1.5-year-old. E quickly made a Rafiki friend.

When we got to the main building, it was practically empty. E saw Doc McStuffins in her little set-up to one side, and got really excited and wanted to go over there. I was admittedly confused because that girl has never seen or heard of Doc McStuffins before in her life (Disney Junior was not part of her pre-Disney training

. But since we were letting her be in charge, I let her wander that way. Doc McStuffins started waving at her, and E ever-so-politely totally ignored her and bee-lined for the little houses at the side of the meet set-up, saying "Oof! Oof!". Background: E got a little indoor playhouse for Christmas last year, and my brother-in-law sometimes puts her on the roof of the playhouse, and she thinks it's the most hilarious thing ever. So now she is obsessed with roofs, and wants to climb on them.

Doc was very confused, so I quickly explained that E likes roofs, and then Doc caught on and told E all about how her animal friends sleep in those little houses, while E continued to ignore her and tried climbing on the tiny roofs. :joyfull:

After our unique Doc encounter, we headed to the Affection Section, where E was the only person under the age of 25 in the enclosure. She could pet/brush whoever she wanted! She mostly gravitated toward Sheldon (awesome name) - an incredibly tall and friendly goat.

The CMs here were again very friendly. One of them came over to us and said something like, "Isn't this so exciting? I bet she's never been able to touch a pig before!" I had to inform him that we were from Missouri and actually have family friends with a pig farm, so she had touched pigs before, and had just fed some goats from her hand 2 days before we left for Disney ... ha. Poor guy didn't have much to say after that, but E had fun hanging out with the animals. Unfortunately, there's not much shade over this area, so we quickly started over-heating and opted to head back to the mainland

Once we rode back, it was about 11:30. We usually eat lunch around this time in the parks because it typically just barely beats the lunch rush. Since it was right by the train station and we hadn't tried it before, we headed to Harambe Market. This was such a good move. The area is very shady, somewhat removed from the chaos of the park (if you happen to attend on a chaotic day), and with lots of fans to keep the air moving. Plus, the food is different than what you get a typical pizza-chicken-burgers park restaurants, but still approachable. Now that our budget worries were out the window, we were able to get whatever we wanted, and even got a kids meal for E! (Side note: I had pre-calculated based on which restaurants we would likely be going to how much food money we would need for our original trip, and we bought Disney gift cards from Target with our 5% discount to cover that amount, so now we had a LOT more left on our gift card than we would actually need since we switched from Boma dinner to Boma breakfast, and would be losing a whole day of planned meal expenses).

This food was delicious. Jeff and I split the Beef and Lamb Gyro Flatbread ($10.99) and the Beef and Pork Sausage ($9.99). The sausage is *basically* a corn dog, but Jeff doesn't like corn dogs, and he loved this. Each entree comes with the same sides, so we asked for the entree only on the sausage, but got two sets of sides anyway. The sides are ... different (Green Papaya Slaw and and Black-Eyed Pea Salad), but they are cool and refreshing, so go out on a limb and try them. E had the Chicken Skewer. We were really excited because we had been struggling to get her the normal amount of vegetables that she eats in a day. Most times kids meals at Disney offer applesauce as their "healthy" side, which is fine, but Harambe had broccoli and carrots as options, so we got her those.

Can you tell I'm a foodie now? Almost half of this post at this point is dedicated to our lunch. Ha! But it was a major life event because E got to discover the joys of food on a stick.

Pro Tip: Try Harambe Market while in Animal Kingdom. It's relaxing, a change of pace from other Disney restaurants, but still approachable and with good kids meal options.

