August 2022: A Summer Girls Trip to Disney: Day 5, Part 1

Day 5: Sunday August 21, 2022

The alarms went off pretty early this morning. It was Animal Kingdom day for me, and Jessie’s Mears Connect pickup was about the same time Animal Kingdom was opening so we both needed to be up and moving early, for wildly different reasons.

Once I was ready for the day, we said goodbye and I headed for the bus stop. I must have made it there by 6, because my texts say the Animal Kingdom bus rolled up at 6:04. People…get to the bus stop 90 minutes before (early entry) opening. It’s worth it. I ended up being the only one on the bus again, even with the bus sitting at French Quarter until 6:12. I believe this was so the bus would get to Animal Kingdom without having to wait in a holding area. The bus rolled in right at 6:30. And yes, the only reason I remember specific timing details is because I went back and re-read text messages.

When I got to Animal Kingdom I was reminded of the thing I appreciate most about early mornings during August trips. It’s so nice to get to the parks while it’s still mostly dark out…especially Animal Kingdom. Could there be ANY less shade on the walk to/from the non-deluxe resort buses at Animal Kingdom?! This morning, though, with the sun not up yet (seriously…peep the moon), it was nice and…not brutally hot walking to the security line.

 
It was about a 15 minute wait before they opened the security lanes. I’d taken my dSLR out of my backpack and was thanked for that by the security guy that directed me to hold it in front of my head, and again by the security guy watching the screener monitors. If you have something bulky, take it out of your backpack!

I moved quickly towards the tapstyles, where I ended up at the front again. 3rd time in 4 days!

The wait here passed quickly enough. The folks behind me were a mother daughter group of teachers and future teachers from Canada, so we chatted until the tapstyles were opened up and then it was full speed ahead to Pandora…after passing through the resort guest checkpoint. Thankfully the technology was working this morning, unlike when Nick and I were here in March, so it was a quick process.

I landed in a pretty good spot on the bridge to Pandora, and they started moving the mass of humanity quickly, so pretty soon I was winding through the miles of queue for Flight of Passage without any real wait. I know I do a lot of waiting in the rope drop process, but it still feels more productive when I get to basically walk on the headliner than waiting in the post rope drop real lines, even if the opportunities to stop to take pictures are minimal.

Flight of Passage was awesome as usual. Navi River was still a walk on (although not posted as such because Genie+ money grab), so I went there next. I will never understand why they made the load zone for this one so small. It’s well done, but not 2 hour wait well done.

Next up? Africa! I did some picture taking along the way, including some that are technical failures, but that I thought just looked kinda cool.

The safaris was posted around a 20 minute wait I think, and was in fact a 20 minute wait. This worked perfectly with my schedule though and also gave my camera lens the opportunity to defog after living in the air conditioned hotel room for days. Today was absolutely feeling like FL in August!

It was a pretty awesome safaris, complete with elephants sparring!