Just the Four of Us - Onsite at Old Key West - Day 6 Animal Kingdom & Tusker House

[Kidd McFluff]

We all slept well and woke up in fantastic moods. OK so that’s not exactly true. It would appear that waking up early and going to bed late had started to take it toll and so this morning was mostly spent with the children bickering and the adults getting annoyed with the children. Co-operation wasn’t high on Dylan’s plans for the day and so it took him ages to get dressed. We had a quick breakfast of cerials and fruit and headed out to the bus stop. We had packed for all eventualities today, it was going to be a long one. Animal Kingdom with fast-passes for the big rides and then Tusker House for the Rivers of Light package. Nothing like cramming it in!

We were soon on a packed bus (they’d been quiet until today) and wondered if we’d chosen the wrong day to visit Animal Kingdom. The sun was out and we were heading for the entrance to Animal Kingdom for the first time this holiday. We had been looking forward to coming back here for ages and of course we’d heard so much about the new Avatar Land so everyone was super excited to be there.

It was about 9am by the time we got through the security checks and the park seemed quite busy. (Not Spring Break busy but probably about a 6/10 busy) Lots of people were loitering around the tree of life for some reason. We found out later that they had been waiting for the maccaws to arive for their show. Isla and Dylan were still bickering and Dylan was complaining about being hungry. (well you should have eaten your breakfast!) We were keen to start having some fun but this clearly wasn't going to happen until Dylan stopped moaning.

We stopped at the coffee shack near the Rivers of Light entrance and used some snack credits for slushies and coffee’s. I think we bought dylan a danish here too. We stopped in the shade with our drinks while Dylan had a belated breakfast. While we were studying the map we were accosted by Warren, a Cast Member with a sales pitch for DVC. He was very engaging with lots of anecdotes and jokes. He told us about his career with Walt Disney World, he’d been working for Disney for over 40 years and was of course very complementary of his employers. The sales pitch was simple and he wasn’t pushy in any way. Isla and Dylan thought he was brilliant as he gave them some Stitch Temporary Tattoos.

The sugar and caffeine had perked everyone up a bit and by the time we had extracted ourselves from Warrens sales pitch we were back on good form. Mount Everest was our first fast pass today, The queue here is great, it’s almost a shame to walk past all of the yeti displays and cool artifacts but the rollercoaster was calling us and so we hurried our way through the empty queue and were in our train within minutes. I rode with Isla and we screamed our way around the ride. We love it when the yeti snaps the track and you roll backwards into the darkness.

This is a firm favourite with all of us we were disappointed not to find our pictures on the screens at the end. We consoled ourselves with a mooch around the shop, I think we bought some winter socks for Kirsten here but I may have imagined that.

Next was the ride we’d been anticipating for months. Pandora Land was calling us and so after cashing in more snack credits for a couple of ice creams we walked through Asia and Africa and were soon entering Pandora Land….

Wow, this place was amazing. We absolutely loved the theming here. Huge floating islands strewn with massive vines and thousands of alien looking plants and flowers. Waterfalls and rock pools dominated the landscape and the paths were strewn with light reactive imprints of leaves and seemingly random scratches.

This area was very busy and Flights of Passage was showing a 180 minute wait! It’s very hot and humid down in Pandora, no doubt due to the fine water mist being sprayed into the park around the pools and fountains. The people in the queue looked as though they were in high spirits but I couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty as we pinged our magic bands on the fast pass entry and walked past about a thousand hot and sweaty folk in the standby line. It was a shame that we didn’t get to go through the laboratories in the FP+ queue but certainly not three hours queueing sad.

We were soon past the queue and onto the ride. We entered the briefing room and the experience began. I’m not gonna spoil it for you by giving too much away but we were very impressed. The short briefing video is semi interactive and really sets the scene well. After the briefing it’s into the hanger and onto the back of your Banshee for the ride of your life. My fear of heights was a big factor in how scary I found this ride. The animation and movement of the banshee gave a real sense of flying through some amazing alien scenery, Youare snugly clamped onto the banshee and can feel the beast breathing beneath you as you swoop, glide and dive around. There were some scary moments and a lot of spectacular scenery. The whole thing was amazing!.

Once the ride had finished Isla and Kirsten had to run off (very urgently) to the toilet. Dylan and I took our time walking down through the Flights of Passage exit path checking out all of the really cool plants and landscapes. It’s so well done and the attention to detail is superb. By the time we reached the shop at the exit Isla and Kirsten had returned from the loo. The shop was great with loads of interesting stuff to spend money on. We spent a little while exploring and playing with the various Pandora themed souvenirs.

