So that's why you packed 10 pairs of underwear!!! A Surprise trip Nov. 13

[mickeystoontown]

I wish that I could get my hubby up and moving so that we'd arrive for our ADRs early. Seems like we are always running late. At least you were able to spend time looking around the beautiful Poly while waiting.

Breakfast at Ohana looks like a ton of fun and breakfast looks delicious.

Man, what a craaaaazy bus experience! We've only had to smoosh into a bus a couple of times and it was at the end of the night when the bus drivers were trying to get everybody back "home".

 

[disfanforlife]

Love reading your report. We were at AKV part of the same time as you 11/9-11/16. We are heading back for our second trip within 12 months for the first time ever! We bought AP's while there in November knowing we would be back in March. This will be our first stay at BWV and we are so excited! My DD said she is going to try writing a trip report.....I have never done one before.

 

[ZehnJahren]

I can't stand those crowded buses either; I can only imagine the look on your husband's face when they excluded him from the bus. And I just don't understand someone being offended by skywriters; Disney doesn't own the air. I've always seen those skywriters and never once has it ended up in my picture unless I wanted it to, so it's not like it's a big inconvenience or anything.

 

[BridgetR3]

I wish that I could get my hubby up and moving so that we'd arrive for our ADRs early. Seems like we are always running late. At least you were able to spend time looking around the beautiful Poly while waiting.

Breakfast at Ohana looks like a ton of fun and breakfast looks delicious.

Man, what a craaaaazy bus experience! We've only had to smoosh into a bus a couple of times and it was at the end of the night when the bus drivers were trying to get everybody back "home".

My hubby is soooo worried about making someone else have to wait for us that we are ALWAYS early!! The Poly was especially gorgeous that morning because it was cool enough to enjoy and not so hot like when we go in the summer.

Whew, I certainly hope that the bus situation we endured that morning is NOT the norm for the Poly. Surely it can't be!

Love reading your report. We were at AKV part of the same time as you 11/9-11/16. We are heading back for our second trip within 12 months for the first time ever! We bought AP's while there in November knowing we would be back in March. This will be our first stay at BWV and we are so excited! My DD said she is going to try writing a trip report.....I have never done one before.

Thanks for hanging out with me!!! Excited about your upcoming trip!!! Please do share a trip report when you come back. It helps you to relive the memories all year!!

Last year was a first for us. We went in May/June, in November and we are going back for our summer trip this May/June. HOWEVER, DH has decided that we are just renewing our annual passes since next year's trip will be in the 365 days in the annual pass and he's already talking about going back for Thanksgiving if they offer free dining!! Be still, my heart; I love that man!!!!

 

[BridgetR3]

I can't stand those crowded buses either; I can only imagine the look on your husband's face when they excluded him from the bus. And I just don't understand someone being offended by skywriters; Disney doesn't own the air. I've always seen those skywriters and never once has it ended up in my picture unless I wanted it to, so it's not like it's a big inconvenience or anything.

Hey!!!

Yep DH's jaw dropped and he just stared at the bus driver. Now DH is a gentleman, a very kind, never tell anyone off kind of man. His wife on the other hand, well.....she's had her fair share of word exchanges. SO.....being the good wife that I am, I stood up for him. Later that day, we joked about how next time he has to stand up for himself or else get left!! He has got to stand up for himself.....of course, he says I stand up for all of us enough for the whole bunch.

So do you a PTR yet? Don't you have a trip coming up?

 

[BridgetR3]

Leaving......




We were headed to a place unexplored by us and ......





we were pretty happy about it.

The train ride was uneventful and very soon we were left alone to explore the wilderness, because the wilderness must be explored. Caw caw, roar!! Oh sorry....

Anyways, the boys immediately found something to climb on and hollered, "MOM, take a picture of us!!" So I did....



And of course we had to switch elephants and take another picture...




Sorry, poor family waiting behind us for pictures. My kids think that they are models.



