Thursday morning, March 6th, Animal Kingdom:
I open one eye. I open the other and turn to peer at the clock radio. 7:34 AM. Hot Dog! I'm awake in plenty of time to make it to AK for opening. Who cares if I'm tired? I can see sunshine peeking around the edges of the blackout curtains and we're at DisneyWorld!!!
I pull out my earplugs, flip the covers off and get up. My friend is still completely out. She did, however, tell me to get her up whenever I woke up, so...
I gently shake her shoulder. Nothing. Okay. I gently shake her shoulder. Still nothing. Forget about gentle. I shake her shoulder and she wakes up. "Good Morning!" I say with a big grin. She says "Thanks" for waking her, but for some reason or another, she doesn't look too grateful
I flip on the TV, tune in to the Weather Channel and pad off to the bathroom.
By the time I'm through with my shower, my friend is just finishing putting on clothes to go for a quick ciggie fix at the DSA. "Going for a smoke?" I ask. "Yeah, be right back," she says, and she is. I finish up my morning rituals while she showers. Then I get dressed, and try to straighten up slightly. When we'd come in the night before, I hadn't cared about neatness, and now it was bugging me. Thankfully, my friend is pretty neat and has already folded up the sofabed, so it doesn't take me long to put things in order.
I finally have a moment to take a good look at the room and am feeling pretty satisfied. The room is clean and well-maintained. We're in room 2543, so we're in the Congress Park building physically closest to the Carriage House and this first floor DTD facing studio is on the side of the building closest to Carriage House. (Quick Note: Not being a smoker myself, I'd never thought of this, but my friend had it made in terms of being close to the DSA. First floor, so no stairs or elevator required, and just steps away from the DSA. So, for all you smokers out there, this room is perfect for you.).
I've been on a kick recently to make sure I drink plenty of water. And it's paid off. My skin is clearer and less dry. So, I move on to the kitchenette and open up the cupboard and find...styrofoam cups
. I take a step back and mutter, "The glasses and mugs are missing." My friend is drying her hair and says "What?" More loudly, I insist, "We're supposed to have glasses and mugs, not styrofoam." She throws me a look which is a cross between "Crazy lady" and "Who cares" then goes back to the much more important task of fixing her hair. I shrug and figure it's an oversight by housekeeping, but since we're on a tight schedule, I decide not to bother with it. I drink my water and make a mental note to pick up some milk for coffee later on. I've got plenty of coffee and filters in my Owner's Locker, but since we'd gotten in so late the night before, we hadn't had an opportunity to buy milk.
By now it's 8:30 AM and I'm champing at the bit to GO! My friend is still putting the finishing touches on her makeup, so I go sit on the sofa and watch the Weather Channel to distract myself from the fact that I've got no coffee, and I want to GO! Finally, she's ready. I whip out two red World of Disney ponchos I'd bought in NY before the trip and toss one to her. "Take this with you, it might rain later" I tell her. We walk out and as we pass the DSA, she says "Hang on a minute." Aggh. She's a fast smoker, so I wait patiently. Also, she's on a vacation without her DH which means she is has unfettered access to her smokes
. She and her DH have a sort of "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy. He made her promise to quit some years ago. She didn't. She just doesn't smoke in front of him, and he doesn't ask. It's got to be impossible for him to not know she smokes, but whatever. She's done with her smoke, so we hop in the car and we're off! We're on our way to the AK!
We make it to the AK without too much trouble and don't have to wait long to be waived through the parking toll gate. We park pretty quickly and soon we're sitting on a tram. The operator waits for the tram to fill and once it does, we're on our way to the entrance. Which is at a distance of three city blocks. Geez, if I'd known we were that close, I think I'd have preferred to walk. But who cares! We're at the entrance and although we've missed the rope drop, it's only 9:10 AM. Hardly a wait to get through the turnstiles and away we go, walking quickly towards Expedition Everest.
FLASHBACK to two years ago, January 2006. I'm at AK with the same friend. We'd taken a long weekend with our DH's and were staying at the BCV that time. It's our second full park day. First day was spent at MK since this was her first time to DW. Expedition Everest is just days away from soft opening, but I'm going to miss it
. My friend has been feeling queasy all morning, but had taken some Pepto Bismol which seemed to have helped some. We'd been in the park a couple of hours, but stayed away from rides (other than the safari) and had seen It's a Bug's Life and just exited Festival of the Lion King. Every half hour I'd been telling her that maybe we should go back to the room, but she insisted on staying. We pass by a bathroom, she turns green and runs in. She comes out a few minutes later, pale and clammy. This time I insist that we leave. We make it back to the room where our husbands have just managed to get themselves dressed. "She's sick," I tell her DH. She ended up being so sick that her DH had to call the Dr. to come see her. He eventually came, gave her an injection and some meds and gave the rest of us stern instructions to not touch anything she has touched. This very nasty stomach bug puts her out of commission for the rest of the trip. So, she misses out on the AK.
