(Updated 1/3) Giraffes, Zebras, and Dragons, Oh My! - Nov/Dec 2025 TR (Disney & Epic Universe)

[Araminta18]

Hi everyone! It's taken me a little bit to get all the pics and videos together but it's all finally sorted, and time to share my latest trip report! Trevor turned 40 this November, so we went back to Disney and added in an epic few days at Epic Universe to celebrate. We had a great time, and I can't wait to share it.

If this is your first time joining me on a trip report, I go SUPER extra with the photos #sorrynotsorry - I used to use imgur to host 30 photos per post but I got burned when that whole thing went weird, so now I just upload directly to disboards, but that means each post only gets 10 photos. So that's why you'll see days broken up into like 10 (or on our first day at epic, more *cough cough*) posts, cause ALL the photos.

The details:
who: me and my husband Trevor
when: Fri Nov 28 - Fri Dec 5
where: Animal Kingdom Lodge Club Level, then transfer to Universal's Helios, in a Helios Grand Suite!!

Introductions:
I'm Tiffany, I'll be your ghost host for this trip report. I'm 38 and while I'm a librarian by education, I currently do records management, since records management is where the pay is, and I gotta pay for Disney! Favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty, but I also love Mary Poppins and Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel. Favorite rides are Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, Expedition Everest, Tower of Terror...I feel like I should stop before I just list all of them.

My traveling companion is my husband Trevor. He's 40, and loves Star Wars and Marvel, but has grown to love Disney--his favorite characters are Boba Fett, Vader and Stormtroopers, and on the non-Star Wars side, Grumpy. I recently turned him into a roller coaster fan (after him not riding them for our first several trips), so now he likes Cosmic Rewind and Everest...I think Rise of the Resistance and Star Tours are his favorite rides though.


Ok! Let's get started. I asked Trevor a year ago if he wanted a big party for his 40th birthday and he said he didn't want that, but wasn't sure what he wanted. So I kept asking periodically and after Epic Universe opened, Trevor was like, I want to go there (unsurprisingly). So we planned a trip for late November - after Thanksgiving, cause we're not crazy enough to go ON Thanksgiving. Epic Universe was still only doing 1 day tickets so we decided to do three days there, and do Disney beforehand, specifically Animal Kingdom Lodge, cause we haven't yet stayed there and savanna view sounded like a fun birthday trip! I also booked a park view room at Helios, though it was a bit pricey -$1,153.13 per night including taxes and fees. But a few days later I realized that Trevor has a Universal Annual Pass and I should check for AP discounts at Helios, and that was smart - got it down to $986.63 a night. BUT! Then I kept checking and not only did the price keep dropping, but instead of a standard two queen bed room, I found the Helios Grand Suite on sale! It was like triple the size of a regular room - a bedroom, living room, and kitchenette/bar area. By the end, I managed to get the price down to $541.13 a night for the suite with a park view. I was pretty dang proud of myself, not gonna lie.

Thanksgiving was great: we spent the day with Trevor's family and came home that night, cause tomorrow - Black Friday - it was time to head to Disney!

 

[Araminta18]

Table of Contents

Black Friday Bad Decisions - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 1)
Disney Springs By Car - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 2)
Treats and Dinner - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 3)
Dinner and Animal Kingdom Lodge - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 4)
Room Tour - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 5)

AKL Club Breakfast - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 1)
Heading Over to Animal Kingdom - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 2)
From the Menagerie to the Safari - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 3)
Animal Kingdom Rides - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 4)
Pandoran Pretzel - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 5)
How to Interact with the Merry Menagerie - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 6)
More Menagerie - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 7)
One Way Or Another - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 8)
Gingerbread and Geo-82 - Saturday, Nov 29, 2025 (part 9)

 

[Paulaparm]

Yay! Can’t wait to read all about it and see ALL the pictures!
I hope some Gideon’s Cookies will make an appearance.

 

[buteraa]

Awesome, another trip report!

