I was too nervous to ask to skip it in January 2022 but it would have helped. My kids were OK with HM in May 2021, but now that I think back, they just had us walk through the stretching room because they weren’t allowing crowding. It’s not so much the stretching but the voice and the hanging thing that is really creepy and my kids needed much more encouragement this last time around after the preshow. Will definitely ask to skip next time!
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Day Three – Epcot
When we planned this trip Epcot opened at 10, so this was supposed to be morning where we got to sleep in a little after our first big day in the park. By the time we went on the trip Epcot opened at 8:30, so 8am for early entry. Not exactly the leisurely morning I had planned! On the other hand we were on the skyliner which seemed like it was going to be a lot easier and more pleasant than waiting for a bus.
I also woke up worried about rides – B had been talking up Test Track a LOT to W, who was too short to ride it on our last trip. And also he was tall enough for Soarin’ this year. And we had a 10:45 Topolino reservation so we couldn’t do too much in the morning. So even though I hadn’t planned to buy Genie Plus, I bought Genie Plus (damn you Disney!) and booked Test Track for 9:30-10:30 (I hadn’t set up my Genie Day that day so it made me pick my park, pick my party, etc and that slowed me down). By 7:10 we were on our way to the CBR skyliner station, because even though it was further away I knew it was the hub and was worried that if we went to the Riviera all the cars would be full by the time they got there. When we got there there was a pretty substantial line, but when we got closer we saw that it was for Hollywood Studios, and we hopped onto an Epcot – car? Gondola? – with minimal delay.
I love the skyliner, by the way. What a way to travel! I wish I could skyliner everywhere all the time.
We got to the International Gateway and were held just outside the tapstiles for a bit, but before long (around 7:45, I’d say) they had let us in and we walked straight to the line for Remy, where we were further held for a few minutes – we passed the time playing with the Genie Plus filters, which were so cute! We walked right on and by 8:05 were hopping into our mouse (rat?).
Remy was adorable! I really loved it. W said it was scary and refused to go on it again for the rest of the trip because of one moment, but for the rest of the family it was a big hit. From there Frozen was showing a short wait so we speed-walked through the World Showcase and walked onto that, and then Soarin’ was showing a 10 minute wait so we headed over there, feeling pretty good about our Epcot morning thus far (but pretty bad about our decision to throw $60 into the mouth of the Disney Beast!) and stopping to snap a few photos in front of the gold statues of some of our favourite characters. We also picked up the Spike the Bee scavenger hunt, because B loves any kind of challenge/competition and we knew he’d be super into it. On Soarin’ we even got put into put in B1, which was pretty exciting.
We had promised W we’d do Living with the Land (he loves searching for hidden Mickeys) after Soarin’ but it would have been cutting it too close to then do Test Track and get back to the Skyliner so we had to swear we’d come back. We did a quick walk through the butterfly house, where B was unable to coax any butterflies to land on him despite his best efforts, and over to Test Track. We let the kids design the cars – one kid went wacky, one went for aerodynamics – and then tested them out (aerodynamics won).
From there we went back to the skyliner – we were really making a full tour of Epcot this morning – and headed to the Riviera. We got checked in and seated fairly quickly, at which point I started my fairly unsuccessful campaign to get the kids to pose for photos with the characters. Me: “Guys, this is really important to me. You don’t have to hug them – you’re not even allowed to hug them! – but I would like you to stand in front of them and smile please.” W: “Yeah…I’m not going to do that.” I basically told them they had to and then, while we waited, reconsidered – did I really care? I ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and told them they didn’t have to, at which point we compromised – W would do Mickey only, B would do Mickey and Donald but didn’t want to do the girls. Fine. By the time Donald came around W had decided that he would in fact do Donald (Donald is my favourite), leading to this photo that we are for sure going to use on this year’s Christmas card.
The food at Topolino was wonderful! The kids got the Mickey and Minnie waffle dippers, Jay got the steak and, at the recommendation of the waiter, added an egg to it to make it feel more breakfasty, and I got the hash. It was all so so good. And the croissants at the beginning with the strawberry jam! I wanted more croissants and honestly am still kind of sad that I didn’t ask for some.
After brunch we went out onto the terrace to check out the view and if I’d had a book I would have happily spent the rest of the day out there, it was hot and sunny and the skies were clear clear blue and you could see all the way to the Tree of Life. Before we had kids we used to go to Vegas pretty regularly and that’s the vibe the Riviera gave me, I’d love to stay here sometime.
