Day 3 - rope drop Animal Kingdom and a Disney Springs evening
Welcome back for day 3 and another rope drop of course!
We were ready to brave the Flight of Passage bunfight - sivako! We’d always had FP for the ride on our previous trip so this was our first experience of rope dropping it.
The park opened at 7am for early entry so we woke Heath at 5.45am - the poor kid was hating life!
We had to queue to tap in and were then held again once we’d entered the park, before they let us all do our best speed walking to get to Pandora…then there was an impressive array of winding walkways to head through.
Thanks to my sharp elbows (anyone else really miss Josh from easyWDW?
), we were close enough to the front to just keep walking all the way onto the ride. Mark did say he’d just pay in future and if you’re not near the front, you will still be facing a pretty hefty queue. They had cast members blocking off walkways to make way for the giant queue when we got off 😮
We had another great flight, we all adore this ride. I teared up during the emotional music, like always!
We walked on to Navi River Journey afterwards…this is just such a chilled and pretty ride so we like it. Never get tired of seeing that shaman either 🥰 I can understand it being underwhelming if you’ve queued for it, but definitely worth a walk on.
I saw a photopass photographer without a queue so it was posing time
Then we needed breakfast - which in Florida, means an absolute ton of sugar. We went to Pongu Pongu in Pandora and got pongu lumpia (cream cheese and pineapple spring rolls) French toast sticks and the night blossom drink. It all came to $22.64
It was all fine but not something I’d bother getting again to be honest.
We wandered off to the Tree of Life after our sugar injection. We hadn’t seen the It’s Tough to be a Bug show before so wanted to check that out and see all the tree carvings.
We really enjoyed the show, I love the mix of rides and other entertainment you get at Disney. Plus you get to wear these funky glasses!
We had a Kali genie+ booked so headed for that next. It only had a 5 minute standby queue so we went straight back on again - we were drenched! But Heath decided he needed to be even wetter 😂
We wanted to catch the next Lion King show but had some time to kill so we got a hot dog and pretzel at a cart in Africa and sat in the Harambe Market seating to scoff that. We also saw some of the performers - it’s so fun when you come across any of these groups. They were doing some impressive dancing so I was pleased I didn’t get called up to join in like I did on our last trip when I had to head a football!
We saw lots of flotillas today too
We’ve never seen the Lion King show before - we thought it was fantastic even in its reduced version, without the tumble monkeys. We all loved it. The costumes, the singers, the fire eater - just excellent.
Heath was ready for more pool time by this point so we headed back to get the bus.
We saw Kevin on our way out.
We hit the pool once we were back at the Poly and got lunch to go from Kona - and enjoyed our first vegetables of the trip 😂 I actually took a photo to mark this momentous occasion.
these were genuinely delicious! Covered in garlic, so good. We also had pot stickers and wings, plus a chicken wrap for Heath. $36.21 for this little feast.
I’d also told Mark that I’d read about the little cafe upstairs selling chocolate covered bacon before we came…he acted disgusted by this news but obviously bought me some when he saw it! It was really yum.
And we discovered this lovely cocktail
Lime dole whip margarita with a chilli rim, delicious!
Characters occasionally appeared at the little green at the Poly, so Heath got to meet Donald during lunch
I thought this was a lovely touch and I hope it’s something they keep doing.
We had dinner booked at The Boathouse at Disney Springs so after a good splash, it was time to head there.
I’d seen a lot of hype about Gideon’s Bakehouse so we had to give that a try.
There was a small queue but we got inside pretty quickly thankfully. We chose an original and a cookies and cream cookie…they were out of all of the peanut butter specials which was a shame but the cookies and cream one was sensational! I don’t think it’s worth queuing in the hot Florida sun for, but it’s always nice to scoff some cookies! $12.78 for two, including tax
Mark had gone into Jock Lindsey’s Hangar Bar while we bought them…he refused to queue for internet hype 😂
We joined him out on the deck by the water once we’d secured our snacks. It was so lovely sitting by the water in the sunshine with a nice breeze on us, knowing we’d already done so much and still had nearly the whole holiday ahead of us - bliss.
We couldn’t sit around for too long though, we had our Boathouse reservation to get to, luckily it is just next door.
This was our first time here but we liked it as soon as we walked in. It was very busy but in a good way, like it’s popular because people love eating there.
They brought out honey glazed rolls as we sat down…oh wow, they were sensational. Can’t believe I’m this wowed by bread with honey on but here we are! Absolutely delicious.
I’d made this booking solely because I wanted the duck duck razz cocktail (a legitimate reason right?!)
It was so strong! Think I was tipsy before I’d even finished it 😂 it was lovely.
Mark and I shared a couple of apps as we weren’t that hungry after all our feasting by the pool earlier. Heath had burger and chips - it was all delicious. We had a lovely time here, I’d definitely go back.
We looked in a few shops on our way back to the bus. Heath chose a Grogu magicband, he loves that little guy!
Picture nicked from the internet:
There was an art trail by the bus stops
Then we toddled off to bed after our lovely evening, ready to rope drop Magic Kingdom in the morning.