 

[bettertheangel]

Can't wait to read about all of the fun.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Sounds like a great trip, looking forward to hearing all about it!

 

[mickey916]

Hoping to go to Epic in May. Can’t wait to read all about it.

 

[Araminta18]

Black Friday Bad Decisions - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 1)​

Friday morning dawned bright and early; we were smart and had done most of our packing a few days earlier. Our flight was at 12:45 so we were able to get up at a reasonable time and finish doing the last of our packing without crazy rushing. And then it was time to go! Our uber arrived at 10:15, and by 10:45 we were at the airport. The driver drove a bit slow but that's better than getting lost or going the wrong way like other drivers I've had. Security was a bit longer than expected but still not bad (nothing like Thanksgiving crowds) and by 11:15 or so we were through security and at our gate. Time for lunch! We got Potbelly:

roast beef!

Trevor got a Turkey BLT wrap.

A few minutes after we finished eating, time to board. Trevor was fancy group 1 and I was only group 2, so we were separated.

But reunited pretty quickly on the plane.

No empty middle seat but still, on our way to Disney! I had fun playing with my new phone, did a takeoff video:

I also discovered right after that my phone does the fancy video thing where it films out of both cameras at once so it can film you and the thing you're looking at. Didn't end up using it for anything but still, super cool!

To pass the time, I'd loaded my ipad with the new Stranger Things episodes:

Anyone else still really mad that they dropped only half the season on Nov 26, and then only half of the remaining episodes on Christmas Day? Come on guys, just give us the whole final season before we all lose interest. Goodness gracious.

Anyways, we landed right on time (3:10) and made our way to baggage claim. The faux monorail had a bunch of Epic Universe posters which got us right in the theme park mood:


At baggage claim our bags weren't out yet (unsurprisingly). We were actually trying something different this trip: instead of an uber, we decided to rent a car for a day and drop by the outlets and then head to Disney Springs. I wanted to stop by the outlets and figured this would be the easiest way and by renting a car we wouldn't have to worry about multiple ubers, etc. So Trevor was going to wait for the bags and I went down a level to get the rental car.

Getting the rental car was super easy - no line or anything so by 3:40 we were all set. I went back up to meet Trevor and he had gotten both our bags already - brilliant! Off we went to get our car!

We'd rented a full-size car but ended up getting an SUV, so not too shabby!

We decided to go to the I Drive outlet first, and off we went. It went fairly smoothly until we got really close to the outlet, and there were SO many cars trying to get in. ....I may have not realized that it was Black Friday and so going to a mall was likely to be something that a LOT of people were planning to do. We were waiting in the right turn lane to turn onto the road the outlet was on for like 15 minutes - after 5 Trevor just hopped out and walked over. But eventually I made it - prob 20/25 min to go a quarter of a mile? Oh well! But I made it in and got a parking space pretty easily, which was unexpected, and met Trevor over at the Disney outlet, which thankfully did not have a line nor was it too crowded.

We looked around for a bit - they had some fun pins, Trevor got a magic band+, a Fantastic 4 corkcicle tumblr, but coolest of all, they had this glass figurine of the Haunted Mansion bride for half price! I was pretty excited about that. They also had this art piece of Agatha (from "Agatha All Along"/"Wandavision") that I really liked (it's by Ryan Riller who does awesome papercut artwork) for half-price but it was BIG - too big to put in my suitcase and they didn't ship. So ended up passing on that one. Probably for the best cause where would we hang it?

Anyways, we bought the stuff and headed out - the plan was to go to Del Taco and get a snack, then on to the hotel to check in before heading to Disney Springs for dinner and a bit more shopping. Our original plan was to go to the other outlet too but after the craziness of this outlet, we decided to scrap that. As we were on our way out of this mall though, we passed the Citizen watch outlet, and so had to stop in: they have fun Star Wars/Marvel watches that Trevor likes. And he got sucked in - he ended up trying on a couple and then buying a Boba Fett watch:

Happy Birthday Trevor!