While E was finishing up her chicken-on-a-stick, I sent Jeff across the path to Zuri's Sweet Shop to get us some desserts to share. He knows that E and I love anything chocolate, so I trusted him to pick out good stuff for us. He comes back with a bag and says, "Get your camera out before I take dessert out of the bag." Oooooooookaaaaaaayyyyyy... so I get my camera out and snap a picture of this:

Ha! He was hoping it would be bigger than her face, and it mostly was. Maybe now instead of referring to her as E, I can refer to her as Cookie Face

Honestly, this was a pretty good dessert choice. The cookie itself was a little on the dry side, but the chocolate coating compensated for that. It was a LOT of food, and we struggled to finish all of it. Such a struggle

After lunch it started drizzling, which actually felt pretty good ... but I got one of those "it's going to unleash" feelings, and we headed under the covering for the Tusker House check-in. Just was we got under, a legitimate downpour started. It only lasted about 5 minutes, but we were glad we were protected and didn't have to get our ponchos out. When the sun peeped back out, we headed along to our next stop. That was the only time it rained that day - hooray!

I think I've explained before that we prepared E for this Disney trip by getting her the Disney Encyclopedia of Animated Characters. She takes after her Mama, and studied that thing hard and could name almost every one of the 150 characters in there (even Basil from the Great Mouse Detective!). Then we brought it with us on this trip to use as her autograph book when she actually met the characters. That way she had a familiar picture of them to go along with the less-familiar in-person version of them. This worked out VERY well. You also know that E's favorite character, by far, is Kristoff. And on the page opposite Kristoff in this book is John Smith (it's alphabetical). E calls him "Smiff" and hadn't even ever seen his movie - we've since addressed that issue

But also on that page is a picture of Pocahontas, who E calls "Hanas". Because of that very random association, she had been asking to see "Hanas" all week. After the downpour, we were finally able to fulfill her request!

After all of that excitement, it was time for E's stroller nap for the day ... but did I mention she was in charge today? She really took that to heart ... to be continued in my next chapter!

rag88 · Sep 26, 2017

Day Four, Part Four: Bums

After we met "Hanas", it was a little after 1, so the plan was for E to take her stroller nap. Well ... girlfriend was in charge today, and was not feeling the nap situation. OK ... where to burn off some toddler energy? Somewhere I've never actually visited:

I had planned on spending some time here at some point during the day because I knew from our Tom Sawyer Island experience that E would enjoy having some freedom and running around and being a kid, so I figured now was as good a time as any. This would be pretty much our only activity in the Dino area of AK. Something I didn't consider was that after the *very* brief downpour around 12:30, nearly everything in the Boneyard was closed! We literally had passed CMs wiping down benches on our walk over here, but no one was making any effort to wipe down slides so that the area could open back up *shrug*

Nevertheless, E had a great time literally dragging her Dada all around the place (you can see some of the closure signs in this picture too).

Thankfully, E has a sixth sense for dirt/rock/sand pits, and had dragged her Dada over to this one pretty quickly. And that's where we spent the next 6 hours ... I'm only kidding, but we totally would have if E had her way.

This girl loves dirt. We take her to the playground/park near our house about 3 or 4 times a week when the weather is nice, and she always spends at least half of the time digging through the dirt and rocks around the playground with her fingers. We never saw another little girl in this area. Ha. And at its most crowded, there were 2 other little boys in there with her. At one point we had the whole pit to ourselves. E is an only child, and stays at home with Jeff all day, so her only interaction with other kids is at church once a week. As a result, she can be a little ... "independent". Not great on sharing (but getting better). She calls herself "Neenee", and her interactions with other kids generally involved her running up to them and yelling "NEE NEE" right into their face. Sometimes it seems like she's trying to introduce herself - but most-times she's laying claim to whatever/wherever she is and declaring that it is HERS and no one elses. *sigh*

All of that to say, at one point a little British boy came into the pit to play. E walked over near him, very politely sat down next to him quietly, and started to help him fill up his buckets. I was a proud Mama!

Until about 2 seconds after I snapped the picture, when the little boy looked right at me and said, "I don't need her help." :cry:

I told him that it did look like he was doing an excellent job by himself, but I was sorry because she is little and would probably still try to help. Ha!

