No right,no wrong, no rules for me - I'm free *First solo trip 4/30-5/6* updated 8/29x3 *complete*

[disneyAndi14]

Joining in, I read your last report and really enjoyed it. We stayed at AKL in February and really loved it! I hope you liked it!

 

[xlsm]

I'm here!! OMG I too am glad to put face to name! I saw you on Raeven's TR but I didn't' realize you'd be at Jock Lindsey's with her.
So now I put two and two together too...well, nice to officially meet you on the DIS
And I'm first to post! Yay! Looking forward to more!

I'm so glad you're here!! Now we can say we got to meet briefly in "real life" before we ever met on the Dis, LOL!!

I'm here and so excited to read about your adventure!

I'm glad you came over from my PTR!! This was such a different trip than I am used to, and I'm excited to share!

I'm here! Yay you're back and you're TR-ing! Great, that was fun, now tell me MORE! Can't wait to hear all about the solo trip life. Still sad I missed you by such a small window, but hopefully another time.

I can't wait to dive in to this report!! I'm sad we missed each other by such a little bit, too

I quietly followed you PTR but I thought Id come out of lurkdom for the trip report! Cant wait to hear all about the trip!

Oh, I'm so glad you de-lurked to say hello!! Welcome aboard

Can't wait to hear about your solo trip! Headed out to my first one in 21 days!

Aahh!! 21 days!! It will go by so quickly. I hope you have an amazing time on your trip...there's so much freedom on a solo trip. It was so weird and so amazing all at the same time.

Yay!! I can't wait to read all about your awesome solo trip that I am soooooo jealous of!

I was terrible about commenting on your last TR (mostly b/c I wasn't on very much) but I have been more actively DIS-ing and and am going to eventually get around to starting my TR (FROM DECEMBER ) so I am here and ready to go!

I just saw you started your TR!! I'm excited to read all about it, and I'm glad my awkward ramblings about how to post chapter links made sense to you
I noticed that @MeghanEmily had pasted that on there and I was like, Oh boy! I'm always so afraid I don't word things very well.

Yay joining in! Can't wait to hear all about your solo trip!!

Hooray!! I'm happy to see you here!!

Wow! How exciting. I can't wait to read.

hello and welcome!! it was definitely an adventure! I'm glad you're reading along

I'm here From your intro it sounds like you had a really good trip, anxiously waiting to read aaaaalllllll about it!

It really did end up being a great trip! SO WEIRD and so different, but great just the same. Spoiler alert - I went with the beef at Tiffins!!

Joining in!!!

Welcome, welcome!

Here! Can't wait to hear all about your trip.

Hello, Friend! I'm happy to see you!!

So excited to see how everything went!

I'm so excited to share! I never really thought I'd end up on a solo adventure, and it was a pretty cool experience.

Hurray for solo trips!!

Yes!! I am fully on board with solo trips!! I was very anxious leading up to it, but I am so glad I followed through because it was great!

I'm in! I'm excited to see what you though of touring solo and how your plans changed along the way!

I'm also excited to see what you thought of Animal Kingdom Lodge - it's one of my favorite resorts!

Welcome to the crazy train!

Oh my gosh...AKL...it's basically the other "person" in my report, I have SO MANY feelings about this resort. It almost makes me want to cheat on my beloved Wilderness Lodge. Almost!

Following along! Loved your winter trip report and disappeared from the boards for a bit, but I am back and see you ended up solo! Can't wait to read about your adventures!! My first stay to AKL will be in October and I can't wait to see how you enjoyed it!

Welcome back!! I can't wait to talk about AKL. It's just so special.

Following along
Can't wait to hear about your trip.

I'm so happy to have you here following along with me!

Joining! I actually made it on time this time!! Can't wait to read about how it went!

It ended up being super fun and this might be the report I'm most excited to write.

I can't wait to hear about your stay at AKL. The resort looks gorgeous and I've heard mostly good things about it.

The Wilderness Lodge is and always will be my number one favorite resort of all time ever, but AKL now has a special place in my heart. I'm so excited to share about my stay!!

Joining in, I read your last report and really enjoyed it. We stayed at AKL in February and really loved it! I hope you liked it!

I'm so glad you came back to read another report!! It's always nice to know I don't scare people off, LOL!! AKL was so gorgeous, I definitely liked it!

 

[Nhebron]

Joining in. Excited to read about your solo trip. I'm taking my first solo in November.

 

[chunkymonkey]

I'm so glad you're here!! Now we can say we got to meet briefly in "real life" before we ever met on the Dis, LOL!!

That is totally true!! How fun would that be!! We can put this in our TRs tooo, hahaha.

 

[HomeSweetDisney]

I just saw you started your TR!! I'm excited to read all about it, and I'm glad my awkward ramblings about how to post chapter links made sense to you

Yes I FINALLY started mine...almost 5 months later
And don't worry, you made plenty of sense

Now my TR can actually have chapter links! I never knew how to do them before hahaha

Can't wait to hear about your trip!

