It's all about the mouse - 4th August 2018 day 4 AK, long awaited FOP and dinner at 'Ohana

[Goldia]

Welcome to the It’s all about the mouse trip report. We are a family of four and this is our 4th trip to Orlando. I'm Abby, my DH is Dave and our children are Max (13 at the time of the trip) and Kate (11). This trip is all WDW and we stay inside the Disney bubble for the entirety of our holiday.

If you haven't read the previous day it can be found here

The alarm went off at 6am this morning and we were up, out and sitting on an AK bus by 6.55am. It was still dark, well pretty much the sun was starting to creep up over the horizon!

I was very excited for this day as the last time we were at AK was in 2016 and we hadn’t seen Pandora at all or the two new rides. Plus one of our favourite rides, Dinosaur, had been closed for refurbishment on our last visit so it had been 4 years since we’d done this ride. In the end I think AK ended up being one of our favourite parks we just love the theming, but I’m sort of getting ahead of myself really by starting at the end and not at the beginning.

Let's go back then to when I was booking FP, I decided that we would love FOP (well I hoped so) therefore as we were allowed either FOP or Na’vi River as our tier 1 FP I decided to not book any Na’vi FP and try to get there during rope drop. We had 3 visits to AK planned and for all 3 visits I got FOP fast passes. I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that we absolutely did not regret having those FP .

So, this morning I had a plan to do Na’vi and then to do all the other stuff we love in the park before heading back to eat lunch at Satuli Canteen and ride FOP for the first time.

When we are on the bus we usually try to always sit on the back row as the air con is usually up way too high and we like the fact that our butts get a bit warmed up. Today, however I wanted to be right by the door as I fully intended to fast walk up to the entrance to snag a short wait in line for Na'vi. Max on the other hand was not about to give up on the routine.

I think he knew that when we arrived at AK I would leave him for dust and that I would absolutely not be waiting for him to get off the bus after all the other passengers. He managed to catch up just fine, no need to worry about him.

The bus was super speedy this morning and we got to AK at 7.25am so we had loads of time before the EMH started at 8am. BUT! Who knew that 8am EMH opening really meant 7.30am at AK? Not me that's for sure. We were on Na'vi River Journey at 7.39am.

Nevermind a short wait, we had NO wait, we walked through the line and got straight onto a boat in the front row. I guess all the sensible EMH-ers were in the FOP line. It was a nice enough ride and I'm glad we did it, but also there was quite a large part of me that was already thinking I was glad we hadn't 'wasted' a tier 1 FP on this and we hadn't even been on FOP yet.

We had finished the river journey ride and made our way around to Dinoland USA before it had even opened and we waited to go in with the other 3 people that weren’t in Pandora as there was an official rope drop at 8am on the bridge.

Dinosaur was great, in our 4 year hiatus we had forgotten how scary this ride could be. Kate was holding on to Dave’s hand really tight the whole way around.

We stopped for a photopass in Dinoland. Seriously, there was no one around, the whole area was empty. We had a full on photo shoot with the photographer.

The kids were keen to get on some more rides and so we walked around to Asia. On the bridge over to Everest we stopped again for more photos.

I do like the snow effect that they put on these photos.

We went on Expedition Everest the posted wait time was 5 minutes but really there was no wait at all and we were straight on. A lizard ran over Max’s leg while we were waiting to get on the ride, he said that it just sort of settled down like it was going to laze around in the sun on his ankle so he had to shake it off, but given that we were barely stood still waiting just in the loading area to get on the ride only it can't have been on his leg for long.

I have had both good and bad experiences on Everest in the past. One year when I came off I ended up being quite ill, but I suspect that was more to do with the heat and dehydration than it was to do with the ride. However, it has negatively impacted on my feelings towards the ride. I HAVE to hold on tightly the whole way around, I'm not even that keen on the kids putting their hands up in the air as it makes me worry more! Anyway, this trip it didn't end up giving me a funny turn and I was able to enjoy it - sort of.

We carried on round towards Kali River Rapids, but the cast members said this would open at 9am when the park opens we thought we’d head back later in the day but we didn’t get round to it.

