Thanks everyone for your kind words! The last couple weeks have been stressful but the good news is there are lots of options out there. I'm hoping to go back to school this summer to get my certificate in instructional design, which would be a slight career change for me, so I'm hoping this year to find a decent contract or temp job that will be okay with me moving on after a year or so. We'll see where the chips fall!
I also hope those who celebrated had a nice and safe Christmas. We stayed home and resisted the offer from DH's family to visit them. It was hard but we made the right call. There have been a lot of exposures among his siblings lately and it just didn't seem worth the risk.
But I do have some good news! My dad got his first shot of the Covid vaccine yesterday. It really feels like this thing is approaching the end. Hang in there my friends!
Day 2 (Thursday, October 29), Part 1
We woke up around 9 am. Like I mentioned, April usually sleeps later, but when she’s in bed with me, she will wake up much earlier than normal, and immediately wants to play when she sees me. So she wasn’t going back down, which was fine. We were ready to get started with our day.
We started getting breakfast ready, when I realized April’s booster seat wasn’t in the room. I knew I had packed it (see the car pictures from the day before), but it definitely wasn’t in the room. I remembered the bell services castmember saying everything had been taken out of the trunk, which is where it had been, so I assumed it had gotten left with bell services, so I called them to ask if they had it. They didn’t immediately see it, but they said they would check further. I decided to go back down and double check the car in the meantime. Lo and behold, it was there! I guess the castmember hadn’t realized it was something to bring up? But either way, it was as much my miss as his. I brought it back up, and shortly got a call from bell services asking for more details, so I let them know that I’d found it. Mini-crisis averted!
We ate breakfast and got ready. At one point, I had April try on her new princess-themed magic band.
It was still a bit big on her and she obviously found it uncomfortable. She didn’t really wear it after that little photoshoot.
Around 11:30, we finally got out of the room and drove to Animal Kingdom. It was a little later than I’d hoped, given that AK has very short hours these days, but I wasn’t too stressed; I knew we’d have a great time either way.
I took a picture of our parking row, something I don’t always remember to do. No aimless wandering for us today!
First order of business was to get myself an iced flat white from Creature Comforts. Then we decided to hit the Safari, which had a wait of about 15 minutes posted. We got there and parked the stroller and put April in her structured Tula carrier (I used a ring sling back in February which I liked better, but I had since forgotten how to use it properly with her larger size. I know how to use it now though!). The line ended up being pretty much a walk-on, and soon enough we were seeing animals. I put Dad in charge of pictures while I held April. I don’t think she could really see or recognize much, but it was still nice to do a ride together!
After the Safari we walked through the gorilla trail as it was open. At some point, April fell asleep, which meant she missed the gorillas! And the meerkats, which we had a lot of fun watching. Oh well. They had a pretty good system for getting people through the gorilla exhibit quickly and safely, since that area usually ends up being a crowded free-for-all.
My dad had been talking about getting a new hat, so after the gorilla trail he looked at the hat display while I went to the nearby bathroom with April, who’d woken up. We chilled out at a nearby bench after for a bit and let April stretch her legs. Now that she’s so mobile, I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her to be stuck in a stroller or carrier all day. DH texted to ask for a picture of April, so I quickly took this one for him.
My dad also took some, but he didn't send them until later.
We decided to go to Pandora next. It was about 2 pm by this point. I had my heart set on Flight of Passage, since I hadn’t ridden it since before I was pregnant. We got to Pandora via the Africa entrance and assessed our options. Navi River Journey had a pretty long line, which according to the Lines app (which you MUST get; it’s free with a subscription to TouringPlans.com and predicts actual wait times as well as recommends the best times to experience each attraction) was going to go down a bit. Flight of Passage was listed as an hour, but the app predicted it was a bit shorter than that, maybe 40-45 minutes. We weren’t starving, so this seemed like the best option right now.
