Silver Anniversary Trip, Day 12

[spencem]

Thursday, January 23rd, Animal Kingdom, Paradiso 37.

We had a slower start planned for today after what should have been a late-night last night with the planned Magic Kingdom Extra Magic Hours. As it turned out we still made the slow start with some laundry being done and breakfast while it washed again. This time I made the effort to go to the Scat Cat Café to get some of the famous beignets, why they can’t sell them in the main food court as well I do not know. Julia thought they were supposed to have some sort of filling, but these ones had nothing in them. They did offer some speciality ones that had fillings, but they either didn’t qualify as a snack, or you only got 1 and not 3 as you did for the normal ones. I’m glad I tried them, but to me they were just a different shape doughnut and I’ll not be rushing back.


That really is a lot of sugar.

By the time we’d eaten it was time to swap the washing into a drier and then we wandered back to the room with some fresh drinks in our mugs to read for a bit until it was time to retrieve our now clean laundry.

We had a bit of a discussion this morning about how relaxing a Disney holiday isn’t, especially now with the huge crowds and having to plan everything months in advance and then stick to that plan even if you don’t feel like it if you want to ride just about anything. Julia especially was not enjoying the experience and was feeling railroaded into going and doing things that maybe she didn’t want to right now. Some of this is her own fault as during planning her stock answer is “I don’t mind, I’ll go with the flow”. I pointed out that the time to raise concerns about meal timings was 6 months ago when they were booked and not now on the day. This application of logic did nothing to defuse the mood. I further upset my wife when I pointed out the only way to get Disney to take any notice was to simply not book holidays there or buy their park tickets as they only language they understand is profit. Until people stop going prices will go up every few months and more hotels will get built to house those extra visitors. Once visitor numbers go down then prices will stabilise and they might even increase capacity by building the long rumoured fifth park or at least keep expanding the existing four.

The other major change from when we have been before, other than all the extra people, was the parks closing so early. With Julia’s condition she needs down time in the afternoon and whereas before we could take that and then enjoy a long evening in the parks afterward we now had the situation of parks closing at 6, 7 or 8 o’clock and so stopping our normal Disney routine.

Things did settle down between us and we changed our plans for our last Disney day on Sunday, ditching our daytime visit to Hollywood studios for a morning in Magic Kingdom and then taking advantage of our last Extra Magic Hours in Hollywood Studios after we had checked into our last hotel at Orangewood Lakes.

We left the hotel about 12:30 and headed over to Animal Kingdom where we had FastPasses booked for Flight of Passage, The Lion King and a Sunset Safari. After our last few very cold days I’m happy to say the temperature had warmed a little, but the overcast skies were less welcome.

We didn’t rush into the park, our first FastPass wasn’t until 1:30pm, rather we took a slow walk up the trails, stopping to look at the animals that live there.


Mr Warthog was checking his territory.


The wallabies were as usual hiding out at the back of their enclosure.


There are some fantastic carvings around Discovery Island, also check out the shops’ roof tops.


We continued our stroll into Pandora.


First stop was obviously a restroom.

These restrooms must have cost a fortune to theme, they are lined with pierced steel plates that I know from my day job is not the cheapest building material at all. It is good to see Disney making the investment in keeping the land theme even in such places. If you look at some of the older lands around the parks the theme disappears completely when you walk into a generic public restroom.

We still had some time to kill before our FastPass, which had been one of the triggers for this morning’s rant. With the time I was able to get for Flight of Passage today it would have been good to eat before the ride, but Julia can’t do that as eating often sets her stomach condition off even if she sits and does nothing afterward, let alone gets bounced around on a banshee. It would have been good to get an earlier ride time, but sadly it was 1:30 or much later when I tired two months ago. I used this gap to take a wander around with my proper camera, but once again found better pictures with my phone for the most part.


The drummers had just finished I think.


Some of the quieter paths around the river.


You’d think the mountains stretch for miles into the distance.


Beware the spitting snails.

Soon it was near enough our ride time to take a walk over, as we did so some very light rain started to fall. Once again we’d left the ECV cover back in the hotel, there being no mention of rain in the forecast. We simply left it in the stroller parking and hoped for the best as there was no way Disney would have coped with moving it between load and unload on this ride with its locked back wheels. We tapped into the FastPass queue a whole 4 minutes early, but Mickey turned green for us anyway.


There are some impressive views from up the mountain.


Taking the FastPass line you miss most of the impressive detail in the queue, but you do still see some cave paintings.

It was a shame we never saw the line shorter than a couple of hours as there is so much to see from the regular queue and I’d have liked to have shown Sandra and Brian the amazing lab scene with its stunning underwater animatronic. I didn’t want to show it to them enough to stand for 2 or 3 hours, even if Brian had been able to go that long between rests.