We were so close to our room that we opted to go back and do some more swimming at this point, and then did some soccer playing on the lawn before heading back to Epcot. This time we figured that it was 3pm and the skyliner wouldn’t be too busy so we went to the Riviera station – mistake, it took us about 10 minutes before an empty car came along. I don’t understand how this works in the morning – do they leave occasional cars empty just so people do eventually get on? Or do you just stand there for half an hour hoping that somebody decides to get off?
Once back at Epcot we wandered through the world showcase and found a few Spikes before making our way around to check in for our Space 220 lounge reservation, as well as making a stop for W to buy something - anything! It was killing him that his brother had souvenirs and he had nothing, so he got a baby Yoda figurine from the big gift shop whose name I can’t remember. I’d been waiting for Space 220 to open since before our 2020 trip, so this was one I was really excited for, and once the menu came out I was even more excited that we could book the lounge and experience it without having to pay $40 for my kids to not eat anything. It took about 10 minutes after they let us into the lobby to actually let us up, not sure what was going on there because once we got up and shown to a table the room was half empty. The kids thought it was really cool, though, and asked a lot of questions that I didn’t know how to answer like “Are we really in space?” (don’t want to lie to them, DO want them to believe in the magic, what do I do???) I’ve seen complaints about there not being much happening on the screens but I felt like there was always something to look at – ships showing up, astronauts doing stuff. It did seem strange that the screens didn’t connect, though, an astronaut would disappear off one of the screens and not appear on the next one. Also our waitress told us occasionally two astronauts had a lightsaber battle and my kids were pretty disappointed to not get to see that! But regardless, it was really neat. We had just planned to have a snack so ordered the Short Rib sliders, which happily came with fries that the kids could devour. Jay had the Jupiter Fizz, which was delicious, and I had the Atmospritz, which was way too sweet – I don’t know what I thought when it said it had a “cotton candy cloud” but I wasn’t expecting it to just be alcohol poured over cotton candy. The kids got the one that came in the specialty cup which neither of them really liked (although I did), but they did really enjoy their first experience of pop rocks!
We spent about an hour in space and then headed back down and over to The Land to do the LLs I had stacked up for Soarin’ (again) and Living with the Land, and also got to see Spaceship Earth all lit up, which was so beautiful. The plan after that was just to wander around the World Showcase – we were saving fireworks for Monday’s Deluxe late hours - but when we got over there it was jam packed with festival crowds so we did a quick wander through Mitsukoshi and then caught the skyliner back, at which point we realized that we hadn’t actually eaten dinner, so I stopped at Primo Piatto to pick up some food that we ate back in the room (and it also gave me an opportunity to buy a stuffed sculptor Donald, which I’d talked myself out of earlier but then decided I needed as a souvenir).
Sidenote: generally we did a terrible job of feeding our kids on this trip. I’d brought a lot of snacks but they didn’t want any of them, and there were a number of days where we got up, got moving, got to the parks and then were in a hurry to take advantage of early morning crowds, and then at like 11am when the kids were cranky realized it was because we hadn’t actually fed them. In retrospect I should have done some kind of grocery order to get them something familiar (cheerios, yogurt) that they could have eaten before we left the room. Lesson learned.
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Omg that picture is epic. It’s going to haunt him for
birthdays, graduations, wedding… I love it!
I’m really impressed with all you were able to do with 2 littles and at Epcot of all places. Don’t fret about the food. It’s so easy to get into go-go-go mode and forget to eat. It happens a lot.
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Firstly, I am LOVING your trip report. Thank you for sharing your time with us!
Secondly… BRIBES. I use them sparingly but will use them for pictures and for a few things that aren’t really “required” of children (like behaving, hygiene, schooling, things like that, those are requirements, lol). I don’t think it make me a bad parent but a smart parent. Look at it this way, my work bribes me each and every day to preform to their requests 
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Those boys are pretty darn cute. But you look nothing like your profile picture! 
Love the report and I’m still on day one.
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I’m 100% on board with bribes! But W is tragically unmoved by them. I offered candy for pictures and he was not having it, and I realized I didn’t care enough to up the ante.
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It’s a visual representation of my internal monologue. 
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Cash is king… lol!