Dylan and Isla have been saving their pocket money for over a year and so had quite a lot between them. They were both very excited about the Banshee rookery and decided to pool their resources and buy one to share.
The process of choosing your Banshee is very cute. We were taken into a roped off area of the store where there were about a hundred little Banshees roosting around the walls. The Cast Members then showed us how the banshee was operated and how you could get it to sit on an arm or a shoulder. Isla and Dylan then got to choose the colourings of the Banshee. A long and passionate debate/argument ensued but eventually the colours were decided without them coming to blows. Once everything had been decided an oath was sworn to set a good example to others by looking after their Banshee well and caring for the environment etc. All very cute and the kids seemed to buy into the whole ritual.

Their Banshee was then packed away and sent up to the park gates for us to collect on our way out of the park.
Shopping done it was now time to eat and Sutil Canteen was just around the corner. We saw this guy on the way and stopped to watch his show, a fun 5 minutes of one liners and slapstick before he went for a walk around Pandora Land.

We’d heard good things on the Dibb about the Sutill Canteen and so headed in with quite high expectations. It’s a huge restaurant with an Asian spin on most of the meas. The food was pretty good. Essentially you chose chicken, beef or fish that are then grilled and served with with rice and various vegetables.

We ordered two meals and a couple of puddings using QS and Snack Credits. Kirsten ordered a sangria and I had a Florida IPA while the kids hit the soda bar as usual.
There seems to be a great deal of excitement about the pudding we chose with lots of pics in blogs and the Dibb. We thought it was OK, It looks great but to be honest was nothing to write home about. Maybe we’re not pudding people but although it was nice enough, it didn’t seem to warrant the rave reviews we’d been reading.

A note on cocktails in the Sutil Canteen……Don’t bother. Honestly just have a coke and forget about it. We got a Sangria for Kirsten and it tasted like WKD blue. Not being a fan of alcopops, Kirsten sipped at this a few times and judged it to be sweet and nasty. My IPA was nice enough.

We enjoyed our meal and things were only slightly marred by the minging cocktail and Dylan spilling about a litre of soda on himself as we were finishing up. Fortunately we had a spare T shirt and shorts packed for Dylan so it was a quick trip to the toilets for a wash and change and we were ready to explore again


It was about 12:30 and we didn’t need to be at our dinosaur fast pass for another four hours, we decided to get out of the heat and head back to the hotel for a swim and to do some laundry. We wandered through the park back to the gates and hopped straight into a bus for Old Key West. A quick stop at our room for a change into swimmers and down to the pool with the washing.

This was one of the great things about staying onsite this year. We’ve previously had a villa with a pool but because it was a half hour drive to and from the parks we ended up staying at the parks all day every day. This year was much more relaxed, taking time out for a swim and being able to take advantage of the bus services meant we could come and go as we pleased. (oh yes, and have a few cocktails when we were out and about).


With the swimming and washing complete, we nipped back to the room and got dressed for our evening back at Aminal Kingdom, we had our dinner to look forward to at Tusker house as well as Rivers of Light and Dinosaur. We were also looking forward to picking up our new Banshee.

Back to the park then and this time in the car. We parked at Butterfly 18 and hopped onboard the waiting train thingy. Once we were into the park we headed over to Dinosaur for a trip back in time. Isla had decided she no longer wanted to ride this (it’s a bit scary!) and so she and Kirsten headed off in search of alternative entertainment. Dylan and I arrived at Dinosaur just as our fast pass window was closing and squeezed in with about a minute to spare. Last time we were here Dylan had left this ride in tears. His bottom lip didn’t stop wobbling for hours! This time was a different story. He was fully prepared for the terror of being eaten by a T Rex and so was looking forward to growling back at it. (Hence us looking like nutters in the ride pic below)

After riding, we spent a little while in the shop looking at the dinosaur T shirts but there was nothing that Dylan liked enough to part with his hard earned cash. We had agreed to meet up with the others at 5:30 so with half an hour to spare we decided to see if we could find any characters to get photos with. We soon found Scrooge McDuck and within a few minutes we had bagged a picture and autograph for the book.

The character interaction was really good with Scrooge trading cool handshakes with Dylan and generally mucking around.
While Dylan and I had been dinosaur hunting Isla and Kirsten had been finding fun of their own. They’d been exploring Animal kingdom and had stumbled upon an ice cream stand (who’da thought it?). After a well deserved ice cream break they set of in hunt of Daisy Duck….They soon found her and the queue to meet her was short enough to be endured.
Isla and Kirsten were both delighted by Daisy. A lovely character with a great cast member helping out. This was Daisy in her ‘Designer Daisy’ persona and she was very complimentary about Isla’s hair bands and new T shirt.

