Parks, Pins, Puke, Pennies...Not Enough Planning April / May '17 - Day 8: Animal Kingdom

[moosha]

Day 8 – Saturday 29th April 2017

Warning: The first vomit incident of the holiday occurs in today’s report. For those of a nervous disposition, I will try not to go into too much detail.

Also, reading this back, it sounds a bit ranty and I'm not sure why as it definitely wasn't a bad day. There just seemed to be a few minor irritations which I'm sure we all experience on a Disney holiday - they make it even more memorable - and which I would never leave out of a trip report.

Today’s park of choice was Animal Kingdom. I had randomly booked Tusker House for lunch at 180 days out and then changed it a couple of months or so before the holiday to the Rivers of Light dining package (same restaurant, pretty much the same time) once those were released. Unfortunately I did this without realising it would be evening Extra Magic Hours today as I hadn’t checked the busy day guides and park hours (bad Dibber.) So besides the puke, today also includes another of the trippie’s title features: not enough planning (specifically in this case, bad planning). We therefore entered today’s proceedings with some trepidation regarding crowd levels.

Once all the ADRs and FastPasses were lined up for this trip, I didn’t fancy chancing changing it all around, so we were stuck with DAK with EMH. Our experience of morning Extra Magic Hours is that the benefit of the extra hour is usually outweighed by the crazy busyness of the park outside of that hour, so we tend to avoid them. We’ve found we can have some success during morning EMH as it’s possible to experience quiet ‘headliners’ first thing as long as we make sure we’re proper early and cross the turnstiles at 8am. Otherwise we tend to avoid parks with morning EMH as it’s not exactly a small amount of people taking advantage of that perk (25,000 ish rooms. Rooms not people) and the theory seems to be that the ‘benefit’ tends to push the majority of onsite guests to that particular park even if they don’t get there in time for the extra hour. Obviously for us today, we weren’t staying onsite at this point in the trip, so were excluded from Extra Magic Hours anyway.

Mat and I were up at 5.50 am. Mornings were becoming more of a struggle a week into the holiday and I think I had planned to get up at 5.30 but just couldn’t do it. Mat went to get our usual daily Starbucks Americanos at 6.30 ish. The girls had their usual cereal breakfast and we left Cabana Bay at 8am, which was plenty early seeing as we wouldn’t be let into the park until 9. We took some more photos of Volcano Bay as we walked to the car:





Nearly there:





We parked in Dinosaur 35 again and climbed aboard the waiting tram. As usual, the CM made the ‘do not cross the yellow line if you haven’t already done so’ announcement and as usual, people ignored her. I’m not sure I have the patience for that whole tram safety announcement malarkey, I would much rather walk no matter how far it is, and therefore keep ignorant and inconsiderate park goers at arm’s length as much as possible.



Exciting times at bag check as I was selected for the security scanner for the first time. We made a pit stop at the restrooms to the right of the tapstiles before checking out the long lines for us non-Disney resort guests to enter the park which were back past the ticket counters. At this point I kicked myself for not checking the park hours when doing my planning. We decided to chill for a few minutes on a little wall and put on our sunscreen before joining the queues at the tapstiles, reasoning that once they started letting people in, those lines to enter would move quickly. Freya had got a bit sunburnt the previous day (scalp and arms) so Bad Mummy was determined to be extra vigilant today.

About as much as we got to see of Pandora this trip:



At 8.50 am they started letting us non-WDW resort plebs in, and we joined one of the middle queues which seemed to be shorter than those on either end for some reason. Freya and I didn’t have to press our fingers onto the finger print thing (technical term) today, we were just asked to scan our bands which I assumed was because they just wanted to get everyone in quickly with it being so busy. When we got up to the Tree of Life, we separated into wimps (Freya and I) and non-wimps (Seren and Mat.) The non-wimps went off to ride Everest and the wimps headed to the Harambe Fruit Market. I bought grapes, a pineapple spear and strawberries and as we had done a few days before, we walked them over to Flame Tree Barbecue and found a nice quiet table overlooking the beautiful scenery. It’s such a pretty park, especially in this area.

As per the last time we sat here a few days before, there was no one else around as Flame Tree Barbecue wasn’t yet open. Freya and I chilled in the beautiful peace and quiet and I let her share the grapes and strawberries with me. I did, however, make sure she kept her hands off my precious pineapple spear. I’m generous but not that generous. All the fruit was delicious today.



While we were sitting there, we saw a good few lizards as to be expected. I have a fear of lizards (it goes back to childhood when I remember being on holiday somewhere and seeing lizards going under people’s hotel room doors which freaked me out) and Freya seems to have inherited the phobia from me as she was far more scared than I was whenever we saw one.

Mat and Seren were due to come back and meet us where we were, but unsurprisingly this didn’t quite go to plan. He does struggle with regrouping instructions: if you’ve read all my reports, you’ll know losing him on holiday is a common occurrence. Eventually we located each other by messaging. Apparently they had come back a few minutes before we texted them but were just in a different part of the FTB seating area. How they managed to avoid finding us (being the only ones sitting there) is beyond me. Having just uploaded today’s pictures, it seems they spent a few minutes taking photos rather than trying to find us, as evidenced here:











They had enjoyed Everest but unlike our previous visit three days before when it had been quiet, they were only able to ride once, as when they came back out the standby wait had jumped to 25 minutes. Flipping Extra Magic Hours.

They did have some good news though; on their way back they had passed It’s Tough To Be A Bug and it was open for business. It had been closed for refurbishment when we came on Wednesday and was due to stay closed until at least the following day if I remember correctly, so we were pleased we would get to experience it today after all. The posted wait was 15 minutes and the CMs outside were welcoming everyone in saying ‘we are open, come on in.’





