Tag: Disney’s Animal Kingdom

January 2017 – family trip – report 5

January 27th:

I was up fairly early with a bit of an ear ache but I still needed to a run on the Boardwalk (one of my favorite things to do at Disney World actually). I wasn’t fast and the start was rough but after a half mile or so it was quite pleasant.

I did 2 long laps including the piece out to Hollywood Studios and then finished with one short loop around the Boardwalk itself to hit 5.5 miles in 55:53 minutes. Sun was rising around when I finished. Beautiful morning and I managed to get a couple shots of the sand bottomed pool at Stormalong Bay between the Beach and Yacht Club Resorts while it was dark out and the pool was all lit up.

sand bottom pool at Stormalong Bay before dawn

Showered and got dressed and the kids were just starting to wake up around 8 am. I love going for a run at Disney World – it gets me up early and I use every minute of the day!

We had fast passes in Hollywood Studios starting around 10:30 and had to pick up the rental car we were getting for a day around noon. And then we figured the plans for the day were in the air after that.

A quick bite in the room before walking over to Hollywood Studios.

We went straight to Toy Story Mania and caught some of the First Order Stormtrooper march down the main street to the stage and back before heading over and using special fast passes to hit Rockin’ Roller Coaster (everyone but Heather again).

Toy Story Mania sign at Hollywood Studios

We then decided to skip our Star Tours fast pass (we would be back!) and go get the car.

Got the car at the Dolphin at around 12:10 and then we went to the ESPN area to pick up our race bibs for the Pro Bowl 5k the next morning. Huge number of people there for the events but things went quite smooth.

Mermaid dress in front of the Dolphin fountain

We headed over to McDonalds for lunch from there.

After lunch we went to Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village so that Heather and the kids finish up their bead collection for the conservation activities. They had 3 more beads to go to get the full set and get the Mickey’s clan bead and all 3 remaining were at Kidani Village that day.

Parking a car at Kidani was different…there is no normal large parking lot – instead the parking spots are under the hotel rooms following the pattern of the building. It was interesting!

We went to the pool area (very nice) to do one activity and hung out there for a while then hopped over to the lobby to do another one.

We also looked at a few of the overlooks and saw many animals resting and learned a few things about ostriches.

We saw some of their painted turtles that are in an enclosure near the lobby.

Then it was back to the pool area to wait and play around until it was time to do the last activity. While we waited the kids did some running and splashing around and also chalk drawing on the pool deck.

T’s Olaf chalk drawing at the pool by Kidani Village

 

T and K playing by the Kidani Village pool while I lounged

 

conservation activity by the pool at Kidani Village

 

splash area at Kidani Village

 

Splash area at Kidani Village pool

 

learning about ostriches

After completing everything and getting the special Mickey’s Clan bead for completing all the conservation activities, we wandered back to the car and decided to go off property for supper.

We went to TGI Fridays (5:30ish) on International Boulevard and then stopped at a grocery store after to bring some stuff back to the room for breakfasts and for drinks.

Then we made our way back to the hotel, parked, brought the stuff in and settled in for the night.

We saw some of Illuminations from our room before we lay down.

Illuminations from our Boardwalk Villa’s room

Kids were out early (for Disney) which was good as the Pro Bowl 5k was the next morning and everybody has to get up early.

January 2017 – family trip – report 4

January 26th:

Hotel move day! We set an alarm as there was an early bead collecting conservation activity Heather and the kids wanted to do before we left. They went to do that and I stayed in the room and finished up packing.

After they go back they only had 3 more activities left to go to complete the full collection but at least those ones were late morning / afternoon activities and we could come back and do those easier – so we made plans to do that later in the week.

We then took our bags over to bell services to have the luggage transferred over to the Boardwalk Villas.

After that we did another wander around the resort and let the kids buy small African drums as a souvenir of the stay at the resort.

