An advantage of staying on property at Disney is you get early entry to the parks, generally for 30 minutes prior to general public admission. You also now have to prebook which park you are going to each day well in advance and can park hop between parks (assuming you have paid the extra fee to do so) after 2pm each day. Today we had nominated the Animal Kingdom park.
We arrived at the park slightly before 7am and joined the queue. They let us in about 7:20am (general admission was at 8am) and we could get part way through the park towards the ride we wanted before we were stopped. We then had to walk behind a cast member to the ride but we managed to be at the front of the line. The first ride of the day was Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain.
The ride was awesome! It is another typical Disney rollercoaster with no loops or upside down bits but you go forwards, backwards, in the dark and it was definitely exhilarating. We got off the ride and went straight around back to the front of the queue and rode it again. The girls are I continued to ride it for 4 times in total, Mark did it twice and TJ three times.
We decided we should head for somewhere else after that. It was freezing (about 8°C) so in an attempt to warm up a bit we headed to the Starbucks Cafe for a coffee/mocha and a bite to eat. You can get anything here in a Mickey shape.
The Land of Pandora was calling and so we went to the Na’vi River Journey which is a gentle mystical journey by boat deep into Pandora’s fantastic glowing bioluminescent rainforest. It is mainly done by projection but in typical Disney fashion is in amazing detail.
Next we had booked a lightning lane for the Kilimanjaro Safari where you take a ride in an open-air vehicle for a tour of a lush African savanna and see numerous African animals. It is done so that you get good views of the various animals.
We then took a walk through the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail where you see various animals but the highlight is of course the gorillas. The gorillas were play fighting and there was a little baby playing around as well. I could have sat there for hours watching them.
We had a lightning lane individual purchase (there is one ride in each of the parks where you have to pay an additional fee to get a lightning lane – these are for the high profile in demand rides) for Avatar Flight of Passage but not until 2:30pm, this was despite purchasing it at 7:04am. It was now only about 10:30am so we decided to leave the park and head to Disney Springs for a spot of shopping and some lunch.
At Disney Springs, we had a look around. Mark got some long pants from Lululemon as he only had one pair left and it is cold here in the mornings and evenings and TJ got some socks. The Coca Cola store was high on the kids list so we went up to the balcony where the kids and Mark shared an Around The World sample tray with 16 drinks from around the world. A lot of them were disgusting and a few passable.
Lunch was at the 4 Rivers Cantina Barbacoa Food Truck. I had the brisket burrito bowl and it was delicious … highly recommend it. A quick stop in the M&M store and we went back to Animal Kingdom for the Avatar ride. On this ride, you fly on the back of a mountain banshee during a 3D ride through the land of Pandora. It was very good but I’m not sure I would stand in line the 3 hours it was taking for those in the standby queue.
We had another lighting lane for Expedition Mountain so did one last ride on that before riding the Kali River Rapids which is a river raft ride through a lush jungle landscape ravaged by illegal logging. It wasn’t particularly long but we did get wet which was why we left it until our last ride of the day. We left the park but not before Greer got a Mickey ice-cream sandwich and TJ and Sophia a churro each.
Back at the hotel we watched the animals on the savanna from our balcony before heading down to the ground level for a different view. At 5:30pm we headed to the Pembe Savanna overlook for the campfire and the kids toasted some marshmallows and made themselves some s’mores.
In a slightly backwards way, we then ate dinner at the bar by the pool (right beside where the campfire was). It was freezing cold – they are definitely missing a trick not having outdoor heaters. Back in the room, I had a bath while Mark took TJ and Greer back down to the pool where they swam and played on the water slide. Sophia stayed back with me.
