The OMG my husband is so awesome TR - Day 1, AK

[RobynPrincess]

Day 1 - Animal Kingdom

As per usual we were up stupidly early on our first day, I gave up trying to sleep at 6:30am. We decided to get ready early and head out for breakfast. We left the hotel by 7:30 and went straight to Bob Evans along the 192. We've been to Orlando in June before, it's BUSY. We've had to queue for restaurants for ages, so we weren't prepared for the place to be EMPTY. Like, totally empty! There was one other table with people on, and us.







We had the same waitress as when we were here in September, she seemed pleased we remembered her when we told her. Our food was yummy and plentiful but somehow we managed to eat it all... I dunno where we put it... (I do really, in our fat tummies!)









Breakfast over in record time we then headed over to animal kingdom. We were here before opening (a first for us) and boy were the queues big! We had about 15 mins to wait before they let us in.





Once through we headed straight over to the safari, which given that we were among the first in the parks, was a walk on. If you have never been on the safari first thing - YOU HAVE TO! I've been near park opening and near close and never seen the animals so active! I took about a million pics so here are just a few for you to skim past







Safari done without the need for fastpass I quickly rearranged our fastpass+ for another attraction. We decided to head to rafiki's planet watch while the park was still quiet, we were secretly hoping to get a few pics with some characters u there without massive queues... We were the only ones on the train up there, we took this as a good sign?







We wandered around like we were the only people in the park - we certainly were the only people at Rafiki's planet watch! We went into one of the little green rooms that has headphones and goes dark, don't ask me what it's called cause I've blocked it from my mind... here's an inside tip for you about that... Don't waste your precious park time! There went 3 minutes of my life I will never get back!! Ah it was so bad, it was worse than Prince Caspian in HS. We couldn't stop giggling at how bad it was. We wandered around for bit, watched a pig thing get operated on in the vets before popping outside to say hello to the goats - like we don't get many of them back home

Killing time outside...



We did all that and went back inside to see there still were no characters! I had to pull out the times guide I had picked up on the way in while doing my speedy Gonzales impression (as in, Sy didn't even see me leave him and return with the guide!). Turns out the characters wouldn't arrive until 10:30am, dammit! It was nearly time though so we lulled around making it look like we were really interested in conservation and weren't just there to shamelessly meet Disney stars... One guide even came up to speak to us about bees! Our impression must have been good as he went into great detail explaining to us how bees keep elephants away from crops in Africa... Rafiki soon made an appearance so we said goodbye and dived on him for some pictures... And he made us pose like this...



Yup. We waited around for that picture. We listened to bee talk, for that picture. I wasted 3 minutes in that godawful room, for that picture. That was our one and only picture. Yeah. Good job we don't look like total plonkers or anything

Slightly deflated we headed outside to see if any other characters had made an appearance and we were happy to find chip and dale... Only they were playing with loads of children and not posing for pics it was fun to watch them play for a bit though so it wasn't all bad.

 

[RobynPrincess]

Just as we got on the train back the rain started to come, it wasn't too bad at first so we headed off to dinosaur. We stopped on the way for the obligatory pic outside with the massive Dinosaur. It was still raining but it wasn't too bad at this point.



The ride was brilliant, I really love it and think it's such an underrated ride! Not that I'm complaining though cause it means less queues we managed to get a row of 4 to the 2 of us right at the front, I can't believe Sy left a space between us though! I was so upset :O big meanie leaving me alone to escape scary dinosaurs on my own, pffft.



After the ride we tried to exit the shop but the rain had turned torrential we stood inside for about 20 minutes hoping the rain might subside slightly however it didn't look like it was going anywhere so we decided to make our way to restaurantosaurous for something to eat and drink. We were met with a huge queue think everyone had the same idea as us escape the rain we queued for an age to order, time was passed slightly by a worker talking to us all with his pet dinosaur in his hand (the Dino was called Ralph but don't remember the man's name). Finally we ordered and Sy left me to find a table. I waited for our food, and I waited, and I waited. People behind me got their orders and off they went, it was just me stood there waiting. I mush have been there at the front waiting for a good 15 minutes. Sy sent me a text to see if I was okay! Eventually the food arrived though and I went to find Sy.

Chicken breast nuggets for me (shocker!) and Mac and cheese hot dog for Sy.
Mine was good, hot and fresh. Sy said he wasn't sure about the hot dog, he said it was nice but they didn't really go together.





We ate and Ralph came back around and sang happy birthday to me which totally made my day

Lunch finished we went over to the door to see what the weather was doing... It was pretty much the same as before, bucketing down Booo! We decided to call it a day for now, we didn't have the ponchos with us so we were gonna get drenched walking out as it was. So off we went back to the car and headed back to our hotel.

Back at the hotel the rain was still coming down so we did the only thing we possibly could - we had a nap! What we planned to be a half hour nap turned into a few hours :O I had set an alarm just in case but it left us rushing around a bit as we were meeting Carrie and Mark in Tilted Kilt for dinner. Once we were ready we headed out to the car to find that the rain had stopped! YAY! We arrived at Tilted Kilt a little early and parked the car, as soon as I opened the door to get out the heavens opened, we got drenched walking in

It was a Friday evening and a world cup football match was on so we were expecting it to be busy, however there was no one else in there. Not one table. What was going on?? We weren't complaining though. I have to admit, I had my reservations for going to Tilted Kilt. Hooters is one thing however the women in there weren't really wearing more than you'd see at the beach. I'm no prude (haha!) I just don't see the need for it, to me less is more - and I don't mean less clothing, I think sometimes wearing a little more is sexier than having all the flesh on show... That being said I'm all for women's choice so if those girls wanna work there, then go right ahead and power to ya!

We didn't have long to wait before Carrie and Mark arrived. Our waitress came to take the order a few times cause we were too busy chatting and not looking at the menu. I had a chicken burger and Sy had a normal burger while Carrie had fish and chips and Mark had an app as a main but I don't remember which - damn me for not taking any notes all trip!! Our food was seriously delicious, I was very pleasantly surprised. I'd definitely go there again if anyone suggested it. Someone came round to us half way through our meal to offer us all a free drink that they were promoting, as it happens it was just Sy who accepted. It was a Redd's apple ale. He really enjoyed it and they asked for him to have a pic with the beer and the hot girl promoting it. Dunno where that pic ever went, probably floating around on the net somewhere!

At the end of our meal we asked our waitress to get a few pics of us together.



Love spending time with Carrie and Mark, Carrie is the wonderful lady who has arranged our vow renewal - she has a wedding planning business in Orlando. This was the only time they could meet us on this trip as they were going away the following week and Mark's mum was flying over from the UK to see them so we were very pleased we could make it work. We already have plans to meet for dinner a few times in October, out for dinner just the 4 of us and they are hopefully coming to our vow renewal too!

We carried on chatting all the way to the car and then stood in the now dry car park still chatting when a woman came up to ask us for some money as her car had run out of gas... only we remembered her asking us on the last trip and Carrie had seen her asking people before too. Just a warning to others who leave Disney not to fall for it.

Finally we said goodbye and got into the car. We still felt energised from our nap so we decided we would head to Disney for a bit, maybe head to the Boardwalk for a bit however we weren't prepared for the I4 traffic. We sat in the car for an hour and went 1 junction, drove back up international drive and went back into the hotel haha.

We watched TV for a bit but sleep soon came and we were in bed by 10:30pm.

 

[Disneymadhouse]

Great first day

Claire

 

[dixonsontour]

Great AK dress - did you make it?

We really enjoy Bob evans for brekkie too.

 

[jockey]

great day