The Florida Project! 12 Days @ WDW for our 10th Anniversary! UPDATED 9/23

[AAshleySEG]

Question for you about Wild Florida - Was the boat ride rough? I can't swim and you always see the airboats taking off and going side ways... Did this company do that or was it more of a normal boat ride?

I totally agree, most airboat tours seem really wild that I have seen online. I do not really like feeling unsafe on anything, and this was great for me! I would consider it a very tame air boat experience compared to some of the others I have seen. This one is more about a tour of the area and spotting wildlife as opposed to going as fast as you can slinging people all over the place. If you have any fears about this place, for us, (I asked Jeremy too), we think you would be fine with it! This is a place where lots of young children go on these rides too, they provide life jackets if anyone wants them, and there were not even a need for seat belts the ride was so smooth. I can only speak for our Captain and our experience, but for the family aspect of this park, I think you would be fine on these! If you have any other questions about it, please don't hesitate to ask, I will try and give you as much information as I can!

 

[lauralynn0612]

So glad to find your report! Love the photos. I am going to watch the VLOGS later; I have been wanting to try that for our next trip.

Looking forward to reading the rest of the report. I really like the budget portion. Probably something I should start focusing on a little more for our trips so it's not so much of a shock at the end!

 

[AAshleySEG]

So glad to find your report! Love the photos. I am going to watch the VLOGS later; I have been wanting to try that for our next trip.

Looking forward to reading the rest of the report. I really like the budget portion. Probably something I should start focusing on a little more for our trips so it's not so much of a shock at the end!

So glad to have you along!! Thank you so much, I am glad you are enjoying the photos! It is a lot of fun doing the vlogs, Jeremy really enjoyed it this time around! Usually we would take more planned videos beforehand, but this time it was casual and didn't interfere with our vacation at all!

Happy that you like the budget portion, we started making budgets a few years back, we wanted to make sure we saved up enough for the trip, but we weren't trying to hold ourselves back from doing anything that we wanted, this way we knew we would have the funds for everything we wanted to do, and not be overwhelmed when we got home with spending too much and not knowing about it...haha!! It is definitely something to try and see if you like it, I know budgets aren't for everyone, most people think of them as a bad word instead of how I think of it...lol!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Friday, June 9, 2017 (Part One) - I've Never Seen A Tiger That Close!

I guess me and sleeping in will never be a "thing" again. This morning I woke up at around 5:55 am, then by 6:20 or so I decided to finally just get and and start getting ready for the day. Today, we were planning on going to Animal Kingdom! We had absolutely no plans and were just going to with the flow and Hakuna Matata since we didn't originally plan to go to the parks this trip. Once I was finished getting ready, I opened up my phone and made a few fast passes for the day to get started with! We drove to Animal Kingdom since we were changing resorts today, that way we could leave when the room was ready for our afternoon break. We made it to AK at about 8:00 am just as it opened!

About 97% of all of the people going in to the park went straight over to Pandora, not us we decided to take a leisurely stroll past the Tree of Life and make our way to Creature Comforts to grab us a little breakfast!

Creature Comforts is a Starbucks. One of our favorite breakfasts at Disney used to be to go to Sunshine Seasons in the morning grab some croissants and watch all of the people trying to get into Soarin'. So basically it has become a tradition of ours to eat croissants for breakfast and it just happens they have them here, and mostly only the Starbucks at each park. I really miss the old Main Street Bakery at Magic Kingdom, but I have started to learn that with life and Disney there will always be changes, we may not always like them, but we have actually learned to accept them...lol! Anyway, we grabbed our food in the empty restaurant and walked over to Africa in a secluded shaded seating area to sit down and enjoy it!

After we finished our breakfast we decided to walk over to Expedition Everest and let that be the first attraction we chose for the day! It was easy to walk slow, there was no one going over here at all, like I said everyone was headed for Pandora, which for us was great because that meant the entire rest of the park was pretty much a ghost town. We like Avatar, but with it just opening and wait times in the 2, 3, 4 + hour range, and them closing down randomly, we chose not to waste our time waiting this trip. We can go back when it is less new and ride them. We got to to see the Back Side of the Tree of Life on our way over, and a bird friends was following us too!

