Awww
Fabulous!!
Exactly - like “Can the drink really be ALL that?”
Yes. It can!
I feel every bit of this. I’m so sorry.
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Thanks! I had plenty of time to think about it, with so long to plan! I wanted to make sure everybody got what they were looking for out of the trip, especially my parents.
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DAY 3: ANIMAL KINGDOM AND POP CENTURY AMAZING RACE
ILL -
FOP at 1 PM
LL -
KS at 8 AM
EE at 11 AM
Dinosaur at 2 PM
Boy oh boy, was I excited for our first Disney day! There’s just nothing like it. I kept playing this video for DH while I unsuccessfully tried to settle down the night before: Too Excited To Sleep - YouTube
We were at our rental house but eligible for 7:30 AM Early Entry and 7 AM ILL purchase due to checking into Pop that day (more on that process later!). We arrived at the parking lot around 7:30. We were able to walk in without ever really having to stop, other than security, where I got pulled out for a bag search. We stopped for Tree of Life photos, which fit well with our rope drop style for the day and turned out to be the largest batch of family photos we got! The photographer was good with our group but the photos seem a bit overexposed:
My first foray into Genie Plus/ILL had gone well that morning with one exception - my sister’s Genie Plus was not recognized, and, in the heat of the moment, I just bought it again. I had prepurchased for all ticketed days back when that was an option, and I’m not sure why it didn’t work for her that day. It never happened again, though. But it meant her Safari LL was about an hour after ours since the times advanced while I was sorting it out. I explained at the tap point and the CMs didn’t object to her coming in with us.
We did the Safari, and then the Gorilla Falls trails. My family had never done any animal trails (we also don’t usually stop for Photopass photographers or use a LL to rope drop the Safari!), but they took it all in stride. Just a different kind of trip. My parents, sister, and DN6 seemed to appreciate the animal stuff, and we were all relaxed and happy. Our next stop was the 10:00 Festival of the Lion King, so I suggested a snack at Kusifiri. I’d been dreaming of a Mickey cinnamon roll, and I knew they had coffee. But I ended up there alone, as the rest of the pack went to Creature Comforts for real Starbucks. I parked myself in front of FotLK with my delicious snack and waited for them to return. It was close, but they made it, and there was some coffee chugging involved (luckily only cold drinks). I feel like Animal Kingdom is the easiest park to plan, and I was glad I had picked it for our first park day while we were still working out the kinks!
This was my first time seeing the Tumble Monkeys and aerialists since 2017 and I was pumped! Moreover, our whole group really loved the show, especially the little kids and my dad. Tumble Monkeys for the win! We headed across to Asia for Expedition Everest. The line was short, so we did one ride standby (while my mom stayed with DN6) before using our LL. Then we rode again, and this time my mom rode, too! I wasn’t sure how my parents would do on roller coasters after a 30 year hiatus, but they were fine, and my dad, once again, loved one of my favorite things, just making the trip worthwhile left and right!
We had two lunch reservations for Yak and Yeti, for a group of 6 and a group of 5. We also had two Landry’s cards. We did not ask them to put the tables together. It still took us about 45 minutes to be seated. The food was good (I had the honey chicken and jasmine rice), but everyone was annoyed at the time it took, and we were in serious danger of being late for our FOP ILL (OMG, so much money for 11!)! I think we made it during the 15 min grace period, and it turned green. I tried to stop and admire Pandora on the way in, but the tour guide in me was shook! My dad declared FOP the third amazing thing of the day and my heart swelled with pride.
We spent some time doing a sort of rider swap after this. DN6 had decided not to ride after already tapping in, but they let BIL go back with one guest, even though we didn’t set it up at the outset. We sat outside at Satuli and kept going inside to refill our waters. It was not a bad way to spend half an hour!
Mike and my dad had planned to leave after FOP. My dad enjoys doing fun stuff but then enjoys copious rest in air conditioning immediately after, and Mike is much the same way. However, my dad was having such a great time that he decided he wanted to go do Dinosaur with us, too, so Mike ended up doing that as well. DN6 loved Dinosaur (please note that I said this is the only ride I am afraid of at Disney - but I kept that under my hat)! He and I really bonded on this trip, watching YouTube ride footage and talking about exactly what the rides were like ahead of time. While I know some of this was stressful for him and his parents, it was also really cool to see him figure out exactly what he was up for! It’s been a while since I had a six year old, and they’re neat.
Mike and Dad left, and my kids went back to Asia to ride EE single rider and get ice cream at the Anandpaur bus, marking the end of our “everybody do everything together” time for the day. The rest of the gang stayed in Dinoland USA, riding Triceratopspin, playing at the Boneyard, eating popcorn and Mickey bars, and refilling our water even more times at Restaurantasaurus. We met up with my kids at the 3:30 Nemo show. It was great! We decided to take one more ride on Everest and then head for the exit.
To be continued (you know you wanna know what the Pop Century Amazing Race is 
)
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Yep! Inquiring minds…
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Does your family know your username on Lines?!
WHAT!? 45 minutes 
Awww I love this! He was so thrilled on just the first morning
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Love the way you worked through the goals and expectations!!! Such an important part of talking Disney (or any vacation really) with a big group. Sounding like a good travel agent!
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Thanks @ozziecrew555! It felt very corporate writing it out like that, but I’m glad other people thought that was a reasonable thing to do, too!
