We’re almost to the end! Friday was our last full park day, at Animal Kingdom. The night before, I made the call to not even try to make it for Early Entry, but to just try to get out of the room 0730-0745, which had been a doable target for us all week. So, no dragging everyone out super early for a last rope drop.
At 0700, I booked FoP ILL for 1210-1310 and then grabbed a Safari LL for 0900-1000. We headed out, with DH, I, and DD1 taking our car, as we were down to about 22% battery, and the ChargePoint app was reporting the stations at AK were working. DD5 asked to ride the bus with the rest of the family, so we took our strollers so that they didn’t have to deal with them. Luckily, the chargers were indeed working, so we got preferred parking! We liked the setup at AK better than HS - the chargers were just far enough away to discourage dishonest use of them, as opposed to how they’re one of the best spots in the lot at HS. We just barely beat them all through security. Minor disaster there, as DD5 had been twirling her hair on the bus and gave herself a hair tourniquet, but I guess was too embarrassed to ask for help until she saw me and ran up sobbing. I ripped it right off, and luckily her finger then pinked up right away, but it scared me! We had a few minutes of holding each other there on the sidewalk before we all moved on to tap in.
Spotted Divine as soon as we got in. DD5 had a lot of questions.
It was already 0846 then, so we started slowly walking to Africa, stopping to look at ducks and enjoy some views. As we walked, I was watching Genie+ and noted that KS only had a 10min posted wait, while the Na’vi River wait was climbing, so when we got near the entrance, I made an executive decision and cancelled our LL and put us in the standby queue. While we walked through, I booked Na’vi LL for 1125-1225. My memory’s already fuzzy on that, but I’m pretty sure return times were already up to that, and I didn’t have to do much refreshing or waiting. It was totally the right call because we didn’t stop walking until we hit the LL merge point, so it literally would not have saved us any time in line at all. We figured that way, we’d still be able to get a later LL if we decided to repeat the safari (we did not, but it was nice to know we could).
We had an awesome guide; he won me over right away with “Those are some ducks. I don’t know anything about ducks.” He did an excellent job and really seemed to care about getting us good views and helping us spot animals. We got to see the juvenile giraffe, juvenile zebra, and Crash!
The lions kept their backs to us, but did get to see them, just not their faces.
The kids were super excited to see gorillas, so we retrieved our strollers and headed down Gorilla Falls trail. They all loved it, and we got a great view of the baby gorilla crawling around its mama, though I didn’t take any pics. The big girls also got their Wilderness Explorer books and started their badges.
Everyone was getting hangry at the end of the trail, so we went to Tamu Tamu about 1040 or so, got sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits and cinnamon rolls for all. I also got a Tiger Tail and enjoyed it. I do regret not ever making it back for some spiked Dole Whip. Next time!
I was pretty proud of myself for getting our Pandora LLs relatively close together; if Genie+ is still the same system on our next trip, I will definitely be modifying some of my strategies to account for travel around the parks! We made it to Pandora and enjoyed taking photos.
Na’vi River was posted a 70min wait when we got in the LL. It was down all day on our AK day last visit, so this was everyone’s first time. It’s beautiful, but we all agreed we’d never wait more than 15min max for it.
We had some time to kill before our FoP LL window opened, and DD5 had been asking about getting a Mickey bar, so we parked the family in the shade, and she and I and my brother trekked across the bridge to buy Cokes, Mickey bars and Olaf bars at the cart in front of Tiffins.
That brought us up to time for that 1210 window, so we walked over and got rider swap for me and my brother. The others got in line, and after a stop for some WE badges, he and I took the kids over to Dinoland and ran into The Boneyard. The weather was really nice that day, very cloudy in the morning, very comfortable in the shade with a nice breeze, but you got hot fast chasing kids through that playground. Especially since my kids vetoed the excavation pit and just wanted to do slides.