Eventually we convinced E that we could all move on with our lives. Jeff and I had taken the chance to reapply sunscreen while E was content in the pit, but we had to de-pebble and re-sunscreen her. I took her into the nearest restrooms (should've gone to a Baby Care Center - shucks!), literally stripped everything off of her, including diaper, and shook everything out. Reapplied diaper, clothing, and then slathered her in sunscreen. Phew. At that point she was thankfully exhausted enough that she didn't fight the stroller, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Jeff and I are big fans of several of the AK shows. Flights of Wonder is our favorite, but we always make time for Lion King and Nemo too. But ... throughout the trip it was obvious that E was at her best when kept busy and moving, so shows were pretty much out of the question. While we stroller napped her, I dropped the FP+ we had for Finding Nemo and picked up one for the Mickey/Minnie M+G, knowing she would enjoy that. Jeff and I considered doing Everest while E napped since it wouldn't break the spirit of our "only one non-E ride per day" rule, but it was so hot that we ended up strolling E round and round the big gift shop near the front of the park. The AC ensured that E stayed comfy, and therefore slept longer. It was also VERY calm and quiet in there that day.

Eventually E did wake up, and met our 4th and final Mickey of the trip. FP+ again a total waste because there was NO ONE in line - we walked right up. Thankfully, that also meant we got as long of an interaction as we wanted to have because no one else showed up even up through the time that we eventually left them!

We hadn't yet walked through the Maharajah Jungle Trek, so that was our next to-do. On our way we stopped for a frozen Coke because we were melting, and because we didn't have to worry about saving our monies anymore

At the start of the trek, we watched this lovely dragon guy for quite a while. It took me an embarrassing number of attempts to catch his tongue out in the picture.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but our girl E is obsessed with scents. Don't know why, but you can literally take her to a candle store and she will be entertained for over 30 minutes just picking out different candles and smelling them. Same goes for any flowers that she encounters anywhere. So when she found this one, she obviously had to bury her head in it and get a good smell.

After sniffing, she proclaimed, "Chocolate!" I had to take a sniff for myself, but I definitely didn't identify that same scent. :joyfull:

As you can see, the crowds were still very heavy throughout the trek:

Since the female tiger had just had cubs, none of them were in the enclosure, so it was a pretty disappointing tiger encounter. Still, we saw a lot of other animals and got more fun interactions with CMs. We still had about 45 minutes until our FOP FP+ opened up, and E spotted these drums (which she calls "Bums") and wanted to jam. Go for it, girl.

She had a blast and had all of the drums to herself for a pretty long period of time. Dada even decided to join in for a while:

Side note - look! That last picture actually had other people in it! We didn't have the entire park to ourselves! :jawdrop:

I think that's a good place to break for now - I'll be back tomorrow with the conclusion of our day at Animal Kingdom - as always, thanks for following along!

ScarletBegonias · Sep 26, 2017

So funny. We got our DD that very giant cookie from Zuri's too! She also LOVED playing in the Bone Yard and we were always thankful because after that she'd be exhausted!

I don't remember a sand/digging pit. Is that new?

Cetta · Sep 26, 2017

If you don't mind me asking....what exact Disney book (encyclopedia) does E have? I would love to get my daughter one for Christmas so she can learn all the Disney Characters too! thanks!

rag88 · Sep 26, 2017

ScarletBegonias said:
I don't remember a sand/digging pit. Is that new?

I don't know if it's new ... but I certainly didn't know about it. We happened upon it because E dragged us there

If you look at the map below, you have to go over the dinosaur skeleton bridge to get to it. It's separated from the rest of the Boneyard, but also fenced in so that you can't access it any other way.

Cetta said:
If you don't mind me asking....what exact Disney book (encyclopedia) does E have? I would love to get my daughter one for Christmas so she can learn all the Disney Characters too! thanks!

She has the "Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters". It fluctuates in price, but I think we paid about $8 for it on Amazon, and she has leafed through it enough that it's falling apart (it's high-quality, ours is just ... well-loved). Example page (with signature) below, and the best picture I can find of the cover. Ha. It was one of her Easter basket goodies earlier this year.

rag88 · Sep 27, 2017

Day Four, Part Five: Un! Un!

