The Trip With An Abundance of Steven, A WDW Jan '23 TR ***Completed 8/8***

[Paulaparm]

Thanks for the update...was wondering where you've been

 

[Counting Stars]

Things happen- life changes, take care of yourself. That's most important. And Happy belated b-day. Looks like you had a good day! If and when you are feeling it, your trip report will have plenty of followers- your trip reports are great! But until then- hakuna matata.....

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

Welcome back! I actually just the other day had to come look and see if I missed a notification on your TR. I'm glad you're feeling better.




Happy Birthday!!



We had a bit of that here in CT as well, without the orange sky. I'm so glad it's cleared up!

Looking forward to reading more about your trip!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The smoke was wild and the orange sky was even wilder! I was literally right across from NYC in that picture I posted and the sky was so bad you could barely see! Usually the view looks like this:

​

I love your TRs. Awesome and always make me laugh!
Take care of yourself and we will all be reading when you return!
Thanks for clearing up your title for each day. I always wondered if I missed something.
Thank goodness I’m not losing my marbles, yet!

Thank you! You are the absolute sweetest and I'm happy that I make you laugh! My job here is complete!
You're not losing your marbles! Mel and I are! Well, more so Mel. My marbles are still rolling around in my noggin for now.
​

Just found your trip report yesterday and finished reading it up to this point this morning. Thanks for taking the time to share your trip! I have really enjoyed reading and will be looking forward to future updates! Take care--Diane

Thank you Diane! I look forward to posting future updates. And living future trip reports lol​

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

So happy to see you back and feeling better!!

Loved your real life update-the pic of Mel had me giggling! You guys are so fun!!

Happy belated birthday-32 is going to be a great year for you

Mel and I always have a lot of fun together! It was great seeing her for my birthday! The downside of living in different states is that besides my birthday, I hadn't seen Mel since the trip this report talks about. It was good seeing her. And forcing her to pose for pictures in a Jersey shore boardwalk aquarium.

Thank you! I hope so too!
​

Happy belated Birthday! Glad to see you back here, loving your TR!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm happy to see all of you too!
​

Thanks for the update...was wondering where you've been

Thank YOU for reading my update and for thinking of me!
​

Things happen- life changes, take care of yourself. That's most important. And Happy belated b-day. Looks like you had a good day! If and when you are feeling it, your trip report will have plenty of followers- your trip reports are great! But until then- hakuna matata.....

Thank you! Writing these reports genuinely make me happy, but I wasn't happy and I didn't want to look back on these reports one day and be able to tell that I wasn't happy when I wrote it. I want me to be happy, and I want you guys to be happy reading it. And I'm there! I have my next update typed up and everything. All about that self-growth!
But honestly, thank you. I appreciate you.​

 

[M303871]

Glad you are back and feeling great, it looks like you had some fun while gone and that is awesome. Happy belated B-day, we live in CT and the smoke and orange sky was crazy here, and it was no ware as bad as you guys had it.

 

[krismom345]

Absolute smashing trip report. 10/10 would read again.
(Happy birthday!)

 

[cstorm65]

Glad you are back. Can't wait to read more about your trip!

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

Glad you are back and feeling great, it looks like you had some fun while gone and that is awesome. Happy belated B-day, we live in CT and the smoke and orange sky was crazy here, and it was no ware as bad as you guys had it.

Thank you! I did have some fun- not as much fun as a Disney trip- but enough.

I know some people that were still having some breathing problems DAYS after the smoke cleared up. How bad was it in CT?​

Absolute smashing trip report. 10/10 would read again.
(Happy birthday!)

Thank you! 10/10 would relive it again, lol.​

Glad you are back. Can't wait to read more about your trip!

Thank you! I'm glad to be back​

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

Day 5, Part 2
January 26, 2023
"You Give Bulldog Energy"

Once Skipper Justin brought us back to safety and forced us to vow never to return to the safari again, Mel and I put on our Wilderness Explorer hats and headed into the Gorilla Falls trail.

I absolutely love the exploration trails around Animal Kingdom and make sure to walk through a couple each time I’m at AK. It really elevates your time at the park.

Mel, unfortunately, hasn’t been able to go on the trails for a couple of years so I was excited that now she would be- thanks to the trusty, albeit slightly unreliable, ECV.