We decided we may as well stop off for breakfast, which once again was a quick snack of a chocolate donut and a cinnamon pastry that we shared.

Plus Dave and myself had a vanilla iced latte each.

This was 4 snack credits.

We went around to Kilimanjaro Safaris and enjoyed and early morning safari.

Some pretty poor photos of the animals follow, partly because I can't be bothered to carry a proper camera with me and I only ever use my phone take photos and partly because I was really into the safari as all the animals were up close and moving around a lot so I forgot I was supposed to taking photos.

We walked across Discovery Island on the way to use our Primeval Whirl FP and stopped off to meet Pocahontas.

After Primeval Whirl we watched the Up Adventure bird show. I thought the kids would like this as they like the animal actors show at Universal, but sadly this is a show they just didn’t get!

Then we used our Expedition Everest FP, second ride on this of the day! I'm still holding on very tightly and I'm really hoping that Kate will get her hands down soon. I'm trying to smile through my grimace though!

I decided to celebrate my success of 2 rides on Everest and not feeling squiffy and what better way to celebrate than with a cocktail (it was late morning, fairly close to midday, ok,ok, the time stamp on the photo says 11.16am, but I promise we sipped them and took a long time over these drinks, plus it's five o'clock somewhere, right?)

I had the Himalayan Ghost. Dave had the Dragon's Breath.

The Himalayan Ghost is pink, Dragon's Breath is orange. These both hit the spot!

We wandered back around to Dinoland and met Donald Duck.

Because I didn't want us looking like lushes in the photo Dave and myself put our half empty cocktails down by the photographer so as to hide our sin!

Do we look particularly happy here?

Here is one of my favourite photos from our first trip to WDW, with the kids meeting Donald. Max is 9 and Kate is 7.

We didn't get around to meeting Goofy and Pluto in the park this time around so here is one from the same day on that first trip. I love that Kate already has a pose going on!

The kids wanted to go on Primeval Whirl again but I didn’t fancy waiting 30 minutes for this and we had already done it, plus I was still nursing my cocktail.

We walked over to Africa as I really wanted to see the Lion King show as it’s my favourite. On the way we saw the Timon meet and greet so jumped on the end of the queue.

This was a cute meet, we were lucky here as Timon went off for a break after he saw us.

While crossing the bridge over into Africa a large butterfly flew right into me and Kate. This really made us jump. I was holding my Himalayan Ghost cup…it was empty of drink but it had ice in the bottom from one of the kids cups of water that I was sipping as it melted. Anyway, as I tried to jump out the way of the butterfly a piece of ice shot out of the cup and managed to land inside my bra a second piece of ice flew out and hit Dave in the head! It was hilarious. They all laughed at me a lot.

We went in to the 12 o’clock show of Lion King and Kate and myself accurately predicted we would be in the giraffe section! We have not been in this part of the audience before and I was getting really excited for the show. The only section we haven’t been in is elephants so we are really keen to be in that section at some point. Unfortunately the show was cancelled after the first song. The only float to come out was the giraffe the other floats didn’t come out then the announcer apologised and said the show was cancelled and that we could try again later that day.

I was a bit disappointed but we’ll catch the show another time. We decided we should get some lunch and so we tried out Satuli Canteen in Pandora.

We wanted to try out both main courses and puddings so we ended up with 2 transactions as the cast member explained QS and snack credits have to be put through separately.

We shared 3 meals and 2 puddings plus I got an extra drink as a snack credit. So 3 QS and 3 snacks for this meal. It was worth it though.

Dave had a blonde ale beer as the drink for 1 meal. Max had a coke and Kate had a cherry coke.

I had a Satuli cocktail, which was called a Dreamwalker sangria. I wasn't that impressed with this drink. It was ok, but that is all I can muster. Perhaps it suffered in my opinion as it followed the really very tasty Ghost!

We had the cheeseburger pods. These really did taste like McDonald's cheeseburgers. These came with a side of chips and coleslaw.

The beef and rice bowl was really tasty we had beans and a black bean sauce.

We also had the chicken bowl, with grains and rice and a herb sauce.

My favourite was the beef, but all of the food here was tasty and I would happily eat there again.