We followed Rafiki's instructions and our handy dandy map and soon we found these guys...



They were so cute. I could have stayed there all day watching them but the kids left me so I figured I had better keep walking.

We found a wilderness explorer station where the kids searched for "hidden animals" while DH and I sat on a bench. A little touch of heaven to get off of our feet!





See Mom, I found him!! All too soon my boys were finished, had received their badges and we were moving on.



Gorgeous flowers!!! I took this picture while DH tried to pay for a water with his magicband. I say tried because the bands were not working at this kiosk or frankly ANY kiosk out here at Rafiki's planet watch and DH was "dying of thirst". I figured I would let him fight his own battle this time since I saved his butt on the bus. So I ventured around taking photos for a little while.



So I took this one....



and moseyed over to take a close up of the flower from earlier when DH came over to ask for a room key. Apparently the kiosk was not accepting magic bands so the only way to get a drink was to use a KTTW card. I'm assuming that people at the resorts without a KTTW card would have received a free drink?? Surely that isn't a customer's fault. ANYWAYS, we have a drink and we were off to finish more wilderness explorer quests.



Can you find the Mickey head silhouette here?



I really enjoy the wilderness explorer books because it forces my go, go, go kids to stop and enjoy the moment by making them look around them.



This hawk had HUGE talons.



Of course we had to meet Rafiki even though DS7 didn't know who Rafiki was until we showed him a picture!



After meeting Rafiki, we went to the sound rooms behind him and listened to the little show.

We live in a very rural area but we still had to stop and pet the goats!





Before we knew it, it was time to head back to civilization....er, Animal Kingdom. We had FP reservations coming up quick!

 

[ZehnJahren]

Hey!!!

Yep DH's jaw dropped and he just stared at the bus driver. Now DH is a gentleman, a very kind, never tell anyone off kind of man. His wife on the other hand, well.....she's had her fair share of word exchanges. SO.....being the good wife that I am, I stood up for him. Later that day, we joked about how next time he has to stand up for himself or else get left!! He has got to stand up for himself.....of course, he says I stand up for all of us enough for the whole bunch.

So do you a PTR yet? Don't you have a trip coming up?

You're right about that - if you don't stand up for yourself, there may come a time where there's no one else to do it!

I DO have a trip coming up, but I think I'm just going to go, have a good time, and come back and do a TR if my pictures turn out ok. I have been very anti-giving-my-dates-on-the-internet after my last trip. I didn't think about it until an incident, and now...

 

[BridgetR3]

You're right about that - if you don't stand up for yourself, there may come a time where there's no one else to do it!

I DO have a trip coming up, but I think I'm just going to go, have a good time, and come back and do a TR if my pictures turn out ok. I have been very anti-giving-my-dates-on-the-internet after my last trip. I didn't think about it until an incident, and now...

So true....I don't blame you for not sharing your dates. Better to be safe and have a great time!!

I can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[teekathepony]

Cute, love the trip to Rafikis (other than the water issues... yeah, what happens if you can't pay with your MB and have nothing else??)
Love the pic with Rafiki himself!

 

[BridgetR3]

Cute, love the trip to Rafikis (other than the water issues... yeah, what happens if you can't pay with your MB and have nothing else??)
Love the pic with Rafiki himself!

I honestly don't know what happens but since it's Disney's problem, I say, "FREE water for EVERYONE!!!!"

 

[LumosQ102]

And I just don't understand someone being offended by skywriters; Disney doesn't own the air. I've always seen those skywriters and never once has it ended up in my picture unless I wanted it to, so it's not like it's a big inconvenience or anything.

They sometimes write some very hateful things up there, so I can understand the other families wariness. Perhaps they have seen the 'you're going to hell' and homophobic writings I have seen up there. "Love god" is quite innocuous in comparison, but would see me rolling my eyes.

