Day 7 - Part 2
We actually explored a bit of the Oasis exhibits out of the Safari first.
T waited with me to meet Pocahontas and talked football with her handler.
Pocahontas let T take a video of us doing Wingapo - my friends and I do it silently to each other when we wish we could say, "This is all the ***** I give". My friends got a kick out of it. Pocahontas asked me if T had built me a house with sturdy walls - I told her not yet. (Side note: we just signed a lease on an apartment together and will move in together in June - about a year after Disney!)
At some point, T got me and elephant ear to eat for breakfast. He had coffee.
Next up was our Expedition Everest ride - by now T had survived The Incredible Hulk - but there is the backwards element so I wasn't sure how that would go.
He enjoyed it.
We took a few photos outside Everest.
My favorite.
Tink magic!
Next we went over to our Kali River Rapids fast pass. There was still a bit of a wait in the FP lane, but our FP was for 11:50-12:50.
At some point we went to see the Nemo show and really enjoyed it.
Originally I had a safari booked for 6:00, but since we already did it, I changed it to Dinosaur.
We're not too concerned.
Since we were in Dino-land, I figured we should try the Primeval Whirl before we went off to lunch at Sanaa because it had like no wait time. This was a mistake.
Neither of us realized how jerky the ride would be - every turn slammed us into either each other or the kids in the ride with us (I think they were teen siblings). Then the ride got stuck at the top.
For a half hour at least.
We were hot, stuck in the sun, on a ride that was clearly not worth it.
I started becoming worried about getting to our ADR on time. Eventually the operators forced our cars down and manually moved us and helped us out. They offered paper fast passes to any ride in AK. We each took one or two. Then they gave us a handful more. We must have had 4 each and we let the kids have more. So at least that worked out. Kind of. We weren't heading back to AK until the last day, so we weren't sure how much use they'd be. I called Sanaa to let them know we were stuck in Primeval Whirl and might be a little late. They said not to worry.
We caught a bus to the AKL ASAP and found Sanaa - and had about a half hour wait. By this time we were starving.
We started with the bread service and all the sauces. T loved them. I had the Tandori chicken - T I think had the burger (because it had goat cheese) and an African beer. We enjoyed the atmosphere (this was T's favorite restaurant). I think we tried the dessert trio too.
After Lunch, we mozied around AKL a bit - we had a wine tasting at Jiko at 3:00. This was a great experience and T and I learned a lot about wine and how South African vineyards were essentially saved by Disney. T was probably the second most knowledgeable person in the class and we were definitely the youngest. Our host was humorous - however we were a bit confused when she said she wasn't a big wine snob who spent thousands on wine but thought nothing about opening an ordinary $100 bottle of wine....
We contemplated going back to AK, but in the end decided to go back to Coronado for a little rest. We had reservations at T-Rex that night. I think we must have taken the bus back to AK and then a bus to Coronado.
I found that my package still was not there and spent a while on the phone trying to track it down to no avail. The cast member kept insisting it must have been delivered, but it was no where in the room - leading me to believe A.) They delivered it to the wrong room or B.) Cleaning Staff had taken it (and I really didn't want to believe B). They did mention that my original request to change rooms may have had the package end up at the room we were originally supposed to go to - but they later reneged on this.
In the mean time, we did some laundry and enjoyed the pool. I absolutely LOVE the pool area at Coronado.
After a cool off and laundry - we got ready for dinner and use our Disney Quest ticket.
First off, let me say Disney Quest was a huge let down. While this may have been great in the 90s, everything inside seemed overwhelming. The few rides we did try (Jungle Cruise, Aladddin) were difficult to maneuver and you could tell the imagery was last created in about 1995. We were in Quest for about an hour before we rushed over to T-Rex for our late dinner. We sat by one of the Coral Reefs, which was neat. The restaurant was very loud and not really intended for people without kids. Some of the theming was cool, but overall it wasn't our cup of tea - since they're owned by the same company as Rainforest Cafe (which I've been to elsewhere), I didn't find this surprising. I think the main issue is that they're just very loud places and can be headache inducing. If they laid off some of the sound effects, it might be more appealing.
T and I weren't really fans of it and I kind of wish I had kept my original reservations at the newly opened Boathouse.
We stopped in the
Lego store and a few others in Downtown Disney, but otherwise didn't find much to do since we weren't buying a lot of merch (outside Star Wars). Definitely would not require a day's excursion.