After we walked for a bit we had made it over to Expedition Everest and were able to ride it with no wait at all, just walked through the line and hopped right on! I remember back in the day when this was the ride everyone rushed to get to! We were really fortunate in the fact that we were able to ride this during soft opening and previews back when the yeti really tried to take a swing at you, sadly unless they reinforce the foundations that may never happen again, I feel like it would need a super long refurbishment. We still love it though!! On and off in a flash we headed over to Kali River Rapids, which was our first fast pass I had made!

We didn't really need the fast passes, I just needed to have three so I could use them up quickly and be able to make more, actually in our raft, it was only us and two other people, so pretty empty! We did manage to get really wet though, and it was hot so it felt nice! We hardly ever ride Kali, and we didn't know they had taken the protective covered area out of the center for your stuff, so our backpack got quite wet as well! I don't know how long those things had been gone though, but it really means we never ride it! It is always usually really busy in the summers, but not today. Our next stop for the morning was next door to the Maharajah Jungle Trek to see if we could see some tigers!

A long time ago, not many people used to do these animal walking trails, and I have noticed in recent years they seem to get more popular, it is a great way to escape the crowds usually and more people have been finding that out! Today, not so much, there were maybe 4 other people in here with us, so it was a nice, quiet and relaxing walk!

One of my favorite photos of this trip was inside here, the decor and theme in here are so well done! They really make it feel like you have been transported to a different continent! The ruins, the flags, the plant life, it is just all so perfect, and we really love coming in here to explore!

Usually when we come in here it is later in the day, and on all of the trips we rarely get a chance to see the tigers really well. Today, however, that was not the case! Immediately when we walked into the tiger area we saw him all right!

He was standing right next to the glass!! Back and forth he was walking trying to get a glimpse of the other area across the way where his female friend was relaxing. I could not believe how close we were to this guy! Granted, it was pretty hard to get a non-blurry photo of him because he never stopped walking, just pacing back and forth trying to see her on the other side!

But so cool, one of the highlights of the day for sure was being that close to a tiger, like I said normally we see them from pretty far away if at all, and the female on the other side was relaxing in the shade, she couldn't care less that he was over here trying to find her!

We said goodbye to the tigers and continued along the trail, next up we saw some grazing cattle, and it was great to see all of the animals out in the beginning of the day today, really a fantastic time to come and walk around!

We made it to the other side of the tiger viewing area and were able to see the female tiger again for this different vantage point. She was still laying around in the shade relaxing. Probably still oblivious to the fact the other tiger was desperately trying to see her! Or maybe she knew and just couldn't be bothered...haha!

Next was the bird aviary! I really like birds, you might know that now from me talking about them at Wild Florida yesterday, there are some very cool ones to look at in here, they are really good at hiding though, so I only managed to take one or two photos of them! I still like the different stuff to look at in here too!

It was time to head out and our next destination was over to Dinoland USA! Not to ride Dinosaur though, it is probably my least favorite ride in all of Disney World. So we rarely if ever ride it, maybe only if we are with other people which is very rare indeed. I wish they would change the theme of it to its clone at Disneyland, Indiana Jones, now that version I love!! Its funny that they are essentially the exact same ride, just the theme is different and I like that one so much more, ah well, I just don't really care for dinosaurs...or zombies, but just throwing that in there! Anyway, so Primeval Whirl was our next stop, it always makes me giggle, it is so fun! Of course, we had no wait yet again on this one. Thank you Pandora! I think I checked the app now to see the wait times and why the park was so empty and I found our really quickly... Flight of Passage was at 295 minutes, and River Journey at 100. Yep, when everything else was walk on, I was perfectly happy with our agenda!

Our next fast pass was for Kilimanjaro Safari at 10:20 am. There was a line for this but it was only like a 20 minute wait, and it looked to us like that 20 minute wait was only to be put on to vehicle and walk all the way down there. This safari was fantastic, especially if you love giraffes! I feel like they were literally everywhere, baby giraffes, adult giraffes, masai giraffes, and reticulated giraffes! Giraffes, Giraffes, Giraffes!

All of the animals were out this morning, there was a baby male giraffe chasing the wildebeests, lots of birds, the hippos, from my seat it was hard to get any photos of a lot of them, but I did still manage to get a few animal photos this time! Next up was the elephants!