I do like ITTBAB, not least because it’s nice to walk so close to the tree and take it all in.





Once inside, we didn’t wait long to be let into the theatre. Not sure what the refurbishment was for; I think it was only closed for a week or so, so maybe just fixing broken effects or something, but everything looked good today. I do love how it’s a little bit scary and it seems to catch newbies out when it all gets dark and creepy. Freya had ended up sitting on the end of our group with only her sister for protection, so she was a bit scared. I was pleased that I didn’t get squirted with water, but I did get jabbed in the back with the ‘sting’. Mat didn’t experience any of the special effects apparently so maybe they shouldn’t have opened after refurbishment so quickly .

Back outside, we needed to buy some pens for our character lunch at Tusker House. We went into Discovery Trading Company, which I guess is Animal Kingdom’s equivalent of the ‘big shop’ (like Mouse Gear and The Emporium.) I don’t recall ever having been in there before. We thought it was a really nice shop and we saw a few interesting things we hadn’t seen elsewhere so it was nice to have a mooch. I liked the layout; it was one of those connecting rooms types of affairs, and each room had a different type of merchandise or theme. It was also nice and quiet in there so we had a good old browse.

The girls got some pressed pennies from one of the machines. Today's report is four out of five on the trippie title as we have parks, puke, pennies and not enough planning. Just missing the pins, although there's a good chance the girls did do some trading as that was pretty much enough a daily happening during the holiday.



We were watching the clock a bit as we had Dinosaur FastPasses and then an early lunch ADR at Tusker House, so after a while we asked the girls to choose a pen so we could be on our way (once we’d paid for them of course, $9.95 each.) Seren chose a big Elsa shaped pen and Freya chose the Anna equivalent, although it could have been the other way around as they seem to go back and forth between them on which sister they prefer / relate to.

We trotted over to Dinoland and joined the FP queue for Dinosaur. I’ve said it before but this is my favourite ride in the park (and back in 2001, it was my favourite ride in all of WDW).



We were in within a few minutes but I did notice today that they didn’t seem to be letting many people though into the pre-show area at a time. Possibly because when we were here a few days before it kept getting really backed up both before and after the pre-show.

I love this ride, but Seren (the bravest of us all) finds it a bit too intense with all the bumping around. She gripped my hand tightly all the way through. When we got off the ride, I nearly died laughing at our ride photo as Mat was pulling a very silly face. I will add it in as soon as I find our PhotoPass photos (I can only find half of them at the moment which is a bit of a concern ).

We had a quick mooch around the shop and I contemplated buying this vegetarian t-shirt but wasn’t sure about the sizing so didn’t bother. (Photo from google) :



We walked over to Africa ready to check in for lunch at Tusker House, but popped into the Lion King restrooms beforehand as we quite like those ones and they were quiet. Our ADR was 11.15 am I believe, and we lined up to check in at 11.05. The line was fairly substantial, and one of those jobsworthy CMs on a power trip (you know the ones, they’re rude and / or passive aggressive and seem hellbent on rigidly enforcing ‘the rules’) appeared from nowhere and barked at us all that only one member of each party should be standing in line . Sometimes being at Disney feels like being at school; pointless rules being enforced emphatically, but as paying guests trying to enjoy our holiday, I feel we should all be able to stand in line together and have a chat if we fancy it. Obviously, being British, I rolled my eyes but didn’t protest any more than that. Mat stayed in line while the girls and I took a seat on a bench. I then sat there glaring at the party in front of us who had ignored the instructions and all stayed waiting together.

Anyway, our buzzer went off five minutes after check-in and when we approached the podium, the host handed us our Rivers of Light tickets and a big pink plastic lotus flower popcorn bucket which was apparently included in the dining package. It meant we were entitled to cheap refills from the popcorn kiosks which didn’t really mean very much to us as we’d never bought popcorn at Disney. Mat’s face was a picture as I could see him thinking ‘what the hell are we going to do with that?’

The host took us inside and delivered a very monotone one-size-fits-all speech about the restaurant (‘here’s the buffet’, ‘you’ll get to meet Mickey, Goofy, Donald...’etc), despite the fact I’d told him when he asked that we’d been twice before. He asked me how long we’d been on the trip and when I told him we were a week in, he asked if there had been any meltdowns yet. I told him Freya was very tired and needed regular refuelling, so maybe she was more ‘on the edge’ by this point than I recall. I think we then joked about how it was likely to be Mum or Dad having the meltdowns rather than the girls.

We’d had two very good lunches at Tusker House previously, and this meal would turn out to be the worst of the three. It wasn’t terrible, and we’re still going back this year, but there were a few irritations and it just didn’t live up to our previous experiences. We were seated in a dark corner with not very much room behind any of the chairs. I know we could have asked to move, but there wasn’t anything specifically wrong with the table, it was just not great. Our server was, I’ve written in my notes, ‘a bit functional’. The guy we’d had on our first visit in 2014 was lots of fun. Our server in 2015 was also excellent, so service today was definitely bottom of the pile.

I had a Diet Coke and Mat had an iced tea. The girls had milk. Freya’s arrived in a paper cup with lid, whereas Seren had a proper plastic beaker like us. I told Freya it was because Seren was an ‘adult’ now as far as Disney restaurants were concerned, since she was a bit miffed to have a ‘baby cup’ when she’s less than two years younger than her sister.

