"You Look Like a Beached Jellyfish." An August 2017 TR! Finished 3/22

[DisneyMandC]

Super swamped at work right now, but I'm going to try to get another update up for you all tomorrow!

 

[macraven]

 

[DisneyMandC]

Day One: Festival of the Lion King and Way Too Much Food

Despite still mourning our loss of the Animal Kingdom mug, we decided to head over and try to catch the 5:00 Festival of the Lion King show. The line wasn't too bad, but we were stuck standing out in the sun while we waited for about 10 minutes. I have to say, this is probably the only part of the day we were actually HOT. We were fortunate to have some really great weather all day long. Our home state is also hot and humid, so we're well-prepared for the heat, but it certainly wasn't the awful August weather I'd been expecting.

After our short wait, we made it inside and took our seats. I didn't take any pictures because I really just like to sit and enjoy the shows; plus it's hard to get a good picture in that theater. As usual, the show was fantastic. DH and I both love The Lion King, and were fortunate enough to see the Broadway show when it came to our city last year!

Once we got out of the show, we did a little shopping in Africa, but didn’t buy anything there.

While we still had about 45 minutes until our dinner reservation at Yak and Yeti, we were both getting pretty hungry and decided to just head over towards the restaurant and check in. We arrived at about 5:50 and I told them our name. We decided to wait outside since it was fairly crowded inside.





I was amazed while standing out here how many people walked up and asked how long the wait was and tried to get in. I know from reading these boards that many people (not the ones ON these boards!) fail to do things like make Fastpasses and get ADRs, but I don’t understand how anyone could go to Disney World in August and fail to make any dinner reservations! I mean, sure, I’m sure some people knew and just decided to wing it, which probably isn’t too terribly difficult if you’re a couple. But when you’re a family of six, you’d think you’d make a reservation.

Anyways, after a few we got tired of standing outside and went in to sit down in the waiting area. By this time, we were approaching 6:15 which was our reservation time. 6:15 came and went, and plenty of people were being seated, but not us. Finally, at about 6:25, DH pointed out to me that a number of people who checked in after us were being seated. I walked up to the hostess to let her know we had checked in about 20 minutes early and had now been waiting close to 40 minutes. I didn’t want to be a pain since I know ADRs don’t always run on time, but it seemed odd that other people were being seated ahead of us.

Sure enough, I could see from the look on her face that there was some sort of issue. She couldn’t find our name anywhere, despite having been the one to check us in. She directed us to another girl who also tried to look for our name. After some searching, she finally found us, but said that for some reason the computer was showing us as already seated! I don’t know what happened, because we were standing right next to the door when we were outside, so there’s no way they could’ve called our name and we missed it. Anyways, she apologized profusely and told us someone would come seat us right away. Somebody showed up immediately and asked if it was okay if we were seated upstairs, which I was more than fine with.

We headed upstairs and, funnily enough, were seated at the exact same table we ate at when we were on our honeymoon! I thought it was especially cute that DH said something about it before I could even say anything.

Our waitress came over immediately when we sat down. She was EXTREMELY nice. A very good waitress- just the right amount of attentiveness without being overbearing. We started checking out the menu, even though I pretty much already knew what I wanted. Even though our meal plan didn’t include appetizers as part of table service, there was an appetizer I really wanted to try and told DH: the Ahi Tuna Nachos ($14.99)! I’d actually heard really great reviews of these back before our honeymoon, but we didn’t try them on that trip.

I’m so glad we ordered these because they were DELICIOUS!



The tuna was SO fresh and there was a TON of it! But guys, can I just say that this is a literal mountain of food. The picture doesn’t do it justice. We tried to eat a lot of it, but I feel like we left a massive amount of food on the plate.


For our meals, I decided to order the combination shrimp and chicken lo mein ($19.99) and DH got the seared miso salmon ($25.99).