For pudding we shared both the puddings between us. There is the blueberry mousse and chocolate cake.

The kids both preferred the chocolate pudding. No surprises there.

It was finally time for our Flight of Passage FP, oh my word, this was our first time and of course we loved it. The pre show was brilliant, the ride was brilliant, I am really glad that I booked this ride as our FP each time we have AK planned.

After the FOP excitement we wandered around the shop a little and then did a photopass in Pandora where we had a magic shot.

We'd had a perfect morning in AK, we'd enjoyed some of our favourite rides, had some great character meets, enjoyed a couple of cocktails, tried out new rides and the new Up show, apart from missing out on the Lion King show it had been amazing so as we were all hot we headed back to the resort for a swim.

On the way out of the park near the entrance I was surprised yet again as one of the trees came to life right in front of our eyes!

Honestly I jumped out of my skin…it was perfect timing.

We had a quick change into our swimming stuff and headed to the small pool.

This was basically like having our own private swimming pool as we were the only people in it for much of the afternoon.

After getting ready for dinner the MDE app wasn’t working so we couldn’t check the bus times. We decided to get on the first bus that showed up to either MK or Epcot and then get the monorail to ‘Ohana.

We had a 6.30pm dinner slot as my plan was to see the Electrical Water Pageant after dinner from the beach. Spoiler alert - we didn't see it.

We hardly waited any time before an MK bus appeared and then we took the monorail to the Poly. We checked in about 20 minutes early for our reservation. I asked for a window seat and was told they don't take requests anymore as they were getting too many requests for tables with a view.

I figured we had ages until we would be called for our table as the last time we ate here we managed to have two rounds of drinks in the bar before our dinner. So, we headed round to the Tambu Lounge, but we barely had the chance to look at the menu before the buzzer went off. I was a bit miffed really I know it's annoying to have to wait for a table too, but it would have been quite nice to sit in the lounge for a moment.

We were taken to a table at the side with a pretty good view actually, there were a few tables between us and the windows, but the table was on the end of the row and I was pretty happy. The seater lady had grabbed a plate of bread on the way to the table. I just managed to get a photo of this before it was devoured.

The salad promptly followed and we hadn't ordered our drinks, given that we had not had a pre dinner cocktail in the bar this did not put me in a good mood.

Then the chicken wings, vegetables and noodles plate arrived, which may have slightly tipped me over the edge. I said to the server we weren't ready for this plate as we hadn't ordered our drinks so he took it away (I'm sure he must have just stuck it under a heat lamp and then probably brought the same plate back 15 minutes later). We had only been sitting at the table 10 minutes we hadn't been asked what we would like to drink and the food was being thrown at us.

Finally the drinks were brought out. Kate had a watermelon cocktail.

I had a Backscratcher.

Dave had a Long Island Ice Tea, this was very strong but he did enjoy it.

Max had a coke, which actually had appeared much quicker than the rest of the drinks and was the first to arrive. I guess this is a very easy drink for the servers and they don't have to wait for the bar staff to prepare it, unlike our cocktails.

The drinks must have been on the table for a full 30 seconds before the server brought back the chicken wings plate.

And it wasn't long before the meat skewers were being brought around (chicken, beef and prawn for anyone that doesn't know). I just gave in at this point as it felt like there was no stopping this express train of a meal.

We were asked if we had finished barely 10 minutes after the meat delivery. I said NO! As even though we probably had eaten our fill we were nowhere near ready to squeeze in dessert and I knew that would appear as soon as the plates were cleared.

We managed to stretch out the wait another 10 minutes.

This was long enough for me to grab some photos of Dave, who had inadvertently dressed as one of the servers for dinner...

His shirt is very similar isn't it? Me and the kids found this hilarious. Him not so much.

The pudding was delicious. We all enjoyed this, Max probably had half the cup of caramel sauce to himself.

In fact, the whole meal was delicious, the skewered meat is lovely, the vegetables and wings plate is really tasty. But I don't think we will be returning. It was just too rushed for us this evening. On a different day when we were hoping to get back into the parks and wanting to be up and out then I'm sure the speediness would have suited us perfectly but for us tonight was supposed to be more laid back and relaxing, which it wasn't.