Because of Seren’s nut allergy, we had to wait for a chef to take her round the buffet. We knew this was par for the course as we’ve done it many a time over the years. It’s just a bit of a pain when the chef takes a while to come out as either half of us will have already eaten a plate of food by the time the other half gets to go and see what’s what, or if we’re all feeling polite enough to wait, we all sit there starving for an age. More often than not, the chef will say there are no nuts in anything apart from the odd cake which Seren probably wouldn’t have touched anyway, and that the bread is brought in from an outside supplier which means they can’t guarantee no cross contamination (which isn’t a problem for Seren’s allergy.) So the walk around the buffet with the chef can often feel like a bit of a waste of time but obviously I understand why they insist those with allergies do it.

On this occasion, Freya was starving and Mat said he’d wait for the chef with Seren, so she and I wandered out to the buffet area. We made the mistake of picking up the small side plates and so couldn’t fit much food on them. She took this a bit far and just had some bread and broccoli. I filled my plate with some salads; a tabbouleh one, a giant couscous salad, and one that had cucumber in. Mat and Seren were getting their tour of the buffet with the chef while we were loading our plates, and pretty much as predicted, the only things Seren couldn’t have were a pecan slice and a ‘duffin’ (donut muffin with Nutella.) They came back with some food, and when Freya and I had finished our small plates, there was still no sign of any characters heading our way, so I took Freya back to get her a proper plate of food.

She filled her plate with sweetcorn, carrots, green beans, cubes of cheese, and some more bread. Since she didn’t really have enough on the plate to feed a sparrow, I encouraged her to try the mac and cheese which she didn’t really eat. Once her plate was full, she went back to the table and I got myself a nice full plate of shrimp curry, basmati rice, tandoori tofu, red skinned potato wedges, vegetable samosas, roasted carrots, sweet plantain and then some green beans and sweetcorn from the kids’ station.

I took my plate back to the table to find Mat flustered and with a face like thunder. I had managed to miss Goofy visiting the table despite there having been no sign of him when Freya and I got up five minutes beforehand. As I think we can all appreciate by this stage of my reports, Mat is not the best photographer, so it wasn’t great news that I hadn’t been around to make sure decent photos were captured. Also, our resident Calamity Jane, Seren, had managed to spill her milk all over the table and on the autograph books (that I had lovingly made before the trip) so she probably should have had the baby cup like her sister after all. To add insult to injury, the expensive Anna and Elsa pens we had just spent $20 on didn’t flipping work, and the characters had had to use the CM handler’s pen instead .

It turned out that the Goofy photos were satisfactory, autograph books were fine and the milk was cleared up and replaced. Panic over. We also managed to get one of the pens to sort of work after scribbling with it frantically in my notebook.







Baby cup:



Food wise, everything was good except the vegetable samosas (I wrote ‘bleurgh’ in my notes but obviously as it now ten months since I ate them, I can’t specifically remember what was so wrong with them. I will say I usually love vegetable samosas so they must have been dodgy for me to turn my nose up at them.) The shrimp curry was particularly delicious. My plate:



Daisy, Donald and Mickey visited the table for very brief interactions. Brief interactions are fine with us, as the girls get shy and embarrassed and only really want a quick autograph and photo. But this trip, I found myself getting fed up with character meals, and Mat felt the same as me. We always felt on previous trips that they were the best way to meet characters as we can tick off food and meets at the same time without the queueing. This trip I was torn between feeling annoyed with how quick pretty much all of the characters left our table from a ‘value for money’ point of view, because we all know how overpriced these character meals are. Then on the other hand, the job of trying to get food from a busy buffet, enjoy eating it, making sure the children are eating, and then dropping everything for a 30 second interaction and ensuring there’s a decent photo at the end of it...well we were pretty much over it by the end of the trip, and we had four character meals this holiday. I will say that the two that were not buffets were much more relaxing in terms of being able to focus on the characters when they arrived rather than trying to dash to get some food and constantly looking over our shoulders in case we missed them arriving. But as pescatarians / vegetarians (Mat and I are actually now vegans) and healthy eaters, we preferred the buffet food to the menus at the other character meals we did. I’m currently a week away from ADR day and still not sure what to do about character meals this trip. The girls at 12 and 10 amazingly still fancy a couple, (I was sure high school would knock that out of Seren but happily she refuses to grow up), and we will be on free DDP, but not sure Mat and I are that excited about the prospect. There’s a good chance this will be the last year the girls will want to do them though (I say that every year). Decisions, decisions... [Edited to add: ADR day has come and gone since I started writing this, and we have gone for two buffet character meals which I feel happy with at this point.]

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[moosha]

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Mat and I got a second plate of food (at $52 plus tax and tip we felt it was necessary.) The girls wanted dessert so they got a pile of cookies and donuts each. By time Seren had eaten a few cookies and donuts, she was complaining that she’d eaten too much and said she felt sick. I told her she’d be fine once we got outside, away from the food and in the fresh air.

Our server asked us if we were on the dining plan and I said unfortunately not. We had a little chat about it and I said we’d used DDP twice before, and would be returning next year with free dining plan. He then proceeded to talk about what was included with DDP as though he hadn’t listened to what I had said at all, so that annoyed me. Randomly he also asked the girls what they like doing. Seren said she likes reading (she’s a bookworm) and he said ‘do you like JK Rowling?’ Which of course she does but it was all a bit bizarre. At that point it felt like he was taking an interest to influence his tip having been a bit meh all the way through our meal.

We settled the check ($231 with roughly a 19% tip.) I see now that Mat has written $231 followed by four exclamation marks on the receipt. It is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a buffet lunch, isn’t it? I don’t know if we tipped him more than he expected, because after we’d paid he came back with one of those signed character birthday cards for each of the girls as a little gift. Seren’s birthday wasn’t registered on this booking and was still a week away and it felt like a thank you gesture for a good tip. Maybe we’re in the minority, tipping over 18%.