JUMP BACK to today. Our first park day is AK. I've never ridden Expedition Everest (and of course neither has she) so it's our first stop. We take two fast passes which have a return time of 10:05 AM. It's about 9:20 AM. The standby line says there's only a 10 minute wait, so we walk in. We don't even wait 5. We get on, and this ride is fabulous. It takes my breath away a little when it rushes backwards in the dark, but in a word AWESOME! My friend who is a little bit leery of rollercoasters turns to me after the ride and blurts out "AWESOME!" "I know!" I tell her. We walk through the exit and into the store (that all the rides seem to let you out in) and look at the funny picture that has been snapped of us. My friend doesn't like how she looks in this one, so we move on.
It's 9:30 AM. Plenty of time to kill before our Fastpass entry, but it's still a little bit too cool out for Kali River Rapids. So we wander over to Dinoland, USA. On the way, she spies a DSA, and we stop so she can smoke, and I spy a bathroom and make good use of it. As soon as we're done, I drag my friend over to Dinosaur since I haven't ridden it in about 8 years. "Ready for another ride?" I ask. "Is it a roller coaster?" she wants to know. "No, but it's pretty cool." So we go in and gawk at the dinosaur exhibit in the entry (Anyone in Disboard-land know if the dinosaur skeleton is real?). There's no wait here either, and we hop into our Time Machine after the short introduction. Great ride. Not exhilarating like Expedition Everest, but still a great ride.
As we exit the ride, we walk by the Primeval Whirl. I've never ridden it, and never had the desire to. I've been told that it's a sort of spinny ride, and those make me dizzy. But, there's no line, and I'm feeling adventurous, so I sidle up to the CM at the entrance to the queue and ask just how much this ride spins? The CM says it spins some, mostly in the last 30 seconds of the ride. I start to walk away, and the CM insists it isn't that bad, just sit in the middle of the car. "Really?" I murmur. Alrighty then. I don't need more convincing than that, and neither does my friend. This coaster doesn't seem like it has any steep drops and doesn't even seem to go that fast, so she's good to go. We go in, get in a car, sit in the middle as the good CM has instructed us, and are strapped, snapped, clicked and locked into our vessel. We get going and immediately bump into the back of the car in front of us. The people in front of us look behind to see why they've just been jolted. We look back at them and giggle. They go up up up and then they disappear. Momentarily, we're also going up up up. And then a little bit down but mostly we're going back and forth. As we're being swung back and forth we're looking at Dinosaur billboards with declarations of "The End of the World is Near" and Clocks. And we swing and swing, and during the last third of the ride, every time we get swung in a new direction we hear a loud DING! and the car spins a little. At the end of the ride, the CM slows us down and stops us quite suddenly (more suddenly than he intended to by the look on his face), but we'd been laughing from the ride and this just made us laugh harder, so he asks us if we want to ride again. We look at each other and say "Sure!" We ride a second time then exit, still laughing. For anyone who has passed by this ride and thought it looked cheesy or tacky and lame, Go On This Ride. In eight years, I never rode Primeval Whirl. I finally did and thought it was the the funniest ride I've ever been on. No, it's not big thrills, just executed with lots of humor.
By the time we finish our Primeval Whirl Tour, it's time to trade in our Fastpasses for another ride on Expedition Everest. We stroll back over to Asia and glide through the Fastpass queue and are sitting on the ride in no time at all. Still quite the thrill. This time when we exit, my friend is satisfied with the picture and we buy two, one for each of us to remember the trip by
It's time for a smoke. (Hmmm...roller coasters seem to make my friend want a cigarette
)
It's starting to warm up a bit now, so we head over to Kali River Rapids. We're having incredible luck, because there's no line here, either. I pull my poncho out of my string backpack and put it on. I tell my friend to do the same. "I can't," she says. "It's in the car." I roll my eyes and tell her to get on the raft. I quickly swipe the seat with the washcloth I borrowed from SSR and sit. She sits next to me and we sort of share the poncho. She ends up really loving this ride because it's so pretty. I love Kali River Rapids for this reason, too. But, now she was able to witness first hand why you want to wear a poncho unless it's really hot outside. On the first dip, the gentleman a couple seats down from us went from dry to drenched in a nanosecond. And the fun doesn't stop there. He keeps on getting hit. Four good soakings later, and he's not even bothering to shield himself from the waves. His wife says, "I'm glad I didn't sit next to You!"