We decided we didn’t want to pay for a cab over to Boardwalk Villas so we hopped a bus to Hollywood Studios instead. We got off the bus at the park and took the walk way to the Boardwalk area and checked into the hotel. Our room was not ready yet but they were able to get everything else set up and they said we would get a text when the room was ready. Note for Canadians – it doesn’t look like the texting to a Canadian cell number works for the room check in.

We then walked the Boardwalk area to International Gateway at Epcot, went through security and rented a locker so we could put down the African drums for a while!

First stop in Epcot was the Canada pavilion where they were giving out Disney buttons with “Canada 150” on them in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017.

Next we had to test out one of the perks of full DVC membership by going into the DVC Members Lounge in Epcot. It is located in the glass pyramid above the Imagination with Figment ride. The space has a great vibe and the free snacks and drinks were a nice bonus. We sat and absorbed the atmosphere for a while.

We decided that we would head over to Test Track and use up one of the special fast pass tickets we had been given the other day at the DVC Center. Before we got on the ride though it had to shut for a maintenance issue. The kids were pretty upset unfortunately.

So we went into MouseGears to do some shopping and to stick close to the ride in case it came up quickly. We ended up getting T a nice sweater that he still wears constantly now that we are at home.

Heather also bought all the Dooney and Burke.

Well, not really but she did get some crazy deals and somehow managed to convince me to let her use the e-gift card I had from runDisney due to the Walt Disney World Half Marathon being cancelled earlier in the month.

Heather was looking at the purses and one of the cast members mentioned that the Food and Wine bags were 30%, plus 20% off for annual passholders, plus my e-gift card equals two purses apparently.

We also got a couple fuzzy blankets (as per tradition) and had it all shipped to the hotel.

We then did Spaceship Earth and walked back out to the Boardwalk area to grab a pizza from the pizza window there. We picked up our stuff from the locker at International Gateway on our way.

Surprisingly we still hadn’t gotten the text to tell us our room was ready (which is how we found out that texts to Canadian numbers don’t work) so we wandered back to the hotel and found that our room was ready.

The room was great with a true boardwalk view on the 4th floor – straight view to the lighthouse and the Beach Club Resort. It was also just a short walk down stairs to the pool area and a different set of stairs to end up on the Boardwalk itself. The Boardwalk exit that was closest to our room was an exit only but it sure made it fast to get to the Boardwalk instead of waiting for the elevators.

Beach Club and Yacht Club lighthouse from Boardwalk Villas
Disney’s Boardwalk area from Boardwalk Villas room

We then decided to go swimming in the clown pool for a bit – probably 45 minutes there and several trips down the water slide for the kids and a few for Heather and I.

Then back up to the room and called to get our luggage brought up.

Our daughter K did a change over to her Elsa dress and we did a fast walk to Epcot to get into our Frozen Ever After fastpass just about 10 minutes before they expired.

After that we were able to get on Test Track to make up for the disappointment from earlier in the day.

Then a quick snack before heading onto Ellen’s Energy Adventure and then a wander over to do the Nemo ride.

After Nemo we watched the fish and the divers in the aquarium for a while before heading into Coral Reef for our supper reservation. The food was great although T seemed to get a bit of a tough steak.

We spent time on supper and ended up missing Illuminations unfortunately.

We then decided to end the day, so we walked out to the Boardwalk and picked up some items for breakfast the next morning and to keep in the fridge from the store.

Put the kids to bed, did a quick unpack and organize and then went to bed ourselves.

January 2017 – family trip – report 2

January 24th:

Up around 8 with our daughter out on the patio looking around the savannah and being disappointed that there were no animals.

Eventually did see some Roan Antelope (3) and a couple of them butted heads – got pictures of that.

roan antelope head butting Disney’s Animal Kingdom

We had bagels for breakfast in the room watching for animals.

Short tour of parts of the hotel and kids took part in one of the conservation activities that you can collect beads for doing. They did the jenga block type one talking about the ecosystem.