We got three iced waters to go (paper cups and straws of course) and then as we were getting ready to leave, the character parade around the restaurant began. Freya joined in, but Seren said she was too full and her tummy hurt (I don’t think she would have done even if she hadn’t been stuffed though).

Parade (spot Freya) :







We then left the building with our new cumbersome popcorn holder which we handed over to Freya to carry:





We had FastPasses for the 2 pm Finding Nemo show, and while we had been eating, I had suggested we try and get into the 1 pm one instead so we could leave the park for an afternoon break earlier. There were no 1pm FastPasses available, so when we left Tusker House at 12.30 pm, the plan was to hotfoot it over and join the standby line.

We took a brisk walk over...







...and Seren was still complaining about being too full / feeling sick and having a sore tummy. I wasn’t especially sympathetic as she had eaten too much, but I didn’t think it would come to anything. I told her a sit down in the air conditioned theatre would sort her out. We got in line outside, and she was still complaining. The line wasn’t moving at this point as they weren’t yet letting standby guests in. Then she just threw up all over the floor . I think the fast walk had just pushed her over the edge. I kind of froze for a second or two, I think I couldn’t really believe what had just happened. A nice English guy behind us offered us his bottle of water, bless him. Mat was sympathetic towards her but I was cross as it was self-inflicted (mean Mummy). He told me to go into the show with Freya, he’d take her to her cleaned up, and they’d meet us afterwards. He then took Seren back out of the queue and told a CM at the queue entrance what had happened, but I think someone might have already informed them as they seemed to be on it already, just as you’d expect from Disney. Freya has this slightly irrational fear of other people being ill, and also being sick in general, so she was freaking out a bit but soon calmed down once I told her Seren would be fine now.

It has just occurred to me while writing this that the popcorn holder would have made an excellent sick bucket .

We were now being let into the theatre so the two of us went in. I felt really bad at this point for just telling Seren to ‘get on with it’ when she wasn’t feeling great, and then not being sympathetic when she was sick, as let’s face it, no one wants to be sick in a public place like that. We found some seats inside and I saw that Mat had messaged to say Seren was ok now. I messaged him back to say he should bring her in if they could still get in as the air conditioned theatre would probably be the best place for her. He said they had found some shade outside under the big Dinosaur at the entrance to Chester and Hester’s Dinorama and were relaxing, so they’d meet us afterwards.

Freya loved the Nemo show, and I think it’s really good too. The puppets are very cute, the songs are lovely and I’m always in awe of how the performers can sing and act so well while controlling the puppets. Also, I was surprised to see it was the same performers we saw in 2015. I did nod off briefly while we were in there but that was due to the big lunch I’d just eaten rather than the quality of the show.

Once we were out of the theatre, we wandered up to meet Mat and Seren. She was feeling a lot better and I was impressed that she had managed to completely avoid her clothes and hair when she was sick so she was as good as new. I asked her if she was keen to see the Nemo show as we still had those 2pm FPs booked. She said she would like to, so Mat agreed to take her in. Freya wanted to see it again (straight after the previous performance...she must have really loved it) so the three of them headed off to the FastPass line. My plan was to have a little rest in the shade which was much harder than I thought it would be. I found some shade near the stroller parking, sat on the kerb and started slathering on some more sunscreen as it was really hot. However, as I got stuck into the job at hand, a load of bugs appeared flying around me and they were biters too. I decided to walk towards Everest to find somewhere else to sit although I think it was the sunscreen they were attracted to. I could see that the walls and pavements in the opposite direction (towards Dinoland) were crazy busy too with no shade available.

I said at the start of the day that it was Extra Magic Hours today and the park was really busy, but as we’d only really used FP and had a booked lunch so far, it hadn’t really impacted on us to this point. As I wandered along now, it was really evident how crowded the park was. There were barely any gaps along the edge of the pavement (shaded ones anyway) and I walked all the way round from the Nemo theatre to the little path to Kali River Rapids but couldn’t find an inch of shade to sit in. The little path to Kali was quieter but had no shade. The main walkway was really crowded too with people walking in both directions and hovering at the edge of the path. I walked back towards the theatre and luckily came across a shady spot that a family were just vacating. I had a sit down and caught up with some notes before Mat and the girls came out just after 2.30.

We were planning to leave the park at this point and decided to walk the Asia way (the same path I had just walked) as I wanted to get a photo of the Tree of Life. Here is said photo:



We stopped off at Drinkwallah for a beverage. I got a frozen Coke with a shot of Captain Morgan’s ($8.75). The rum sank straight to the bottom of the cup, so after the first few initial strong sips, I couldn’t taste it at all so probably should have just got the non alcoholic version as it was much cheaper. Mat got a blue raspberry slushie ($4.29) but he doesn’t really like drinks like that so he wasn’t impressed. Not sure why he got it really. I also got a bottle of Smart Water ($4.50.)







Freya made a friend while Mat was getting the drinks:





At some point, we saw this menu and realised that the popcorn bucket was actually worth $16 so decided to feel a bit more grateful that Disney had given it to us for 'free':



We pottered up to Starbucks and the girls got a tap water each (from the self service water station they have in here) and then we went back to the big shop to swap the girls’ dodgy pens. Mat did try and return them to a different shop that didn’t sell them first but eventually ended up in the right place. They were exchanged for identical ones and the CM tested the new ones out to make sure they worked. Let’s see how we get on with the new ones at the next character meet shall we? (Spoiler alert: not good.)

Before leaving the park, we decided to get some PhotoPass photos at the Tree of Life and then queued up for another photographer who was doing the animal print frame photos. Again, in the interest of just getting this report posted a few weeks after I started writing up today, I will add them in later.