 

[OregonMomToWDW]

I haven't been on DIS for 4 days. I can imagine that the trip would be different. Can't wait to read.

 

[xlsm]

Joining in. Excited to read about your solo trip. I'm taking my first solo in November.

Awesome! I hope I can give some good insights on traveling to Disney solo!

That is totally true!! How fun would that be!! We can put this in our TRs tooo, hahaha.

Yessss!! Definitely going in the TR

Yes I FINALLY started mine...almost 5 months later
And don't worry, you made plenty of sense

Now my TR can actually have chapter links! I never knew how to do them before hahaha

Can't wait to hear about your trip!

I'm glad I made sense, lol!!

I haven't been on DIS for 4 days. I can imagine that the trip would be different. Can't wait to read.

Welcome aboard!!

 

[suse66]

Joining in as well! Can't wait to hear all about your experiences as I am also doing a solo trip to AKL this summer!

 

[LizardQueen8]

Joining in. Currently at the airport on my way to Disneyland .

 

[xlsm]

Chapter One Part One: The rain, rain, rain came down, down, down
Travel/Arrival day - 4/30
​

Good morning!!

Travel day chapters are always the hardest for me to write because I feel like they're so boring! I will get this first blahblah part up quickly this morning so I can get to the good stuff later this week

The title comes into play because we experienced near historic rainfall in the days leading up to my departure. Roads and bridges were washed out and closed, including one of the two routes to the airport. My hometown in Missouri was devastated by flood waters and many homes were lost, businesses destroyed, roads and highways closed. It's going to take a long time to put things back together. Here, people were a bit more lucky, but many families still lost homes and property.

The night before I was set to leave, 90% of the flights were cancelled. I was scheduled to leave at 6am, and was terrified my flight would be cancelled. I felt so guilty that I was worried about a flight when people were having their lives upended due to the weather!

I got up at 3am and made it to the airport. DH walked in with me (through the sloppy rainy mess - nothing like flying out all damp and gross!) and stayed until I had my bags checked and went upstairs to go through security. The airport was pretty busy, even that early, because many people were flying out on rescheduled flights that had been cancelled the night before.

I sat at my gate and chatted with a few fellow travelers. The flooding was definitely the big topic of conversation!

We boarded on time and at 6am we were off!



I was hoping I could get a bird's eye view of the flooding and damage, but it was too cloudy. How cloudy??



Really cloudy.

I had a short layover in Atlanta...actually, I had about 15 minutes from landing to boarding for my next flight! If you've been to Atlanta's airport, you know it's gigantic. By some weird miracle my next gate was two away from where I landed. That's never happened for me before when flying in there. The next flight was quick, and soon I was on the ground at MCO.

On my way down to the Magical Express, I met a woman from my area who had been affected by the rain and flooding. Her flight the evening before had been cancelled. She had never flown into MCO before, usually did Sanford and rented a car, but she had recently gotten her travel agent license and wanted to do Disney how most of her clients would, and experience everything firsthand. I helped her get to the ME area, said goodbye, and got in my line for Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Afterward I felt so dumb for not getting her info since she was also traveling solo. We could have met up for dinner or something!

I boarded my bus right away, and in less than ten minutes we were on the road. I was lucky to be near the front and could get this shot:



I was so happy to see this sign!! In December we were too far back on the bus to get a good shot, plus it was dark when we arrived then.

I checked the MDE app and saw my room number had been assigned, so when I got off the bus I double checked with the desk that I was good to get into my room and headed on up.

About halfway there I realized I had no idea where I was going, and went what was probably the longest, most confusing way to my room in existence.



I was having flashbacks to Boardwalk and wondering what on earth I had gotten myself into, when I found my room...and noticed that there was an elevator nearby and I had just gone up the wrong one. Thank goodness!!

A tour of my room...2453 on the zebra trail, Uzima savanna view.







If you notice in the first picture of the sink area, on the far right under the mirror, insect repellent wipes were provided.

I LOOOVED this wallpaper:





I have to say, this was probably the cleanest hotel bathroom I have ever been in. Either that or they have some kind of miracle grout that they use that stays pristine all the time.

I couldn't handle it anymore, I had to run over and look at my view!!



No animals at the moment, but that would definitely change!

Let's finish up the room tour...





The details. Seriously.



I hadn't had anything to eat all day and I was starving



so I snapped a quick picture of my door so I wouldn't forget (it's happened before, lol!!)



hopped in the elevator, and was let out right near the door to go outside and to the Mara!

I ordered the Brai Chicken Flatbread, which is oak-fried chicken, sundried tomato pesto, bacon, red onion, mozzarella cheese, and Sag Dahi ranch.



