Day 4: Animal Kingdom, and a whirlwind tour of Magic Kingdom
Heading home early the previous day really was a wise call, and we decided to take our time in the morning and not rush, so we were both feeling pretty rejuvenated. I ordered us some breakfast from Contempo Cafe to eat in the room before getting ready for our Animal Kingdom day. I don’t know what magic is going on, but the tater tots that appear with so many meals at Disney are superb. Perfectly seasoned and cooked to perfection. Simple food done genuinely well. 
Today’s bound was the one I was most excited for: Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps!
We started in Pandora and started drinking right away. The plan was to have the gentle buzz we’d hoped to do in Epcot before, you know, the lines. From Pongu Pongu we got the Pongu Lumpia, a Rum Blossom and a Mo’ara Margarita. Very yummy, though the Lumpia wasn’t very crunchy, the wrapper stuck to the paper. Still, a good start, followed by Navi River Journey and Flight of Passage.
We then saw there was a 45-minute wait for Nomad Lounge, so we poked around one of the stores before heading there for some proper lunch and another cocktail. We ordered the Cuban Frita Sliders and Grilled Chicken Satay to share, I had a Tempting Tigress and Beth enjoyed an Annapurna Zing. We finished off with some churros because natch.
This is also when I noticed my Magic Band had disappeared. No biggie, flagged it as lost in the app and didn’t think about it again, as I have an Apple Watch that I could use instead.
We then went on Kilimanjaro Safari, and got closer to some of the animals than I’d ever been. It was sunny, but had rained in the morning so they were more around than usual, I suppose.
Then it was off to Expedition Everest, Dinosaur, a few photo ops, and dinner at Yak and Yeti at 4:45. When I made the plans for the day, AK closed at 6, so we wanted to eat and then have enough time to see Pandora at night before park close. So sure, we ate two sit down meals in 4 hours, sue me.
Honestly, it was lovely. We started with the Lettuce Cups, I had the Kobe Beef Burger (which was like the platonic ideal of what a hamburger should be, nothing fancy, just simple and delicious), she had the Honey Chicken. Full and defeated and unable to order dessert despite wanting to but being unable to conceive of putting anything else in our mouths, we decided to declare AK over, and hopped the bus to MK.
I don’t know what got into us, but we did more in MK in 3 hours than we had in 6 hours at AK. I can’t even remember it all, but at minimum: Peoplemover, Astro Orbiter, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, Peter Pan’s Flight, Small World, Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain… it was a whirlwind. This was mostly during the fireworks, so there was a lot of walk-ons.
Exhausted and sore, but very very happy, we hopped on the monorail back to the Contemporary to pack most things up, and went into a deep sleep. Tomorrow was check-out day, but we didn’t need to leave for the airport until 6, so we had another full day planned.