Toarin' - August 2015. Day 14 - Animal Kingdom & Magic Kingdom

[Scruffette]

Day 14 – Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom

Lunch at Yak and Yeti, Dinner at Be Our Guest

This morning was Extra Magic Hours at Animal Kingdom.

These were our FPs, although we ended up cancelling two of them!



We arrived at the park at 8am and made our way straight to the Safari.











This safari was a bit more successful than the previous one, with a lot more animals wandering around.















The baby rhino was particularly cute



The bumpy bridge was also operating this trip. (It wasn’t in 2013, I was pretty sure Ollie thought I had made it up). I remember the bridge really vividly from my first trip in 1998. (I think I even used it as inspiration for a story I wrote at school!) I think I’m one of the few people who miss the Big Red/Little Red storyline.

After our Safari, we headed over to Everest to have a go in the single rider line.



I was very brave and managed to put my hands in the air for the big drop for the first time ever! Although we were single riders, I was next to a solo traveller who offered to swap so Ollie and I could ride together.



Ollie went round again, but once today was my limit.

We headed over to Dinosaur from here to use our Fastpasses.
I admired some of the boards on the way.



There was a reasonably long queue for Dinosaur, so we were glad of the FPs. From this point I started noticing how busy Animal Kingdom was today. It had been so much quieter last week, so I had wrongly assumed it would be similar today.



As always, we pulled out our dubious dinosaur impressions.



After Dinosaur, we planned to catch the 10am showing of Festival of the Lion King. I have never had any trouble getting a seat last minute, so we didn’t arrive particularly early.

Ollie went to get us a jalepeno pretzel to share, while I got us some free iced water, and we met in the line to get into the theatre.
(No picture of the pretzel, so here is the one from last time)



The line seemed pretty long, and we were told 5 minutes before the show started that we weren’t getting in! Normally, they are still letting people into the back after the show has actually started!

At this point I went on MDE to check out fastpasses. There were none available for the Lion King today. In fact, there were very few FPs available at all, except for It’s Tough to be a bug (which had 30 minute wait time later! I’ve always walked straight in)

Not wanting to miss the Lion King, we planned to look around the Harambe reserve, and come back early for the 11am show. Some people stayed in line, but I was not waiting an hour for the show! We cancelled our Everest FPs as we had already been on, and could always use the single rider line. It’s well hidden so always very short!
It was nice to have some time to look round the animal trail, rather than jumping from ride to ride.



[img]https://farm
2.staticflickr.com/1501/25238237820_42061c5e77_z.jpg[/img]



The giraffe’s cousin…



We made it into the 11am showing of Festival of the Lion King. I’ve said many times before how much I love this show. For me, it’s up there with the bread pudding at ‘Ohana.

We hoped to catch the 11.45am Flights of Wonder show. We were planning on getting a snack on the way (like the samosas from last week) but I had a feeling that you couldn’t take food into the theatre because of the birds. Of course, this turned out to not be the case and plenty of people had food in there. Ollie wasn’t happy as I had deprived him of his samosas.

I’m not a big fan of birds flying over my head, but enjoyed this nevertheless!









It was lunch time after this, so we headed to Yak and Yeti.

We shared Korean Stir-fry Barbecue Chicken ($9.99)-
Chicken, Peppers, Onions, Pineapple, Sweet and Tangy Korean Barbecue Sauce with White Rice



And the Teriyaki Beef Bowl ($10.99) -
Marinated Beef, Carrots, Snap Peas, Mushrooms in Sweet Teriyaki Sauce with White Rice





The portions have definitely shrunk and I miss the nice take-out style boxes they used to have. The food overall was good, but there was very little beef. We both switched out our desserts for an egg roll each, which was a good move. We both had soft drinks. Ollie didn’t like the sugar snaps which were a bit stringy.

We concluded that if we were having a counter service lunch at AK again, we would get the beef kabob flatbread from Harambe Marketplace and a Yak and Yeti dish and share the two.

We left Animal Kingdom after this. It was noticeably busier today and we had done pretty much all we wanted to do.

We planned to actually visit the pool today! (This was our 8th night and we hadn’t made it in the pool at Saratoga Springs yet…)

We put our swimmers on and headed over to Carriage House as we needed to stop at reception to check our pick up time for our Cruise transfer on Friday.

Unfortunately, on the way over the sky turned grey and it started to rain

We found out our pick up time of 12.30pm (which worried me as it sounded quite late) and filled up our mugs.