It looks incredible right?? Unfortunately the taste wasn't quite measuring up to the looks. I mostly picked at the toppings, scraped off the chicken, and then sort of munched on the crispier parts of the crust. But that's ok, because I also had...



ZEBRA DOOOMMMEEESSSS!!

I joined the fan club. Hard.



I ran back upstairs to the room to drop off my mug, and checked my view again.





Giraffes!! Other animals that I don't know the names of!! So exciting!!

I was riding high on zebra domes and giraffe sightings, and was ready to go to my first park of the trip. I was hanging on with adrenaline, because it had already been a long morning!!

Where was I headed??

Find out next time!!

Have an amazing Thursday, Friends!!

 

[xlsm]

Joining in as well! Can't wait to hear all about your experiences as I am also doing a solo trip to AKL this summer!

Hooray!! I really think AKL is a wonderful place for a solo trip because it is so relaxing there!!

Joining in. Currently at the airport on my way to Disneyland .

Awesome!! Have fun!! I've been missing California Adventure lately, I need to get back to Disneyland!!

 

[missangelalexis]

So glad that your flight got off on time and with no issues! Phew!

Omg your room looks amazingggg!! And what a view! My goodness I NEED to stay there one day.

Yay for joining the zebra dome fan club!

 

[wdwnut61]

I'm sorry to hear about the flooding but glad your flight left on time. There's nothing like seeing the Welcome sign
Love your room but you're right the hallways can be long and confusing. We stayed on the Arusha savannah and I loved our view but it was a looooong walk to our room.
Your flatbread does look yummy sorry the taste didn't measure up.
Ahhh the Zebra Domes

 

[MeghanEmily]

I was sorry to hear about the devastating flooding you mentioned in your PTR. How fortunate that your flight got out! But I'm sure it'll take time to clean up the damage for everyone in those areas.

I had about 15 minutes from landing to boarding for my next flight! If you've been to Atlanta's airport, you know it's gigantic. By some weird miracle my next gate was two away from where I landed.

So lucky! That mad airport dash for a connection is a scary thing! We've only done it once, in Philly, and I'd prefer never to do it again...

I was having flashbacks to Boardwalk and wondering what on earth I had gotten myself into, when I found my room...and noticed that there was an elevator nearby and I had just gone up the wrong one. Thank goodness!!

That's really fortunate! Some of those hallways are pretty long, so good you had an elevator nearby.

I LOOOVED this wallpaper:

Agree!

Giraffes!! Other animals that I don't know the names of!! So exciting!!

Be still, my heart!

 

[dnllmz]

Your room is as my 4yo dd would say ah-mazing! I really want to get dh on board with an AKL stay but for some reason he's not interested. I should show him your pictures.

 

[Sailormoon2]

Here, people were a bit more lucky, but many families still lost homes and property.

We just went through that where I live, in fact my Mom was one of the people displaced from their homes, she is still living in her church rectory, of all places!

Brai Chicken Flatbread

Too bad it wasn't as good as it looked, cause it certainly looked decadent!!!

That view! Sooo jealous!

 

[coloredimage]

By some weird miracle my next gate was two away from where I landed

Omg that IS a miracle! That's only ever happened to me like once!

About halfway there I realized I had no idea where I was going, and went what was probably the longest, most confusing way to my room in existence.

....100% guilty of doing that our first day too. The worst part was that we were so overtired and confident we were right and were so not.

So much love right there! I need some in my life right now!

 

[ariane37]

Thank goodness you didn't go through the BW hall horror again I kid but..... I'm serious. Disney resort long hallways are no joke man, been there

I hate to say this but I am not in the Zebra Dome fan club. I didn't like the texture and I think I expected them to be sweeter or something? I wish I liked them more because they're so darn pretty!

 

[xlsm]

So glad that your flight got off on time and with no issues! Phew!

Omg your room looks amazingggg!! And what a view! My goodness I NEED to stay there one day.

Yay for joining the zebra dome fan club!

I was so nervous about that darn flight!! There were some storms that we had to go near, but it never got too bumpy up there thank goodness.

The only complaint I had about the room was that it was kind of small. For me it was fine, but I honestly couldn't picture all four of us there together. I think it would have been a tight fit. Maybe a bunk bed room would give more floor space and make it work better though. Otherwise, I loved it and LOVED my view!

I will have to make more trips to AKL just for the domes, lol!!

I'm sorry to hear about the flooding but glad your flight left on time. There's nothing like seeing the Welcome sign
Love your room but you're right the hallways can be long and confusing. We stayed on the Arusha savannah and I loved our view but it was a looooong walk to our room.
Your flatbread does look yummy sorry the taste didn't measure up.
Ahhh the Zebra Domes

I was soooo happy to see that sign!

