The 999'th Haunt stole my bra Completed 7-20, Final thoughts added 8-20

Animal Kingdom Adventures


After checking into the condo and sorting through stuff it was off to our park of the day. We get back into the car and head out for our 15min trip to AK. Well it would have been 15 min's if Mark hadn't accidently turned onto Hotel Plaza Blvd, but a quick u turn and we were back on track. Between our phone navigation and all of the signs we easily found AK and those glorious mountains peaking out at us. I'm very excited to see Pandora. I loved the movie and have anxiously been awaiting to see Pandora for myself. I have been very good about avoiding any videos and most pictures of it here on the Dis, as I didn't want to spoil it. I actually did pretty good with that as many things were new to me.



The plans for today
EE FP 12:40-1:40pm
Yak & Yeti ADR 1:15pm
ROL FP 5:50-6:50
NRJ FP 6:50-7:50pm


We arrived at the parking booth a little after noon. The attendant asked us if we wanted standard parking or preferred parking. We knew standard parking was $20 but asked what preferred parking was. She said that you get to park within a 7 min walk to the entrance, you'll receive a free bottle of water and a free map. After I snorted out my chuckle Mark told her we would take standard parking. We parked and took the tram up to the front of the park. Mark texted me our location so we could find our car when leaving. We've had issues in the past remembering our location, but we did this throughout our trip and it worked well for us.


Todays temperatures had an expected high of 78F. I was so happy for these temps. The last time we were here Mark got very irritable with the heat in the 90's and we left the park after just a few hours to head back to AKL pool. Coming from Indy I was enjoying the feel of the sun on my skin once again. I love Indy but believe it or not I'm allergic to the cold and will break out in hives if my skin gets too cold. Even slipping under cold sheets will make me itch.

We arrived at the front of the park at 12:20pm we were bagless so we breezed into the park and waited in the short line in front of the Christmas tree for a PP photo.. We had finally just decide 2 nights prior to go ahead and get Memory Maker so I got online and added it to MDE. Imagine my surprise once I down loaded all of my PP and discovered that I didn't have access to the pp photo's on our first day here at AK. It seems that you have to order MM 3 days in advance. So Disney has hijacked my photo's unless I'm willing to pay an extra $30 for them. Which I was going to do since we had several great photo's and I had lost most of our own pics (more on this later). All our photo's we were taking were with our Droid phones and I quickly ran out of space on my phone. So after about 4 hr's I had to delete all my photo's from my phone to make room for more. After deleting these photo's I discovered that because Disney had horrible wifi that not all of those photo's had migrated to my One Drive cloud.
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So I immediately log into Verizon and pay $10 to up my storage on their cloud to 1 TB to avoid this problem the rest of the trip.



Mark at the Tree of Life.
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We Decided to walk through Dinoland to get to EE for my FP. I'm happy to finally get to experience this coaster. On our last visit EE was down when my FP time had come. This is the only coaster at Disney that I haven't ridden other than Barnstormer. Now I finally get to see what all of the fuss is about. The FP line went quick enough maybe 10 min's. I enjoyed my travel through the Himalaya's and then decide to explore it a little more with Marks FP. Mark has an inner ear issue and gets motion sick (that's why he drives everywhere), so I get to use his FP's on these type of rides. No complaints from me. I thought is was cute and had to take a picture that the interactive que recognized him, he wasn't aware that some of the que's did this.

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Once I got to the front of the line I asked to sit in the front and they didn't mind at all letting me sit one out until the next one came. After meeting the Yeti face to face it was time to come down off the mountain. So what did I think of this coaster? It's OK, the front is definitely more fun, but now I can say that Space Mountain is my favorite Disney coaster. Sorry IMO Disney coasters just can't compete with the thrill of the coasters at Cedar Point in Sandusky OH. Love me a great thrilling coaster.

After barely escaping a Yeti attack I was famished and we were in need of some nourishment. So off to Yak and Yeti for some sustenance to help us endure the rest of our travels for the afternoon. We checked in for our ADR a few minutes early and were seated in about 5-10 min's. The hostess that sat us was the first to compliment me on my Carriage necklace for my Pick a Pearl from Epcot and our 2010 trip. Thanks to Su-Lynn @chunkymonkey for introducing this in her trip report. I got so many compliments on it while at Disney that I lost count.
Carriage necklace.png photo from Amazon.com where I ordered it from.


First up was liquid libations. Mark ordered a Kingfisher Beer and I had the Emporer Margarita


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For our food choice we split the Potstickers, Firecracker Shrimp and the Dragon Roll. These were all OK but all of the Panko crumbs that fell off the Dragon Roll and were left on the plate were super tasty. The shrimp were my fave.