I’ve no note about where we sat today, so it was probably an edge as normal, but it really doesn’t matter on this ride. When we came off we were delighted to discover the rain had picked up and there were now proper drops. We quickly collected the ECV and headed for shelter in Satu’li canteen for some lunch, along with nearly everyone else. There was a cast member making a half-hearted effort to stop parties splitting up and keeping tables while someone queued for food, but they also didn’t want to clog the queue up with everyone as well. We were going to use mobile order to bypass the huge queue, but Julia didn’t know if she’d like the sauce and so wanted it on the side, which is not an option in mobile order. You can tell the app you don’t want any sauce at all, but you can’t ask for it on the side, so I joined the queue. Brian came with me, but as we got to the front realised Sandra hadn’t actually told him what she wanted and wasn’t answering her phone, so he headed back out to find her.

I got to the front of the main queue and then got directed to the slowest cashier in all of Disney. Some of it was down to luck, one person was ordering for an entire football team, American football, not soccer. The next couple didn’t speak much English and he certainly didn’t speak Korean. Brian tapped me on the shoulder on his way to another cashier having been back outside and re-queued as I was watching in amazement as mine couldn’t find the date of birth on an New Jersey driving license of a guy trying to order beer, even when it was pointed out to him. Brian then waved as he walked past with his food while I listened to Pa Walton order for his entire brood. Eventually I got our lunch and very good it was too.


My beef on salad base and Julia’s chicken on noodles. The sauce was declared not nice and thrown away.


My desert, it was certainly blue.

We’d managed to miss our Lion King FastPass, I didn’t get our food until 2:30, but having seen it just a couple of days ago we were not too upset. We managed to change it to the next showing of Finding Nemo instead. When we walked outside we found it was now properly raining and so had to go and get some $11.99 ponchos from the Flight of Passage gift shop. Again there was a cast member keeping order by the door, but this one was doing a proper job and not letting anyone linger there. Plastic bags in hand we covered up and much more importantly covered up the electrics on the ECV.


There was the inevitable restroom break, during which I took this.

We made our way slowly over to Nemo, with the rain slowly decreasing on the way (are we sure Disney don’t control the weather to sell more ponchos?) When we got over to the theatre the previous show was still running and they were only just opening up the queue pens. We said to the lady controlling the pens that we had a FastPass, to which we were told “well you won’t need that with the scooter and being here so early, where would you like to sit?” She went on to offer us the back of the theatre, where we normally sit, or ‘the box’ much nearer the front. We opted for the box and when the theatre started to load were taken around the side to the exit at the front. The only problem was that the cast member taking us set off at almost a trot, leaving Julia struggling to make her way through the huge crowds exiting and poor Sandra and Brian also having to jog. We did eventually catch up and were shown to great seats right next to the control position in the centre of the theatre. While we had waited outside I’d cancelled our FastPasses, so hopefully someone got a last minute surprise.


Yes, these seats will do very nicely thanks.

The theatre loads remarkably quickly and soon enough the show was starting. The quality and production values of this show always amazes me, I continue to expect a lengthened version to appear in the West End someday.


Always look twice.


Life on the reef.


The action came very close from time to time.


I suspect there is some serious engineering in that bird puppet.


Show over, take a bow.

As normal we waited a while before heading out of the theatre and then made our way slowly around the lagoon through Asia to Africa and our Sunset Safari. The only problem was we were going to be late for our ADR, luckily Sandra was able to move it back an hour to give us time to go on safari.


We had to cross the Himalayas to reach Africa for some reason.


One of the gibbons watched over our progress.


We tried to pay the tigers a quick visit, but the restrooms behind me were the closest we came as their temple had closed for the night.

I didn’t take any pictures on the safari, there just isn’t enough light to get anything useable, but it is an enjoyable experience none the less. We saw a few animals and the LED screen continues to do its magic with the people sat in front of us convinced there was a spectacular sunset underway, despite the returning rain. By the time we came back it was almost totally dark as we made our way out of the park.


This was about the quietest we saw the park.

Julia didn’t want to eat again, as normal for her one meal a day was more than enough and so we drove back to the resort and then Sandra, Brian and I took the boat to Disney Springs. The boats from Port Orleans dock right at the opposite end Disney Springs from where we wanted to be and so we caught a second boat back across the lake to the central pier by The Boathouse.


You get some great views of the Springs from the boats.

Even with Sandra moving the time of our reservation back an hour we were still a bit late checking in for it at Paradiso 37. This wasn’t a problem, nor was Julia not being with us, and we were soon collected and taken to our seats, outside, in the cold and spitting rain. We did ask could we not sit inside but were told they were full, despite there being empty tables in there. Our host did say she would get the heaters turned on for us and sure enough this was done almost immediately.