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They do know my Liner name! Normally I also have a Liner keychain on my backpack, but the backpack appeared in Megan’s “High School Musical” production earlier this summer, and I forgot to put the keychain back on!
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M&M are adorable! Sounds like the perfect layout for family time with everyone having their own space!
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I love this - and it really is a gift to figure out all these strategies and do it in a way that accommodates and acknowledges everyone’s goals/needs. It also sounds like your scheduling challenge with Dis led you to take a laid back approach at Uni vs trying to do it all.
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DAY 3 PART 2:
So there I was, buckled, hip bone to hip bone, in the back seat of a minivan with three other people, when two of us spoke almost simultaneously.
My Mom said, “Should we pick up Chipotle for dinner?”
And I said, “Can we stop at Pop Century on the way home?”
And unwittingly, my BIL, the pilot of the minivan, got a lot more than he bargained for and probably wished he had just gone home with Mike and my dad!
My mom pulled up the Chipotle app and commenced a group order. I didn’t want anything big so Megan and I decided to share a burrito. They picked a Chipotle and we planned to pick up the order after we stopped at Pop Century.
I had done online check-in for our three rooms at Pop (that we were using for onsite privileges). They were one night, room only stays, which meant they were already paid in full when I booked them, but I was nervous (or paranoid?) that if I did not physically access the hotel rooms, they would know I wasn’t there and cancel my onsite privileges for the next day. Epcot day. Guardians day! This outcome was unlikely, but since I had paid for three rooms only for the perks, it seemed worth guarding against this possibility. Especially since it meant a caper!
I checked MDE and my room assignments were there. One room in Nineties. Two in Seventies.
And thus, the Pop Century Amazing Race was born.
Megan and I love Disney resorts. We stayed at AoA in 2016 and have been obsessed with Pop Century ever since. The music! The cheesecake! The Skyliner! Back in the spring, I even organized a 5K at Pop for people who missed registering for the Springtime Surprise RunDisney event. I did not end up being able to attend, but you can find it under my posts on La Cava if you’re interested! While we love staying in rental houses, we are always up for some resort exploration! So, she was my logical choice to help me go key into three hotel rooms in record time.
Before we saw the room assignments, BIL had dropped us off in Fifties (because, of course). I had grabbed my mom’s and sister’s lanyards on the way out of the van. Megan is good with a map. She got us to “my” room in Nineties quickly. I Magic Banded my way in, we snapped a few photos and moved a stack of towels (we were going for “someone was here, but as little work as possible for Mousekeeping”). We were having a blast! What a fun and genius idea this was, and no trouble for anyone else whatsoever, because of how efficient we are!
Then we went to Seventies, taking another selfie on the way. Woohoo! We sprinted up the exterior stairs, and on the count of three, used my mom’s lanyard and my sister’s lanyard to simultaneously tap into the two rooms. No (large, comical, Seventies-style) dice. We traded keys. Nothing. Then I facepalmed. These were park tickets in these lanyards, not room keys!
Now we were sprinting to the front desk. Sprinting when you’re in an actual hurry is not nearly as festive, it turns out! I explained my situation. The rest of my party was in the car, but I paid for the rooms. Could I get a key? The answer was no. On the edge of tears (what kind of tour guide makes her tour group sit in a hot van for half an hour?), I asked if there was any alternative to going back to Fifties and marching them all over. The CM, a genius and a saint, suggested I Facetime both adults and have them show both their faces and their IDs. Jackpot! I still felt like an ass asking them to do that (and asking the CM to do that!), but we were good to go and she made me a key to each room.
Tired, hot, somber, and feeling pretty stupid, Megan and I went back to the rooms and repeated our towel-moving ritual. Then we high-tailed it back to the van with everything left we could muster. In the van, we found Josh and the other kids beyond bored, and Amy concerned that we were late for Chipotle and that it was showing a 28 minute drive on her navigation. I decided to check my Waze app for a second opinion. “Is it the one on Irlo Bronson?” I asked Amy. It was. My app had it at only 9 minutes away, so we decided to choose the more optimistic news and take the route my app suggested instead.
This is already pretty long so I’ll shorthand the rest. They were two different Chipotles, the one with our food really was 28 minutes away (longer, once we got going the right way again), and our food was not on the shelf when we arrived but was “found” quickly after my BIL asked about it. Did I eat half a burrito that had once been in the trash? It’s entirely possible. I would have deserved it. BIL deserved a burrito made of gold for driving us on all these misadventures, while his wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law all navigated aloud from two rows away.
I don’t remember anything else that happened that night!
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I hope you a least relaxed in the rental’s pool some after your race!
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I hear about stays like this all the time at Universal but not at Disney. Free workout for all the running around!
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It’s possible! I truly don’t remember anything else that we did that night!
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I’m happy you liked Poseidon’s Fury. I love it, and am considering using it as a way to determine if I should be friends with someone 
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This is completely valid. Co-signed!
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It was fun except for feeling like I was holding people up. If it had been just Megan and me, I could have done it all day!
Not sure I’d recommend an onsite stay just for ILL access unless you are truly in a “failure is not an option” situation with a particular ride. But my family is super into Guardians, and my sister’s family loves coasters, so I didn’t want to take any chances!
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I love having room to relax on a trip. It was a big change from the three mattresses touching each other in our hotel room!
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