Compared to other tables nearby we had a very long meal as the table next to us were seated when we had our skewered meats delivered and their pudding was brought out before ours. As I said I'm sure this quick in and out would suit others who had plans of going to a park afterwards but it wasn't what we wanted and I doubt we will return.

In order to try to be as fair as possible I've just reviewed the time stamps on the photos!

6.17 sat at the table with the bread
6.24 salad
6.28 - tried to deliver chicken wings but I refused
6.37 cocktails
6.38 chicken wings plate (he must have been hanging out round the corner waiting for the drinks to be brought over!)
6.50 all the meat skewers had been and gone
6.59 tried to clear my main meal plate away but I said I wasn't finished
7.20 dessert - we actually did pretty well here to double the length of the meal with a 30 minute gap between the end of dinner and the arrival of pudding
7.34 me and Kate collected our lei's! We'd already settled the bill.

This photo was taken out in the lobby.

Don't let me put you off Ohana it is tasty food, it's just that the timings are unpredictable. This meal we were on the express monorail from the get go, in our previous meal here a couple of years ago we waited an hour before we were sat at the table, neither of these is ideal.

As we had finished our meal so early there was still over an hour to wait until the Electrical Water Pageant so we decided to cut our losses and head out to the monorail.

While we were waiting on the platform the monorail broke down. So, we then headed to the bus stop and caught the bus to Disney Springs. The bus went to Grand Floridian first and it seemed to take an age for the people to all get on.

There was a lot of traffic on the road and lots of traffic jams. I guess this is to be expected on a Saturday night…with hindsight we should have caught the boat across to MK and then the bus home. Finally we arrived at Disney Springs and I decided I did NOT want to get back on a bus again so we caught the boat back to the resort instead. We finally arrived back at the room around 9.30pm 2 hours after setting out from the Poly.

I won't say it ruined the evening, but when you're tired and you want to go to bed sometimes the disney buses are a pain. Will it make us hire a car next time? Hell no, the buses are great, mostly!

And that's it for another day. It was a brilliant day, in spite of me moaning about 'Ohana. We loved AK and couldn't wait to return...good job really as we were back there tomorrow afternoon for one of our favourite ADRs - Tusker House and in the evening we were planning on watching the rivers of light show. Before all that though we have the early wake up for another EMH at HS, 7am again, I'm not sure any of us were particularly keen for another 5.30am alarm though.

Statistics for the day:

Credits used
7 snack, 3 QS and 4 TS. So, I was feeling pretty good about that. Yes I know that technically we are 1 snack and 1 QS down on what we are allocated for each day, but still for us this was a big food day!

Credits Remaining
89 snack, 43 QS and 40 TS

Parks: 1
Rides: 8
FP: 3
Characters: 3
Steps: 24,165

[walt4it]

A great reward for an early morning - an empty park, always worthwhile
Just like the 11.16 what a great start to the day after riding FoP

Love all your photos and such a shame that 'OHana is so unpredictable with timings, you could have had such a great night here had they just allowed you to enjoy it.

Love Dave's shirt vs servers

Another great day

[collybird]

Your plan to do Na’vi then head elsewhere and come back for your FoP was a great one, even with a FP I think FoP is quite a length experience.

Poor Kate on Dinosaur! And poor you on Everest, I rode for the first time since 2013 this year (I keep typing last year – how can it feel so long ago already!?), and it wasn’t as awful as I remembered, but I don’t think you’d catch me on it twice in the same day.

What a shame Festival of The Lion King was cancelled, I know it can’t be helped but I’d still be annoyed, all the time wasted walking over there and then waiting.

It still makes me laugh that Dave was dressed as a server at ‘Ohana, it’d have been so funny if he’d been accosted by a guest needing help whilst he was going to the restroom or something like that.

[MrsSilverStar]

What a brilliant day at AK! And 11.16 cocktails are perfectly reasonable in my book!