When we left off, we had finished entertaining the crowds with our wonderful drum playing. It was almost time for our FOP FP+, so we headed back to Pandora. The wait for the River Journey was still under 20 minutes, and we knew E would love experiencing it again, so we decided to buck up and wait in our longest line of the trip

This is actually where the title of the trip report comes in. As you can tell, we had really good luck with basically waiting in zero lines all trip. However, during the few times we were lined up for 5-10 minutes, E would start saying "Moooooooooove!". Not screaming it, not upset. Just saying it like she legitimately thought it might help things along. And if Jeff was holding her and I was in front, she'd push my shoulder and say "Moooooooooove!" Ha. Perhaps in her baby brain everyone was just being sillies and standing around, and someone just needed to politely remind them to move along so we could get on the ride. :joyfull:

Anyway, since this was the longest wait of the trip (it really did end up being just about 20 minutes), we heard lots of "Moooooooove!"

This time the Shaman was on-stage and working, and appropriately impressive

As soon as we got off, my FP+ was open for FOP. I loved it, just like everyone else in the world! The pre-show was annoying and long, but that's understandable with the way they ahve things set up. With my FP+ I was literally able to just walk up and immediately into one of the waiting chambers. I'll admit that I was ever-so-slightly disappointed with the Nav'i matching part. I legitimately thought they'd use some facial recognition software and create an avatar that resembled you. Oh well ... maybe in a future upgrade.

So, the was the day was originally planned, we were going to be sticking around until after dark. I had one FP+ for now (late afternoon), and one that was active 8pm-9pm. I figured we could both ride once with child swap now, and once late at night so we could experience Pandora after dark and see the Tree Awakenings. It was getting pretty apparent that E was wearing out from our 3 park days, though. We had had an awesome day, and didn't want to push our luck. I was disappointed, but we decided Jeff would ride FOP on child swap, we would release his later FP+ for it back into the wild, we would eat dinner and then head back to the lodge.

While Jeff was linking with his Banshee, E and I explored the area. I wanted a selfie with her, and I said, "Say Banshee!"

We had dinner at Satuli Canteen. I got a beef bowl with the hash, and Jeff got a chicken bowl with the rice. We also got the chocolate dessert. E shared with us and had some of her leftover chicken/broccoli/carrots from Harambe. I think these are overall a good value, and definitely pretty adventurous in their flavors and components. My beef wasn't over-cooked, which was good. But next time I would definitely order the rice rather than the hash.

After dinner, we made our way to the front of the park and onto a waiting bus. Our time in the parks was over :sad1: I made my way to the concierge desk to try to take care of a last few details. I first asked if we could move our Magical Express pick-up time forward by an hour. I know they pick you up 3 hours before your departure, but with the airport shutting down that day, I was worried it was going to be chaos, so I requested they pick us up at 11:40 for our 3:35 departure. That was fine and squared away. I asked at that point if the additional night (Sunday night) had been cancelled, but it hadn't. They said they would take care of it when I checked out in the morning. :confused3 I also asked if we could have late check-out and they said no because they needed all available rooms for people evacuating up from southern Florida. Totally understandable, but if you need the rooms that badly, why aren't you just cancelling my Saturday night and Sunday nights now instead of waiting until the morning? Oh well. While I was handling all of that, Jeff and E were hard at work ...

Someone's gotta watch those lobby movies, am I right? We headed up to the room to change into swimming gear and saw this guy right outside our window!

At this point it was drizzling, and we realized that the time we had budgeted for just exploring and enjoying the resort on Saturday afternoon/evening wasn't going to happen. So we called an audible and decided this was the night we were going to enjoy AKL to the fullest! And since this day had gone so well being E-led, we let her lead again. And boy, she had the time of her life running as fast as she could down those halls. It was so much fun to watch her run (Un! Un!) and explore.

I think people might think it's totally weird that one of my best memories of this trip is just a little girl going as fast as she can down some empty hallways. Ha. To be sure, her haircut and first view of the castle and meeting talking Mickey will all be important too. But hearing those squeals of delight and little giggles as she bolted down the hall just brought joy to my heart. It's the simple things in life that are the best, I think.