Ok, for reals back to the car now. There was a Del Taco nearby so we quickly did the drivethru:

Forgot to take a pic of the food but after we ate I made Trevor take a picture of the bag. I know its just a horrible fast food place but honestly I love it. Those chicken soft tacos man - delish.

At that point, we decided to head directly to Disney Springs instead of trying to check in at the hotel first. I was hoping it would be not as crowded as the outlet, 'cause Disney Springs wasn't doing crazy Black Friday deals, right? And the gps indicated at least the roads by it weren't nearly as crowded as the roads by the outlets. So off we went! We had a Wine Bar George reservation and I wanted to get a phone case for my new phone from the print on demand place in the Marketplace Co-Op (I'd had the same phone case ever since FARTS 2019 despite getting a new phone in 2021, and wanted to continue the streak).

And that's the picture limit - would Disney Springs be as crowded or would it be better? Foreshadowing.....

 

[Araminta18]

Yay! Can’t wait to read all about it and see ALL the pictures!
I hope some Gideon’s Cookies will make an appearance.

Yay! Thank you for reading, and putting up with ALL the pictures ;D And you know that there will be Gideon's!

 

[Araminta18]

Awesome, another trip report!

thank you for reading!!!

 

[Araminta18]

Can't wait to read about all of the fun.

Thank you for joining in!!

 

[Araminta18]

Sounds like a great trip, looking forward to hearing all about it!

It was an awesome trip - thank you for reading and joining in!!!

 

[Araminta18]

Hoping to go to Epic in May. Can’t wait to read all about it.

Ooh I hope you get to go and have a great time! Epic is a weird one for crowds and the crowds definitely make a difference. But thank you for joining in!!

 

[mickey916]

Ooh I hope you get to go and have a great time! Epic is a weird one for crowds and the crowds definitely make a difference. But thank you for joining in!!

I think if we do go we will likely splurge for the express passes, at least for me and my sons. DH probably can't ride much there anyhow due to his motion sickness. Can't wait to read more!

 

[Araminta18]

Disney Springs By Car - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 2)​

As we drove up to Disney Springs, there wasn't much traffic (which was nice) but all the electronic signs said that all the garages were full except for the grapefruit garage. For those who, like us, have literally never driven to Disney Springs, the grapefruit garage is the one across the street from Disney Springs...uh oh!

But we pulled on in and found a spot fairly easily, only to find that there was QUITE a long line to get across the bridge and into Disney springs:

This is the end of the line, waiting to get up to the bridge and then across and into Disney Springs. We've made poor choices! But at least we looked cute, with our light up stuff:

My necklace lights up, and I have my Rapunzel lantern popcorn bucket that lights up. Trevor is also wearing his lightup Baymax from Tokyo!

The line moved pretty steadily too - 12 minutes to get from here to the start of the bridge, then another 15 to get through security at Disney Springs. So yea, more of a line than I would want - we absolutely should have just gone to the hotel and then taken the bus over but oh well! 27 minutes but could have been a lot worse. Though actually I have no idea why the line was so long, cause once we got down the stairs and were at security there was literally no line at all; seems like the stairs were the hold up but even that... *shrugs* Didn't make much sense, but we were there and it was time to do our shopping! I also had pushed back our Wine Bar George reservation back to 9:15 pm so we had about 2 hours to do our stuff. And the entrance was right by the Marketplace Co-Op so that was nice - that was the side we wanted to be at. We walked in to the Co-Op to find the print on demand place to get my phone case and guys - there is no more print on demand store in Disney Springs! Apparently it closed down like a week ago, and the only remaining place is the one in Tomorrowland in the MK. Bummer!

We looked around a bit more, didn't buy anything, but the pin shop is right there and we did some damage there instead. Bought lots of pins, and even sucked Trevor in a little bit with the Disney Afternoon TV mystery pin set. I got some of the Wave A and Wave B mystery packs and just had a grand old time. We also got to see the DJ rolling around in a sleigh!

That was fun - love these street entertainment CMs.

