Animals,Animals, Animals New Years Trip with pictures and final thoughts

[Disney5Mom]

Cast:
Me - Disney Addict 54
DH - Converted Disney Addict 55
DD- Disney and animal lover 19

Origionally Dh and I had a planned a trip for 2 (only 2..no children even adult etc,etc) to the Contemporary (no car rental so we can afford to stay in a deluxe,AAA rate wing room) to celebrate the start of a new year and the end of a year of stress and ill health for DH.
However as all good Disers know.....things change!! a lot!!
Rooms are booked in August.
In Sept I decide to purchase first ever Annual Pass .
DD hears we are going to Disney.."This might be my last chance to go with University COOp term coming up etc,etc. Can I please come too?" What could we say..What would Walt say? We said SURE!
AP Discounts are out.. but none for Contemporary or CS ,however they have a great deal on a savannah view bunkbed room at AKL...DD loves animals so we book. But now we can't walk to MK no monorail .We will have to rent a car
Last step is to purchae DDE card and book ADR- Boma ,California Grill Marakesh,OHana, Brown Derby.
Are we there yet??

 

[Disney5Mom]

Day 1- Arrival, AKL O'Hana and Splash!
After a sleepless night in buffalo we were at the airport at 5:00 for our 7:30 flight. SW does not dissapoint, we arrived early and raced to Budget where DH went on his favourite ride of the entire trip.

After a quick run to AKL. We were faced with a long line. It moved quickly and a wonderful cast member informed us that our room was fresh and ready for us at 11:30. We were delighted but a little worried as the room looked about as far away from the lobby as you can get. The cast member assured us it had a fabulous view and we were on our way.
Wow!!

It was at first sight. Although the room was a hike from the lobby we loved our view and could barely drag ourselves away to the parks. It was quiet and peaceful and we saw mostly animals and the savannah as the view of the hotel was blocked by trees.
After a short rest we headed off to Ohana for dinner. We sat at a window table with a castle view. Our server seemed new and not very efficient,however it was New Years Day!. The the meat was slow to arrive and was not as tasty as usual but we enjoyed the view and the sides and bread pudding.The Lapu lapu was great also!

After dinner we took the boat from the Poly to Mk and were able to ride Splash Mountain, our favourite ride, twice.We watched Wishes from a lovely spot and the rode Small World,Peter Pan Pooh and Philharmagic.
DD wanted to stay longer but DH and I were tired so at 12:30 we caught the bus for an 8 min. ride to AKL.

 

[Disney5Mom]

Day 2-Jan 2
After Stitch's wake up call and some animal watching as we ate breakfast on the balcony we headed off to Epcot. Despite light rain all day it seemed quite crowded at Epcot today. After 2 rides on Soarin' DD,(not an epcot fan) headed back to AKL for a rest. DH and I were excited to ride the new Clammobiles at the Living Sea, but to be honest we felt it was not worth the 40 minute wait. After a short Journey into our imagination we headed for Mission Space. Since DH was a sufferer of space sickness on the origional Mission Space we tried out the green side. Good Job Disney!..still a good ride and nice option for those who can't take Mission Space orange. However as a former single rider on the origional Mission Space I will miss the opportunity for a quick ride on my own Test Track was already a 5 hour wait for fast pass so we left and returned to the lodge for a swim and some rum and cokes in our room.Dinner was at Boma's and was excellent as always. We love the soups, salads and the fufu. We rolled ourselves out to the bus for another evening of fun at MK. Finally saw COP and enjoyed Haunted Mansion.Pirates was too busy to wait for tonight.

 

[Disney5Mom]

More animal watching and off to Disney Studios today

We enjoyed GMR

DD and DH
and an awesome lunch at The Brown Derby

DD's vegtarian entree:

 

[byoung]

Thanks for posting.

 

[Luckymommyx2]

Great report so far--love the pics! Keep it coming!

 

[Disney5Mom]

Day 3- Continued
We loved all the shows at the studios The Little Mermaid Beauty and the Beast including Four for a Dollar.We then went for a tour of the Hollywwod Tower Hotel .Amazing..this one justgets better and better!
After a quick swim at AKL it is off to AK (DD's favourite park)
We attempted to get Fast passes for EE at AK but they were all gone so we decided to wait for another day. After a bite to eat at Tusker house we headed over to FOLK another must see for us. We were stung by bugs at TTBAB, terrified by an up close and personal encounter with a Dinosaur and soaked on the Kali River Rapids. Time to call it a night!Back to our fabulous home at AKL

 

[Disney5Mom]

Day 4- MK EMH
At last my favourite day. After a 6 am swim with DH and the usual 2 ducks we wake sleepy DD and drag her off to MK. We arrive at 7:20 and wait patiently for the park to open. We head straight to fantasyland and ride everything here.

The we enjoy a fabulous breakfast from the Main street bakery. We can't decide what to get so we order- crumb cake, cherry turnover, breakfast croissant sandwich, juice,french toast and fruit and granola and share it all

 

[uhtimex]

We were there during The first week as well, looks like you guys had a great time! thanks for posting

 

[ReneeDisney]

Great trip report! Can't wait to read more and what great photos - you have a lovely family!!