To console ourselves about the rain, I looked at the snack options. They had mickey premium bars, or for a snack credit they had whole tubs of ice cream. These were the same size as the Ben and Jerry’s tubs you get in the supermarket. Snack credits are supposed to be ‘single servings’ – it concerned me this was considered a single serving! We picked this up, using just one snack credit instead of two on two individual ice cream bars.



We went for cookie dough. There wasn’t a massive choice of flavours, but I was happy.

Whilst walking back to the grandstand, it stopped raining (although looked a bit grey). We asked the guy at the food station by the pool if he had a freezer and would mind storing our ice cream for a few minutes while we had a swim. He said that was fine.

One thing I noticed about the drink station at the pool was the number of wasps flying around. Various guests took the tact of filling their mug with water and throwing it at the wasps, which cleared them for a few seconds. I saw one man dispense a drink and a wasp came out.

We enjoyed a swim and a sit in the Jacuzzi until the thunder and lightning started. I had to persuade Ollie we should get out the pool!
We picked up our ice cream from the guy, and it was clear it had been put in a fridge instead of a freezer

Even so, we ate it on our balcony while it poured with rain outside.
I enjoyed a much needed nap, and then headed out to get a bus to the Magic Kingdom. It was pretty much just drizzling by the time we left.

[Scruffette]

On the way into the park, we stopped at the FP kiosks by guest relations to check out what Fastpasses were available. The kiosks here we found to be very quiet generally compared to the others. I think they are well hidden! We settled on FPs for Big Thunder Mountain later that evening (and it meant I could do this in the dark)

I was super excited about our meal at Be our Guest tonight. We checked in and had a small wait on the bridge. They were out of buzzers, so had to listen for our names, and were running a bit behind. This always seems to result in two separate families claiming that it is their name called for one reservation – even though there is the wrong number in their party!



Anyway, we were eventually called and taken through to a seat in the ballroom. The lady showing us to our seat asked us if we were over 21, which we said we were. She wasn’t convinced, but gave us the drinks menu and said our server would need to see our ID.

I love the ballroom, it’s so pretty





To drink, we both ordered a glass of
Charles de Fère, Jean Louis Blanc de Blancs, France ($8) -
Light, bright and fruity, exuding aromas of apple, apricot and a hint of honey



Despite what was said when we were being seated, we weren’t asked for ID when we ordered! (Disney is sooo inconsistent!) It felt a bit wrong drinking in Magic Kingdom!

For our dining plan drinks, we both got Odwalla® All-Natural Fruit Punch ($4.19) - sweetened with Organic Cane Juice and Wildberry Extract topped with Lemon-Lime Foam



I found this to be nice and sweet, not sour like the all-natural lemonade I had previously.

I enquired whether we could swap a dessert for a soup or salad, but was told this was not possible.

We paid OOP for French Onion Soup ($7.99) - topped with a Crouton and Gruyère Cheese



There was a good amount of cheese on this!

For entrees we both went for the Thyme-scented Pork Rack Chop ($23.99) - with au gratin macaroni, seasonal vegetables and red wine jus



I was asked how I wanted mine cooked, which I didn’t have an answer to! I’ve never been asked before. The server suggested medium, so I went with that.

I really enjoyed this. Ollie ordered it two years before and I ended up finishing most of the jus that came with his. This did not disappoint. However, I see they’ve changed the pork a bit on the current menu.

The beast was announced several times throughout dinner, which was making me excited to meet him later.

The dessert cart was brought around and the server talked through the various options. We both went for the same (again – not very interesting tonight!)

The "Grey Stuff" ($5) - Chocolate Shell, Cookie Crème topped with Lumiere’s special “Grey Stuff”



The Mickey was a nice touch. They decorate the plate for you as they serve your dessert. The server was very clear in explaining to us that it wasn’t like a brownie. I wouldn’t say it was that far from one. It wasn’t really like a cookie either though. Maybe more like a chocolate cake with a chocolate shell. Either way, I enjoyed the grey stuff.

After settling up, we went to meet the beast. The beast was just leaving for a break, so we had a bit of a wait. There were maybe 5 or so families in front of us in the queue.

I took this when the beast was re-entering, forgetting my zoom was on!



The beast bowed to me, so I did a courtesy to him. I love how Disney makes me feel like I can do these things and it feels totally normal. Anywhere else I would feel really self-conscious.

We restroomed on the way out (I like the restrooms in here) and took some snaps before heading out.







Fantasyland looks really pretty at night, and the carousel was showing only a short wait. Ollie had never done this, so this was our next stop. He likes to share his fun fact about carousels – that British carousels are the only ones which rotate clockwise. In the queue, we tried to google Cinderella’s horse as I vaguely remember reading something about it. We couldn’t find it, but think it may no longer be there. Also as a warning, trying to take photos of yourself on a moving carousel is not easy!