After running through many, many halls and exploring the gift store for a bit (plotting out purchases to make in the morning), we headed back outside. E was still enjoying making "splash" out of the residual puddles, which we gladly let her do.

We spent more time looking for wildlife at various locations, and got to talk to the CMs about how the animals would be housed and protected and cared for during the hurricane.

We eventually happened upon a cornhole set that no one was using. E, being the clever girl that she is, quickly figured out how to score points every time. Just run the beanbag over to the other side and stick it in the hole!

Eventually it got dark, so we headed to the Mara for some evening treats to bring back and enjoy on our balcony. I had the Zebra domes (naturally), and Jeff and E split an oreo cheesecake. We opened up the balcony, sat out there, peered through the darkness to see some animals resting, and really relaxed in the calm before the storm. Tomorrow we would have to leave our Disney bubble earlier than expected, but tonight was perfect.

I took a LOT of pictures of our lodge this night, but I think I may save those for an "Exploring AKL" type of post at the end of the report. Our next day was our marathon travel day with a flight from Orlando to Chicago followed by a 5-6 hour drive to the STL airport parking and another 30 minutes to home ... but first we had one more morning of magic

ScarletBegonias · Sep 27, 2017

AKL is an amazing resort. My DD did the same thing on our trip (15 months old). She just loved running up and down the hall ways!

rag88 · Sep 28, 2017

ScarletBegonias said:
AKL is an amazing resort. My DD did the same thing on our trip (15 months old). She just loved running up and down the hall ways!

That's great! It's definitely a relaxing place, but with plenty of areas to explore.

rag88 · Sep 28, 2017

Day Five: Nana (x2)

Our marathon travel day began with a fueling adventure at Boma. This was originally a dinner reservation for this same day, meant to fill us up after a day at Typhoon Lagoon. Thankfully, there were plenty of last-minute reservations available for breakfast, and that saved us some money anyhow. Our reservation was for 8:15, and the place was pretty stinking empty. It did eventually fill up closer to 9.

We were seated in an area totally by ourselves near the window, and E was appropriately impressed!

Explanatory side note: E has a banana for breakfast EVERY morning. She has since well before she turned 1. She loves those "nana"s. We didn't feed her a "nana" in the room because we were headed down to breakfast almost as soon as she woke up and drank her milk. As we were riding down in the elevator, she kept chattering about her "nana". Then as we were checking in, she made sure to talk to the CMs behind the desk about her "nana". Then as we met our server and placed our drink orders, she asked about a "nana". We went up to the buffet and built our first round of plates and ..... no bananas. They had fried plantains, but no just normal fruit selections. Ha! Jeff literally had to go all the way back up to our room to get a leftover "nana" to bring back down to E.

Pro Tip: If your kid eats something "normal" for breakfast every day, make sure you pack one with you even for a buffet breakfast. You never know what you may or may not find on the buffet line!

I don't have pictures of Boma food because I think people have seen plenty of them, but I really liked the Pap (although that name just makes me thing of ... other things) and the made-to-order omelet. And, of course, the bread pudding. Yum. Jeff and I were filled to bursting and very happy with our last Disney meal. We wandered a bit before heading back to our room to finish packing. Today hurricane preparations were obviously in full force. As a Missourian, I've never seen hurricane preparations before. I was pretty floored to discover they involved mostly plastic wrap and some rope! Even trash cans were plastic-wrapped to nearby poles.

Also, each door and outside-facing window had 4 or 2 sandbags by it. Maybe those more familiar with hurricanes than me could explain the low number of bags?

We stopped by the gift shop for some last-minute purchases. E still had about $30 of souvenir money that she needed to spend. I think I've mentioned before that Jeff and I had bought a LOT of Disney gift cards from Target to save about 5% on our vacation thanks to our Red Card discount. And I'm a planner/budgeter, so the amount on that gift card was pretty much exactly what we would've needed for our original vacation. which meant that by cutting a day off, we had a little over $100 left on our gift card too. We got E a drum and a maraca thing from the gift shop because she had been playing with them a lot, and we have a dedicated "music room" at our house with lots of instruments. So we know they'll get used in the future, and they'll help us all remember this trip and especially remember AKL. Jeff did get a small carved animal, but we didn't get anywhere close to using the balance of our gift card. We determined we'd just save it and use it for Christmas gifts online or something.