I ordered the lo mein last time and it was excellent. However, it was also a mountain of food and I should’ve known better this time! I will say that the lo mein is a fantastic option for anyone who has a big eater in their family because it is PACKED with meat. I put away a good amount of lo mein despite the nachos, and I still had a lot of shrimp and chicken left on my plate. DH also really enjoyed his salmon. I tried a bite and thought it was really good.


Of course, after stuffing our faces, it was time for dessert. I was full to bursting, but I would persevere in the name of dessert! I chose the fried wontons ($8.99) which I also had last time we ate here. DH chose the pineapple upside down cake ($8.99). I didn’t try any of DH’s cake, but he said it was really good. I would have really liked to try the chocolate pudding cake, but it came with raspberry sauce and I have a raspberry allergy. It’s not bad, but I didn’t feel like itching the rest of the night, so I passed.




So you may have noticed that I’ve been including prices next to our lunch and dinner items. I’m planning to do a total at the end of this report and see if our meal plan was worth it! I suspect, based on the way we eat, that it was. So we’ll find out at the end if it worked out to be a value for us or not.

What I will say is that we should have planned better in terms of this meal. Yak and Yeti gives you SO MUCH food that we really should have done is use one table service meal and split the nachos (out of pocket) and then get something like the lo mein and a dessert to split. It still would’ve been plenty of food and would have left us with another table service meal to use later.

While we were at dinner, we discussed our plans for the rest of the evening. We didn’t really want to go ride anything after eating so much, but we still had a little time to kill before our Rivers of Light fastpass. We settled on just strolling around for a few in Asia and Dinoland.

We left dinner at about 7:45 and spotted this lotus flower hanging out.



We headed into Dinoland just walked around checking out the crowds and doing a little shopping.



As you can probably guess by now, we didn’t buy anything here either. I did notice they had the Dug stuffed animal wearing the cone of shame though! It’s funny because while we were here on our honeymoon, I talked to the CMs working in the store in Dinoland about how it was a shame that there was so little Up merchandise. There still isn’t enough in my opinion, but at least it’s gotten better. (And yes, I already have one of those Dug stuffed animals so don’t you worry!)

Up next- a Rivers of Light review!... sort of?


​

 

[Dentam]

Wow, that is a TON of food - it all looks great! It's been so long since we've been to Yak and Yeti that I don't really have any memory of the food there - need to add it to the list!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Wow, that is a TON of food - it all looks great! It's been so long since we've been to Yak and Yeti that I don't really have any memory of the food there - need to add it to the list!

Mistakes were made Haha! It was seriously so much food. Everything we've ever gotten there has been delicious though!

 

[erinch]

For $45 you can get a Starbucks AK you are here mug on eBay...

 

[mamamelody2]

I'm really enjoying your report!

Bummer on the AK Starbucks mug! I hope they are available come November as they are on my "must buy" list.

 

[DisneyMandC]

For $45 you can get a Starbucks AK you are here mug on eBay...

Ha! What a bummer!

I'm really enjoying your report!

Bummer on the AK Starbucks mug! I hope they are available come November as they are on my "must buy" list.

Thank you! Yes, we were seriously upset about it. Our Starbucks mug collection remains incomplete.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Hi all! Haven't forgotten about you, just crazy busy right now! I am working on my last update for Day One and hoping to have it up tonight or tomorrow!

 

[westcoastfldisneygirl]

What a great report so far! It looks like such a fun trip, can't wait to read more!

I love the wristlet you got! That is so cute.

And your dog-adorable!

 

[DisneyMandC]

What a great report so far! It looks like such a fun trip, can't wait to read more!

I love the wristlet you got! That is so cute.

And your dog-adorable!

Thank you! I love the wristlet! I've been using it so much since then, it's the perfect little size! And yes, the dog is adorable and totally ridiculous! He comes up with some crazy antics that ensures we're always laughing at him!

Ok, FOR REAL, there will be an update TONIGHT! I wrote the final update for day one yesterday in a Word doc and then promptly left work without sending it to myself so I couldn't upload it with pics when I got home. But I won't forget today!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Day One: Rivers of Light. Literally. Rivers.