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With our belly's full it was onto discovering our next adventures. After our 2013 trip to Europe we now try to get pictures of Mark peaking out from various/neat doors. Here he is peaking around the Yak & Yeti door.
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So what will our next adventure be stay tuned?
 
I have added a few more details to my Introduction post (see below). Don't want to confuse those of you already following along.
edited to add: I'm such a dork I should have left you guys with a few more details.
Nov30 & Dec 1 Orlando Grand Villa's 1 br condo
Dec 2& & Dec 3 POFQ
Dec 4-7 GF CL
7 day Parkhopper tix
No dining plan been there done that x2, don't think it's worth it for us.
Memory Maker
I booked this vacation as soon our dates opened up (thinking 399 days out), but could have easily booked 3 months sooner if they had let me. Originally booked 5 nt's but ended up adding several days when I got 4 days of free tickets w/ my purchase of 3 at UCT. Then when the Winter discount offer came out I attempted to get that discount to no avail. So had to pay full rack rate. A few months before the trip discovered I had to have surgery on my legs for bad Varicose veins and that was another $1800 out of pocket. So about a week or two before our departure I had to cancel off one of our nt's from the GF. It was a tough decision but in the end we decided to splurge on MM.
 


Hi there! :wave2: Following along since I'm highly intrigued by your title!

Sounds like a good morning at AK so far! Love the picture of Mark peaking out from the door!

Glad you didn't have car troubles and it was an easy fix.

Can't wait to keep reading!
 
Jumping aboard. Looking forward to reading about your adventures
 


OK, caught up :thumbsup2

We are hoping to make it back for Magic Kingdoms 50'th anniversary.
I will be there! Can't believe I'm admitting this in writing but...........it'll be my 50th that year, too :rolleyes1

It seems that you have to order MM 3 days in advance.
Yup. I have clients that don't tell until the day before they travel that they want to order it unfortunately.

Glad you liked EE even though it's not your fave, but it's always great to experience everything! I do enjoy it and like to ride it every time we're in AK. Ricky loves it, but we haven't gotten Chris on it yet lol.

Looking forward to reading more!
 
Took me a while, but I got here!

With Magic Bands decorated it was time to work on getting on with this vacay.

Oh your MBs looked great! How did you do it!?

At this point I remember @MeghanEmily trip report titled Disney is Broken and was hoping that this wasn't a sign of things to come at Disney.

Uh oh...not a good sign! Disney was definitely broken on that trip!!

So he pulled into a gas station and checked the oil. It registered slightly low so he added a little since we had some in the trunk. That must have been the answer because we never had any more issues with it the rest of our trip. Sometimes it’s the simplest fixes…YAY.

Yay! Glad it seemed to be a quick fix!

I love Indy but believe it or not I'm allergic to the cold and will break out in hives if my skin gets too cold. Even slipping under cold sheets will make me itch.

Oh no! You definitely don't want to come up here in the winter then. It's about 27 in my hometown today. Ick.

Your AK day sounds like fun so far :)
 
:welcome:

Hi there! :wave2: Following along since I'm highly intrigued by your title!

Sounds like a good morning at AK so far! Love the picture of Mark peaking out from the door!

Glad you didn't have car troubles and it was an easy fix.

Can't wait to keep reading!

Welcome to my TR

Jumping aboard. Looking forward to reading about your adventures

Welcome aboard.

OK, caught up :thumbsup2


I will be there! Can't believe I'm admitting this in writing but...........it'll be my 50th that year, too :rolleyes1


Yup. I have clients that don't tell until the day before they travel that they want to order it unfortunately.

Glad you liked EE even though it's not your fave, but it's always great to experience everything! I do enjoy it and like to ride it every time we're in AK. Ricky loves it, but we haven't gotten Chris on it yet lol.

Looking forward to reading more!

Glad you found my TR. Your TR's helped me to plan this trip. Hope you enjoy it. Yeah bone head move on my part for MM. Sounds like a great way to celebrate your 50'th. EE may not have been my fave but I did enjoy it. Wait until you hear my thoughts on your beloved RR.


Took me a while, but I got here!



Oh your MBs looked great! How did you do it!?



Uh oh...not a good sign! Disney was definitely broken on that trip!!



Yay! Glad it seemed to be a quick fix!



Oh no! You definitely don't want to come up here in the winter then. It's about 27 in my hometown today. Ick.

Your AK day sounds like fun so far :)
Hi Meghan Emily welcome. I'm surprised you had the time I know how busy school has been. For the MB I purchased nail art stickers from Walmart, cut them to the design I desired and stuck them on. I then put 2 coats of clear nail polish over the top. These were cute but not as cute as my Pink one from 2014.