From there, we walked to the exit and a tram pulled up just as we got there so we hopped on it and rode back to Dinosaur 35. We drove to Target at Rolling Oaks and went along Dibb favourite Sherbeth Road. We passed what I believe are some of the Disney College Program apartments, am I right? They looked a bit grim anyway.

Once at Target, we bought water, cereal, tissues and sunscreen (we seem to go through these things at a rate of knots on holiday) and spent $23.93. I think this was the day we first struggled to get a big pack of small bottles of Zephyr Hills water and therefore the start of us returning to our former belief that Target at Millennia is superior. I remain convinced this is the case at this point.



The plan now was to drive to Disney Springs, and today we ended up driving into the Lime garage for the first time. We seemed to struggle to get to whichever of the two garages we want to park in and always ended up in one or the other by chance (usually the Orange.) Mat reckons it depends on which road you drive in on as different roads / exits seem to bring you straight into one or the other with no choice.

As we entered the garage, it was very apparent that Disney Springs was busy, which is to be expected at about 4 pm on a Saturday. Again, I refer to the title of this trip...why had I planned for us to come here on a Saturday when we all know weekends are busiest? To be fair though, I remember saying when we parked up (on the roof of the Lime garage as there were no spaces on lower floors), what does everyone else do on a Saturday on a Disney / Orlando holiday? Answers on a postcard please. The parks are busy (especially DAK and MK, and World Showcase is full of people drinking around the world), Disney Springs is rammed, the shops are busy, people say to avoid the Universal parks at weekends because they’re full of locals, and I’m sure I’ve heard the Disney water parks and mini golf are busiest at weekends too. Maybe we should just stay at the hotel and enjoy the pool on a Saturday in future.

The view from the top of the garage:





Our first port of call was World of Disney. The girls were itching to start purchasing the soft toys they’d had their eyes on since the start of the trip. I think it was today that Freya bought herself a not insubstantial but very cute Marie (her favourite Disney character), and they also got a few little bits for friends. We also sneakily bought Seren some Mickey head earrings (the proper silver ones, posher than the ones I got myself last trip) and a Stitch toy she had her eye on for her birthday.

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[moosha]

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Just browsing:





Next we went to Once upon a Toy as Seren wanted to get some Tsum Tsums for her friends and hadn’t found any they would like so far. The selection in here was not very good either, so she went to ask a CM at the counter if she knew where we could find the likes of Disney Princess ones. She told her to go to Target, Walmart or ‘your local mall.’

We went into the Christmas shop next as we were thinking of buying a personalised bauble for Mat’s US work friend who had given us that very generous gift of a room credit at the Hard Rock Hotel. They had secretly got married in Miami over Easter so we thought a personalised wedding bauble would be a good idea, but we couldn’t find any we liked. We had got a beautiful Minnie and Mickey one done when we got married in 2001 and it’s really special to us (we don’t even put it on the tree though in case the cats or children knock it off.) However they didn’t have anything like that today so we gave it up as a bad job. They did have some lovely character baubles though, but I don’t think I bought one today.

Mat got a double espresso from Starbucks as he can't seem to pass one on holiday without indulging in some caffeine. And who can blame him when these trips are so tiring? Also, we got a couple of their iced waters which as you know by now we were quite partial to during the trip.

We had a little look in the Marketplace Co-op as let’s be fair, who doesn’t love that shop? We were specifically there to look at the Disney dresses at the new Dress Shop. I’d seen some beautiful ones on social media (Orange Bird ones, ride themed ones too I believe), but today they only had one or two with rather ambiguous uninspired prints. I guess all the more interesting ones had already sold out.

At this point we were pretty much done with the shopping / mooching and I asked everyone what they wanted to do about food. Mat got really grumpy about me asking as he didn’t think we needed to eat anything else today, despite the fact we had eaten lunch at 12. I wasn’t suggesting that we eat immediately as it was still fairly early, but I just wanted to know whether they would prefer to eat here or back at Animal Kingdom, where we were heading afterwards. I was trying to ‘plan’ (a bit late at this point I know) and was hoping we could try out one of the new quick services at Disney Springs that were on the list for this trip (Blaze, the Morimoto Asia take out window). Seren was adamant she didn’t want to eat after her lunchtime ordeal, Mat was still grumpy about the idea of eating (I know; isn’t at least 50% of a Disney holiday supposed to be spent eating or drinking?) I wasn’t that keen on eating at Animal Kingdom because none of the available counter service meals really floated my boat. Freya was happy to go with the flow. We kind of pottered about grumpily for a few minutes trying to come up with a suitable resolution to this little ‘disagreement’. I was conscious that as the ‘planner’, I had not done a very good job on this one, and it was just one of those moments you (we) sometimes get on a trip, when everything has just gone a bit wonky and you’re (I’m) not sure how to get it back on track. I get frustrated in those situations with having failed and wasting time. It’s the complete opposite feeling to the happiness (and smugness) of those moments where you produce an excellent reservation / FastPass / new experience out of your back pocket and the family are super impressed with your ingenuity and planning expertise. Oh well. Can’t win them all .

After a few frustrated minutes had passed, Seren piped up out of nowhere that she was in fact hungry (which I suppose wasn’t too much of a surprise since her lunch ended up all over the floor of Animal Kingdom...sorry!) And she was specifically hungry for a sandwich. This obviously led us to Earl of Sandwich which was a new one for us in Florida as we usually always seem to eat at table service restaurants when at Disney Springs. We had frequented EoS at Disneyland Paris a good few times though so had an idea of what we were in for (stressful long queues with CMs who really rush you. Yep, present and correct on both sides of the Atlantic.) We decided to get two tuna melts between us plus a fruit cup and some grapes and see how that went down. Yay, a plan.