Sorry for the delay in updating, everyone! I have been soooo busy with work and bringing a ton of work home at night. My work is also very writing-intensive, so sometimes I get home and just don't want to write anymore! Hopefully I can get a couple updates written this weekend if I get some free time.

So last time I left off, we had taken a stroll through Dinoland. We hadn't done anything there, just checked things out for a few. We agreed that after Rivers of Light, we wanted to run out real quick and try to hop in the single rider line for Expedition Everest to experience it at night. It was really nice outside and I snapped this photo as we were back from Dinoland. Ignore my finger



We had some more time that we could have walked around, but we didn't want to get too far from the area with our Rivers of Light fastpass coming up. There wasn’t much else left for us to do in Asia though, so at about 8:25 we decided to go ahead and scan our fastpasses and sit down. While we were waiting on those HOT(!) stone benches, we took the time to upload a lot of our pictures to facebook and talk about the day. We were both really happy with the trip so far. We had done almost everything we wanted to do, but it honestly felt like a very leisurely day. My feet weren’t even that tired! We agreed that after trying to ride EE again, we’d head to Pandora for EMH and see what the wait looked like for the River Journey.

We had a great view while we were waiting on the show. The crowd decided to do the wave several times and also turn on their flashlights on their phones for added fun.




And then, it started…

No. Not the show. The rain. About five minutes before the show it started to rain. I pulled out our ponchos and dutifully put them on, expecting it would be one of those quick Florida thunderstorms.

NOPE. This was the real deal guy. FLAT. OUT. POURING. A lot of people got up and left but no way were we giving up on seeing Rivers of Light, which promptly began at 9:00 despite the thunder and lightning and pouring rain.

I’m not going to lie, we were getting absolutely soaked sitting there. My poncho basically managed to keep our backpack covered, which contained our phones, but the rest of me was absolutely drenched. Still, we persevered and were actually able to see most of the show despite the rain. It looked pretty cool and we were enjoying it, despite the weather.

RIGHT UP UNTIL THEY CANCELED IT. Literally, shut the entire thing down with (I’ve since discovered via YouTube) approximately two minutes left in the show. Just turned off all the lights and music and told us all it was canceled due to weather.

Now I can understand that if prior to the show when lightning struck that they came on and said they had to cancel it. But we saw lightning multiple times before the show and the ten minutes it was running before they canceled it. So I didn’t really get that. We would have gladly sat through the (literally) last two minutes of the show.

Anyways, once they canceled it, we hopped up and headed into the EE gift shop. Note that it was still flat out pouring at this point so there were a ton of people in the gift shop, all absolutely soaking wet. There wasn’t even enough room to move around and shop, so we just sort of hung out near the doorway for a few, waiting to see if it would slow down.

Both of us were sopping wet, including our shoes being filled with water. I had pulled my arms inside my poncho in order to hold on to our bookbag, and was having some trouble wriggling my way out. I managed to get partially out, but my arms and head were still trapped inside with the clear poncho pulled up over my head, dripping water all over me. That’s when DH looked at me and said, yup, you guess it…

“You look like a beached jellyfish.”



Thanks, honey. After managing to refrain from busting out of the poncho Hulk-style, I got it off and we tried to come up with a plan. It was approaching 9:45 and it was still raining hard with flashes of lightning. EE was obviously down, and it seemed highly unlikely that it would open back up with only fifteen more minutes of operating time when there was still lightning in the area, so we decided we would have to unfortunately scrap our night ride.

After another couple minutes, the rain finally slowed to a manageable rate, and people started to leave the gift shop. We decided to head towards Pandora to see that and find out how crowded it looked. Regardless of whether we rode anything again, I wanted to see Pandora at night. We passed a ton of people leaving the park on the way out though, which we figured was a good sign.