Here is my red one from 2014
 
Animal Kingdom Adventures part 2

After our lunch at Y&Y it was off to discover more of the park. We didn't have any FP's until ROL this evening so we were winging it until then. In the past I have been a park commando running back and forth across the park for the rides much to Marks dismay. This trip I vowed to take it slower and to enjoy where we were and what was around us. We happened across the Gibbons playing and enjoying themselves. We had several PP photo's here but again Disney is holding those hostage and I'm refusing to pay so for the rest of the day your stuck with our photo's and none of the PP's.
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Posed for PP w/ EE behind us and several around Asia with a magic shot of the Kaa the snake from Jungle book. We had fun visiting with the PP photographers.

Then we happened across the King Louie and Baloo M&G. They were just coming back from a break and we were third in line. I was so happy when I discovered that I had our own photo's from this M&G.

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Baloo liked my joke about just needing the bear necessities.

I loved this view of TOL

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After visiting our friends from the jungle we were in need of some liquid refreshments since we were parched from our adventures. We trapezed across the way to Warung Outpost and each got a Kingfisher. We continued exploring Africa and thought we would ride the Safari sb but the wait was too long, can't remember but am thinking it was over an hour. We watched the acrobats around Harambe market and the dancers in front of Ziwani Traders. While Mark watched the dancers I went to Dawa bar for a few more beers, this time I changed it up to Tusker as I enjoy it better then Kingfisher. I really wanted to try the Bloody Mary's here as Kari @kastoney highly recommends them, but it was too hot for me and I enjoy Bloody's when it's a touch cooler. I also didn't want to mix Tequila and Vodka in the same afternoon.

Our explorations took us out of Africa and over to Discovery Island where we made friends with a bug named Flick. Flick demanded we pose for some PP with him, though I have no pictures of my own to prove it. We wandered around the back of the TOL and enjoyed the peace and quite back here. Hardly anyone was around allowing us to take a ton of pictures without other people in them. This area is underrated in my opinion, I highly recommend you take the time to explore it.

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As we came out towards the front of TOL, ITTBAB was about to start so Mark and I grab our glasses and head in. This show was a first for us and we both enjoyed it, it was very cute. This was on my list of things to do and I'm happy it worked out that we got to experience it.

At this point we decide to walk over to Pandora to check it out. Sorry no pictures of this. After fighting the crowds of Pandora just to sight see it was time to check out a place so many of you rave about Tiffins and Nomads lounge. We arrived on the outdoor deck of Nomads lounge and chose one of many empty tables at around 4:30ish. As we sat and waited and waited and waited for our server Jorge we watched as all the tables became full. If coming here I recommend arriving before 5pm. Jorge took our drink order at 4:52pm and according to my time stamps on pictures we were served our wine at 5:08pm. It was at this point that I deleted all of my photo's from the day off from my phone and then discovered that not all of them were in my cloud. Majorly disappointed. But later I learned that google photo's did save them and I was able to go back and import the ones I wanted. Yay for small miracles. So anyone that has a google phone know that google photo's saves all of your photo's.

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We then ordered the Nomad Cheese Board to go with our yummy Wyndham Estate Bin 515 wine.

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I can't remember all of the cheese names but I enjoyed this entire plate with the exception of the fried flatbread it was sugar coated and I feel over powered the flavors of the cheeses. I loved the Marcona Almonds they were so fresh and I'm a huge fan of fresh honeycomb on my Roqfuert cheese (it reminds me of our Victoria and Albert's dinner in 2010). I believe that the jelly's were Mango flavored We paid our tab at 5:38pm and headed out to the ROL theater in Asia.

As darkness fell upon the Animal Kingdom Mark and I arrived at the theater with little time to spare before all of the seat in the FP section were taken. We sat 3 rows from the top. While we waited for the show we made fast friends with the little girl behind us. She was so sweet. I know most people think that ROL is one and done but I just loved this show. I enjoyed all of the light's and shadows on the trees on the other side especially the fireflies. This show is a visual delight that I look forward to seeing again, that is if it's still playing then.


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I must not have been keeping a good eye on shows and hours on Disney because they had scheduled a second show of ROL this night and I was totally unaware of it. After our delightful show it we were off to Pandora along with the rest of the crowd from ROL.