Ocrapi

​

The absolute best part of the Gorilla Falls trail was, you guessed it, the Gorillas. There were 2 young gorillas- I think the slightly bigger one might’ve been Grace and the tiny baby was Ada.

I’m not an expert on the rate of gorilla growth so I could be wrong. Maybe there’s an even newer baby gorilla? I hope they named it Steven.

Either way, the baby was very, very active and was switching between bothering their mama and play-fighting with the slightly older gorilla. They would bang on the glass, roll around in the straw that lines the glass, and climb all over their mother’s back. They were super, super cute and drew a huge crowd. A true attention seeker- they spoke to my soul.

I, of course, was right in the middle of it. Snapping away pic after pic. As I often do.

We had some time before our 11:25 lunch reservation at Tusker House, so once I finally peeled myself away from the baby gorilla’s death grip on my attention, Mel and I decided to keep up the exploration mojo and meandered on over towards the Tree of Life.

But first, gorillas. I'm sure you didn't already get your fill of them from my previous 900 pictures. I know.

My friend from last trip was nowhere to be found. He probably got fired for monkeying around.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been on the Discovery Island Trails that are near the Tree of Life but I was excited to check them out. I love checking out the few small pieces of Disney World that I have yet to explore- surely this is how astronauts feel rocketing into space towards the final frontier.

Except Mel and I are the astronauts. Our spaceship is our rickety ol’ ECV. And the final frontier? Closed for refurb.

Neither Mel and I were shocked. This is often par for the course.

“Let’s see if Tusker House will let us check in early,” Mel called over her shoulder to me as she high tailed it out of there and back towards Africa.

A true world traveler.

Just around the riiiiiverbend

Tusker House was good to us and let us check in at 11:03 for our lunch reservation, but did warn us that we probably wouldn’t be seated until closer to our reservation time. I filled the time with walking in large circles and taking pictures of things I probably have at least 75 previous pictures of. Mel dived right into one of her favorite pastimes: people watching.

We got our table ready text at 11:16 and were promptly dumped off with our waiter, Chris. Chris was easily one of the best waiters we’ve had all trip. He gave us a quick run down of the offerings, what characters we would have the chance to meet, and from where the characters would approach. Steven could never.

Donald came by relatively quickly. We snapped a couple of pics and then sat for a few moments trying to decide if we should risk it to get food or wait for Goofy, who was lingering a dozen or so tables away.

“You guys have some time to get food right now. Goofy is usually pretty slow, I’ll let you know if he gets close.”

He severely underestimated Mel and my ability to mozy, but true to his word, Chris scooted on over to let me know Goofy was close to our table.

Armed with plates full of rice, corn dog nuggets, and mango chutney, we hustled back for our impromptu photo shoot. “Hustled.” It was a slow graze if anything.

***Continued in next post***​

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

***Continued from previous post***

The food at Tusker House is on the better side of decent but not anything we would necessarily hurry back for. Granted, we don’t hurry back for anything. But we ESPECIALLY wouldn’t hurry back to Tusker House.

My first plate: corn dog nuggets, mango chutney, mac & cheese, Tusker Market mashed potatoes, mini corn muffins, Za’tar braised beef, and I want to say Doro Wat chicken curry, but I’m not one hundo.

Mels first plate: mac & cheese, Tusker Market mashed potatoes, Za’tar braised beef, feisty green beans, Jollaf rice with plant-based sausage, and perhaps some chicken curry hidden amongst the jasmine rice?

“Did you get the feisty green beans?” Mel asked me, eyeing my plate.

“Nope.”

“You should.”

“Why? Are they good?”
“No, they’re feisty.”

“....What does that mean?”

“I wouldn’t be able to tell you even if I knew.”

My second plate aka the all-stars: more mac & cheese, more beef, more mango chutney, some “feisty” green beans to appease Mel, a sliver of Chermoula salmon, and a few mystery items.

Mel’s second plate: more beige.

Dessert plate: pineapple tart, Fab Five Safari brownie, double chocolate zebra cookie, s’mores pop, baby bee cupcake, six-layer bar.

The mac and cheese was the best part of the buffet, as well as the mango chutney. The desserts I found to be easily skippable.

Mel thought her plates of beige were decent to acceptable, but also didn’t care much for the desserts.

Donald came back a second time and was very impressed with the Donald backpack.

