Chapter 7
Afternoon at Magic Kingdom, and Boma!
After our very busy morning at Magic Kingdom, lunch was definitely next! We had an ADR at The Plaza, and were seated straight away. It really is a gorgeous little restaurant, and the air-conditioning is even better! It was really hot outside by then, and inside The Plaza was icy cold! Fantastic!!
Our server was a huge lady called Dot. Heee. That still makes me giggle. Dot wasnt overly friendly, but she was speedy with the service, so that was okay! I ordered the chicken and strawberry salad, which was delicious and fresh, although I liked the crunchy garlic croutons the best!
DF ordered a hamburger, with added bacon and cheese. He looooved his burger, and ate it all! It was the first time either of us finished a meal at Disney! Yay!
We wanted to try one of their famous sundaes for dessert, but we were just too full! So we headed off in search of more Magic Kingdom adventures. Woohoo!
Oh, except before we embarked on any more adventures, DF needed a bathroom stop. While he was inside, a little duck waddled up to me and we made friends. Seriously, the duck was following me. For a while I thought he was an animatronic Disney trick, like the talking trash can, but no! He was a real duck, who just happened to like me! Here he is, my little friend
Eventually DF came out of the bathroom, so the duck and I had to bid farewell. Booo! DF and I decided to have a nice quiet ride on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. I still dont really get why its called that, or what the actual ride is all about, but we enjoyed it anyway! The views of the park were great, and it was a nice way to let our lunch settle a bit.
After that though, we walked past Buzz Lightyear and discovered it still only had a 5 minute wait, so we gave it another go! I cant remember our scores, but I know DF did much, much better than me!! Lots of fun though! We love Buzz!
By this stage, we were getting a bit sleepy, so we decided to head back to Pop for an afternoon rest. On our way though, we stopped to pick up one of these on the way
Yum!! We LOVED our Pineapple Float! It was so fresh and tasty and thirst-quenching! Perfect for a hot day! Even just the other day, DF said to me out of the blue, Remember that pineapple ice-cream thing we had at Disney World? That was GREAT! It really was!
So with a Pineapple Float in hand, we made our way slowly and leisurely out of Magic Kingdom, stopping at some nice views as we went. Heres DF enjoying our stroll
how pretty!
We also stopped in a few shops in Main Street on our way out, and I bought a pink vintage Mickey bag, and my very first Disney pins Bambi and Jiminy Cricket. Yay! Id decided that I didnt want to buy a lanyard to display my pins, because I thought it might be too heavy and hot, so I attached the pins to my Mickey bag instead. Yahoo!
Here I am, wandering down Main Street
We eventually left Magic Kingdom, and headed back to Pop, where we had an afternoon nap for an hour or so. I love afternoon naps when Im on vacation! We didnt sleep for long though at 5.30 we headed off again to MGM, then caught a bus from MGM to Animal Kingdom Lodge, where we had a dinner ADR at Boma! Yayyy!
Dinner wasnt until 7pm, so we had about half an hour to explore AKL, which is just gorgeous. Originally, we were planning to stay at AKL, but decided we were already spending way too much on our 7 week vacation, so we stuck with Pop instead. Pop was fun, but it was certainly no AKL!!
We wandered out to the savannah lookout area for a while, where a lovely castmate chatted to us about the animals we might see there. For some reason, DF and I decided we were on a mission to find a giraffe.

The castmate told us we should probably head into the Lodge itself, and stop at some of the lookouts in the hallways, and wed see some giraffes. Wow, those hallways are LONG! And I have absolutely no sense of direction. It was a bit like a maze really. We eventually saw a couple of giraffes in the distance, but not after getting amazingly lost first. Heee.
Boma time!! We both really enjoyed our meal at Boma although I probably liked it more than DF. I could have had a whole plate full of that peanut rice and the sun-dried tomato dip and flatbread! There was a great mix of traditional dishes and some fantastic new salads and flavours. Yum! Heres my plate
. (DFs plate looked pretty similar really!)
Now, the next day, we were scheduled to do a day trip to Kennedy Space Center. DF is a space nut and loves all things to do with astronauts and space, so this was his day, really. I was just along for the ride. However, guess what! The Atlantis shuttle was scheduled to be launched that same day, when we were going there! Wow! We couldnt believe our good luck! While we were at AKL, we called the tour company to check that the details were still the same, and we were still being picked up from Pop at 8am.
Lucky we called them, because there was a big change we were now due to be picked up at 5.10am. Whaaaat!? Apparently the roads from Orlando to KSC get jam-packed on launch days, so we needed to go early. Auhhhhhh!!!
So after a delicious dinner and a nice explore of Animal Kingdom Lodge, we headed back to Pop. We had a lovely night swim, then headed straight to bed for a good nights sleep before our early, early rise the next day!!
Up next
Our crazy day at Kennedy Space Center!!