I wish I had better pictures of Pandora for everyone. This is honestly the only one I got that is even remotely decent, and it’s still hard to see. They keep this area pretty dark, which I think is really cool. The colors look fantastic at night and there are a lot of sound effects to make you feel like you’re on Pandora.



We walked around a little bit and headed towards the River Journey. The wait time was showing 45 minutes at that point, but we both looked at the line and knew there was no way it was actually that long considering how fast people appeared to be moving through it. We hopped in line, figured that even if it was 40 minutes, that still wasn’t bad compared to earlier wait times.

Sure enough, we moved through the line quickly enough that I didn’t even snag any pictures. It took us maybe 15 minutes to get up front and into our boat. We barely had enough time to stop at the water bottle filler halfway through the line and fill up!

Now, River Journey was a pretty ride… but not exactly stellar. I mean, yes the Na’vi at the end is cool. It’s all decorated very well. But it’s a slow boat ride. There really isn’t much to it. DH and I both agreed that we would have been very disappointed if we waited more than about twenty minutes for it. But that’s just us. We were glad we got to ride it, but very glad we didn’t wait any longer for it than we had.

When we got out, we walked around a little more and headed towards Flight of Passage. I was kind of interested in getting on it again, even though we were approaching 10:30 at this point. We walked up and the standby wait said 105 minutes, but we both agreed there was no way that could be true because there really weren’t that many people milling around. DH was kind of standing there debating whether we should get on it, so I just took the opportunity to go ahead and start walking into the line. I told him if it seemed that long we could always turn around and walk out.

There was a decently sized line, but it wasn’t terrible. And it was pretty cool to see the standby line since there was a lot we missed with the fastpass.





We waited right at an hour for the ride. Most rides I would never wait an hour for, only having done that once before for Seven Dwarves back when it first opened. But honestly, I liked FOP enough that it was worth it to wait an hour for, even for a second ride! I’m glad I waited and we had a phenomenal time on it. We realized this time around the pre-shows change. Ours was only slightly different, but it was definitely not the same one we had the first time. I also took time while we were on the ride to look around and notice all the other people on the ride. I couldn’t believe how many were in there! I had totally missed all of them on the first trip!

We both agreed when we got off that we were glad we had waited to ride it again, and that it was, by far, the coolest ride in the park. That being said, it was 11:45 when we finished up- way past our bedtime! We booked it to the front of the park to head back to Pop for a good night’s sleep in preparation for Day Two!


​

 

[Dentam]

Sounds like a great day - other than the being drenched part! We had that happen to us once at HS. I remember hovering in the entry way of one of the gift shops (with the ice cold ac blowing on us!) and watching roaches scurrying by.... Definitely memorable!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

I hate when it rains during trips to WDW...

 

[DisneyMandC]

Sounds like a great day - other than the being drenched part! We had that happen to us once at HS. I remember hovering in the entry way of one of the gift shops (with the ice cold ac blowing on us!) and watching roaches scurrying by.... Definitely memorable!

Yikes! Yeah, it was a crazy storm. It rained hard for a long time. I was bummed about not getting to really enjoy Rivers of Light, but it happens. Honestly it was such a good day otherwise that I couldn't really complain.

I hate when it rains during trips to WDW...

I know- I expected it at 3:00 in the afternoon, but not 9:00 at night!

 

[westcoastfldisneygirl]

What a great day, except the rain part! I loved FOP, it is such an amazing ride!! Can't wait for the next update!

 

[DisneyMandC]

What a great day, except the rain part! I loved FOP, it is such an amazing ride!! Can't wait for the next update!

It's incredible! I don't even know how to describe it to people. Definitely the coolest ride I've ever been on!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Day Two: Rise and Shine, Magic Kingdom Time!

Rise and shine and welcome to day two! Our alarm went off at 7 am for Magic Kingdom’s 9 am opening. We were only running on about 6 hours of sleep after getting into bed at about 1 am after coming back from AK. That being said, I actually wasn’t feeling too bad. My feet weren’t killing me and I was excited for our Magic Kingdom day. MK is so quintessentially Disney to me, and on our longer trips, MK is always the first park we go to.