We made it over to the lions and it was so funny because the lioness had chosen the perfect spot to be framed by photographers riding the ride! She was perched up on the rock and just hanging out, it was great!

The male lion, as usually was sleeping, down on the lower area, those gigantic paws read to swipe, ok maybe not, he was in chill mode, I used to think he never moved, until one day, we saw him move all right! (See "Hey Lions, You Can't Do That, This is Disney TR"...LOL)

The rhinos were out in full force this morning too! The mornings are the best for the safari! So many animals waking up for the day and eating breakfast!

After the safari, I checked the My Disney Experience app and noticed that the two rides in Pandora had temporarily closed, now I was even happier that I didn't wait in those lines before!! With that in mind though, we thought it might be a time to check out Pandora for the first time, and even go and have lunch at the new restaurant! So we started heading in that direction!​

 

[annie170]

Animal Kingdom is generally our last day of the trip park, with an evening flight home. I have never ridden KRR because I don't want to get soaked and there's no way to take a shower before the Magical Express. Sad, isn't it?

That tiger photo is outstanding! You captured some really great pictures.

 

[AAshleySEG]

Animal Kingdom is generally our last day of the trip park, with an evening flight home. I have never ridden KRR because I don't want to get soaked and there's no way to take a shower before the Magical Express. Sad, isn't it?

That tiger photo is outstanding! You captured some really great pictures.

AK is a great last day park, because you can get tons done in a short period of time, actually now even HS would be good to go to for a shorter day with all of the construction going on! I can totally understand not riding KRR, because unless you wear a poncho, you are going to get wet maybe even soaked on it...haha! I think that is why we rode it early in the day so we wouldn't have to walk around all wet when it was warmer and more humid!
Thanks! It was so cool to see him that close, I am really happy with some of the photos I got this time around!

 

[Haygar2]

Thursday, June 8, 2017 (Part Three) - That's a Lot of Lobster!
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It was finally time to eat what we had both been waiting for! I ordered the Maine Lobster Nero Pasta...and let me tell you, it was amazing! It had a huge portion of lobster on the top and then the in house made pasta with squid ink, and the sauce...YUM! It was delicious, the flavor combinations were perfect and if you like lobster it was definitely worth it! I couldn't believe how large of a lobster portion came on top. This was a great dish and looking back at the photo of it, makes me want to go back and get it again right now!

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I have never had squid ink pasta before, but this dish made me make a dining reservation. What does the pasta taste like? Can you taste the squid ink? It looks great! I'm thinking my husband might try the same dish your husband ordered.

 

[AAshleySEG]

I have never had squid ink pasta before, but this dish made me make a dining reservation. What does the pasta taste like? Can you taste the squid ink? It looks great! I'm thinking my husband might try the same dish your husband ordered.

That's awesome! This was my very first time trying anything with squid ink in it! This restaurant for us, will be a go to from now on, assuming everything stays as fantastic as it was the first time! The pasta itself almost has a very mild briny/salt flavor that tastes like the sea, but it pairs so well with the lobster and the sauce that it just works together phenomenally! So I would say yes you can taste it, but it isn't overpowering or off-putting in any way! I would eat it again in a heartbeat! Jeremy loved...I mean LOVED the octopus, so when you guys go, I hope everything is as amazing as it was for us!!

 

[Haygar2]

That's awesome! This was my very first time trying anything with squid ink in it! This restaurant for us, will be a go to from now on, assuming everything stays as fantastic as it was the first time! The pasta itself almost has a very mild briny/salt flavor that tastes like the sea, but it pairs so well with the lobster and the sauce that it just works together phenomenally! So I would say yes you can taste it, but it isn't overpowering or off-putting in any way! I would eat it again in a heartbeat! Jeremy loved...I mean LOVED the octopus, so when you guys go, I hope everything is as amazing as it was for us!!

I showed my husband the pictures of the dishes. He considered the octopus and sea bass. UNTIL he saw the Nero pasta. Looks like we will both be getting the same thing.

 

[Kari0180]

Excited that I stumbled onto your trip report, I've enjoyed your other reports in the past! I enjoyed both of your vlogs so far, can't wait to read and watch more!

