Trip Report The 6 Parks, 4 Days, 26th Birthday Extravaganza- COMPLETED

Hello everyone! I’ve been back from Orlando for one week now, so I figured I might as well get this started (I miss it so much).

This is just the entry post, I’ll begin telling the tales of adventure later

 

[Tuvalu]

Magical express is legally bound by contract to transport guests only to the hotel where they have a reservation. Sorry someone gave Katie wrong information!

Trader Sams is only 21+ after 8 pm. Sadly children are allowed inside from opening, 4-8 pm.

 

[macefamily]

Great pics. Always enjoy seeing new photos from a trip.

 

[Princess Leia]

Magical express is legally bound by contract to transport guests only to the hotel where they have a reservation. Sorry someone gave Katie wrong information!

Trader Sams is only 21+ after 8 pm. Sadly children are allowed inside from opening, 4-8 pm.

Good to know about Trader Sam’s. If I go back later this year, I’ll keep that in mind

 

[Princess Leia]

Day 1: Friday, November 24th- Arrival Day, Part 10

Ohana... make way, make way...
It was late, we’d had a long day, but it was finally dinner time!

We were led to a table, and I was surprised at how fast the food arrived after that. We ordered waters and the pineapple drinks (blanking on what they were called right now)....
And hello gorgeous...

This was amazing, but not to be outshined, here came the salad which I could have stuffed my face with on an ordinary day:

Ack more food

The potstickers were amazing!!! So good. 10/10 foodies would recommend.

We instantly regretted not getting one of these to share between the 3 of us. Also, Josh had 2 cherries, I had 3, and Katie had 4, lucky her.

So, the chicken became my favorite protein of the night (even though the picture of it was not great). It was cooked to perfection.

The beef however, was a little too rare for my taste. I like my beef cooked medium, and this was pretty medium-rare (though the outside was deceiving).
..... annnnnd the shrimp

I love shrimp, but I do not love the casings. So that was disappointing.
I ended up eating more of the sides, because I wasn’t crazy about the protein dishes
Suddenly, music started playing, and I realized Happily Ever After was going to happen- and we’d get to see it!...

... kinda
The lack of view didn’t matter though, because I started crying during ‘Out There’. I blame the pineapple

And then it arrived... the most delicious bread pudding I had ever tasted.

Oh my gosh. So moist. So delicious. So wonderful.

 

[Princess Leia]

Day 1: Friday, November 24th- Arrival Day, Part 11

As we were enjoying our bread pudding, our fantastic waiter came out with leis...

And I got one in the shape of a crown! (Really just a lei doubled up).

Mickey ears I got a ‘Happy birthday, princess’ from one of the CMs and couldn’t stop smiling

We paid the check, and back on the monorail we went.

Hello Magic Kingdom

Where’s the bus to Pop? In the last possible bus pick up spot. Oh well. We got back to our room and were greeted by Erin. I gave her my extra lei so she could be included in our Day 1 adventures. And then it was time to sleep, we had a very early date with Animal Kingdom planned.

 

[Rebel Scum Mama]

Following along. Love all the pictures, esp the trees! Hate your friend missed Ohana, that stinks.

 

[Tuvalu]

Lapu Lapu

 

[Princess Leia]

So my database at work has been down for the past day... meaning I have nothing to do but update this report lol

Day 2: Saturday, November 25th

The alarm went off around 5:30, and surprisingly, Katie and I got up right away. Had to nudge Erin and Josh a bit, but we got into a routine for sharing the bathroom and sink.

Luckily, our room wasn’t too far from the bus stop. We arrived just as the first bus was leaving (around 6:15), but another bus wasn’t too far behind. I boarded the bus and... was not greeted. My pin! I had gotten so accustomed to hearing ‘Happy birthday’ that not hearing the greeting threw me off. I grabbed it out of my backpack and pinned it to my jacket.
It was foggy and humid. The temperature was actually pretty decent, but it looked like clouds were surrounding us. This will come back in a bit.

We made it!

I spy with my little eye...

The fog was absolutely perfect for the aesthetics of Animal Kingdom. I loved it.

In the herd of people walking to Pandora. If you weren’t interested in any of the Pandora attractions, then I’m sure you could literally ride everything else in the park 5 or 6 times in an hour.

And there it was. The embodiment of perfect rock work:

We were all in awe, but we couldn’t stop walking. We had FP+ for River Journey at 8, but it was now 6:50 and we had a line for Flight of Passage we had to find and wait in.

Finally we made it to the end of the line, and saw that the wait time for right then was 60 minutes. Not too shabby. Time was now 6:55, and while the park wasn’t technically open, they were definitely running FOP.

Impeccable theming everywhere

 

[fractal]

Boy, I would love to experience AK in the fog!

 

[prfctlyximprct]

First of all your beautiful! And I’m so happy to finally be reading the actual trip report!!! I remember your pretrip report fondly!

Ohana on your birthday is the absolute best! Love the Mickey ears! And staring into that photo of the bread pudding right before bed was not the smartest idea! I still hands down say that’s the best dessert I’ve ever had in my life.

Sorry for you losses, I’m glad you were able to find happiness in Disney World. I’m looking forward to more!