Right next to the pin store is that grouping of little stores like the name art, etc. I thought they also had the Christmas holiday art gallery that I saw pics of on instagram, but no luck. So we just looked in there and then the Art of Disney store by Rainforest Cafe. We also realized that we could get our custom rice krispy treats from Goofy's Candy Kitchen! We haven't gotten those in a few trips so nice to get them now. It worked out pretty well, cause I wanted to look in World of Disney too and the crowds were definitely getting to Trevor so he stayed in Goofy's Candy Kitchen to get our treats while I went over to quickly look through World of Disney.

World of Disney was CRAZY! So many people. Good thing Trevor stayed over at Goofy's which was muuuuuuuuch less crowded.

Rice krispies! Trevor also found these super cute little storybook gift tins with chocolates in them:

adorbs!

He then joined me in World of Disney briefly and we got a couple postcards and one more wave b mystery pin bag, and ducked out of there ASAP! And as we walked out, guess what we found?

The holiday art gallery that I thought was by the Co-Op but actually was right by World of Disney and Amorette's! Yay! It was fun looking around in there, they had some fun pieces that I was familiar with but also several by an artist I hadn't really seen before. I don't love Frozen art but this piece I really liked:

Don't know why I like it so much, but I really do. They only had the $600 version of it so I ended up not getting it. Maybe when FARTS rolls around they'll have a smaller print of it.

At this point it was a bit before 8:30, and so Trevor and I split up. I wanted to look in Disney Style, but Trevor wanted to just look in Uniqlo and then not be in any store, so he went that way and I headed over to Disney Style. As I walked I caught the snow on the tree!

So many people though.

Over at Disney Style, they didn't have anything I wanted, but they did have these cute Rapunzel lanterns up on the ceiling which I felt like I'd never seen before. How cute?

I miss when all the stores had this fun theming - new World of Disney is very "clean" but I miss all the character figures on the ceilings, etc. Oh well!

I did briefly look in the Marvel and Star Wars shops down there by Disney Style for Trevor but he didn't want anything. Then I headed back towards Wine Bar George to meet up with Trevor - he was getting in the virtual queue for Gideon's, despite it quoting a 2 hour wait. We figured might as well get in the virtual line, see what happens. I decided to duck into the Ganachery and see what goodies they had for Christmas.
And somewhere in there while Trevor was on his own, he saw the band playing at Disney Springs!

 

[Araminta18]

Treats and Dinner - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 3)​

Unfortunately at the Ganachery I ran into my first line of the night at Disney Springs (well after the line to get in. )

Apparently lots of people were wanting cocoa or smores and it was clogging up the line. I didn't mind too much though cause I was able to sit down for a little bit, and I opened up one of my mystery pin packs and got the Tower of Terror ear hat I wanted - yay!

Then Trevor came to join me and we picked up some chocolates, and in an interesting twist, right as we were checking out at the Ganachery, Trevor got a text saying it was his turn to go to Gideon's! That was indeed a very fast 2 hours - maybe 10 minutes total? It was just before 9 when he got the text and he was like "oh no what about our Wine Bar George reservation?" so I told him to go get in line at Gideon's and I went over to Wine Bar George to ask if we could be late - thankfully they were totally fine with it.

The standby line for Gideon's ended up being about 15 minutes outside (another 5 or so inside). Not bad at all! When I joined Trevor in line he told me that when he returned to join the standby line, one of the Gideon's workers came and told the workers at the end of the standby line to not send anyone up to get added to the virtual queue anymore, cause they were closing it. Good timing!!

Once inside, we got to see several of the Black Friday merchandise things they had:

Loungefly bag and wallet! Its a good thing I'm not a Loungefly girlie.


Yummy cake - rainbow, cookies and cream, and chocolate chip marshmallow.

Trevor also noticed this sign which feels new but honestly could be old and we just don't remember:

Here lyes buried my willpower indeed!

We got one slice of each of the cakes, a couple dark coffee cake cookies, a krampus cookie, two sugar cookies stuffed with pumpkin cheesecake frosting, and then triple chocolate cookie bites, a couple cookies and cream cookies, and a pin. Woof. No willpower indeed!