 

[AAshleySEG]

I showed my husband the pictures of the dishes. He considered the octopus and sea bass. UNTIL he saw the Nero pasta. Looks like we will both be getting the same thing.

If it is as good as when we were there I don't think you guys would be disappointed with either one!! Have you guys ever been to Boathouse? If you like lobster, they have this amazing Crab stuffed lobster dish there....so good!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Excited that I stumbled onto your trip report, I've enjoyed your other reports in the past! I enjoyed both of your vlogs so far, can't wait to read and watch more!

Back!!!! Thank you so much for reading along again! I am glad you liked the vlogs! Jeremy had a lot of fun making them!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Friday, June 9, 2017 (Part Two) - Trying Satu'li Canteen For The First Time!

We started walking toward Satu'li Canteen, and caught our first glimpse of Pandora. Both of the attractions were down at the moment but there were still people everywhere so we were expecting a long line to get food at the Canteen. When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised that we didn't have to stand in a line at all!!

When we walked in, they gave us a menu to look at straight away, there is also a menu on the outside so you can see if you would like to eat there before you go in. We had looked at the outside menu and had already decided what we wanted to eat, so we proceeded to the station to order. We ordered one of the bowls where you choose your protein, base, and sauce and ended up with the Sustainable Fish Bowl with a base of Mixed Whole Grains and Rice, and Creamy Herb Dressing as the sauce, and it was delicious!!!

We also wanted to try the pods, so we got the Vegetable Steamed Curry Pods which came with 2 steamed vegetable curry pods with eggplant, cauliflower, sweet potato, carrots, and shallot cilantro cream served with crunchy vegetable slaw and vegetable chips. Jeremy wasn't too big a fan of these, but I really liked them, definitely another great vegetarian option at Disney now!

As Jeremy says he is Lame because he got a Coke to drink, and I tried the Pandoran Sunrise which was very tasty!! It was tropical juices blended with Powerade Melon. It actually went well with the food we had chosen too, so I was pretty happy with my decision to try it out!

We were splitting everything equally so we could both get a good sample of the new food and therefore we also got both desserts! We wanted to know which one was better for us! Jeremy as everyone knows is a chocolate fan, and I am a fruity fan, we would see which dessert here would win! We got both the Blueberry Cream Cheese Mousse with Passion Fruit Curd, and the Neytiri's Chocolate Cake which was chocolate cake with a crunchy cookie layer, banana cream and Goji berries.

By far we both LOVED the Blueberry Cream Cheese Mousse! It isn't really a cheesecake so if that is what you are expecting, it is a different texture. It is pretty much the texture of how they describe it, if you took cream cheese and made a mousse. Really good though, Every time we go back that this is on the menu, we are absolutely going to get it! It was that good of a dessert! We found a great table to sit down and eat, this is a really cool restaurant inside and from the lunch we had, would definitely recommend going at lunch to try it out!!

After we finished up eating we went outside and stopped by the restrooms and I reapplied my sunscreen. It was a pretty sunny day today and I definitely did not want to start getting burnt toward the beginning of the vacation. We had a little bit until our next fast pass so we decided to walk around and explore Pandora a bit while the rides were still closed and there were less people around inside. First we stopped by the little Pongu Pongu kiosk and got ourselves a Mo'ara Margarita since it was feeling tropical outside! It was with Sauza Conmemorativo Anejo Tequila with strawberry and blood orange flavor topped with strawberry boba balls. Jeremy giggled every single time he took a drink with the boba balls, it was both of our first times drinking a bubble type drink and it was really tasty! The combo of the strawberry and blood orange flavors was really great!

We walked around taking a few photos of Pandora, once you got over near the ride entrances there was a ton of people standing in lines outside of the queue lines waiting for the actual lines to reopen. If you can do that more power to you, I don't have the patience to stand in lines of closed rides when there are so many other awesome things to do! And, what if the rides didn't open the rest of the day, it is lunch time and you could possibly spend an entire day standing in a line before you get in a line. I don't think they reopened until a LOT later in the afternoon maybe 4:00-5:00?

They did a really great job with themeing in this area! Down to the smallest details, but Disney always does a great job with things like that! It is pretty impressive when you walk in and see the floating mountains with waterfalls, and all of the plants and walk paths, and railings, and really just all of it! We wanted to come back at night to see how it looked then! We started making our way over to the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail, which used to be Pangani Forest, not really sure why they changed the name but oh well.

