I’d say Typhoon Lagoon was a hit with our family, wouldn’t you?
We made the drive back to Kidani Village, and had a little time to kill after showering and changing for dinner. What to do…
Well, we can always watch the animals. If you’re going to stay at AKL, you’d better spend some time just enjoying the place, don’t you think?
Dave seemed to agree, and made himself comfortable on the deck. At least, I hope he was comfortable. I wasn’t getting up and offering my chair to him, though. Because I’m old. And I’m a jerk.
Dinner was going to be at the Kona Café in the Polynesian Resort. Julie and I had tried it on a rare date night during our last trip to Disney, and had fallen in love with the food there. This time we were taking the kids along. We decided it’s not an official Disney trip unless you ride the monorail, so we decided to leave the van behind and use Disney transportation this time.
(Ominous music—your choices here include Jaws, Twilight Zone, It’s A Small World, and polka. Go ahead and cue up whatever suits your mood.)
We wandered down to the main lobby and decided to check out the animal viewing area there. For some reason, the giraffes always stayed down the opposite end of the savannah from our room. The fact that Dave kept pulling my finger had nothing to do with it.
I don’t get tired of looking at this. The African theme at Kidani is phenomenally well done.
The zebras made sure to show us their best side. Darth Vader was busy eating.
We went to the bus stop to catch a Magic Kingdom bus. A man and his son joined us on the bench, and we started the usual game of Disney Bus Roulette. Every once in a while, you’ll hit on a lucky time and get the bus you want immediately. But typically, the rules of the game state that you will see at least 2 buses for every other theme park (and 3 for Downtown Disney) before the one you want shows up. If you're going to play, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?
Well, do ya, punk? Want to guess which side our luck was on?
After about 20 minutes and several buses had gone by, our MK bus finally arrived. Good thing we’d left plenty of time for travel. We arrived at the Magic Kingdom and made our way to the monorail station. We saw the Avengers monorail doing the express loop, and immediately the boys declared that we HAD to ride that one.
In 2010, Dave had said we HAD to ride the Tron-o-rail, and naturally we were foiled in our attempts to do so. The smart thing here would have been to take the Avengers monorail to the TTC and then walk to the Poly. But that's just what they'll be expecting us to do. We’re extremely lazy people, so we went for the resort monorail instead.
We arrived in plenty of time for our reservation, so we put in our names and then wandered the lobby. We’d dressed up in our closest approximation of Hawaiian finery, so we lined up for a photo shoot.
We went on a Hidden Mickey hunt.
And a Peeky Tiki hunt.
Found him! Book 'em, Dan-o.
Scotty tried to see if he could do a Vulcan mind-meld with our pager and make it buzz for our reservation.
We were seated shortly thereafter, so I’m assuming it worked. We had a nice view of the dessert kitchen.
They started us off with pineapple bread, which pretty much disappeared as soon as it hit the table. I thought the kids weren’t supposed to eat like this until they became teenagers.
Julie went with the coconut-almond-crusted chicken, which she’d loved on our last trip. I went with the Teriyaki-style NY Strip steak, (swapping in mashed potatoes for the rice) which featured steak covered in a pineapple-teriyaki glaze (and more pineapple on top of the steak).
I’m sure you’re all aware of the Pantheon of Foods—that is, the short list of foods that make everything better. Typically, this list includes bacon, cheese and chocolate. I am convinced that pineapple belongs in the Pantheon as well. I’ve personally witnessed it improving side dishes, desserts, and even hamburgers. And now, I had the unholy combination of pineapple + steak. Absolutely wonderful. Is this heaven?
Keeping with the Polynesian theme, the kids got umbrellas in their drinks. Good thing we weren’t driving home.
We also found some distant relatives. Can you see the resemblance?
All in all, the Kona Café remains one of our favorite restaurants on property. I know its reputation is for breakfast, but try it for dinner sometime. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
We took the monorail back to the MK and saw this at the station:
Sadly, this was as close as we got to riding the Avengers monorail.
It started drizzling as we walked around the MK entrance. Fortunately, Sarah had been prepared for this contingency at dinner.
As we walked to the bus, I saw a great opportunity for a photo. Ever take a picture that you thought was fantastic based on the viewscreen, and then when you get home and see it full-size, it’s out of focus? This happens to me all the time. You’d think I would learn to zoom in and check it after taking the picture. Anyway, here’s an almost-great picture.
If you'd watched me in Little League, you could have seen some almost-great at-bats, too.
We got home and I ran around Kidani and Jambo House with the camera while Julie got the kids in bed. I also may or may not have stopped in the gift shop to do some Christmas shopping that she wasn’t supposed to know about. We called it a night soon after, and I think I’ll call it a chapter right here. I’ll leave you with some of our best photos of AKL.
Coming Up Next: You know what stinks about short trips to Disney World? They’re really short. We’ll begin our last full day.
A shame Scotty wasn't tall enough for the ride though :/ Love your pictures from the Wave Pool! You guys really made a good turn-around after what happened at the Shark Reef. 
Thanks for checking in!
) I can't decide between Kouzzina (we are staying at BWV the last 4 nights) and Kona Cafe (EMH hours that night at MK AND it will be the first night we can see the icicles on the castle. We will DEFINITELY be going to MK that night!) Everytime we go to WDW, it seems I make an ADR for KC for dinner....and then I cancel it. But I can't decide!! Help me! Help me! Your family really loves KC that much for dinner???? I do have it booked for my first night with Timmy in March (he and I are staying at VWL for 2 nights and then 