Brian was not looking impressed with what, on a summer’s evening would be a prime waterside table.

The heaters did their job very well, I dread to think just how much gas they burn. We soon warmed up and thankfully the rain cleared off completely. Our server here was excellent, very friendly without seeming forced or indeed false. We had a good chat with him about the cultural differences in restaurants around the world, with him saying he much prefers the low fix wage and high tips in the US to having a reasonable wage and no or low tips elsewhere in the world. As he said he knows that if he works hard and does a good job then he’ll be rewarded.

We ordered our meals and then Sandra said she’d like to try the Poutine as an appetiser and pay for it out of pocket and so we agreed to share one between us. Well I’m glad we shared it, I couldn’t have managed it all as my main.


The ground beef is not in the traditional Canadian recipe.

Once again I chose badly and had the Columbian Burger, I think the only thing making it Columbian was the word Columbian printed in the menu. It wasn’t a bad burger, but it wasn’t anything special either. I have to say for a restaurant named after the 37 countries that make up Latin and South America the menu is very USA centric, there really isn’t anything exotic on it at all. Sandra and Brian both had surf and turf, that well-known Honduran speciality.


Fresh from the Columbian highlands, not.

For Dessert I went for something a bit more South American, Tres Leches, which is a coconut milk soaked white cake with fresh strawberries.


A bit of healthy fruit, if you ignore the cake.

Sandra went for the churros and even though I didn’t normally photograph her and Brian’s meals I had to get a picture of these.


No, she didn’t finish them.

This wasn’t a bad meal and the service was excellent as I said, but it wasn’t anything special to me at all. Sandra and Brian both said theirs was excellent and the steak very good indeed, but that you can find just about everywhere in Orlando. With so many other places to try I can’t see me going back to Paradiso 37.

Meal done we took a slow walk back around to our boat dock by the Christmas shop, via the World of Disney and the Co-Op. We didn’t see anything we wanted to buy in either shop, although Sandra did see a Dumbo top she really liked that she went back for another night.

Now those who have been paying attention will notice that this was the second meal that Julia had missed, in theory meaning we now had two spare credits to use. I say in theory as when I looked at MDE I found I had been overcharged for Tiffins yesterday, with them taking 6 credits rather than 4. Knowing that the dinning plan sits with the resorts I made a plan to visit our front desk to sort it out tomorrow.

We got back to French Quarter about 10:45 where I found Julia reading in bed through her closed eyelids, I soon joined her and we didn’t take much rocking again as the toilet symphony lulled us to sleep.


Back to the index.

[mick]

Some nice looking food a nice relaxing morning

Joan

[spencem]

Originally Posted by mick

Some nice looking food a nice relaxing morning

Joan

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Thanks for commenting, I was wondering if I was the only one still on the forum for a while there.

[Ivegottadream]

Wow, what a great day. I love Nemo!
Thanks for taking the time to write this, it's lovely to imagine holidays in the happy place. I'm off to check out your other days.

[spencem]

Originally Posted by Ivegottadream

Wow, what a great day. I love Nemo!
Thanks for taking the time to write this, it's lovely to imagine holidays in the happy place. I'm off to check out your other days.

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It was a great afternoon and evening, I'm not so sure about the morning!

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I hope to get some more written soon, it's just getting in the right mood with all that's currently going on.

[Florabelle]

Thank you for taking the time to write and post your report. It’s a tonic to read and very much appreciated, I hope you and all your family are well. Thank you.

[spencem]

Originally Posted by Florabelle

Thank you for taking the time to write and post your report. It’s a tonic to read and very much appreciated, I hope you and all your family are well. Thank you.

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Thank You for taking the time to comment. We're all fine so far I'm pleased to say, although I have a cousin only 3 years older than me currently on a ventilator with the virus.

[Florabelle]

I’m very sorry to hear that, I hope your cousin makes a good recovery.

[AhoyShipmates]

I've come to your report quite late, but it's so refreshing to read that another family experienced the Disney overload effect. My husband sounds like Julia in that he doesn't like to plan, but as you say you can't avoid having a schedule unless you want to spend your days queuing for rides or being turned away from restaurants. For me the planning and anticipating is a part of the holiday I love, but he felt it turned the holiday into a bootcamp with no room for spontaneity. Next time we go, vaccine-allowing, we agreed we'd find a villa and have a more relaxing holiday, but it'll probably be at the cost of not getting fast passes for the best rides.

[AhoyShipmates]

Originally Posted by spencem

Thank You for taking the time to comment. We're all fine so far I'm pleased to say, although I have a cousin only 3 years older than me currently on a ventilator with the virus.

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So sorry to hear that; I hope your cousin has recovered.