 

[Princess Leia]

Day 2, Part 2

Because I was taking pictures with both my iPhone camera and Snapchat, I just found a picture I didn’t upload with the first part, whoops.
Waiting at the Pop bus stop with Erin. Humidity was pretty strong, so I ditched the hat and sweatshirt within 30 minutes.

Also, you can’t tell from the picture, but Erin’s hair is pretty colorful. When we met in college, she had the prettiest purple hair. It was pink and blue on this trip.

Okay, back to Pandora.

Really, the fog was perfect for Pandora

This Land is so perfect!!!

Oh hey humidity.

Fog. Is. Amazing. For. Pandora.

 

[Princess Leia]

Following along. Love all the pictures, esp the trees! Hate your friend missed Ohana, that stinks.

The trees were spectacular, I kind of want to be the cast member who decorated them.

 

[Princess Leia]

Lapu Lapu

Thank you, I figured a regular visitor would remember for me

Boy, I would love to experience AK in the fog!

To quote Ferris Bueller: “I highly recommend it, it is so choice.”

First of all your beautiful! And I’m so happy to finally be reading the actual trip report!!! I remember your pretrip report fondly!

Ohana on your birthday is the absolute best! Love the Mickey ears! And staring into that photo of the bread pudding right before bed was not the smartest idea! I still hands down say that’s the best dessert I’ve ever had in my life.

Sorry for you losses, I’m glad you were able to find happiness in Disney World. I’m looking forward to more!

I want the bread pudding for every meal every day, it’s so good!

 

[Princess Leia]

Day 2, Part 3
All of the pictures you’ve seen of Pandora have been in line. We didn’t reach the actual scan point for about 25 minutes, and I’m kind of curious to see what Disney does for Star Wars based on the Pandora lines.
Pretty, pretty, pretty.

Finally inside!!

Blurry picture, but my iPhone 7 does not like the dark.

Impressive AA in the queue.

Okay, so Flight of Passage.
What a ride. I felt like I was flying. Like, it really felt like you were in the air, on a banshee, soaring through the jungle, by the water, above ground... everything. I screamed almost through the whole ride, but they were happy screams. Katie screamed. Erin screamed a little... and Josh was silent lol. But we all loved it, and nothing else really measured up to that feeling on the rest of the trip. I actually said “Oh no!” as the ride came to an end.
The only downside was that the googles felt too big for my head, and were a little scratched. But still, 10/10 experience.
We left the ride at 7:55, so we spent about an hour in the queue and ride in total. Not too shabby.
At 8:00, our FP for River Journey opened.

So, if I had to do it again, I would... but just like this if the FPs for FoP are out. River Journey is too short. It’s pretty, but it’s not much else. I’m glad we had the FP for it, because I would not want to wait more than 20 minutes for it.
Bye Pandora, see you at lunch!

 

[Princess Leia]

Day 2, Part 4

We had some time to kill before our Safari FP at 9, so we moseyed around the Tree for a little bit, taking in the views and animals (of which I didn’t take any pictures, whoops )

As you can see, it was about 8:20 and still foggy.

We walked over to Africa, and despite having backpacks full of snacks... we bought more snacks.

How can you say no to a pretzel in the shape of Mickey Mouse??

So, I had two Mickey pretzels on this trip, and this one had the far superior cheese.
We also all got coffee (idk how we waited so long considering our early start), and it was a good thing that we weren’t in a rush to go anywhere, because it was the temperature of lava.

Eventually, 9:00 rolled around, and it was time for our safari. I hadn’t ridden it since it had the super anti-poaching theme back when it opened, and it was weird to see how much of it remained? Like, the queue had various messages about poaching, as did the video. And there were a lot of ‘ivory’ props throughout the ride. So, that was a little weird.

Fun fact about me: I love okapis

Hippos!

First giraffe sighting!

 

[Princess Leia]

Day 2 Part 5
So, on top of downloading pics from Snapchat, I’m also finally getting around to saving all of the pictures that Erin took on her camera.
Like this one:

Me and Erin, looking at the camera, while everyone else is probably looking at something in nature.

Giraffes!!!!

Ending this post with our first elephant sighting.

 

[Princess Leia]

Day 2, Part 6

Sorry for the posts not being so text-heavy right now, but I don’t have a lot to say about the animals other than ‘I love them so much’. Erin did make a couple of comments though about how ‘weird it was that Disney would spend all that money on an animal preserve in Florida’.
Anyways...

Baby elephant!!!!

As out safari came to an end, I learned that warthog babies are called piglets!

 

[Princess Leia]

Day 2, Part 7
We exited the Safari and were greeted by a beautiful gorilla.

We watched Mr. Gorilla for a bit before doing some window shopping. These were the most insane candied apples I have ever seen in my life:

Since we were in Africa and almost 10, we decided to check out The Lion King show. It was the first time for me in this theatre, and the first time everyone else had seen it, so we were all pretty excited.

Our FastPass for Everest opened when Lion King started, we left the building... and holy flip it got crowded in that half hour. This picture doesn’t show it, but it was packed!

 

[amjt660]

DAK in the fog looks amazing
Great review of pandora - the land and the rides

Max

 

[prfctlyximprct]

DAK in the fog looks so ominous! I love it! And I am loving all these AK pictures! I did not take nearly enough in my favorite park that there ever was! Pandora was so beautiful, and you've truly captured it!

I would love to the be CM that decorates those trees as well, let's apply