We got hit once or twice, but thanks to my trusty poncho, we exit the ride hardly more wet than when we got on.
Warning: The next paragraph is gratuitous griping, so if you don't want to hear it, move on to the next one. On the other hand, it will have some slight bearing on subsequent Trip Report Installments. Your choice.
Now, I love my friend, but she doesn't like to listen to me, which is why she left the poncho in the car. I wouldn't care, except that it's also my vacation, and I also want to enjoy it, not have to waste time running back and forth for dry clothes or supplies because she doesn't like to be told anything. Most times, I'll let her do things her way (she doesn't like to plan things, and has some kind of fantasy that you can go to Disney and sleep until noon, go to whichever park whenever and wander into any restaurant at any time and be seated). Both times we've been to Disney she has tried to convince me to plan nothing so that she can have a "spontaneous" Disney experience
. Yeah, okay. With Disney, I'm assertive with my opinions. I know at Disney to have a plan in place (which we can always divert from) and be prepared for the weather. Ideally, you also have ADR's for sit down restaurants, but I digress. Being prepared for the weather allows you to continue to enjoy Disney's parks when everyone else goes running for the door, vacating the rides that I'd like to go on!
Okay, so we haven't had any breakfast (other than the coffee we bought at the entry to AK). But, on the other hand, we're on a roll. We've walked onto everything so far, and we think we might be able to finish this park before lunch. Okay, we decide to postpone lunch and hit the Maharajah Jungle Trek. We see the cattle, the bats, and the tigers and the birds. All really cool. I really like the nature walks at AK. I never miss them. We finish the walk and stroll to Africa to grab a Fastpass for the Safari. Return time is after 1:05 PM.
Okay, it's already almost 12 o'clock (how did that happen?) and we're Hungry. I'm sort of jonesing to try Yak and Yeti, but I ask my friend what she'd like to eat. Quick Service or Sit down? Flame Tree BBQ? Rainforest Cafe? Yak and Yeti? We pass by Tusker House (which is buffet now) and keep going. It's looking crowded, and I'm thinking it will take a while to be seated. I ask her if she's ever been to a Rainforest Cafe (I know she hasn't at AK, but you can find them in different cities, so I asked). She hasn't so I tell her I think she'd enjoy the experience, but I don't know what the seating situation will be. So, we decide to go there, and if the wait is long, we'll settle for Flame Tree BBQ. We exit AK through to the Rainforest Cafe gift shop (which my friend thinks is pretty cool) and over to the check-in podium at the restaurant. 5 minute wait. Score!
So we wait and stare at the fish tank for a few minutes. Within ten minutes, we're sitting with menus in hand. We're near the elephants, and my friend is surprised when they start to trumpet. She's really enjoying the atmosphere. We each order a cocktail (hey, it's vacation) and decide to split the giant appetizer smorgasbord thing and one hamburger. Based on my past meals here, I'm not expecting much of the food, so when it comes out and is really good, we're quite happy. We make short work of our meal, but are too full for all the yummy looking desserts. I quickly use the bathroom (and have noted it as a good bathroom for future use). We take one last swallow of our beverages, and go back in the direction of the AK. I can't help myself and need to browse the giftshop for a moment, so my friend avails herself of the opportunity to go for a smoke. I meet her at the DSA by the turnstiles, and we're ready for Round 2.