Eventually, the others found us, we swapped places, and my brother and I did FoP together. Was glad we did RS, as I glanced at my watch and we tapped in at exactly 1310, the end of our original window. I timed our LL wait; it ended up being right at 15min before we walked in the room with the bikes. I had forgotten how many different preshow elements they threw in. I had done it last trip, but this was his first time; he was very impressed. It’s an amazing ride for sure, but I think I still like Soarin’ better overall. Maybe because I’ve still never seen Avatar.
The others took the kids on Triceratops Spin while they waited for us, and we met them with the strollers coming off, and we all mobile ordered from Flame Tree. It was already 1400 or so by then. We found a quiet, cool pavilion to sit in and let the kids run a little wild after they ate. Food was good, but I honestly just wanted hydration. I managed a few fries and a few bites of DH’s chicken.
Oh, while they were in The Boneyard, DH had booked us all LL for Dinosaur, but then it went down while they were on Triceratops, so it converted to an anytime LL (not redeemable for Na’vi River, interestingly). Since it was still down, we booked another just in case, and it converted whenever it opened. I don’t remember the times exactly now. Personally, I am 36 years old, and I have made the personal decision that I do not have to go on that ride anymore if I don’t want to. And I didn’t want to. It terrifies me on some deep level I can’t explain. I love thrill rides, but that fucking ride makes me cower and hide. I’m done with it. So, I was perfectly happy finding other things to do. DH described some of the options to the kids, and they decided they’d like to do It’s Tough to be a Bug later.
In the meantime, we enjoyed a stroll to Asia. The Expedition Everest wait was fluctuating between 20-30min, so we figured we’d give it a try. My niece wanted to do it, and, surprisingly, made the cut! This did result in tears from DD5, as niece is actually 7 months younger than her. We got RS, and my mom and I took all the kids in for the 1515 KiteTails… which was cancelled for high winds. Boo. I had actually really wanted to see that. So we found some shade and played on some rocks. They were gone maybe 20min total for the ride, so definitely no regrets on skipping paying for that ILL. My mom and I did RS (which was actually on my dad’s band, and he had to give it to her, because no matter how many times I explained, no one else in the party seemed to grasp how RS works. At least they did what I told them). DD5 burst into tears when I left, so I knew our time left in the park was limited. I love Everest, though, did they move Disco Yeti closer? I felt like he was brushing my head!
DH and kids met me in the gift shop, where the CMs had cheered DD5 up with some buttons and stickers. DD1 found a Dug hat, put it on, and exclaimed “Mine!”, so DH promptly bought it.
We got some more badges…
… and used one of our anytime LLs on It’s Tough to Be a Bug. Totally unneeded, but what else were we going to do by then? It was already 1620; DD1 fell asleep in my arms as I entered the queue. She actually slept through the show, with my hands over her ears the whole time. She jumped a couple of times, but didn’t wake up! We got her back in the stroller and headed out, seeing some menagerie puppets on the way, but the kids weren’t interested at all. DD5 rode the bus back with the others, we deposited DD1 in the now 99% charged car, and once again, meet the other group exactly at the entrance to the BLT elevator.
My family was now done for the night; we did laundry, ate dinner in the room, the kids ran around and had a blast. DH and my dad walked over the Contempo Cafe and picked up the 50th German chocolate cupcake, a monorail cupcake, a peanut butter banana pie, and the above pictured Hefeweizen. My brother had originally only bought 6 day tickets for his family, with plans for them to leave Saturday morning and make the drive in one day. They decided that night to add on another day and go with us to MK in the morning, but luckily, I thought to check park reservations before they paid - sure enough, there were no park reservations available anywhere for 11/20. So, instead, they put their kids in their PJs, loaded them up, and walked over to MK to watch the full Enchantment in the park, since we had seen it from behind the castle on Wednesday. Their kids loved the fireworks, so this was a great end for them. They got Plaza sundaes and had a truly magical time together.