We had a couple of old Samsung S4 phones that still function for wifi and as cameras, etc – so let each of the kids use one to take pictures with. It was pretty fun watching them decide what they wanted to take pictures of during the trip. It was also cool to look at the pictures later to get a view from a different perspective.

sunlight through the trees waiting for the bus at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
K selfie waiting for the bus at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge pool

We took the bus to Disney Springs and did a short wander there.  There we checked to see if Planet Hollywood was open or not – we had gotten a reservation for that day a few weeks back but it had been cancelled as they weren’t quite ready yet and we wanted to check to see if maybe they might be open after all – they were doing a private event instead. Oh well.

fountain near AMC and Planet Hollywood Disney Springs

During this walk we got a call from our DVC client rep and we sorted out the timing to head over to Saratoga Springs DVC center to sign the paper work in a couple hours.

We ended up having a good lunch at T-Rex without any real wait.  T-Rex is always fun.

After lunch and a decent walk around Disney Springs and Saratoga Springs Resort we were at the DVC center and finished up the paperwork and got our add on points. With the changes Disney made to DVC the previous year prior to us buying our points on the resale market we weren’t able to take advantage of some of the benefits that members that bought from them enjoyed. But with the add on points we now have access to the full benefit set. We had our new blue DVC cards saved to our phones and the points banked for next before we left the building!

We got some ice cream for the kids before we left and they also gave us 3 special fast passes to be used how we liked over the next few days. Bonus!

amphibicar near Disney Springs

We walked back to Disney Springs and did some shopping through several stores and then headed out to the buses.

Back to the hotel and took some time to rest at the hotel. We ended up missing our planned Nemo musical fast pass and Primeval Whirl fast pass because of the afternoon events but we wanted to make sure we got to our night safari right fast pass.

Once we got to the park we had to wait to get Heather and the kids’ annual passes set up and then we were in the park for a quick walk to the safari ride. Along the way we saw the lit up Tree of Life for the first time in person – very cool!

Animal Kingdom Tree of Life – lit up at night

We made it to the night safari ride with a half hour to spare in our window and it was a very different experience at night – but a lot of fun!

After that we saw we had about 35 minutes until the park closed – so we hit up Expedition Everest for our son and I to ride in the dark – that was a lot of fun – you can see so far at night. The night safari ride was fun but I think the dark ride on Expedition Everest was cooler.

Then we made it over to Dinoland to make up for our missed Primeval Whirl fast pass and quickly got on the ride (well, all of us but Heather who can’t handle the spinning).

Then all 4 of us got on Triceratops Spin and then a sprint to Dinosaur and we just made it in before the clock changed to 7:30 to indicate the park was closing.

We were the only riders getting on and got an entire car to ourselves (we were the last to ride that night).

At the end the staff had been doing a final inspection of the ride cars and we were left out in the final time tunnel for a few minutes as the cars were backed up. It was pretty awesome and a definite cool first for us but by the end the kids were getting a bit scared.

After that, it was a quick bathroom break and a walk to the front of the park – along the way we managed to catch the animated show on the Tree of Life. Fantastic. Leave it to Disney to turn an oil rig into a tree and then turn around and turn it into a movie screen.

Animal Kingdom Tree of Life – lit up at night

We left the park and caught the direct bus to Epcot as that park was to open to 11 that night.

The bus driver for that ride had a lot of fun joking around with everyone – made for a shorter ride.

After bag check we were into Epcot – we ended up walking right onto Spaceship Earth.

Heather and the kids had only had their annual passes for a little over 3 hours at this point and we were in our second park and had ridden 6 rides. We can be efficient at Disney World sometimes!

We then decided we needed to eat and hit up Electric Umbrella and got a partial view of Illuminations while we ate.

We checked out Test Track but the wait had jumped to 45 minutes, so instead we went over toward the Nemo ride. Along the way we looked at stopping for the Joy and Sadness meet and greet but the wait ended up being 20 minutes and the kids were a bit punch drunk so we needed to keep moving.

Onto Nemo and then did Soarin’ after a short wait. (again Heather did not ride) It was the kids’ first time seeing the updated Soarin’ so it was fun to watch their reactions.

After that we wandered out of the park and onto a bus (after a short wait) then on our way back to the resort.

Back to the room and then bed!