Dinner time! But first… GREEN BEER. We saw little bunny rabbits hopping around the fields while walking through Canada and that was adorable. I only have video, no photos. Sorry, guys.
Dinner at Le Cellier was fantastic. It was my favorite meal of the trip. I loved the pretzel bread they bring out to the table. I tried the Ice Wine Flight (very sweet! But good). My friends were now sufficiently trained to not eat their food before I snapped a photo. Such good friends! This trip was to celebrate my upcoming 40th birthday and the CMs were so generous with birthday desserts, including this Chocolate “moose.”
Parks Day 4: Who wants to ride Rise of the Resistance again? BG 7. We rope dropped again and focused our attention on Toy Story Land and Smugglers Run. Our Rise time popped up and this time we experienced a different ending! I didn’t realize there were 2 different “stories.” I took my husband on Star Tours for the first time ever and he couldn’t believe I deprived him of that ride for so many years. Oops. I made it up to him with a PB&J shake at 50s Prime Time.
Here’s where we took an epic nap back at the hotel.
Park hopped to: Magic Kingdom! But first, Geyser Point! It was my first time! And my first Grapefruit Beer! I was happy. I ordered the Charcuterie Board. Ummm no. It was ham, pickles and bread and it was not what I was wanting. Luckily my friends ordered the cheesy brisket dip. On the boat to MK from Geyser Point, it started thundering and lightning. That was exciting and terrifying on that little boat. (Can you see the lightning in my pic below?) The storm quickly passed and we got a lot of rides in that evening. My DH skipped our last ride on Splash and got us a nutella & fruit waffle from Sleepy Hollow to make up for the Charcuterie situation. We took the YC bus from MK, then walked to the Dolphin.
We have posed for the camera EVERY SINGLE TIME we’ve ridden Haunted Mansion and never get it right. We always think we know where the camera is, but we miss it EVERY SINGLE TIME. Liners, please tell me, where is the photo in HM? While you answer, here’s our latest failure. Just having a random convo in HM.
Park Day 5: All day at Animal Kingdom. This day was about as perfect as it gets… 2nd in line at FOP. The line built behind us FAST. Headed to Navi, but they didn’t open until exactly 8:00. We chose to ride Dinosaur next, which felt weird, but we noticed the lines were long throughout the day so we knocked it out with 0 wait. Everest x2 and then I FINALLY EXPERIENCE NOMAD LOUNGE. I missed out on it in December due to a 2 hour wait, so we were prepared. We rope dropped Nomad Lounge (at 10:45 am). It was so beautiful. Lobster mac n cheese was delicious, the drinks were awesome and so was our waiter. More drinks to go! (and we ate the hibiscus flower. Tasted like a fruit roll up). Winged Encounters is my absolute favorite thing. I feel like those birds are my friends. We rode all the rides, dinner at Yak & Yeti and then took in Pandora at night. Beautiful!!
Departure day was an interesting day. Our flight wasn’t until 10 PM, so our plan was to sleep late, leave our bags with bell services at 11 and head to MK for the day. INSTEAAAAD… hubby and I booked a Wave reservation for 8:30 AM and took a Lyft to the Contemporary at 6:15 AM. The guard let us in that early, but I dont think that’s typical right now. We were the FIRST in line for MK that morning. It was chilly that morning so I threw on my crumpled spirit jersey from my backpack and skipped down Main Street. Being first in line at the tapstiles is such a great feeling. We rode 7DMT, BTMRRx2, did some shopping and then took the monorail to our breakfast res at The Wave. 1 Wave Feast and 4 mimosas later, it was 9:30 and time for a nap. We headed back to the hotel for a cat nap, then left our luggage with bell services and headed back to MK. We squished 4 adults into 1 teacup, rode everything we could and finished off the evening with a reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Table. It was truly a magical trip! Can’t wait to go back (with our kids next time. We promised)
Thanks for the great report! We’ll be at the Swan next month and I have a couple of questions. Were they limiting the number of people in the pools as far as you could tell? Did you take buses from YC when going to and from MK and AK each time, or use the Swolphin buses at all?
The pools were pretty full. Definitely not limiting capacity there, but they do have groups of lounge chairs separated and were cleaning the chairs when people got up to leave. There are 3 pools and 3 or 4 hot tubs, its a big pool area so we just walked around looking for the least crowded area.
We did both- we used buses at Swan/Dolphin as well as YC. Early in the morning, if you’re rope dropping, I suggest walking to YC and using their bus. They seem to come more frequently. If you are headed to MK, take the YC bus bc the Swan bus will take you to the TTC which adds an extra step of taking monorail to MK. However, we took the Swan/Dolphin bus at the end of our day from AK to the hotel and it was great. When you walk out of AK make a left and head for the parking lot. The Swan/Dolphin bus will pick you up there.