We got ready to go pretty quickly as we wanted to grab something to eat before getting on the bus at 8. Our clothes from the night before were still absolutely soaked, and unfortunately my sneakers were too. DH’s were okay, but I had to wear my flip flops for the day.

We headed down to get some breakfast from Everything Pop. My intention was to just get something small and that we could grab some sort of delicious snack like a big cinnamon roll or some Starbucks at MK if we got hungry before lunch. We ended up being reallyyyy impressed by Everything Pop. While we didn’t get one of the quick service meals, they all looked really delicious from what we could see. We headed over to the pastry area instead. Talk about a ton of options! There was a lot to choose from, but I finally settled on a fairly large cheese pastry ($3.29) and DH just got a bagel (can’t remember a price on that).



We also picked up our refillable mugs and DH got some coffee in his. We sat for a few to eat as we had a little bit before we needed to catch the bus. I really can’t say enough how impressed I was by Everything Pop. Animal Kingdom Lodge’s Mara was nice, but Pop was so much bigger (for obvious reasons).

Once we were done, we headed out the front door to get on our Magic Kingdom bus. It was right at 8:00 as we walked up. I was very surprised to see the line wasn’t that long- we were probably the 4th or 5th family in line.



A bus pulled up just a few minutes later and we got on and got seated. By the time we got on the bus and looked out the window, this is what the line had grown to.



Apparently we must’ve hit the line at exactly the right time!

On our way over, we discussed our plans for the park. We had a 10:05 FP for Seven Dwarves, so we would not be rope dropping that. We considered Space Mountain, but I know it’s always a pretty big rush for that and we had a FP for that for the afternoon. Instead, we decided to head to something we had somehow never tried- Peter Pan! That’s right- never been on it. We’ve literally been joking ever since our honeymoon about this ride. We kept trying to ride it there but the times were, as usual, absolutely insane. So we decided this time we would rope drop it so we could finally say we’d done it.

Soon enough, we were at the park and headed into the most magical place on earth.




We headed straight down Main Street towards the castle without stopping. It was about 8:45 at this point and I wanted to get a nice spot for the pre-opening show and then be able to dash in the direction of Peter Pan. I knew we would have opportunities to shop later in the day either during a thunderstorm or before Happily Ever After.

Of course, we had to get a selfie in front of the castle.



Before long, the pre-opening show started. I thought it was a cute little show, but nothing too fancy. I’m sure kids like it, but I didn’t think it did much for adults in the crowd.



Once it was over and the park officially opened up, we hightailed it straight to Peter Pan!



We still had to weave through the line by the time we got there, but we moved fast enough that I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures. It really was a cute interactive line though with a lot of decoration!

We quickly reached our flying boat and were off to Neverland!



So, this was a cute ride... it was super worth the approximately five minutes we waited for it... But what on earth are people waiting 45 minutes to an hour for?! I really love Peter Pan, but it seems totally absurd to wait that long for something like this.

This ride actually reminded us of our favorite comedian, Jim Gaffigan. If you all haven’t heard his joke about adults who go to Disney World, you should look it up. There’s a really funny bit about Disney “skimping” on some of the rides. I think he describes the Winnie the Pooh ride as “A bumper car goes into a dark room and there’s a picture of Winnie the Pooh on the wall. People will wait for that, right? We’ve already got their money.” Now you can be mad if you want to, but I just think that joke is hilarious! And it’s exactly what we thought of with Peter Pan! A bumper car goes into a dark room and there’s a picture of Peter Pan on a wall.

Ok, so maybe that’s not exactly the ride, but you get the picture.

So anyways, we rode and had a fine time and then hopped off to head to our next destination.

But first, a stop at everyone’s favorite bathrooms...



Up next- we tackle Liberty Square and Frontierland!
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[westcoastfldisneygirl]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Magic Kingdom

 

[macraven]

Totally a cute couple

Thanks for including your picture !!