We were off to ride on the Navi river with our last FP. This was a pretty ride but I felt sorry for all of the people in the sb line waiting over an hour to ride it. Mark felt the same way. We walked around the Windtraders and I loved the personalized Avatar dolls that you could make to look like you. If I had a kid I would have gotten them one of these.
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We walked around and took several pictures of Pandora at night.
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At this point it was time to head out of the park since it was closing. We walked by the TOL and posed for some PP. We tried to watch Awakenings, but neither of us had the energy to stand there to wait for it to start. As we were riding the tram out to the parking lot we could see the fireworks from JBJB at DHS, they were good. So that concluded our Awesome Animal Kingdom day as we had an uneventful drive back to the condo. We quickly showered and fell into bed to dream about our next day in the Wonderful World of Disney.

I like the way that Caroline @disneyAndi14 does a break down for food totals on her TR so I think I'm going to do the same to prove to myself that it is cheaper not being on the dining plan. I'm only doing this for food as I'd be embarrassed for you all to see all the $ spent on alcohol. Todays food totals Y&Y $67 Nomads lounge $16.00 for a daily total of about $83. Sure beats the $151/day for the dining plan.
 
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I have a habit of running around the park too and on my last trip in Sept 2016 I slowed down for my Husband's sake and it was quite enjoyable. Taking in the site and sounds just gets to be so relaxing and just as enjoyable as rushing to do everything!

Sorry that your pictures are being held hostage!

I LOVE that picture of the TOL!! So beautiful!

I can't wait to check out Pandora at night. Looks so neat with all the colors.
 
Silently reading in the background. I loved how you decorated the MB's. I thought of trying that but never got around to it. Were you in Animal Kingdom on Dec 1st? It was my last full day in the parks as I left on the 2nd and we were in AK that day. Of course i was traveling with a mob and losing my husband constantly. we did the ROL show and I was amazed at how crowded it was but I love the show so it was worth it.
 
I'm finally here! I'm glad you had a great trip! Seemed to start off a little rocky but then all travel days are more or less just lots of stress and anticipation. Glad the car did not give you any issues!
Your photos are so cute! And I'm so happy the necklace worked out so well for you! It is definitely a conversation starter. Everyone loves the princess carriage!
Your magic band decorations are great! And that nomad cheese platter looks delicious! I always want to try this but i'm usually so full from eating at Tiffins. Can't wait to hear more about your trip!
 
For the MB I purchased nail art stickers from Walmart, cut them to the design I desired and stuck them on. I then put 2 coats of clear nail polish over the top.

Great idea! They look so nice!

This trip I vowed to take it slower and to enjoy where we were and what was around us.

I'm like you, so I'm going to try to do the same thing this trip. Especially to save my feet from getting too many blisters before the 5K.

I loved this view of TOL
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So pretty!

ITTBAB was about to start so Mark and I grab our glasses and head in. This show was a first for us and we both enjoyed it, it was very cute. This was on my list of things to do and I'm happy it worked out that we got to experience it.

This is a fun little show! I always feel bad for all the kids watching this who get scared though!! It's surprisingly scary for little ones sometimes!

We then ordered the Nomad Cheese Board to go with our yummy Wyndham Estate Bin 515 wine.

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Yum!

to prove to myself that it is cheaper not being on the dining plan.

It's definitely cheaper for us, too! We've done the math, and we like the convenience of the dining plan, but we definitely don't save any money if we ever do it!
 
Then we happened across the King Louie and Baloo M&G. They were just coming back from a break and we were third in line. I was so happy when I discovered that I had our own photo's from this M&G.

I love this meet and greet!

Sure beats the $151/day for the dining plan.

Definitely I feel like we always come out ahead of the dining plan.
 
I can't wait to check out Pandora at night. Looks so neat with all the colors.
I'm sure you'll enjoy it, it's very pretty.

Were you in Animal Kingdom on Dec 1st?
:welcome: We were there on Nov 30'th we just barely missed eachother.



This is a fun little show! I always feel bad for all the kids watching this who get scared though!!
I was afraid of that but the lil ones in our show didn't cry, I was surprised as I had heard it could be scary for them.

It's definitely cheaper for us, too! We've done the math, and we like the convenience of the dining plan, but we definitely don't save any money if we ever do it!
Plus we can do mobile ordering when paying out of pocket. I loved mobile ordering.....that is when I was able to get a wifi signal.

I love this meet and greet!
Their so fun!!


And that nomad cheese platter looks delicious! I always want to try this but i'm usually so full from eating at Tiffins.
:wave2: I really wanted to try that Octopus appy but that's only available in the restaurant not the lounge.
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If you still want the photos, send me a PM. We can (temporarily) connect on MDE and I can download them for you since I have an AP! Let me know!
:dogdance:Hi Lesley welcome. Thanks for the offer and I might PM you and take you up on the offer. I'm only missing the photos' from the first day so I'd probably be able to live w/o them.
 

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