 

[Disney5Mom]

Thanks for the kind remarks and encouragement Luckymommyx2, byoung, uhtimex and ReneeDisney.

 

[Disney5Mom]

Day 4 - continued
We conquered all the mountains that were open...Space and Thunder, saved the Universe at Buzz Lightyear and still had time for a leisurely train ride around the world.
This is the part where we get a long ride on Pirates of the Carribean and I do mean long!! We were stuck in the part where they sing

and we all sang a long for about 20 minutes. Sorry if you were on that stuck boat too but we had to keep singing. We enjoyed the new effects and appearances of Jack Sparrow. He looks so real at first we thought it was a cast member!!Our last stop in Mk is always Philharmagic.
Back to AKL for fruit cheese and more rum and cokes on the balcony. Now DD is determined to see Fantasmic so we cancel our reservation at Marrakesh (for the fifth consecutive trip!! We have never eaten there Something always comes up!!) We were just too tired to do 3 parks today so we got AKL concierge to cancel Marakesh ADR and get us into The Brown Derby again...we really enjoy the calm here. Food at The Derby was good but server, again new, had a lot to learn. We wandered over to the Osbourne lights.Pictures do not do these justice.

This is our second year seeing them and we were amazed. Just as we were leaving the "Dancing" part began.We this. It is really neat. there was a small snowfall on the street so we headed over to fantasmic. I am not fond of crowds and we entered Fantasmic in the middle so it was a bit stressful or me. DD and DH really enjoyed the show and we waited a bit for the crowds to thin out before we left to shop a while beforeheading back to our AKL home

 

[natale1980]

waiting to see what happens next.

 

[Disney5Mom]

Day 5 - Conquering Everest
This was the day we had been waiting for..conquering Expedition Everset at last! DH and I enjoyed another early morning swim before waking DD to get ready for our trip to the Animal Kingdom. We noticed in the main lobby today that all the Christmas decorations were completely gone. There was also a film shoot going on in the lobby today.We arrived for opening, picked up fast passes and went on the expedition. DD and I were very surprised when DH joined us on this one as he does not like dark roller coasters. He said one ride was enough for him! DD and I rode later with our fast passes and sighted the Dream team in the gift shop at the end of expedition everest, but we did not see them making any presentations.The decor in the line here is so amazing!! We travelled back in time to Dinosaur a couple of times and took several very wet trips on the Kali River Rapids.

After a delicious lunch at Tusker House it was back to AKL for naps and afternoon beverages, beer for DH and rum and coke for me.
After drinks and animal watching we all dressed up to head over to the California Grill for dinner. Unfortunately, dinner here gets a mixed review from us. The restaurant was very noisy. The waitstaff seemed a bit and were not very efficent. When I asked if they had a signature cocktail the waiter said "no, everyone comes here for the wine" and was unable to suggest any available cocktail at all ???
DH settled for a bloody mary and I made do with rum and coke. We had really been looking forward to some tasty beverages and were a bit dissapointed. Boma, Ohana and the Brown Derby all feature a variety of drinks as well as wine. There was a mix up in our orderthey brought us the wrong food and the waiter wanted to bring us the dessert just when we said we would like to go outside to see the fireworks and despite asking if this was our first visit did nothing to inform us when or where to go to see the fireworks. We were therefore the last ones on the balcony and being vertically challenged there was no clear view for me and DD.( end of rant) The food was very good particularly the flatbread and desserts. The Caesar salad was very fishy and DD did not care for the cheese
plate appetizer.

I really did enjoy the view of the fireworks and the waiter did apologize for the poor service. We are going to try again in March to see if this was just an off night.

 

[marlaymike]

thanks for posting

 

[angelmav]

Subscribing! Great report so far!

 

[Becky521]

I am so jealous. It is my hope to someday be able to stay at AKL and your pictures are proving to me that I need to start saving now. It sounds like you had a very relaxing trip. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Disney5Mom]

We sadly said good bye to our animal friends today and packed our rental car up early this morning. Stay tuned for a bumpy ride.(not really)

For our last day we headed to Disney Studios for EMH. We were amazed...the studios were empty. It was a perfect sunny and warm Florida Day. We checked in to the Hollywood Tower Hotel 4 times with no waiting (word must be getting about about that elevator) We really enjoyed walking around the empty park. We visited the Muppets, boarded a space cruiser to Endor and enjoyed watching some Streetmosphere. We made an AdR at Prime Time this morning and our last lunch was fabulous.Dh had the Pot Pie, I had Pot Roast and Dd had yet another noodle dish.For dessert we tried the smores for the first but not last time.Yum!! we all wished we did not have to go and can"t wait to go back

 

[Luckymommyx2]

You're so brave! I tried ToT once and swore never again!

I'm just so in love with the AKL...I'd love to buy points at the villas there but we'll see how that goes. Feel free to post more pics!

 

[Disney5Mom]

Becky 521-You must experience the AKL at least once,we only went there because we got a great AP rate and for DD, but Dh and I just fell in love with the place. It was amazing.
LuckyMommyX2 _Thanks so much for the encouragement. I will post some more AKL photos although they are mostly of decorations details and more animals.