I really like this trail because my favorite thing to see on it, most people really don't really pay attention to, or don't like them nearly as much as I do, and that is the Naked Mole Rats, so I was pretty happy to go see them again. First though we saw some zebra and meerkats!

There were tons of people over at the other areas and the gorillas were all hiding behind bushes and things in the shade eating so my photo would have just been of a bush...haha! So it was now about 12:45 pm and there was a Finding Nemo the Musical starting at 1:00 so we walked over there to catch it! We really love that show, at the beginning I didn't used to like it, but I actually appreciate it much more now! The live songs are so great and the performers do a great job with everything they are juggling! Bonus, it is air conditioned and you can sit down...haha! After the show we had a fast pass for Expedition Everest and that took no time at all to get on yeti again...get it yeti...again...okay that's lame I know...LOL! We decided that now was as good of a time as any to head to Saratoga Springs for our afternoon break and to get all of our stuff in the room and out of the car. We were definitely planning on heading back to Animal Kingdom after we cooled down and rested up!​

 

[annie170]

Glad you guys enjoyed your lunch. It's surprising that there was no wait. The menu at Satu'li Canteen looks really good! I like that the food is served on real dishes instead of paper plates, too.

I also have no patience. I don't understand people who wait hours upon hours in lines, especially when the ride is shut down.

I didn't realize they changed the name of the Pangani Forest Trail. Nothing changed about the trail, did it?

 

[wrestlingchick26]

Following along, love the budgeting part of your report

 

[vette79]

Great trip report, must say one I'm my favorites in along time. Love the addded VLOG ....

 

[vette79]

Also love the budget updates. If I could only get my wife on board...we have a 10 day trip sept 26 to oct 6?th split stay Poly and BW

 

[AAshleySEG]

Glad you guys enjoyed your lunch. It's surprising that there was no wait. The menu at Satu'li Canteen looks really good! I like that the food is served on real dishes instead of paper plates, too.

I also have no patience. I don't understand people who wait hours upon hours in lines, especially when the ride is shut down.

I didn't realize they changed the name of the Pangani Forest Trail. Nothing changed about the trail, did it?

Yes, we really enjoyed our lunch at Satu'li! We really liked the plates too! They were also really on top of cleaning if someone just left their food as well, they had very convenient dish stations almost like at a Panera where you could empty and clear your plates easily, which is what we did instead of leaving them there on the table.

I can kind of understand waiting if you aren't coming back again or really love Avatar and are super excited to see it, we are neither, well at least we hope to go back to Disney as much as we can, and I wasn't the biggest fan of Avatar but I still enjoyed it so it was nice to look around the new themed area and try the food and things for us!

Yes, this was the first time we noticed the name change as well, I am wondering if the word Pangani on a map may have confused people since it sort of sounds like it could be a Pandoran word, I have no idea why it was changed, but as far as we could tell nothing on the interior was different. So I was happy about that!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Following along, love the budgeting part of your report

Thank you so much for joining in! Glad to hear you are enjoying the budget portion! It really helps us out a lot, so I hope it can help someone else out by us sharing it!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Great trip report, must say one I'm my favorites in along time. Love the addded VLOG ....

Thank you so much! I really appreciate that and am glad you are enjoying it! Thanks for joining in and following along! Jeremy will be really happy that you like the VLOG portion! It was definitely a lot of fun for us to do!

Also love the budget updates. If I could only get my wife on board...we have a 10 day trip sept 26 to oct 6?th split stay Poly and BW

Thanks! It really helps out for us to plan what we want to do ahead of time and have extra funds for overflow, that way when we get back home we didn't have to dig more into savings or get home and wonder where all the money went...LOL! You could always plan one and see what happens with the budget, it is more about knowing where the hard earned cash goes for us as opposed to limiting ourselves on what we are doing. We much prefer that route instead of trying to limit ourselves, then more than likely we would ALWAYS overspend...hahaha!!

Fall is my absolute favorite time to go to Disney, we love Food & Wine Festival, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, the weather, I hope you guys have a great time! We have not stayed at BW since 2009 I think, we really need to get back to it! Poly is always great too!!