We got back to our room and I finished up the packing while E demonstrated her new-found AKL expertise:

Our check-out had to happen before 11, but DME wasn't until 11:40, so we headed down to the lobby where I checked us out. I was given an itemized receipt for our stay (we didn't charge anything to the room since we just used our gift card), which was to make sure that we got the refund we were due for the last night on our original reservation that we weren't using. The CM made sure to point out that we were due $230.63, and that we should be on the look-out for it in a week or so since Disney billing was likely going to be closed or under-staffed during/after the hurricane. I also made double-sure that they had cancelled our additional one-night reservation that was made earlier in our stay when we thought we'd be staying through the hurricane. She assured me it was taken care of. (Flash forward, it turns out it wasn't. They never cancelled it, but since I never checked in for it online or otherwise, it was automatically cancelled and "refunded" since Disney was giving 100% refunds for all no-shows during this time anyway).

Also, we had quite a bit of food left over in our room and mini-fridge. When we thought we'd be riding out the storm, we started rationing the snacks/provisions we had ordered through Prime Now. And since we didn't figure out until Friday that we were leaving Saturday morning, we didn't have time to eat through everything. We ended up with over a pound of grapes, over half a gallon of whole milk, 5 yogurt pouches, and 3 bananas left in our fridge. I asked at the front desk if we could somehow donate it to a family stranded at the lodge by flights or something, but they said no. I totally understand that - it's a food safety/health issue, but it made me feel bad that people were obviously scrambling for provisions that day and we were wasting a lot of food that we couldn't bring with us

Meanwhile, E was babysitting in the lobby.

Refund handling aside: We eventually did get our full refund, but it took a lot of proactive monitoring on our part. About 5 days after we got home, we got refunded $200 to my credit card. Called Disney billing and was told they weren't operational yet. But somehow a portion of my refund went through anyway? A couple of days later I did get through, and they explained that they can only refund to original form of payment. We had only paid a $200 deposit with the credit card, and paid for the rest of our reservation with gift cards. So the remaining $30.63 had to go on a gift card. But apparently that part of the refund somehow got stuck/lost and it wouldn't have happened if I didn't call. The lady I talked to said she'd put in a request to mail us a gift card for $30.63. 2 days later I got a call from Disney Gift Card Services asking if we already had a gift card with a balance (we did) because they were going to cancel that one and send us a new one with the total balance from the old card plus the $30.63. What? Why? I called back to ask if they could just add the $30.63 to our existing card number, and they said they could. So they did. :joyfull:

Also, we had two unused water park tickets. They were sort of a free perk of the group package we booked through the travel agent, so when we checked at the concierge desk, they said they couldn't refund that value. I decided to email guest services after our stay just to double-check the policy, and they sent us a voucher for two water park tickets that don't expire until 2034. Yay! Actually, it was a smooth move on Disney's part, because if they hadn't given us vouchers, we likely would've just skipped the water parks on our next trip. Now we have two free tickets, and by the time we go to WDW again, E will be over 3 so we'll be "forced" to buy an additional water park ticket to use our two "free" tickets. Sneaky ...

We hopped on our DME at 11:40 and we were the first stop. We also stopped by Pop and AOA, then were on our way to the airport. Our driver let us know it was the busiest, craziest morning they had ever had. There were so many flights added to MCO that morning it was crazy-packed and chaotic, but we were one of the last buses of the day thanks to flight timing and the airport shutting down. Thankfully, since we were one of the last flights, things had mostly calmed down by we got to the airport. We walked right up to the ticket counter, then got in line for security.

You know you planned your Disney trip right when the longest line of the entire trip is airport security ...