I’d pay a child $ for a great photo (not a mediocre). Amount dictates by how great child can make the pic! Give em a goal!
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I like where your head’s at! Next time I’m trying this. $2 to be in the picture, $5 if you can give me a genuine smile!
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Today’s best comment. Chisel this in marble.
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$7 if u make it epic
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Great photo
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Yes! On our last trip I paid DS $10 to recreate a photo from a previous trip in the TOT gift shop.
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Agree. And I thought I’d hate it!
I once paid my tomboy daughter $50 to wear a dress to a batmitzvah.
Last dress she’ll probably ever wear. I dressed her so adorable when she was little and she reached three and skirts/dresses were not okay since then. Lol.
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I know! My boys always used to look so cute and then around 4 they refused to wear jeans and it’s been downhill since there.
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There is hope! My son turned 22 and gave jeans a shot again
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My son wouldn’t either. He started wanted to dress up again in high school cuz there are girls to impress.
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Day Four – Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom caused me a lot of headaches. Originally, the plan was to ropedrop – Jay and the boys would go on Flight of Passage while I did NOT go on Flight of Passage because it makes me want to barf, then we’d do the Safari, then we’d spend the day wandering around, exploring the trails, doing Wilderness Explorers, etc. My main goal for the day was Nomad Lounge. Also originally we were going on Tuesday. Then I heard on a podcast that Saturday was typically the least busy day at AK and I checked the crowd calendars and Tuesday was a 10 and Saturday was a 6. Also they adjusted the house so suddenly on Tuesday the early entry started at 7am and on Saturday it wasn’t MUCH later but it was at least 7:30am, which is slightly more manageable. So about a week before we left I moved some park reservations around. Saturday was supposed to be a break day with dinner at Homecomin’ but I figured that was probably still feasible.
Then we realized that W wasn’t 44 Disney Inches tall, and decided that life would be easier if we just skipped Flight of Passage and early entry altogether and let the kids sleep in.
This is also the day when I realized that despite having bought lanyards and a batch of pins we hadn’t done any pin trading, so I resolved to change that.
We rolled up to the bus stop just before 8 and when we arrived at AK headed straight to the safari. The sign out front said it was a 40 minute wait but we just walked on, which was a nice way to start. It was a great safari, lots of active animals – we saw the baby rhino, the giraffes were out and about, etc. We have a pretty great local zoo and a membership that we use a LOT but there’s something about seeing them in the “wild” just roaming about that feels more up close and exciting. Plus I love those big trucks splashing through the puddles.
Once we got off Safari we headed to a gift shop, obviously. After W picked up every item in the store, to my chagrin (“those are carvings and they cost $200 please put them down!”) and picked out a stuffed painted dog to accompany him on the day’s adventures, we turned our attention to filling mom and dad’s needs with a stop at Starbucks. We then took our drinks with us onto a trail that I’d read about here and made note of – the trail right across the walkway that takes you around the Tree of Life.
We’d never gotten up close to the Tree before and we LOVED this! It was so calm and relaxing back there, a flotilla went by while we were along the water, there was a Wilderness Explorer – scout? Leader? – back there who got us started, the kids had a great time finding animals carved into the tree and we got a relaxing wander sipping our Starbucks.
I’ve never really had as much appreciation for AK as for the other parks because there’s just less to do. This is the point at which I started to realize that having less to do might actually be a great thing, because this morning was shaping up gorgeously.
I have a friend who I met through Disney planning who was at AK the same day, and she’d texted me that they’d done Kali River Rapids multiple times. We’d never done it before, mostly because I don’t like getting wet. But I figured it was showing a 10 minute wait and it was kind of the only ride left to do (I think Dinosaur would freak them out and Navi had a 60 minute wait) so I pitched it to them, but they weren’t into it. B is a kid who loves a challenge so he just wanted to do Wilderness Explorers, so we set off to wander the park and get badges. So we did some wandering and some exploring, we found a cool fountain, we ate some popsicles, and we got some badges, and then we found ourselves outside Kali River Rapids and pitched it again and after some changing of minds they decided they wanted to go on it.