This was our 3rd time going and while I’m sure we’ll be back, I’d like to try Nomad Lounge or Yak ‘n Yeti next.

But if the next time we’re at Animal Kingdom and you see us at Tusker House, no you didn’t. Keep it moving.

***Coming up next: I kiss Disco Yeti squarely on the mouth***​

 

[nw6675]

Just sayin' - there once was a zoo with gorillas and the male gorilla liked to, well, do an inappropriate "thing". I don't recall how/if the zoo addressed it.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Welcome back! My son and I ate at Tusker House on our 2017 trip and while I want to say we liked it I really don’t remember anything special about it. I also totally failed at taking pictures (other than of him with the characters) but in my defense that WAS the day I chose to have a cider flight for breakfast at Epcot

 

[LeeLee'sMom]

Welcome back

 

[M303871]

Thank you! I did have some fun- not as much fun as a Disney trip- but enough.

I know some people that were still having some breathing problems DAYS after the smoke cleared up. How bad was it in CT?

​

It was pretty hazy for several days, and on the more humid ones it had a very distinctive odor. Only got the orange haze one day and it was nothing like you saw.

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

Just sayin' - there once was a zoo with gorillas and the male gorilla liked to, well, do an inappropriate "thing". I don't recall how/if the zoo addressed it.

Omg lol I don't even know HOW the zoo would go about addressing it. "Oh don't mind Troy, he does that sometimes! Danny get the sheet! Get the sheet! Troy's doing it again!"

​

Welcome back! My son and I ate at Tusker House on our 2017 trip and while I want to say we liked it I really don’t remember anything special about it. I also totally failed at taking pictures (other than of him with the characters) but in my defense that WAS the day I chose to have a cider flight for breakfast at Epcot

A cider flight for breakfast sounds a LOT better than Tusker House does! I think that's the thing about Tusker House, no one really remembers how they feel about it until it's too late and they're a plate full deep of mediocre food and they're like "Ohhh that's right! This place is average on a good day"​

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

Welcome back

Thank you!

​

It was pretty hazy for several days, and on the more humid ones it had a very distinctive odor. Only got the orange haze one day and it was nothing like you saw.

It was really only orange that one day but it came thru so fast! I was at a grocery store on the Hudson River and I thought they had tinted shades on their windows at first because it was actually blue skies (smokey blue skies thought) earlier, that's how fast the sky changed that day. ​

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

Day 5, Part 3
January 26, 2023
"You Give Bulldog Energy"

After we finished up our meal and had our waiter Chris strongly suggest to us that we are in fact NOT invited back, Mel and I continued on our tour of Africa, Asia, Dinosaurs alive and well, and headed into Pandora.




The fastest Mel in all of central Florida



For Flight of Passage?
No, dear reader, of course not.



To use our LL for Na’vi River Journey, aka Pandora’s often overlooked step child.



Unless you ask my mom, who is a HUGE fan of the ride. Then it is the best attraction in all of the Disney Theme Parks, and if you don’t agree?

I do like the ride, and I like it better when Mel and I only have to wait 5 of the posted 65 minute standby wait time.

That’ll really bring a ride from a C to a C+.

From there we made the only next logical step- and I actually mean it this time. At some point during lunch, Mel had booked a DAS reservation for Flight of Passage and it was just about our return time.

The wait was posted at 150 minutes, which is bonkers when you truly think about it. Mel and I parked the ECV, scanned our Magic Bands, and began our trek to our Banshee Bounce Around.



About 30 feet into our journey, Mel changed her mind and headed back towards the entrance, urging me to continue on my own so as to not disappoint my banshee. And continue I did.






Niagara Falls is quaking

Now that I was a single rider, free from my party of 2 chains, I jumped at the first chance I got when I heard a cast member ask for a single rider.

I was on the ride a mere 11 minutes after first entering the ride.

I do think FoP is a good ride, but I don’t think it’s a great ride. I would absolutely wait 11 minutes again to ride it but you are absolutely out of your mind if you think I would wait over 2 hours for it. No. I’d rather ride Soarin’.

And you all know how I feel about Soarin’ at this point.

Released from my banshee’s iron clad grasp, I was quickly reunited with Mel’s ECV…and I guess Mel too and we headed over to Pongu Pongu for a little afternoon sugar rush.