It took ages to order and pay for the sandwiches. Freya and I found a table outside...



….and the others eventually appeared with the buzzer. Mat was still not any happier.





When we finally tucked into the sandwiches, they were really disappointing. I have written in my notes that they were basically mayonnaise sandwiches. Freya and I both managed half of ours. Seren took a couple of bites and then said she didn’t want anymore and that it was ‘gross’. She said she didn’t want to eat after all which as you can imagine, I was over the moon about since we had undertaken this whole sorry episode at her request for a sandwich . Mat ate as much as he could of the unwanted mayonnaise sandwiches and we shared the fruit (although I’d imagine I had the lion’s share being a fruit addict).

We decided to just cut our losses and head back to Animal Kingdom. We got parked up in Peacock but had been hoping for Butterfly after only realising there was such a section this morning.



Our disappointment was lessened by how close to the entrance we were being directed to park. We seemed to have parked in Dinosaur pretty much every time we had visited Animal Kingdom since 2012, so parking so close this evening felt like a nice treat.



We strolled across to bag check which was nice and quiet. Everyone had to go through the scanner, I guess because they were able to enforce such a policy with the entrance being so quiet. It was starting to get dark as we entered the park, and there was a good atmosphere. We passed a harpist playing Disney tunes which was lovely. I started feeling confident that we could get the rest of the evening back on track (perhaps over-optimistically... spoiler alert.)

First stop was filling the lotus flower popcorn bucket that had been foisted upon us as part of our dining package. Despite having had no interest in receiving the bucket earlier in the day, we were now keen to spend money on getting it filled ready to take it into Rivers of Light. As though because it was given to us as part of our RoL package, we couldn’t go and watch the show without filling it. Disney marketing at its finest there. Freya is a popcorn monster so this made her very happy. It was a very good deal (for Disney) at $1.50 once tax was taken into account. There was so much popcorn... the bucket was huge, and pretty much full. When the CM handed it over, we stuffed the lid on to keep Freya’s fingers out for now. Mean parents.



At this point, I made the poor decision to get a black bean burger from Restaurantosaurus. I was still a bit peckish after the disappointing few bites of mayonnaise sandwich and remembered really enjoying the veggie burger there a few years before, with its added benefit of a decent toppings bar. We walked over to Dinoland, and Mat and Freya found what turned out to be a really squished table on the porch (I don’t think there were any other free tables) while Seren and I went inside to order. It was fairly busy. I joined a queue but picked the ‘wrong’ side of the till as people seemed to be joining the line after me and yet getting served before me. Not sure how that was possible since as we all know, CMs alternate between serving one side and the other at those ordering counters, but it definitely appeared to be the case.



The black bean burger came with rocket and tomato, some ‘sauce’ (thank you descriptive notes) and cheese inside, plus fries and southwest salad on the side. I also got myself a Smart Water and a carton of apple juice for Seren. The burger and fries was $13.49. I pimped the burger at the toppings bar with some red onions, sauerkraut, pickles and jalapeños but unfortunately it was pretty grim. The burger was burnt and the fries were cold. The southwest salad (basically sweetcorn and beans) was ok though. Once I’d finished I felt stuffed but not satisfied since it hadn’t been anywhere near as nice as I’d hoped. I was back to feeling fed up so decided to get a cocktail from the Dawa Bar.

It was now just after 8pm and Rivers of Light was due to start at 8.45pm. Someone (I believe one of the CMs at Tusker House) had told us to arrive at the theatre entrance about 8.15 pm. So it was a brisk walk to the Dawa Bar. Mat went on ahead using his best brisk London commuter walk.



I had told him to choose me anything from the cocktail menu, and I believe he made the right choice picking the most ‘me’ cocktail available. He got the Lost on Safari: (Disney’s description: Pink Pigeon Mauritian Rum, Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum, and our refreshing Pangani Punch, $11.50.) I drank it as we walked. It was ok, but as per usual with Disney cocktails, too icey / watered down.



We walked as fast as we could past Everest to the Rivers of Light entrance by the Nemo theatre which was the dining package entrance. It was about 8.15 when we got there, the time we were advised to arrive. At this point, the dining package section was already two thirds full so I was a bit miffed that we had been told to get there at that time. However, I very soon changed my mind on that since I could not have sat in that theatre any longer than we did. It was very hot and the bench seats were very close together, more so than at Fantasmic if my memory serves me correctly. Those bench seats are not exactly comfortable and the sweaty backs of the people in front and the knees of the people behind us seemed incredibly close which I wasn’t a fan of. It felt a bit claustrophobic and unpleasant. There was an occasional light breeze which I was grateful for. The girls tucked into the popcorn which they very much enjoyed and I wished for 8.45 to arrive quickly.



They look happier than I felt:



Freya has her treasure:



Getting dark:



Just to illustrate how cosy it was:



Pretty:











About five minutes before the show was due to begin, we had the usual ‘please squish up to make room for everyone’ announcement and I was of course over the moon about having to get even closer to the fellow visitors around us. Talk about a lack of personal space. It had been slowly getting dark and finally it was time for the show to begin. I know most people on here seem to have been really impressed with Rivers of Light but I am in the other camp unfortunately. I liked what they had done but didn’t feel it was enough of a spectacular to justify all the effort we had to go to today to see it (dining package, waiting in an uncomfortable theatre for 25 minutes.) If we had been strolling past and were able to casually stop and watch it in a more comfortable setting, I would have felt it was worth it, but compared to the other parks’ evening ‘spectaculars’, it fell flat for me. I appreciate that Disney aren’t able to use fireworks etc because of the animals, and I did like the pretty animal floats, but on this particular night and to my eyes, the water projections weren’t very clear. It was all just a bit disappointing really. Half way through, there was a quiet, dark bit and Freya turned to me and said ‘That’s not the end is it?’ She was loving it, as I assume was the man in front who took pictures on his DSLR all the way through. I appreciate he wanted to take photos, but it was constant and he was leaning the camera in different directions, changing the set-up etc and it was so distracting bearing in mind how dark the theatre is and how subtle the show is. He had absolutely no consideration for the fact that it might be irritating to others around him. And to be fair, how likely is he to ever look at his dozens of photos of Rivers of Light?