Fastpasses are ready, so we make a beeline for the Safari. We get into a waiting truck and away we go! The Safari is better than I'd remembered. It always seems that way. I guess since I only ride it once every couple of years, I forget portions of it, so although it isn't exactly like riding it for the first time, it almost is. We see the Ankoles, hippos, rhinos, "Tommies," a couple of cheetahs, a family of elephants and some flamingos. We catch glimpses of the lions, but they're laying low. All in all, I'd say it was pretty good for watching that day. We finish the safari, and since we aren't too far, we walk up to see if Flights of Wonder is available, but the next show is at 3:00 PM, so we go over to see "It's Tough to Be a Bug," which my friend really wants to watch (she gets a real charge out of this show
)
Timing is just right, they're loading people into the tree to wait for the show to start, and we listen to the concert performed by the bees (I don't know why, but this always cracks me up). I notice that quite a few people have brought some really young children to watch this film, and am slightly surprised. Once the doors to the theater open, we file in and wait for the show to begin, and it does, not too much later. We're engrossed in all the cool effects of the show when the young child to my left and the young child to my friend's right begin to WAIL. They're frightened. So this prompts the mother to my left to talk to her child for the entire rest of the show, alternately giving the kid a blow by blow of the action, and telling the kid not to be scared
. My friend tells me that the mother to her right removed her child's glasses. Okay. Nonetheless, the 3D effects are spectacular, and we manage to enjoy the remainder of the film
.
We exit along with everyone else and I ask my friend what time is it? Five minutes before 3 o'clock
Oh no, we have only five minutes to make it to Flights of Wonder. If anyone reading this was in the Animal Kingdom at about three o'clock on Thursday March 6th and saw two women madly making their way out of the Tree of Life area and sprinting up to Asia, that was us. As much as my friend wanted to see It's Tough to Be a Bug, I really wanted to see Flights of Wonder, and as we discovered when we got there, this was the last show of the day. Phew! We made it. Loved the birds. The goofy tourist schtick, not so much. I'd still go back to see Flights of Wonder, but sheesh, they could use a slightly more subtle approach to the demonstration
By 3:30 PM, we're on our way to the Pangani Exploration Trail to see the gorillas (Like I said before, I love the nature trails and never miss them). We stroll through, and of course all the animals and birds are really cool, but the gorillas are the highlight. They are so special. The CM in the viewing area told us that they could choose to hide away from the glass, but every day, they come down to the area to hang out and look back at us. Cool, right? On that day, the male of the family was dozing (why does this seem so...familiar?
) One female was sitting up and just chilling out. And another small female was taking a nap on the other end. This small female, it turns out, was only nine years old. A gorilla child. We stayed awhile just admiring them, and then moved on. A little further down the trail we saw the pack of young males, and the CM there did mention that they are kept separate from the family. They were a bit more active, and did not come close to the glass. They just sort of watched us from the top of their little hill. When we exited the trail, it was almost four o'clock.
Time for the parade! I'd never stayed in any of the parks for an afternoon parade, and the CM at the exit even told us that the parade started in Africa, so all we had to do was walk on down to the rope by the Safari. So, although we'd planned to leave the AK at about 2 PM (we had tickets for the MK P&PP that night) we end up staying for the parade. And my friend ends up having to purchase a poncho because it starts to rain. I resist the urge to tell her "I told you so," and decide to behave myself. Fortunately, there's a shop right in that location and she's outfitted in a poncho just like that. Momentarily, the parade begins, and we really enjoy it. The CM's really put a lot of energy into their performances, and the safari costumes of the characters were adorable. The floats are really cool and detailed. I'd definitely watch it again. As soon as the end of the parade passes us by, we follow it down the trail back towards the entrance of the park and we depart. We need to get back to SSR. I'd been hoping to get in a nap before the P&PP, but now this wasn't going to be possible. We had a 5:05 PM ressie at the Turf Club, but I cancelled it while my friend was buying her poncho. We board the tram and before we know it, are in the car headed back to SSR.
Next Stop: SSR and the MK P&PP
And oh yeah! I have an Owner's Locker! So, quick visit to the website, and Shazaam! My locker will be waiting for us when we arrive at SSR.
Friend's DH pulls over, they switch seats, and now the car is very, very quiet.
So we turn our sad selves around and start to walk out, and the young man breaks out laughing and says "I was just kidding!" 
. I pick it up and dial the number listed for Bell Services. No answer 
. Just as I'm about to hang up, my friend strolls in and I tell her I can't raise anyone. Just at that moment, a CM walks into the lobby, and lo. It's a Bell Services CM. I ask about my Owner's Locker, and she says she'll check. She comes back out about three seconds later with it in her hands 
We get it loaded into the car, and make the quick drive to Congress Park. 
is just along for the ride so it's a great relationship of 42 years. I will be doing Disney in April with my sis, brother in law and nephew. My sis knows to rely on me and let me do all the driving but I'm not sure my BIL really gets it
for writing a GREAT trip report!! You have helped two old-friends from college, who NEVER get to spend any time together anymore, get to look forward to doing JUST THAT!!!!