Shame the end of the day wasn’t quite as good, but at least you got that shirt shot - poor Dave

[MrsBrown]

We have just returned and I read this report as you mention dinner at Ohannas, I was interested to see if you had a better experience than us, but seems you didn’t. We didn’t get to touch the bread before the skillet came out and then the meat. I’m sure, had we wished, we could have been in, and out, within 10 minutes! Very disappointing for the cost. My husband asked ‘is it always this rushed?’, it would appear so. Food was lovely, just a shame it’s so quick.
Your hubby could easily have helped out for the evening in his coordinating shirt

[moosha]

Brilliant report Abby, sounds like a great day. We all love Animal Kingdom too, just such a beautiful park with some excellent attractions.

Flight of Passage is truly stunning isn’t it? We only had two FPs for it and if we had been able to fit in a third go, it’s the one ride I would probably wait an hour for (if I could convince the others .) It’s just that good. I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to get an FP for our February trip being offsite, so I’m expecting a very early start for rope drop.

I have a similar up and down relationship with Everest too... loved it the first (six or so) times in 2014, didn’t enjoy it at all in 2015, wouldn’t ride last year and this year I went for it after loving The Mummy at US for the first time and thinking I was now braver. I did three Everest rides in one day... I’d say I’m pretty much ok with it again now, but there was some drama on one of our EE rides which I’ll explain in my trippie and has made me a bit more nervous about riding next trip .

11.16 am cocktails at Disney is absolutely fine in my book .

Satu’li Canteen is excellent, we all loved our meals there and I actually enjoyed that blue cocktail quite a bit, having thought I wouldn’t because it was white sangria and I don’t like white wine.

Love the photos from your first trip, I must go through my old reports to do some comparing the girls now and then myself...although it would probably leave me an emotional wreck . Why do they grow up so quickly?

Your experience at ‘Ohana sounds annoying, glad the food was good though. We’ve only ever done breakfast there because I don’t think we’d get much value being vegans / vegetarians. It is such a shame Disney rush people through their most popular restaurants though .

What a shame you had such a nightmare getting home too. When Disney transport works it’s great but sometimes it can be such a pain.

Looking forward to the rest .

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by walt4it

A great reward for an early morning - an empty park, always worthwhile
Just like the 11.16 what a great start to the day after riding FoP

Love all your photos and such a shame that 'OHana is so unpredictable with timings, you could have had such a great night here had they just allowed you to enjoy it.

Love Dave's shirt vs servers

Another great day

See more...

I'm glad everyone seems to approve of the 11.16am cocktail! At the time I suspect that as we'd been up since 6am we justified that it was timely.

That shirt still makes me giggle, it wasn't on purpose...although if I'd remembered the servers wore the same colour I doubt I would have told him as I am that mean!

Originally Posted by collybird

Your plan to do Na’vi then head elsewhere and come back for your FoP was a great one, even with a FP I think FoP is quite a length experience.

Poor Kate on Dinosaur! And poor you on Everest, I rode for the first time since 2013 this year (I keep typing last year – how can it feel so long ago already!?), and it wasn’t as awful as I remembered, but I don’t think you’d catch me on it twice in the same day.

What a shame Festival of The Lion King was cancelled, I know it can’t be helped but I’d still be annoyed, all the time wasted walking over there and then waiting.

It still makes me laugh that Dave was dressed as a server at ‘Ohana, it’d have been so funny if he’d been accosted by a guest needing help whilst he was going to the restroom or something like that.

See more...

You're right I think we were in FOP for a good 40 minutes even without waiting in the queue.

Everest I feel like I cracked this year, twice in one day is a real accomplishment. Although saying that I was very careful to not have eaten anything very much before riding. You'll see on the next visit that the kids went on after our dinner at Tuskers, there was no way I was riding it then as I could barely manage to climb the stairs up the bleachers in lion king, never mind actually going on a ride.

I'd have laughed a lot if he'd been grabbed while going to the restroom...but you're forgetting we weren't in their long enough to need a wee!

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar

What a brilliant day at AK! And 11.16 cocktails are perfectly reasonable in my book!

Shame the end of the day wasn’t quite as good, but at least you got that shirt shot - poor Dave

See more...

We did have a fab time in AK. I know everyone says do the safari first thing as the animals are more active, but it is true. We saw the rhinos moving around and had to wait in our trailer for one to get out the way.