I only took a few rubbish ones with my phone:













Mat shared my opinions of RoL, as did the lady next to him who was a big a Disney fan and I believe was a regular visitor / local to Disneyland. Her review was basically ‘is that it?’ I thought it was very pretty, and if we happen to be passing a quiet, convenient viewing area in the future, I would watch it again, but we won’t be rushing back to view it in the theatre setting.

RoL finished about 9.05 and everyone was directed through Dinoland towards the exit. I believe the park was open until 10 pm so not everyone was in a hurry to leave. As we passed Primeval Whirl, we spotted that the wait time was posted as 10 minutes. It looked pretty much a walk on, so Mat agreed to go on with the girls. As previously mentioned, I don’t do this ride anymore since I lost skin on my arm due to its violence, so I hovered (I really wish there was more seating in this area) and caught up on some notes.

They all loved Primeval Whirl in the dark, and were back out pretty quickly. We carried on walking towards Discovery Island, enjoying seeing the park all lit up as I think we’d only seen Animal Kingdom at night once before. I wrote in my notes that the park is so beautiful in the dark, and I’m looking forward to visiting at night again this year and taking in Pandora all lit up for the first time too.

The lights never look good when I try and take photos of them though:



When we got back to the Tree of Life we saw that the Tree of Life Awakenings were taking place, which we thought were lovely. We didn’t stop for long as the girls were really flagging, but we were very impressed and I’d definitely like to watch them for longer next time.







As we headed out, we were very pleased that we were parked so close to the front of the park. Unfortunately this meant we had to cross the road that runs between the park entrance and the car park, which with everyone leaving was pretty busy. Eventually we managed to get across, get in the car and get on our way. The roads out of the park and Disney in general were busy with it being kicking out time, so the journey back to Universal took a bit longer than expected. We all fell asleep in the car (except Mat of course) and pulled up at Cabana Bay around 10 pm.

We each had a shower and had a quick chat about tomorrow’s plans before bed. Mat and I really weren’t feeling a trip to Blizzard Beach; I was all water parked-out after our day at Typhoon Lagoon so we suggested to the girls that we have a chilled morning at the resort and they could swim in the Cabana Bay pool one more time before we moved hotels. They were up for that, and we were also keen to spend a chunk of the day at Disney Springs after today’s unsatisfactory visit. So with a new, chilled out plan formed we crashed out with the exciting promise of a lie in of sorts in the morning. Well the girls and I did, it looks like Mat took the opportunity to treat himself before bed :

[Goldia]

I love that your disclaimer warns us the first vomit incident occurs today, thereby promising there will be more vomit incidents in the future for us to look forward to.

I agree with your EMH theory. I have a theory too, totally untested and not backed up by any empirical data! Here goes...parks with EMH will end up being less crowded in the evening as lots of people will have left due to tiredness, but won't return in the evening, so going to the EMH park for dinner and the rest of the evening might be better than the hour of EMH in the morning. Like I say it's totally untested and could be a whole load of BS. One of these days I will actually try it out. Did it feel more quiet when you returned in the evening?

$231 is a lot for a 3 course meal for 4 never mind a buffet! I would definitely be feeling the pain if we didn't have DDP.

How funny, I was just talking on another thread about only having one rule for my kids at Christmas and Easter when they want to stuff their faces full of chocolate. "Eat as much as you like, just don't make yourselves sick!" I have to say I would not have been that sympathetic!

Now, I like the finding memo show but one per trip is enough never mind twice in a row. Frets must have loved it, a shame the bugs spoiled your chance to watch the world go by...but they did lead you towards a lovely rum drink .

I'm not sure ROL was ever going to be able to live up to the hype after such a long delay to it's opening. We saw the jungle book show which was the understudy for ROL for a while. I've booked Tuskers for the ROL package and we will go and see it but I'm not holding my breath. Good tip about not arriving at the theatre too early on though.

[moosha]

Originally Posted by Goldia

I love that your disclaimer warns us the first vomit incident occurs today, thereby promising there will be more vomit incidents in the future for us to look forward to.

I agree with your EMH theory. I have a theory too, totally untested and not backed up by any empirical data! Here goes...parks with EMH will end up being less crowded in the evening as lots of people will have left due to tiredness, but won't return in the evening, so going to the EMH park for dinner and the rest of the evening might be better than the hour of EMH in the morning. Like I say it's totally untested and could be a whole load of BS. One of these days I will actually try it out. Did it feel more quiet when you returned in the evening?

$231 is a lot for a 3 course meal for 4 never mind a buffet! I would definitely be feeling the pain if we didn't have DDP.

How funny, I was just talking on another thread about only having one rule for my kids at Christmas and Easter when they want to stuff their faces full of chocolate. "Eat as much as you like, just don't make yourselves sick!" I have to say I would not have been that sympathetic!

Now, I like the finding memo show but one per trip is enough never mind twice in a row. Frets must have loved it, a shame the bugs spoiled your chance to watch the world go by...but they did lead you towards a lovely rum drink .