My dad cannot do Flight of Passage. He’s tried it a couple of times and it always exacerbates his motion sickness, so we wouldn’t need to do a rider swap. I was a little worried at how April would fare without me, but Dad was more than willing to watch her even if she got cranky. We went to the queue entrance and somehow, I was able to enter the queue without April noticing that I was no longer the one pushing the stroller. Phew!
Had to get a selfie of myself in line.
I also snapped this picture in the laboratory room. I don’t know if anyone reading this watches The Venture Bros, it’s a fairly obscure Adult Swim show, but there’s a character who’s modeled after this virus.
The queue moved pretty quickly, and as often is the case, being a party of one worked to my advantage, when I was able to get in at the tail end of a boarding group. I think there was some confusion though, because the door to the genetic matching room almost closed in front of me, and a cast member in the link chamber room mentioned they weren’t supposed to let me in there, but I definitely was just going where I was told! I’m sure with having to keep space between parties the loading math that castmembers have to do is extra hard these days.
But the confusion was settled, and I was given a pair of flight goggles and a banshee. It was an amazing ride as always. This remains one of my favorite rides in the parks.
By the time I was exiting, it had been about an hour total since I’d gotten in line, so all in all, the Lines app had been pretty accurate.
I got a hold of Dad, who had gone to Asia to get a drink from the Yak and Yeti bar. He said April had found a piece of a plant and was contentedly playing with that, so she hadn’t even noticed I was gone. Great! He said he would make his way back to me. We were hungry for lunch, so I said I would order a mobile pickup from Satuli Canteen. I texted him the menu, and he let me know his order.
A few minutes later he managed to find me sitting across from the restaurant entrance. We got a table outside and I pushed the button in the app to have our food prepared. April played with her leaf while we waited.
I have to say, I hope they keep this widespread mobile ordering after the pandemic is over. It’s really convenient to not have to stand in line to order.
Neither of us snagged pictures of our food (I think we were super hungry and forgot), but I got a beef bowl with noodles and creamy herb dressing. My dad got chicken, but I can’t remember the base or sauce. I want to say rice and creamy herb dressing. I miss the original rice base they had, but the noodles are pretty tasty! I know I shared some with April, who just loves noodles.
After lunch, really the only thing left to do was Navi River Journey. The wait was still a little long for Dad’s taste, but there really wasn’t anything else we could do with a baby. Plus, I reasoned, standing in line is not the end of the world. We’re together, we’re bonding, it’s really not a big deal. We were even able to keep April in her stroller until we had to go past the tapstiles.
Like many queues during this time, it stretched out and looked longer than it was. It was about a 40 minute wait, but it stretched all the way to the bathrooms. It’s still a longer wait than I would normally be willing to do, but without Fastpass it’s the best chance to get on the ride. While we were in the line, my dad’s brother facetimed us, so that was nice to take some time to talk to him. Soon enough, it was time to board.
She stayed awake this time at least, unlike back in February where she slept on this and pretty much every ride. She also seemed very interested in the shaman animatronic. I wish I’d been able to get a picture, but it was great to see her reaction.
After that, it was pretty much 5 pm. A few people we overheard were making mad dashes to get in the queue for one last ride before the park closed, but we had done pretty much all we wanted to do at Animal Kingdom. So we had a couple of options, which we discussed as we headed towards the exit. We could either go back to the Riviera and freshen up before dinner, or go straight to Disney Springs. Dinner wasn’t for a couple of hours, but I was getting nervous because I’d heard horror stories of people with ADR’s still getting blocked out of Disney Springs because they were at capacity, and I didn’t want that to happen to us. Dad had some shopping he wanted to do there anyway, so we decided to head straight there.
We got to the AK parking lot, and found our car no problem (thanks Rachel from several hours ago!) I put April in her car seat, and almost immediately a breeze picked up and sent the stroller flying! My dad raced after it and caught it just as it bumped against another parked car (I don’t think there was any damage though). But how scary! I wonder if it would have still gone flying with a 20+ lb baby in it. After this incident, I always made sure to lock the stroller as soon as we got to the car until I was ready to fold it up in the back.
Slightly traumatic experience over, we got in the car and made our way to Disney Springs. That’s up next!