The MURPHYS are LIVE from the Animal Kingdom Lodge & Yacht Club 5/30-6/8

[TigrLvsPooh]

Live tweeting now!

@Erika_Murphy

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[OnceUponATime15]

Live tweeting now! @Erika_Murphy Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

Following along here & on twitter!
Have a great time!

Your pictures in twitter look awesome.

 

[SRUAlmn]

Live tweeting now!

@Erika_Murphy

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

Following along on Twitter. Even taught my mom how to since we've been so curious about Harambe! The pictures are great!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Such an amazing night!!!!! I think I took a million pictures

Big update coming soon!

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[dvc at last !]

Loving your report....

 

[happymomof1]

Reading your live tweets !!!! Sooooo cool!!!!! Thanks for your posts /pics! Can't wait to hear the details!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Reading your live tweets !!!! Sooooo cool!!!!! Thanks for your posts /pics! Can't wait to hear the details!

At the airport now... Huge report to give you guys about Harambe Nights .... Pics are already on photobucket.
I had a lovely conversation with George Kalogridis, president of WDW. That was definitely the highlight of my night.

Biggest advice I can give those of you who are headed to HN next Saturday. Pay attention to where your animal group is lining up so you can get into the theater ASAP. If you paid for premium seating it is crucial to line up quickly because the floor seats are all on one level, I saw many children who struggled to see and had to watch the monitors.

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[ocalla]

Erika: I'm so sad that your leaving! I've had such a "Fantastic Disney Trip" with you

Can't wait to hear about the HNights!!! Wonder if there are any plans on extending the timeframe longer?

Safe Travels!

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

In suspense

Have a safe trip home

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Erika: I'm so sad that your leaving! I've had such a "Fantastic Disney Trip" with you Can't wait to hear about the HNights!!! Wonder if there are any plans on extending the timeframe longer? Safe Travels!

I wish it would have been in a cooler month. Hot spicy foods that are so rich and filling are pretty much impossible to eat when it's 95 degrees and sweat is pouring off your body. I barely ate anything.

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[ddluvsdisney]

I wish it would have been in a cooler month. Hot spicy foods that are so rich and filling are pretty much impossible to eat when it's 95 degrees and sweat is pouring off your body. I barely ate anything. Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

was it outside?

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[johnsonet]

Glad you had such a fun night. I look forward to the photos.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

was it outside?

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The appetizers before the show and the dinner after the show are both outdoors. The show itself is indoors

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Oh my goodness I am up over 1,000 photos uploading!

Once they finish I will tell you guys all about Harambe Nights! The good, the bad, and the ugly! I want to tell the story with the photos along the way so you'll follow along with my night.

While those pics are finishing up, does anyone have any questions about the trip? AKL, YC, SWW, FtF, Harmabe Nights, anything you can think of feel free to ask away! I'm home now and the kids are at camp so I've got lots of time to answer questions.

 

[SRUAlmn]

Looking so forward to your report and pics!!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

HARAMBE NIGHTS:

We took a bus from YC to AK and arrived around 5:30 PM. As we walked towards the park entrance the signs were clearly visible and they had several turnstiles dedicated to the event with tons of CMs standing there. The first row of CMs had iPads to scan your tickets. Then a second row of CMs was putting the wristbands on guests. We were all labeled as Zebras and given a program:

The program:

DH and the kids decided to go ride rides and I walked back to Africa to checkout the setup:

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

People began to congregate around the Dawa Bar, when it's 95 degrees there's nothing better to do than seek out shade and order drinks!

At first the bartender said they were closing down and weren't taking any drink orders, but pandemonium quickly broke out and several CMs with walkie talkies came and the decision was made to keep the bar open. Soon after there was a long line of people stretching back to order drinks. By this time it was about 6:15. At 6:30 they opened the party and a mass group of us who were in the Dawa Bar made our way towards the theater.

The first few tables of food and drink areas I walked past because knowing Disney events like I do I knew there would be more. Most people began lining up at those first few stations but as I walked closer to the theater I saw many more empty areas. So as you enter just keep going towards the back. I'd say there were a total of at least 5 or 6 food areas and the food was the same at each one. (this is the appetizer portion of the night) There were lots of standing tables scattered around and CMs were encouraging people to stand and share tables with other people. The table I was using quickly filled up with about 10 other people standing around it. Once it got a little too crowded for me I walked down towards the theater exit and found many empty tables. This would be a great place to eat if you have premium seating since you'll enter through the exit doors.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Soon after eating our appetizers we noticed people were congregating around the entrance to the theater. So we decided to stand over there. A CM came and told people this was the "Zebra and Giraffe entrance" and if you were a "Lion or Cheetah" to proceed to the exit doors because you would be entering from down there. So a huge mass of people turned around and fought their way back out of line. This allowed us to move up very close to the front:

Once a CM came with a large Zebra sign then the line became even more defined.

At this point we only had about 4 people ahead of us. And we were all counting the seconds to get inside because it was so dang hot!!! 10 days in WDW and this was the hottest moment of the trip. The humidity was brutal and sweat was literally pouring off of us. As I said earlier, we didn't even eat much because we were so hot. But we did enjoy the free water bottles. I think between the 4 of us we must have had 30 bottles easily that night.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Once we walked into the theater it felt like HEAVEN Oh my goodness I can't even explain how wonderful the a/c felt. Since we were first they guided us to the first row of the Zebra section. This is the shortest section with the fewest rows because of the lighting and sound both. But we were dead center with a PERFECT view of the show!


The floor seats (premium seats) were the Lion section:

Our view from the front row of Zebra, and a nice empty row to put our feet up!

Show time!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

As I said before, if you have premium seating I would try to line up as soon as you can because I know the people in the back rows, especially those with children, couldn't see the stage at all. A large part of the show takes place higher up though, the narrators are on raised podium platforms and the movie screens are high, but you wouldn't be able to see the dancing that takes place on the front bottom level.

I took about a million photos of the show, here are a few highlights:

As you can see even from our seats we had a partial view of the backs of people's heads on the floor seats. In fact the group next to us ended up moving to the back row. Not a bad idea if you want to view even more of the stage area. But there was no way I was giving up my foot rest after 10 days of parks.

Viola Davis was introduced and she DANCED her way up to the podium

Sorry for the blurry pics, but we weren't allowed to use flash.

I absolutely LOVE the movie The Help, I have it on my iPad and have probably seen it about a hundred times, so I was super excited to have her as our narrator.