We got so wet. The less said about it the better. The kids had fun, and at least it was shorter than I expected? I’m being a grump, it was actually pretty fun, but I really do hate getting splashed. Luckily it was sunny and I soothed myself with a Himalayan Ghost from the Thirsty River Bar. Then we realized that Kite Tails was about to start, so we headed over there. We did not realize that there are two seating areas – what seemed to be the main one and then another one that we were in – so there was a lot more action going on in the other one, with people in the stands with smaller kites, but it was still really cute to see – we saw the Lion King show and while B was upset at how much story they left out (“buddy, they couldn’t do the full 90 minute movie with all kites!” “But why?”) everybody really enjoyed it.
Our quest to get Wilderness Explorer badges then led us to Dinoland, or as I now know it, the worst place on earth. It’s so hot! And ugly! And it doesn’t fit in with the rest of Animal Kingdom AT ALL! The kids went to get a badge and do some playing in the Boneyard while I mobile ordered some quick food from Restaurantosaurus, which was a bit of an adventure – they would only accept mobile order, but the internet in that corner of the park isn’t great so I couldn’t get it to work. Then I got it to work, placed the order, and it went from “preparing your order” to missing in the blink of an eye. It took some detective work but they realized that the order had somehow been marked as completed – anyway, I eventually got it, we pulled the kids out of the Boneyard, stuffed some chicken nuggets in their face, did some pin trading, and ultimately failed in our (my) attempt to talk W out of riding Triceratops Spin.
In the course of working our way from Dinoland to Pandora to get the badges over there we crossed through Discovery Island, and the kids were very excited to tell me that they’d seen Kevin! Kevin is my favourite. So we ran over there for some Kevin pictures.
The next happy accident was that we walked past Nomad Lounge. I asked about the walk-up line and they said it would be 75 minutes. We had planned to leave the park around 4 to head over to Disney Springs so that wasn’t going to work, which was fairly disappointing. I caught up with Jay and told him the bad news and he shrugged and said “But you really want to go. Why don’t we just do it, and go to Disney Springs later?” It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that we could just…change the plan like that! So we went back and got on the walk-up list.
Spent a little more time in Pandora, including a substantial browse through Windtraders where B acquired two swords (one for each hand, I guess) and W got a small banshee in an egg, and then headed back to Gorilla Falls for more badges. At the kiosk outside the Safari we got a corn on the cob and some watermelon and I was feeling very proud of myself for getting W to eat something that wasn’t popcorn until I realized it was just…unpopped popcorn.
Oh well. We were just about to head up the Gorilla Falls trail for badges when we got called for Nomad so I headed back that way to check in while the kids and Jay went up to get on badge.
Nomad Lounge! Obviously I know about it only through this forum, so thank you all for that. We had a big couch area on the patio, and it was so lovely – cool, shady, gorgeous scenery, so relaxing. I had an Annapurna Zing, which was delicious, and Jay had a Night Monkey, which I can’t speak to because I hate coffee. We also got the bread service, which was good, and the churros, which were OUTSTANDING, especially the dipping sauces. Yum.
We spent about an hour in Nomad Lounge and then headed out. B was disappointed because we hadn’t finished the badges but we pointed out that the train to Rafiki’s was done so it wasn’t going to happen. I had heard on a podcast that the easiest way to accomplish this was to take a bus to Saratoga Springs and get off at Congress Park, so that’s what we did, and it was pretty easy, although it helped that the entire busload of people was doing the same thing so when we got off there was a crowd that we could follow until we could see where we were heading.
We worked our way through the shops in the direction of Homecomin’, promising the kids that we’d be back and that MAYBE we could do a little bit of shopping after dinner. Homecomin’ is one that I’ve wanted to go to since our first visit and have never managed to fit into the schedule so I was pretty excited to get to eat here, and it lived up to my expectations. B order a cheeseburger, Jay and I split the Thigh High chicken biscuits, and Jay, W and I decided to split the fried chicken platter. The plan was to not have a huge amount of food left over. I did not, however, anticipate just how much food the chicken biscuits would be, because after one of those I was full. So we took home a bunch of fried chicken to stash in our fridge and eat over the next few days.
It was getting late and we knew that Hollywood Studios the next day was going to be a big day so we made a quick stop in the Star Wars store and then caught an Uber back to the hotel.
Overall, this day gave me a new appreciation for Animal Kingdom. It was so lovely to just have a relaxed day, to not feel like I had a bunch of boxes I had to tick and was just rushing from place to place. Wandering, stopping for a drink, seeing something and taking the time to check it out – even though this wasn’t a rest day it ended up being probably the most restful day of our trip, and it was really lovely.
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