Meeting Daisy had really put a spring in Isla’s step and she was pleased as punch with the photo’s too. We met up again by Dinosaur and exchanged stories of our adventures. We were ready for some dinner and were booked into Tusca House for the Rivers of Light package. We arrived in good time and were sat within a few minutes. Tusker house is a buffet and character meet experience. Mickey, Donald, Daisy and Goofy were all here and dressed in safari gear.
There is a wide variety of food on offer most of which has an Asian or African spin to it. Plantain and dumplings, various Thai and Indian curries, tonnes of salad and fruit as well as a huge carvery with chicken, salmon, ham and beef. For pudding there were tonnes of cakes and biscuits.

Isla and Dylan were not particularly impressed. The food was good quality but they just didn’t appreciate the curries and ‘random vegetables’.
While I was tucking into my third plate of plantain and chicken, they were pushing their food around their plates and beginning to act up a little bit. Kirsten enjoyed the food too but none of us were blown away by anything on offer. There was plenty of variety and the food was good quality It had been a long day and tiredness had kicked in.

Mickey and friends soon visited our table and Isla and Dylan perked up again and joined in the fun. Autograph books were signed and high fives were swapped. Donald was the most fun, mucking about with Dylan and doing loads of funny handshakes with him. As soon as the characters were gone the kids were back to acting up and to be honest Kirsten and I simply couldn’t be bothered to have the argument with the pair of them.

Rivers of Light doesn’t start until 9:15 and with a couple of hours to go until then we decided to ditch the show and head back early to make for a more pleasant evening. We sprinkled a little fairy dust on the table next to us and gave the tickets to them. We didn’t need them any more, it was nice to be able to pass them on.

We grabbed a quick Photo Pass shot with Dylan still in miserable mode. It looks like it's the lion cub that upset him rather than life in general. We wandered towards the entrance. Dylan of course needed to visit the little boys room so Isla took advantage of Dylans detour to have a quick go on the bongo drums..

We were soon reunited and slowly made our way up to the park exit to pick up our Banshee. The kids were super excited about collecting it and were soon squabbling again over who got to hold it and when. The new addition to our menagerie of Disney toys was put back in it’s box and into the boot of the car. It’s a great toy and the children were excited to try it out when we got back to our room but they were going to be a nightmare until we got back. We needed to grab some petrol on the way home and had a brief moment of indecision when working out what fuel to put into the car. Unleaded or Diesel?

The paperwork was no help and so after a long call to the hire company we worked it out. (Schoolboy error I know but it’d seemed obvious on previous trips with stickers on the fuel caps of the cars we’d hired through Alamo) We found our way home without any dramas and the children were soon playing together with the newly christened Storm Fly.

After about half an hour of ‘flying’ around the room (jumping from bed to bed clutching a mechanical dragon) the kids were worn out but at east they had stopped moaning. and we convinced them to clean teeth and get into bed. Radio 4 comedy had them asleep within a few minutes and the adults retreated to the balcony with margaritas and laptops to write up the days notes and chill out for a while.

We had definitely made the right choice to miss Rivers of Light but this was our second trip and we’d failed to see this show again. We decided that this gave us a good excuse to book again for 2020 and vowed to begin the saving regime on our return home. Our highlight of the day had been the wonderful Flights of Passage. The ride was brilliant and it was in such a great setting. Pandora land looked amazing by day and we were keen to return at night to see it in all its night time glory. We have another late night tomorrow so we were glad to have the kids asleep before nine this evening. We spent a while longer on the balcony with our cocktails watching people wander past as they returned from their days out at the parks.
We were in bed ourselves by 10pm and soon out for the count. Tomorrow it’s back to Hollywood Studios.

[mick]

A good day even though the children were bickering

But that’s standard for children after a few days I’m sure tomorrow will be good

Joan

[Kidd McFluff]

They were pretty good most of the time. I guess it's a lot for them to deal with too what with the travel and the heat and tiredness and all but sometime it'd be great if they had a mute button!

It'd be a miracle if they managed 16 days at home without a meltdown or two so quite why I was hoping they'd turn ito angels at Disney I have no idea!

[Fuellady]

We've all been there... the combination of early mornings, late nights and heat can be a recipe for disaster! It sounds as though you still had a good day though. Glad you enjoyed FOP, we loved it too.

[jothp]

Another lovely day. We love AK and found the new pandora area to be a really great addition. It sounds like you made the right decision to go back for an early night.