We walked out at 9:25 or so, and headed over to Wine Bar George for dinner.

We were seated on the main floor, which has never happened before - we always get seated upstairs. We almost thought about asking to be seated upstairs cause usually the bar area is so loud, but it wasn't bad tonight so we just rolled with it.

We got our normal mocktails: Cherry smash

And my orgeat lemonade:

So delicious

We also got the Frozen Hot Cocoa:

It tasted like chocolate milk but frozen. Not bad, but nothing special. Trevor said it tasted like a cross between a milkshake and a frosty from Wendy's.

We got a couple appetizers that were new to the menu:

Five Onion Dip - this was delicious. I hope they keep it around - I'll be hardpressed not to order it every time!

 

[Araminta18]

Dinner and Animal Kingdom Lodge - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 4)​

Then, we got the Stuffed Phyllo Shell: goat cheese potato / corn soubise.

Trevor was making all sorts of snarky comments about how bad it was going to be, but then it came he tried it and was like "huh, not bad". The filling was goat cheese mixed with potato and while it was a bit too much potato for my taste, it was a good mix for Trevor (he's not a big goat cheese fan). Very interesting.

And then the main dish: Skirt Steak: broccolini / garlic oil / roasted potatoes / chimichurri

Very yummy! Overall, a delicious dinner. I know everyone is probably bored with hearing about Wine Bar George but honestly, it's so good and consistently so. The best.

We left around 10:30, and went looking for the Haunted Mansion Christmas tree before heading to the hotel. We found this adorable peanut dog on the way though.

or maybe it's a reindeer? Not sure, but it's adorable!

The Haunted Mansion tree was right by the Lego store, so Trevor ducked in there while I looked at the tree:


Pretty similar to the one from last year, but still cool.

Then, time to head to our hotel! It was nice to be able to just walk to the car and take off right away, no waiting for a bus or anything. And pretty soon we were seeing this:

and then -

Jambo! Neither Trevor nor I had ever been to Jambo House before, so we were excited. It was a bit odd pulling up at 11 pm - I wasn't sure if we should park right at the front door to check in/get our bags and obviously since it was 11 pm there weren't many cast members about to tell us one way or the other. So we parked, and Trevor started unloading the bags while I went in to check-in.

So pretty!

There wasn't any line, so I got checked in pretty quickly except I asked about upgrading to club level for Trevor's birthday. That took a while cause they had to call someone to check on availability and the price but after a bit they had the info and it was on the pricey side but not horrible, so we went for it - Happy Birthday Trevor! They were also able to link my two reservations (both savanna view) and let us stay in the same room so we didn't have to check out/check back in or move rooms, so that was fantastic.

We had room 4421 on the Zebra Trail, facing the Arusha Savanna, cause savanna view!

 

[Araminta18]

Room Tour - Friday, Nov 28, 2025 (part 5)​

Happy Birthday Trevor!

The bathroom was nice - I like having two sinks!


and a tub for Trevor.

But the best part, as you'd expect, was the view!


Not much too see at night, and the pictures make it WAY brighter than it was in person, but we were very excited for the coming days. Giraffes please!!!

We got unpacked and fell into bed. Tomorrow, Animal Kingdom and the Merry Menagerie!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 12816 steps (4.9 miles)
Ride count: 0
Annual Pass Savings: $124.40 (merch - those pins man!)

 

[Araminta18]

I think if we do go we will likely splurge for the express passes, at least for me and my sons. DH probably can't ride much there anyhow due to his motion sickness. Can't wait to read more!

Oh bummer about the motion sickness - I will say I thought the screen integration in the rides was really well done, and sharp, so if that's more his problem (the screens), may be worth looking up POV videos. Express pass seems nice but yea it's SO expensive. If you hit Epic on a low crowd day you don't even need it but it's so unpredictable what days those will be, so planning for the splurge is probably a safer option.

 

[happily single]

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