Night Blossom: “Non-alcoholic specialty beverage. Layers of apple and desert pear limeade topped with boba balls.” $6.29

We found ourselves a nice little planter ledge to park ourselves on as we sipped our iced sugars and took in the sights and sounds of a made up planet from a movie I’ve never seen before.

Kinda like Star Wars Land.

Nope, even in my absence I still haven’t seen Star Wars. I just watched Labyrinth a nauseating amount of times.

Once we finished our Nightmares ---errr, Night Blossoms, we decided a trip to a certain Dance Superstar was in order.




Yeti flavored cold brew

The standby for Expedition Everest was posted at 25 minutes but thanks to a LL Mel had booked earlier, we only had to wait a mere 4 minutes before we were loading into row 10 and cruising straight to John Travolta.

Ya know, Disco Yeti!

As soon as John dropped us back off at the end of our expedition, Mel and I turned around and headed straight back on the ride, this time using a DAS reservation we had booked a little earlier.

This time, we waited only 2 minutes and plopped ourselves right back down into the 10th row.

Rumor has it, you can still hear me shouting, “Steven, you put that track back right now!”

Steven.



We had time for a 3rd expedition but I only allow myself to go on twice in a row for very good reasons.

The first being that every time I’ve done a 3rd ride, I’ve felt a little sickly afterwards. The second?

Well, a few years ago I was feeling young, carefree, and risky and on our 3rd EE ride, I put my arms up to truly feel like I was flying around the Forbidden Mountain. I don’t know what exactly happened next- perhaps it had to do with G-foreces, perhaps I was feeling too young, carefree, and risky but I accidentally smacked Mel in the face and knocked her glasses off.

Her glasses she can’t see without.

Luckily she managed to catch them but ever since that moment, we have decided the limit to EE rides in a row is 2.

For now.

Until Mel gets contacts.

By now it was mid afternoon and I felt the need to put back on my Wilderness Explorer hat and ogle some animals.


We juuuuuust missed our cruise on the SS Wilderness Explorer, they left without us. Should've cranked the ECV up to 4mph



The Maharajah (and all 23432 a’s in the name) Jungle Trek is my absolute favorite trail in AK. I love that you can see tigers, I love that there are big ol’ monitor lizards, and I especially love that there are bats. Big, fluffy, black cat looking bats. I love them.







Even if Mel did take the wuss exit and didn’t look at the bats with me.

Once we finished up our jungle adventure, we decided on doing something we have never done in our 9 previous WDW trips together: watch the Finding Nemo show.

Mel is a huge fan of the entertainment Disney has to offer. If there is a parade, fireworks show, or light projection, Mel has not only seen it, but she also regularly watches it on Youtube and knows all of the words. Me on the other hand? Unless it’s Fantasmic, I do not care about it.

But I was feeling a little gracious that day and when Mel suggested we catch the 3:30 showing of Nemo, I obliged.

The show ended up being pretty packed but there were still some seats left. Mel and I got a good vantage point, just slightly to the right.









I actually thought the show was really cute and of course the puppetry was next level. Would I watch it again? Maybe in a couple trips, but I wouldn’t say no if someone wanted to watch it the next time I’m in AK.

You know what I also wouldn't say no to?



Dinoland baby!

***Coming up: Time to catch that snack!​

 

[DisneyLover83]

All caught up! Love reading your report.

 

[TaraS29]

Nope, even in my absence I still haven’t seen Star Wars. I just watched Labyrinth a nauseating amount of times.

​

When Facebook first launched years ago, everyone was joining weird little groups and one was called ‘David Bowie in Labyrinth was responsible for my sexual awakening’ - I’ve never joined anything so fast in my life!

Loving your report, so pleased you’re feeling happier and have come back with more.

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

All caught up! Love reading your report.

Thank you!!! I love writing this report so I’m glad you’re enjoying it! ​

When Facebook first launched years ago, everyone was joining weird little groups and one was called ‘David Bowie in Labyrinth was responsible for my sexual awakening’ - I’ve never joined anything so fast in my life!

Loving your report, so pleased you’re feeling happier and have come back with more.

HAHAHAH!!! Growing up my aunt was always a HUGE David Bowie fan, ESPECIALLY his character in Labyrinth. When I heard about his *ahem* visible thru the movie, I internally side eyed my aunt a little lmao​