Back on topic, really loving your trip report. We do keep meaning to stay at AKL but it always feels so far out. Great restaurants though. yum

 

[BridgetR3]

We walked back to the train station and boarded a train to civilization. Along the way we saw.....



and.....



(Oh wait, never mind, he's actually mine.)

and soon we were back at AK ready for our safari.

So I'll go ahead and share the same pictures that everyone else shares from the safari.





That's when our tour stopped. The driver was busy talking in her headset but I was seated far enough away that I really couldn't hear or lipread anything. We sat around for a couple of minutes and then she let us know that we were stopped because the giraffes were crossing the road. Here's hoping we get up close pictures!!

Finally we started moving......



and one of the giraffe's hind ends. Sorry but he was close....


We zoomed off in hopes of finding more animals.....and also to clear up the backlog of trucks that were stuck behind us.



A blurry monkey picture.....



The animals were showing me their best side that day....



And the male lion was doing what he does best! But in the back of that photo I just noticed is that a fence?

After the safari we decided to find a cart for a snack since we were beginning to get hungry. I wasn't really hungry enough for a full meal though. We began checking out the carts as we passed them on our way towards Kali (although we weren't riding it this trip). Popcorn wasn't sounding filling but I really wasn't sure what else was available. We decided to check out the menu at the Yak and Yeti counter service since it was on the way and saw that you could get chicken fried rice as a side. Yes please!! We grabbed two cartons (which ended up being WAY too much for the four of us) and some drinks. Since it was such a gorgeous day we sat at the tables right near the dance party and enjoyed our snack in the sunshine.



Our cute takeout box



It was packed full of rice and veggies but it didn't have too many chicken pieces. It didn't bother us but it may bother some people.



I can't imagine how hot those ladies get in the summer with all the layers.

Be back later......I promise......

 

[BridgetR3]

After filling our bellies with fried rice, we decided to do something that we have never done in the summer because of the heat. We chose to go on the Jungle Trek. It was such a beautiful day that we really enjoyed the walk and finished some of the Wilderness Explorers book along the way.



The tigers were active in the cool temperatures. However, all of my "active" pictures are blurry so you have a laying down picture.





This plant was gorgeous!

After finishing the trail we decided to do something else that we never take the time to do on our summer trips and that was to watch the parade! We never sit in the 90-100 degree temperatures to watch the parade so we were in for a treat.



We chose a spot right next to Mickey and Minnie's Outpost on the road that passes by the exit of Tough to be a Bug. That poor duck was desperately looking for a quiet place.



Soon a CM came and began to "mop" the ground. I knew from the DISboards what was happening but my kids were clueless so I had them watch the man and his "mopping".



My boys were so excited to see that it was Mickey that he was drawing! After finishing, the small crowd with us sent up a cheer and applause for the man who took a bow and walked further down the road to treat someone else to another picture.

CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST

 

[BridgetR3]

Soon the parade was starting and we were mesmerized. I'm just going to share our pictures from the parade with little to no commentary.



















































And with that the parade was over! We were now headed to Expedition Everest for DH and DS7 to ride! It would be DS7's first time ever to ride Everest. Would he ride it? Would he like it? Would it make him

 

[PrncessA]

Love the updates! We are hoping that we are able to catch the AK parade while we are there since it is going away!

 

[BridgetR3]

Love the updates! We are hoping that we are able to catch the AK parade while we are there since it is going away!

I really enjoyed the parade. We had never seen it because when we go in the summer it's SO HOT!

 

[BridgetR3]

After watching the parade, we decided to hit up Expedition Everest.



So we followed the end of the parade banner and waved at everyone just like we were in the parade itself! I'm sure we looked like goons but we are after all at Disney.

DS7 was very eager to try EE for the first time ever.



And with the big mountain in our sights, he chickened out. That's right folks, he decided that he just couldn't do it! Poor DH had to ride by himself AGAIN.
So we waited and DH rode it.

