Scottishnellies Sack The Kitchen Trip LIVE - Day 9 Animal Kingdom, Villa Chillin

[scottishnellie]

I was up at 6:45 (another long lie then!) and Kieran got up at 7 and we were both by the pool almost immediately.

Kieran spent some time exploring this morning

We had a lazier start than usual as we planned to leave just in time for our first FP at AK which was Kilimanjaro Safari at 11:35-12:35.

Kevin was rocking his Awesome Dad vest the kids bought him for Father's Day!

We pottered about and left at 10:30. Into the park and went to do Dinosaur first since we had time to spare.

This said 45m wait but were on in 21 mins. It was more jerky than I remember and our ride photo makes us look pretty unimpressed

Came off and walked to the other side of the park for the safari. The stand by was only 20mins on this, which seemed good as I had seen a dibber about to go away soon worrying about how busy it looked on the app each day when planning their FPs. We enjoyed this as always and actually had quite a lot of time with the truck stopped, as one of the giraffes kept walking out on the road!

When we were on the safari the rain started but it wasn't too heavy. We came off and found a bench under a big leafy tree which gave us shelter. We had our coolbag picnic and lots of water. Very hot again today! The rain was off by the time we finished lunch and it was melting hot again already.

Finished up and over to Pandora for our Flight Of Passage FP. So Exciting! The stand by wait time was 115mins. Not too bad for a Saturday afternoon?

On the way in I had a good look at the seat and what it said about restrictions, as JenD1 had asked me about her son fitting on it. We struggled to tell from the seat itself. The main issue would be the length of his lower leg when sat on it and whether that would fit under the front part of the seat.

But Kevin sat in it and had a clearance of about 2 inches between the top of his knee and the roof of the leg area.

What would reassure me your son should be fine though was there was a big guy behind us the queue who I reckon was at least 6'3" and was definitely more than 17 stone. He went on fine as I saw him coming off after with his wife.

The restrictions don't say anything about height because I suppose 2 people could be the same height but have different lower leg lengths?

I love the walk up through the forest to get on this ride. So pretty

In the pre show bit before the ride Hannah took a very blue selfie of us in the glasses.

OMG I loved this ride even more second time around. I noticed way more detail this time including the smell of the sea spray and more of the detail in the dark forest bit. When you reach that area there is another gorgeous fresh smell. Not quite lemon, not quite lavender, but just lovely. I LOVE THIS! I won't go on any more as I waxed lyrical enough about it in day 6, but it is now easily my favourite ride in all of Florida. The other thing about it is it feels like it lasts a decent amount of time.

Out through the gift shop

and took a quick pic of the station where you can have your picture taken and be turned into your own avatar. You need to register your name to queue for this and always looks quite busy.

Came out and had a look at the eating places. Didn't try anything as we had just eaten, but here's some pics of the restaurant and menu boards

We walked round for a restroom stop and inside Hannah and I got talking to this lovely girl who had her face painted. When Hannah said that would be no use for her as she would sweat it all off, she explained you can keep going to annoy one of them and they fix any smudges etc. She looked so pretty and was more than happy to have her photo taken

Next up was our FP for Everest. This showed a 45min wait.

Hannah and I agreed to do hands up (which I can never normally manage on a big drop)

Kevin and Kieran did Yeti faces

The park was getting very busy now and we felt like we were swimming against the tide trying to leave!

We headed back down the 192 to Rolling Oaks. Kevin went into target with Kieran for supplies, while Hannah came with me to the nail salon.

My lovely chrome nails I had done at home had started to chip at the tips, and I hate when my nails are a mess. I have them shellac'd every 3 weeks religiously. Scabby nails are horrid.

Shellac off and Gel on

Chrome powder added

Nice new nails. Photo doesn't do them justice to be honest. They are super shiny!

The staff are all Thai but all speak good English. It costs $35 for normal gel nails and an additional $20 to have the chrome added. I was pleased with the results and happy to have my nails all neat again.

We headed back to the villa for some chill time. Hannah went into her room for a snapchat frenzy, Kieran went in the pool, Kevin got some washings sorted and sat with me by the pool, and I did some dibbing. While we were sitting the wee red bird came back (which I now know is a red cardinal thanks to Pussycat Doll).

Also. I hadn't put this in the report before but one night when Kevin and were sitting out we saw all these wee twinkly green lights across the lake. They were darting about everywhere but would then dim and disappear, then reappear somewhere else. I had emailed Randy (the villa owner) to ask if they could be fireflies, as we have never seen them so wouldn't know what they looked like. He confirmed yes, that is what they would be. So it wasn't just the heat of the hot tub combined with too much wine then!

Randy also said he would like to frame the sunset bird photo that Kevin took, and put it up the villa. How cool is that? Randy has been reading the report every day (Hi Randy!) and has emailed me really useful and interesting stuff relating to what Ive talked about. I love it!

The bird from that sunset photo came this afternoon and sat on the exact same branch for a while, so Kevin took some daytime shots of it too.

Love this place for seeing the wildlife. Hopefully by the time I come back to finish tonight's report, Kevin will have transferred these new photos to the ipad and I will can share them with you.

After a few hours chilling it was time to shower and head out for some dinner.

So I will be back later to add tonight's instalment! TO BE CONTINUED!

As promised, here are the photos from today.

The sunset bird in daylight

And our Red Cardinal. How cute is this little dude?

We opted for this classy joint for dinner!

Arrived at 7:20 and were seated on the patio in 10 minutes. Not bad for a Saturday night. It suits me on the patio where it is still nice and warm. I cannot stand eating with aircon blowing down freezing me.

We ordered WAY more food than we could eat!

Pretzels, cheese curds, nachos with all the trimmings, a large boneless wings to share with fries, and grilled chicken buffalitos.

We ate so much Kieran had to unbutton his trousers half way through! That boy needs Joey style eating pants.

We all really enjoyed this. Here's some snaps of the menu for those interested.

I had a couple of Buffalo Zoo cocktails which were sweet and delicious.

The bill is here.

We had to take the remaining wings home in a box

Drove home and spent a good hour or more in the games room playing pool, before settling down in front of the telly for a while.

Another great family day today. Good times.