The room situation was very frustrating that first day because no one gave me any kind of directions on how to get there. The desk lady acted like I was bugging her and just pointed across the lobby and said, "It's on the second floor." Like I couldn't understand that with a room number starting with a 2, LOL!! Luckily she was the only unfriendly CM at AKL I encountered that week. Everyone else was great, especially the people in The Mara.

The flatbread should have been everything I loved all piled onto one crispy crust, but it wasn't as flavorful as it should have been and the chicken was a weird texture. It was pretty sad, because it was beautiful!

Yes, zebra domes

I was sorry to hear about the devastating flooding you mentioned in your PTR. How fortunate that your flight got out! But I'm sure it'll take time to clean up the damage for everyone in those areas.

So lucky! That mad airport dash for a connection is a scary thing! We've only done it once, in Philly, and I'd prefer never to do it again...

That's really fortunate! Some of those hallways are pretty long, so good you had an elevator nearby.

Agree!

Be still, my heart!

We always seem to have *just* enough time in Atlanta to use the restroom and get to our gate, and it was nice to not have a mad rush for a gate with such a short turnaround time. (that would not be the case when coming back home! I landed on concourse B and was departing from concourse F, but luckily I had a much longer layover that evening!)

Yes, once I figured out the easiest way to get to my room, it was such a relief! It wasn't the most convenient to the lobby, but it wasn't bad at all!

I want the wallpaper in my house!!

Your room is as my 4yo dd would say ah-mazing! I really want to get dh on board with an AKL stay but for some reason he's not interested. I should show him your pictures.

It was such a beautiful room! I mentioned above that the only downside was the size, but the details on the furniture were amazing!! I loved it so much. The resort is stunning. Truly gorgeous. Pictures don't even do it justice!

We just went through that where I live, in fact my Mom was one of the people displaced from their homes, she is still living in her church rectory, of all places!

Too bad it wasn't as good as it looked, cause it certainly looked decadent!!!

That view! Sooo jealous!

Oh, I'm so sorry your mom! I hope she is able to find some normalcy soon, that's so scary!

That flatbread was probably the most disappointing Disney food item because it was so pretty to look at! I don't understand how the flavor wasn't there with all those yummy toppings!

The view had me hooked! It was amazing.

Omg that IS a miracle! That's only ever happened to me like once!

....100% guilty of doing that our first day too. The worst part was that we were so overtired and confident we were right and were so not.

So much love right there! I need some in my life right now!

Right? I had never been so relieved!

Haha, I'm glad I'm not alone in the hallway wandering. I was frustrated that the desk lady was less than helpful!

I was so afraid I'd go into zebra dome withdrawal!!

Thank goodness you didn't go through the BW hall horror again I kid but..... I'm serious. Disney resort long hallways are no joke man, been there

I hate to say this but I am not in the Zebra Dome fan club. I didn't like the texture and I think I expected them to be sweeter or something? I wish I liked them more because they're so darn pretty!

"horror" is totally the right word because it was like a scary movie flashback, LOL!!

So, the full journey of the zebra domes for me...I didn't think I liked them after the first one, either. But once I got about halfway through the second one, it was all over for me and I was hooked. Maybe it was the booze in it

 

[HomeSweetDisney]

The title comes into play because we experienced near historic rainfall in the days leading up to my departure. Roads and bridges were washed out and closed, including one of the two routes to the airport. My hometown in Missouri was devastated by flood waters and many homes were lost, businesses destroyed, roads and highways closed. It's going to take a long time to put things back together. Here, people were a bit more lucky, but many families still lost homes and property.

That is so sad! We get a LOT of flooding here in South Texas but we are usually prepared for it because it happens EVERY year. But a couple years ago it was worse than usual and a lot of people died, including some kids Flooding is SO scary and people don't realize how quickly the water can build up and how much damage it really does.

We boarded on time and at 6am we were off!

So glad you were able to fly out with no issues!

I had a short layover in Atlanta...actually, I had about 15 minutes from landing to boarding for my next flight! If you've been to Atlanta's airport, you know it's gigantic. By some weird miracle my next gate was two away from where I landed. That's never happened for me before when flying in there.

What good luck your gate was so close...especially with only 15 minutes to get there

I boarded my bus right away, and in less than ten minutes we were on the road. I was lucky to be near the front and could get this shot:

The best sight in the world!!

Love this bathroom decor!

I LOOOVED this wallpaper:

That's so awesome! Man, between you, @MeghanEmily , and another TR I am reading - I really wanna stay at AKL next time!

I ordered the Brai Chicken Flatbread, which is oak-fried chicken, sundried tomato pesto, bacon, red onion, mozzarella cheese, and Sag Dahi ranch.

That looks yummy! Too bad it didn't taste as good as it looks. I hate when that happens

I ran back upstairs to the room to drop off my mug, and checked my view again.

Woohoo! Animals!!! So fun


I can't wait to read more!