After a trek on EE, we decided that we would skip Nemo this trip since we were running out of time. Instead we headed over to Dinosaur. On the way there, DS11 decided that he would not ride. I decided to make a phone call home and we let DH and DS7 ride together.

After the ride we walked through a store in Dinoland.



Excuse the glaring light. I thought Santa Dino was cute.

Then we headed towards Camp MinnieMickey for our last time ever.



This snowman was HUGE!!! It was next to the Goofy (?) meet and greet. We were on a mission so we didn't stop to meet him.

CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST

 

[BridgetR3]

I had always read about the Christmas trees in Camp MinnieMickey but since we had never been at Christmas time we had never seen them. Our mission was to guess the character of each tree before our FP+ for our last Lion King at this location.





Minnie's tree



Goofy's tree

While at Camp MM we decided to meet some characters! We ran through the empty line to see Donald.



He was very excited to see us and to have someone to talk to!



.....until he saw our pen with the Mickey ears. THEN.....



he ran from side to side of the meet and greet pointing to himself and then putting a #1 up. He did this several times. Afterwards, he gave our "mickey" pen back and refused to use it!



He put out his hand to refuse it and grabbed a pen of his own. Finally, after Donald had signed our book, he let us take a picture with his awesomeness!



Next up we met a Christmas-y Chip and Dale.



They were cute.....



....but boring with no funny antics like last time when Chip locked Dale out of the meet and greet.

We visited the other lines but there were no more characters and it was time to go for our show anyways.

Because this was the very last Lion King show we would ever see at this location I chose this as one of my FP+ reservations in hopes of getting a front row seat.

We lined up in a different spot than the regular line and we were first for FP+. While in line we decided to sit in the lion's section. When we were let in we indeed had front row seats!!!!



Children were chosen from the audience to lead everyone in the tumble monkey dance and both of my boys were able to do it. My pics are so dark of that though so I won't share those.

Finally it was time to start and they were choosing people for parts of the animals! When they got to our section DS11 went nuts trying to get picked and.....
...
...
...
............
...
...
............
......
...
...
......
...
...
...
...
......
...
......
...








he succeeded!!!



He was so excited to be able to lead all of us in the roar!



As you can see people did move into the seats (handicapped) in front of us before the show started. We were still really close.



I felt so much emotion watching them this night. I cried at several points knowing we would never see these people doing this act in this building again. Such finality in their performance.



In many ways, I think they went above and beyond because they knew that the show was ending. Or maybe it was just me.....



Each act was met with a rousing applause even for a 6 p.m. crowd that was only half full.





Every act was amazing. During the show, Timon decided he needed to come sit with the people in front of us to sway to the music.



He was hilarious.



He swayed, he held his hands up, he was a hoot.

And with that,



our show was over. It was such a wonderful end to a great day at AK.

After the show, we headed out to our resort for some food since we had not eaten dinner yet. Back home at the Mara, we filled our bellies and tried a crowd favorite!



DS had a flatbread pizza.



I had a burger meal.

And we tried.....



zebra domes. The verdict?? BLECH!!!! AWFUL!!! No one liked them. In fact all that is in this picture went to the trash. I know that zebra domes have a cult following like dole whips but we are 0-2 on those two! lol....

We went to the hot tub for a little while on this evening after dinner. It would be the ONLY time all week that it was "warm" enough to get in the water for us. Big changes in temperature were on the way!

After our dip in the hot tub we headed upstairs to bed and before long we were fast asleep.

 

[Nairnyn]

Oh my goodness!!

I am so glad I'm not the only person who doesn't find the appeal in the Zebra domes.

I thought they might kick me off if I ever admitted it.

Yeah, not a fan.

 

[BridgetR3]

Oh my goodness!!

I am so glad I'm not the only person who doesn't find the appeal in the Zebra domes.

I thought they might kick me off if I ever admitted it.

Yeah, not a fan.

Oh they are nasty!! Whew!

Glad I'm not alone!