"A Tale of Two Cities" DC/Florida September 2016 - Day 11 (Animal Kingdom & Yachtsman Steakhouse)

[soraia]

Day 10 is here.

"A Tale of Two Cities" DC/Florida
Day 11 - Tuesday 13th September 2016

Today we were off to Animal Kingdom.

We met up with David & Thara and headed for Congress Park bus stop. We ended up having to wait ages for a bus (which was a recurring theme of the trip unfortunately).

When we got there we wanted to take advantage of the free Memory Maker again so got some group shots which turned out nice!

We had a FP+ for Kilimanjaro and it was great – I don't think I've ever seen so many animals out and about, so going earlier in the morning was definitely a good call!

After that we did the Pangani Trail, which I’ve never actually done before. It started to get really overcast but was still very warm – quite muggy actually. We decided to head to Starbucks Creature Comforts and I got another Strawberry Acai Refresher (1 snack credit) I really love this drink!

We noticed that the Lion King was about to start so quickly ran in. Bernie wanted to go over to Rafiki's Planet Watch so we agreed to meet him after the show. Because we were one of the last people in, we sat right at the front! What can I Say? I LOVE THE LION KING SHOW! It just makes me happy! The others all really enjoyed it as well

When we got out we saw Bernie had been sending us all sorts of selfies with the animals at the Petting Zoo

Clearly loving it!

We met up with Bernie again and heard all about the petting zoo so decided to head back there later this afternoon to get in on some of the action ourselves!

Kieren & Thara wanted to ride Expedition Everest so we started walking there and stopped off at ITTBAB on the way which is always fun! Just as we got out it started lightly raining and by the time we got to Expedition Everest it was absolutely pouring and the rain stayed around for the next 3 hours!

We waited at the EE gift shop for a little while but we soon realised the rain wasn't going anywhere anytime soon so I broke out the ponchos I had bought before the trip (5 for £1 from eBay!) and soon realised why they were so cheap... (they were useless!)

We weren't going to let a bit of rain spoil our fun!

We knew our lunch plans were going to have to be scrapped as there was no way we could eat at Yak & Yeti QS due to the outside seating so we made a mad dash for Flame Tree BBQ. Unfortunately all the covered seating was full so we had to try and figure out where we could eat that would be indoors. I remembered passing Pizzafari earlier which was indoors so we made another mad dash over there. It was pretty full inside but luckily we managed to nab a table right in the corner. Time for food!

The guys all decided to get some variation of pizza and I got the baked pasta with the garlic knots.

Unfortunately this meal was probably the worst of the whole trip. The quality just wasn't the best and everything tasted a bit artificial. But at least we were indoors! We were still in good spirits and hung around in there for a while until suddenly the rain was gone and it was all blue skies and sunshine again!

We decided to head back to Rafiki's Planet Watch so we could go to the petting zoo and see what all the fuss was about from Bernie. It was actually really cool over there and we all loved it!

We saw there were some characters inside so headed in. There was hardly anyone around so we had some great interaction! Especially from Chip & Dale – they were fantastic! Even the photographers were laughing! They kept going around the group hugging us all and dancing around. We all left with massive smiles on our faces!

We got the train back over and we only had 1 more thing we wanted to do – Kali River Rapids! (we were still wet from all the rain earlier, so what's a bit more water!?) We had a FP+ for this so pretty much walked straight on. We actually didn't get THAT wet and we all had fun.

We started heading towards the exit and decided to stop by the Adventurer's Outpost to get some pictures with the head honchos themselves – Minnie & Mickey! There was only a 5 minute wait

We made our way out of the park and had to wait AGES for a Saratoga Springs bus. When we first got to our bus stop there were loads of people waiting so we thought a bus would arrive shortly but we ended up waiting 30 minutes. There were a lot of angry people ahead of us who had been waiting a lot longer.

We had originally wanted to hit the pool for a few hours but during the journey back the sky got darker and darker. It started to pour again and ended up raining heavily for most of the evening!

Change of plan! Everyone headed back to our room and we had a few hours of Cards Against Humanity fun

Dinner tonight was going to be Yachtsman Steakhouse which is a favourite of ours. It was still pouring when we needed to leave so we made the executive decision to get an uber over instead.

We had an ADR and only had to wait 5 minutes to be seated. It was soon time for the garlic and bread. OH MY GOODNESS THIS WAS GOOD! This is possibly one of my favourite things to eat in any WDW restaurant.

We all got some cocktails as well – I went for my old favourite from last time, the glowtini which was just as good as I remembered!

We all had slightly different things to eat so get ready for picture overload!

The food was absolutely delicious! None of us really had much space left for dessert, but it would be rude not to...

These were so good as well. We've never had a bad meal at the Yachtsman Steakhouse and will definitely always be back!

By the time we finished and paid up (2 x TS credits each) it was 10:30pm and had stopped raining so we decided to go for a little wander around the boardwalk. It was like a ghost town, there was literally NO ONE out. (probably because of the heavy rain beforehand)

Our original plan had been to get a bus back to Disney Springs from the Boardwalk Inn and then walk back to Congress Park. When we got there at 11:30pm, though, there didn't seem to be any buses coming until tomorrow morning. Oops..

Luckily, there was a mears taxi there so we jumped in and headed back to Saratoga Springs.

It was such a great day! The rain didn't put a dampener on things at all and we were just glad to all be together and create some new memories

Finally, it's time for today's installment of "Soraia's hilariously bad selfie of the day".

Not quite up to the same standard as Bernie's...

Thanks for reading!

Step count: 18,446

Day 12 is here.