It was time for Wishes now, so yet again, we had to watch this truly amazing show. I will never grow tired of wishes.

We walked away from the crowds towards Frontierland to use our Big Thunder Mountain FPs. The Cast Member really liked Ollie’s Magic Band sticker and wouldn’t let him on the ride until he told her where he got it! Big Thunder is a good one to do in the dark. It makes the tame ride a bit more interesting.

Getting across the park afterwards was a bit tricky as the Main Street Electrical parade was now on. We didn’t stop to watch it as we’ve seen it before and, in my opinion, needs a bit of an update. Spectromagic was far superior. (I made Ollie watch this on youtube. He can now sing the soundtrack for a parade he’s never seen in real life!)

We attempted to do Enchanted Tales with Belle. However, the Cast members told us that it requires a minimum number of participants (I think 18). We were the first, and they weren’t sure that they would get enough people.

After hearing this, we went to drown our sorrows with a Le Fou’s Brew ($4.49). For good measure, we got a cinnamon roll ($4.49) to take away and have for breakfast the following morning.





Walking past Enchanted Tales, we could see lots of people entering. The cast members informed us there were enough people for a show, so we could go in! The only problem – we couldn’t take in our Le Fou’s Brew. We considered the prospect of downing it, but they suggested we could leave it with them. Back home, I would never consider leaving my drink with anyone. Clearly Disney lulls me into a false sense of security!

Anyway, in the introduction, the poor cast member got a horrible coughing fit. I felt really sorry for her, she was trying to continue, and it made the wardrobe sound like she was interrupting her.



I got chosen to play the wardrobe However, other than the guards, I was the only adult. Ollie was sad he wasn’t picked to be the horse. He does a mean horse impression. They gave it “some kid” instead. He’s only slightly bitter.

Despite being a bit conscious, I played my part tremendously well. The upside of being chosen was that I got a photo with Belle at the end. I even posed like a princess.





All participants were given a bookmark and a card with the photopass pictures from the whole group. (These couldn’t be added to magic bands).

Afterwards, we picked up the Le Fou’s brew and thanked the CMs, who gave us some Beauty and the Beast stickers.

Ollie is a big fan of Le Fou’s Brew, but I think it’s no comparison to Butterbeer.

The line for Space Mountain was about 30minutes, so we were going to make this the last ride of the night. The queue took slightly longer. We stopped at one point to play the games in the queue, but people behind us were tutting as we could have moved up about 5 metres. This annoyed me as it’s not like there was anywhere to go!

Anyway, we got on the ride and enjoyed it as always. For the ride photo, we decided to kiss. The photo looked particularly funny as the guy in front of us was covering his eyes.

We took a slow wander down Main Street after this. The park shut at midnight and there is something really magical about being in the Magic Kingdom late at night.

We did stop at the Main Street Confectionary, and I got a chocolate covered smores creation for a snack credit that would contribute towards our nutritious breakfast the next morning.

We caught the bus home, where I probably fell asleep en route! They dim the lights, what do you expect?

Day 15 - Hollywood Studios

[Sparksy72]

What an action packed day! 😊

[Scruffette]

Originally Posted by Sparksy72

What an action packed day! 😊

See more...

Thanks for reading

[FLAFantastic]

Love it! 💕

[Scruffette]

Originally Posted by FLAFantastic

Love it! 💕

See more...

Thanks for reading

[Redrach1903]

What a really fun day

BoG looked really good again. I am SO having that grey stuff for pud! I've heard it tastes like oreos

How cool that you got chosen to for the Enchanted Tales! What did you have to do?

xx

[Scruffette]

Originally Posted by Redrach1903

What a really fun day

BoG looked really good again. I am SO having that grey stuff for pud! I've heard it tastes like oreos

How cool that you got chosen to for the Enchanted Tales! What did you have to do?

xx

See more...

The grey stuff is really good - either as a cupcake at lunch or the evening version!

My part just involved marching round the room with the other characters, but I put my own spin on it and had a bit of a dance as I went!

[collybird]

They've taken the au gratin macaroni off the menu at Be Our Guest, I'm so disappointed as that's the whole reason I wanted to try the pork. I didn't know you could have pork cooked a certain way either.

[Scruffette]

Originally Posted by collybird

They've taken the au gratin macaroni off the menu at Be Our Guest, I'm so disappointed as that's the whole reason I wanted to try the pork. I didn't know you could have pork cooked a certain way either.

See more...

Shame about the macaroni, I really enjoyed that! I think that would make me re-think the pork...