I'm not sure ROL was ever going to be able to live up to the hype after such a long delay to it's opening. We saw the jungle book show which was the understudy for ROL for a while. I've booked Tuskers for the ROL package and we will go and see it but I'm not holding my breath. Good tip about not arriving at the theatre too early on though.

See more...

Thank you for reading and commenting as always, Abby . Yep, we've unfortunately not witnessed the last of the vomit yet .

I think your theory about parks with morning EMH being quiet(ish) in the evenings is very possibly true. Let us know if you try it out, and I'll do the same . Animal Kingdom was definitely not as busy in general as it had been in the morning when we returned at night, but I think it might not be a very good test of the theory as Rivers of Light was still fairly new, and very popular.

I did read on easywdw the other day that RoL is losing popularity and the fastpass and dining package sections don't completely fill up generally anymore, so hopefully your experience won't be as claustrophobic and time consuming as ours. Apparently you don't need to arrive at the theatre as early as last year anymore. And I definitely think going in with average expectations is the way forward so as not to be disappointed. I hope you have a great time though

I'm a bit concerned about Seren, buffets and the whole 'eyes bigger than belly' thing again for this year's trip but I'm hoping she's learnt from that experience. I know she won't want to end up in that position again! We have two buffets booked this year so fingers crossed .

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by moosha

Thank you for reading and commenting as always, Abby . Yep, we've unfortunately not witnessed the last of the vomit yet .

I think your theory about parks with morning EMH being quiet(ish) in the evenings is very possibly true. Let us know if you try it out, and I'll do the same . Animal Kingdom was definitely not as busy in general as it had been in the morning when we returned at night, but I think it might not be a very good test of the theory as Rivers of Light was still fairly new, and very popular.

I did read on easywdw the other day that RoL is losing popularity and the fastpass and dining package sections don't completely fill up generally anymore, so hopefully your experience won't be as claustrophobic and time consuming as ours. Apparently you don't need to arrive at the theatre as early as last year anymore. And I definitely think going in with average expectations is the way forward so as not to be disappointed. I hope you have a great time though

I'm a bit concerned about Seren, buffets and the whole 'eyes bigger than belly' thing again for this year's trip but I'm hoping she's learnt from that experience. I know she won't want to end up in that position again! We have two buffets booked this year so fingers crossed .

See more...

Thanks for the tips about easywdw. It's a website I've looked at in the past, but I haven't visited in a while. I'll check out what they say about ROL.

While we're talking about vomit, i forgot about this in my previous reply...my DS had an incident at my nephews birthday party a couple of years ago. We ate out as a large family group and he had a whole pizza to himself and then a pudding. Plus lots of coke. We then went bowling and he had some more coke. Well, I think the activity of the bowling wasn't helpful as on the way back to the car he threw up in the gutter. Fortunately, like Seren, he managed to avoid getting any on himself. I think this incident has helped him curb his eating a little, but when there is a lot of temptation it's hard. I also think though that on holiday there is so much food it's easier to resist because he knows the next meal or snack is just around the corner.

Surely, Seren can cope with 2 buffets...which ones are they? I'm so nosy! You don't have to tell me .

[Cazzius]

Those are lovely photos from Tusker House. Although you weren't sure about your table location they have come out really well.

I love Seren's t-shirt on this day, with the Mickey head ice cream cones - so cute!

That popcorn bucket is a bit of a beast, isn't it? Good work making Freya master of it - you're right too, it would have made a great sick bucket, haha.

Such a shame about the disappointing sandwich at EoS. I have heard quite a few people say how good this place is so it is a change to read about someone having a bad experience. I don't think I would like a mayonnaise sandwich, but my BF who is a bit of a condiment king would probably love it.

It looks like you had good seats for RoL, despite the show being underwhelming.

I think sometimes you get to a point in the holiday where everyones just a bit tired, perhaps this was your day. It still went really well despite some niggles and you got a lot done - pennies, autographs, character meets, shopping, shows and rides!

Thanks again for sharing such a detailed report, i'm really enjoying reading along.

[collybird]

I love Seren’s top, I regret not picking that up last year when I saw it. I am short so I could have got away with it with high-waisted shorts, but at the time I was just thinking crop top in 30s = no way.

I am with you on feelings a little meh regarding character meals; I go because we enjoy buffets, rather than an easy way to meet the characters. I actually wish they’d introduce a system like Bubba Gump’s ‘Run Forrest Run/Stop Forrest Stop’ where you can indicate whether or not you want the characters to come to your table. I’d rather meet them in the park when things aren’t so rushed and I don’t have to panic whether or not it’s safe to go to the buffet or take a mouthful of food.

I can find my way to Orange or Lime at Disney Springs but I always, always park in the wrong one for where we want to go. On Saturdays I like to book a dinner show for the evening, we’ll go to the parks as normal in the morning and then leave when it starts to feel like too much. We can go back to the resort and chill out for a while before it’s time to get ready for dinner. We’ve also done a DCL cruise across a weekend, and I have considered a couple of nights away at Vero Beach.

As a Tsum Tsum collector I am mad that a Disney CM is sending a fan to Target or Walmart! None of the others are as good quality as Disney. I was so excited to grab some Parks exclusive Tsums last year but was so disappointed with what was on offer, I managed the Tower of Terror set and the Frontierland set but no sign of any others.

I feel your frustration regarding the indecision over where to eat dinner; as the chief planner you can feel like you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Sometimes my OH will moan that he never gets to choose anything, but I know if we were in your situation and asked where to go he wouldn’t be able to choose. In your situation we’d probably have hopped back in the car for a drive and just seen where we fancied.

[Lisa29]

$231 for lunch, ouch!

Poor Seren being poorly, being sick is horrible.

I've heard that RoL is very meh, my sister said she would much prefer it have Disney music.x