Thanks for sharing your day! It made me wish I was back there!
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Thank you to DD for her report! I hope to join her next time. 
This is the final chapter of my trip report, since we are up to the last day of our trip: January 1, 2018.
First, let me get a few complaints out of the way, because lots of parts of this day ended up being awesome! But it had a few downsides.
ILLNESS: I was sick, DD was sick (though she denies it 
), DS had a high fever by evening.
WEATHER: I had been bummed it hadn’t been warmer all week, but today was the final insult. It poured rain all day, and temps were only in the 40s. This was especially concerning since we were checking out that morning and taking a late flight home. I envisioned squishing around in soaking wet sneakers and jeans from RD through take off and landing - NOT good! Plus possibly contracting pneumonia. :-)
HOURS: AK opened at 8. I knew any chance to beat the crowd to Flight of Passage required us to be there by about 6:30. That meant someone hitting the shower by around 5 (maybe earlier since we had to add time to check out). Just not happening! I realized I didn’t want to rope drop FOP about halfway through our trip, but I was relieved the night before to find that my family felt the same way. 
We checked out, ponchoed up, and carried on. We kept adding layers of clothes on the parking tram and the walk in. We had some time to wander around Pandora before our fast pass for Navi River Journey (no passes for FOP had been available). The area was just beautiful. None of us but DH had seen Avatar before (we have watched it since). But we still thought it was an achievement in Imagineering. Walking around Pandora was one of the coolest parts of the day.
The Navi boat ride was nice, though very short. I am sure it is just as good as other dark rides on some level (surely better than some in terms of effects), but the story was not familiar to me, so it didn’t do a lot for me. While we were still in Pandora, DS wanted to buy a Banshee. We were relieved to learn we could pick this up at the park exit, but we were a little concerned about getting it on the plane, since it definitely was not fitting in any of our already jam-packed bags! You can buy one without going through the whole experience of matching with one, which saves some time. I will say he has not played with it much.
Honestly, I had not planned this day that much. We had mid-day fast passes for Primeval Whirl and Dinosaur, but nothing else set in stone. It was just as well, since we ended up not doing rope drop, the weather was kind of nasty for anything outdoors, and the crowds were way lower than expected (I’m assuming the cold rain convinced a lot of people to sleep in on New Year’s Day!). But it was kind of funny to go old school and decide what we wanted to do on the spot!
You can probably guess from my name what I wanted to do first. 
I absolutely adore the Festival of the Lion King show (and especially those tumbling monkeys!). The music from the movie always moves me to tears. It was one of my favorites as a teen, and now my kids are in a production of Lion King JR, which adds an extra layer of poignancy for this sappy theater mom. Anyway, the show was fantastic as always. I’d heard the Tumble Monkeys aren’t always around these days, but we got all four, which totally made up for missing Talking Mickey earlier in the trip!
After the show, we headed to Dinoland, which I another place I love. Now, DS9 is not a fan of all roller coasters (he has passed on Everest since the first time he did it). But those he likes, he LOVES, and Primeval Whirl is definitely on that list. The standby line was short, so we all rode it once. Then, we had the idea to let DS9 ride it over and over (get off, get right back in line, repeat as needed) while the rest of us went and did Everest once using the Single Rider line. Well, he had a blast, and in the 20 minutes we were gone, he got to ride it 5 times, so he was one happy camper. I know everybody has different comfort levels with kids going solo, but we have had good experiences letting ours spread their wings a little at Disney. Everest is DD’s and my favorite ride, but it was admittedly not a great day for it, with the rain pelting us while we tried to keep multiple hats and hoods on our cold heads!
Next up was a fast pass for Dinosaur. DD and DH had ridden this last trip, but it was new for DS and me. And let me say, it kind of scared me! It was a rush, though, and I’d definitely ride it again.
Speaking of fears, DS had hated It’s Tough to be a Bug when we did it in 2016, but since it was one of the only indoor things left to do, we went and did it anyway. This time, he took a scientific approach and tried to figure out how the theater was doing all of the effects. He liked it better this time, but I can see why this ride scares lots of kids!
We were hungry. And freezing! Why are all the highly rated quick service restaurants at Animal Kingdom outdoors, LOL?! Our desire for tasty food won out, and we went to Local Food Cafes near Yak and Yeti for some fried rice and egg rolls that warmed us from the inside, at least temporarily.
We were now in a situation that literally never happens to us on Disney trips: too much time and not enough to do! It was about 4 hours till we left for the airport. We had no hotel to go back to. We weren’t willing to do anything outdoors. And we had done everything indoors that we wanted to do. . . or had we? An idea was dawning on me, an idea that would not only take a few hours, but by all reports would be extremely awesome in the end. We would ride Flight of Passage standby! Lucky for me, my family was game. Unlike those of us raised in the 80s, who routinely stood in two hour lines at theme parks, my kids were actually intrigued by the novelty of a long standby line! We dutifully bought the Heads Up app for my phone, and the promised 150 minutes went by fairly pleasantly!
The ride was thrilling (you’ll love it, @missoverexcited! 
). I can still smell the salt air from my favorite scene, and it did inspire all of us to watch Avatar when we got back home.
And speaking of home, it was time to go to the airport. DD and I nearly got frostbite holding them, but we still had our traditional root beet floats from the Asia bus on our way out of the park. Somehow, we disassembled the Banshee enough to fit it in DS’s string bag (and under the seat in front of him on the plane!). And within hours, the 45 degree temperature in Florida I’d been complaining about was replaced with single digits in DC!
Sure, it was both crowded and cold this particular late December trip. But there is really no such thing as a bad time to go to Disney World, is there? 
I know I will jump at the chance to go back any time we are lucky enough to combine it with a football trip. And I’ll stick around Touring Plans dreaming of the next trip, and the trip after that, and. . .
Thanks for reading!
Robin and fam
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Thanks so much for the report…Awesome photos…and enjoyed your commentary. Sorry the weather didn’t cooperate. At least it looked like everyone was having fun.
DW is also a VT grad…Class of '83. We watched the game in a bar here in town…she said to tell you she’s jealous that you got to go to the game.
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Great final instalment, I have loved reading along. And I’m sure you’re right and I will love FOP - about 18 months till I find out!
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