I'm not too upset about the dinner, it's not the end of the world, I just couldn't resist the chance to moan about it again. I think long lazy meals are not part of the culture so much in the US as we are used to.

Originally Posted by MrsBrown

We have just returned and I read this report as you mention dinner at Ohannas, I was interested to see if you had a better experience than us, but seems you didn’t. We didn’t get to touch the bread before the skillet came out and then the meat. I’m sure, had we wished, we could have been in, and out, within 10 minutes! Very disappointing for the cost. My husband asked ‘is it always this rushed?’, it would appear so. Food was lovely, just a shame it’s so quick.
Your hubby could easily have helped out for the evening in his coordinating shirt

See more...

I'm sorry to hear that you had a poor experience at Ohana too. I honestly couldn't fault the food as it was all delicious and the quality of all the grilled meats was great, but the speed with which it was thrown at us was phenomenal. I guess it just didn't suit us on the day as it wasn't what we were after right then and there.

The shirt is brilliant isn't it? We did make the most of teasing him.

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by moosha

Brilliant report Abby, sounds like a great day. We all love Animal Kingdom too, just such a beautiful park with some excellent attractions.

Flight of Passage is truly stunning isn’t it? We only had two FPs for it and if we had been able to fit in a third go, it’s the one ride I would probably wait an hour for (if I could convince the others .) It’s just that good. I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to get an FP for our February trip being offsite, so I’m expecting a very early start for rope drop.

I have a similar up and down relationship with Everest too... loved it the first (six or so) times in 2014, didn’t enjoy it at all in 2015, wouldn’t ride last year and this year I went for it after loving The Mummy at US for the first time and thinking I was now braver. I did three Everest rides in one day... I’d say I’m pretty much ok with it again now, but there was some drama on one of our EE rides which I’ll explain in my trippie and has made me a bit more nervous about riding next trip .

11.16 am cocktails at Disney is absolutely fine in my book .

Satu’li Canteen is excellent, we all loved our meals there and I actually enjoyed that blue cocktail quite a bit, having thought I wouldn’t because it was white sangria and I don’t like white wine.

Love the photos from your first trip, I must go through my old reports to do some comparing the girls now and then myself...although it would probably leave me an emotional wreck . Why do they grow up so quickly?

Your experience at ‘Ohana sounds annoying, glad the food was good though. We’ve only ever done breakfast there because I don’t think we’d get much value being vegans / vegetarians. It is such a shame Disney rush people through their most popular restaurants though .

What a shame you had such a nightmare getting home too. When Disney transport works it’s great but sometimes it can be such a pain.

Looking forward to the rest .

See more...

AK has gone from 4th place to 1st for both Dave and Kate. You'll have to wait until I eventually get around to highs and lows for mine and Max's favourites.

Surely February has to be a slow time, there might be availability on the FP for FOP you never know. Otherwise you're going to have to get up early, but then you're good at that on holiday. We've only managed a 5.30am start once! You've got a few under your belt.

I think with Everest it's the backward part that gets me, or that's what I was telling myself anyway. I suspect back in 2014 it was a bit more heat exhaustion and also a lack of water. But after the ride I ended up in the flights of wonder auditorium, there wasn't a show on, I just needed to have a rest and a sit down out the way for a bit. In the end we had to go back to the resort and I went to bed while Dave and the kids had a night swim. Still, this year I seem to have got over all that and other than feeling a bit wobbly, a bit like my knees were knocking, I was fine.

Please do pop in some older photos. You must do the same thing as us and make the kids pose in similar spots each year... We have a few photos of them by the lake in HS. It's lovely to see the older photos where Max is much less self conscious and they're messing about and being silly. I was cross with myself this year as I forgot to get a photo of them on the bench in MK with Minnie and Roy Disney...Still there's worse things to have gone wrong.

The buses were mostly good this year. But this evening it all just seemed to go awry as there seemed to be something going wrong at every turn, what with the monorail breaking down. Then the bus waited for ages at GF before getting stuck in traffic outside Disney springs. Actually the boat ride back from the springs to the resort is lovely and it was a lot more relaxing than getting back on a bus.

[mick]

A great day with lots done shame about your evening meal been rushed though


Joan