By the time we got through security, it was almost 2 pm and our Boma breakfast had finally worn off. We got some Chinese food in an eerily empty MCO. Lots of the food locations were shutting down imminently, and there generally just weren't many people around. There were only 3 more hours of flights departing, and even though planes were still arriving, there was no one on them - so only people headed to gates, no people headed the other direction. The airport also utilized the plastic wrap strategy for hurricane readiness!

Our flight was on time and we got to Midway (Chicago) around 5:30. My mom was stuck in some traffic trying to get to us, so we grabbed our bags, used the restroom, and headed out to wait for her. A little after 6 her car pulled up and E exclaimed, "Nana!" (that's her non-"Grandma" name). Appropriate for her day to start and end with Nanas, I think! Jeff agreed to drive home since mom had already logged a lot of driving time. Thankfully, she had just filled up on gas. We gave her our thank-you-for-rescuing-us present, which was a perch for the Banshee she bought during her Disney trip in June. We stopped for some dinner at Chick-Fil-A (we are Chick-Fil-A addicts), and then drove drove drove. E had a good time entertaining Nana in the backseat - my mom has a car seat for E in her car, thankfully - and eventually fell asleep around 8:30 (which felt like 9:30 to her little body still on Eastern time). We managed to make good time without stopping any times after dinner and got to St. Louis' airport parking (where our car was) at 11. E woke up when we transferred her from Nana's car to ours and was VERY awake. She stayed awake the whole way home. We knew she was tired (we were exhausted), but would likely need her bedtime routine in order to fall back asleep. Only problem with that was her bedtime routine involves drinking milk, and we had none at home. So at 11:35, we stopped by Walgreens by our house, got some milk, and headed home. Bedtime routine complete, we placed E in bed and collapsed in our bed. Our marathon was over! We made it!

I'll follow up soon with a summary post with my thoughts and some pictures of my favorite lodge ever - thanks so much for joining me on this journey!

mmnw · Oct 1, 2017

Great trip report! In terms of left over food, we've looked for families walking down the hall and stopped them to offer left over food. Everyone has always been so grateful and has accepted. Ours has been sealed.

12in12 · Oct 1, 2017

Thank you for sharing your wonderful trip with us. E is just the cutest and it was nice to follow along on her first trip!

slipperalwaysfits · Oct 1, 2017

Wow! I didn't catch this when you started but I had a lot of fun reading it all and felt like I was right there with your family!!!

What special memories for you for the first haircut and the teacups and her falling in love with Mickey!! Disney is amazing with the details sometimes, as evidenced by the pixie dust you took home from Main Street!

I'm so happy for you that you enjoyed/appreciated the cast member magic at AK!! E was lucky to have so many stickers!!! :inlove:

Man, I felt you with the budget/hurricane issues big time. DH and I are just starting out in our careers, so our budgets are pretty tight and we stay at values. Like you, we save up on gift cards all year, or sometimes longer, so we know how much money we have to spend. I love that you can pay off your trip online for a year or more in advance. It really helps us budget. I LOVE your idea of sharing food! Since food and wine fest food is expensive, I bet DH and I will share a lot. Like you, I don't like alcohol when it's really hot.

Did you and E make it to the chocolate center at F&W this year?
I loved the Prince Phillip story...my husband has learned their names diligently, but still isn't sure what more to talk about, lol.

Next time you go back, TSL will be open and E will be a perfect age! ESo here's hoping Kristoff does a M&G in HS and she loves TSL with her friend BZZZ!!!

It's funny what you remember on trips. So many things I remember about my family trips are the unexpected moments. I'm going to WDW in 13 days with Mom (who's never been) and I'm sure I'll remember riding the roller coasters with her, but I am looking forward to those unplanned moments with her, too. One time, we were in London and we were going to see a show (thanks to half price same day tickets at TKTS booth) and we grabbed yogurt and sandwiches and ate them on the steps of St. Martin's church. One of my favorite memories of a 3-week trip.

Trip Report Mooooooooove! An Irma-centric first Disney trip

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