It was a short night. I think my alarm went off at 5. But WE’RE IN DISNEY!!! I got up and started getting ready and then around 5:20 I woke up Nick with “We're in Disney, get moving!!”. He’s a good sport so he messed with my hair, chuckled and dragged himself out of bed, asking if I had planned time for a nap later.
We got ready for the day, and after getting pictorial proof that I was ready for rope drop, we headed for the bus stop. We got there a couple minutes after 6, which seemed perfect, but the bus time monitor already had a time for the bus to Animal Kingdom and it was almost half an hour away. Huh, that doesn’t make sense.
Thankfully a bus to Animal Kingdom actually showed up about 5 minutes later. That made a lot more sense. What I’ve learned over the last few years is that buses appear to start dropping off at parks an hour before early entry starts. And unless something is really not clicking, all the resorts will have a first bus roll in within a couple minutes of that hour before mark. That’s why I always am at the bus stop 90 minutes before early entry starts.
We were the second to last bus stop so it wasn’t much longer before we were truly on our way to Animal Kingdom. It was a quiet bus ride over and we rolled in JUST after 6:30. Perfect!
Turns out Riverside is one of the first bus stops in the second bank of bus stops, so it was a quick stroll over to security, where we joined the pretty manageable line. We hung here until about 7, me enjoying the sight of that giant Christmas tree, grateful that I’d thrown on my lightweight hoodie, because while warmer than home, it was only 53 degrees this morning.
As it became clear that security was about to open, I pulled Nick’s sunglass case that had gotten me stopped by the mousestappo numerous times in February, planning to hold it out in front of me going through the scanners. Nick grabbed it from me, so I told him numerous times to do that.
The scanners opened and…he didn’t listen effectively. So off to secondary he went, me watching all the people that had been behind us in line pass me as I waited for his wanding to be done.
We then headed for the tapstyles, still ahead of the worst of the crowd since he was about the second person sent to secondary screening, but not as close to the front as we could have been. Listen closely when the Disney Dork tells you something about Disney process!
We waited for a bit, me realizing disgustedly that I’d picked a line that wasn’t going to split when they opened the tapstyles. Thankfully, pretty soon, they created another line next to ours kind of to split the next closest line, and we were able to get ourselves into that line, much closer to the front. Seconds matter people!
Miraculously when the tapstyles were opened (around 7:15?), the people in front of us had clearly scanned into a park before, so we were headed to the resort guest check for early entry pretty quickly. This process also worked, and then we walked briskly to the bridge near Nomad Lounge. We were only held here for a couple of minutes before we were led as a mass to the line for Flight of Passage.
We weaved our way through the queue and only had to pause for a couple of minutes before being assigned a link chamber.
Jessie had told me that the imaging wasn’t as crisp anymore on this one when she rode it this summer. In light of her observation…it wasn’t as bad as I expected, but Flight of Passage could definitely use a re-calibration. Wouldn’t surprise me if that doesn’t happen until the new Tropical Americas section opens though. It was still fun, and I’ll ride again if I get to Disney next summer. But the imaging definitely isn’t as clear as it once was.
After Flight of Passage, we headed for Africa. It was time for a safari after finding a couple African Christmas decorations.
Our safari was a good one, even though the truck loading cast clearly wasn’t communicating with the row assigning cast and so I ended up on the inside of the truck, because there is definitely NOT room once you’re within the railings for Nick to squeeze by me to put me on the outside of the truck, even with the weight he’s lost. Not only did we see a lion awake, but it was stalking a rhino, so it was a pretty entertaining safari.
After safari it was time for second breakfast. Nick and I both got guava cream cheese danishes and he got some cold brew situation at Tamu Tamu. He said the cold brew was mid. As for the danish, well, we both loved it, and when I couldn’t finish mine (remember…second breakfast), he finished it for me. He then asked me how long I’d been holding out on him with the knowledge that these existed. I think they might have shrunk since I got one last summer, but seriously…delicious!
Second breakfast consumed, we worked our way toward Asia. Once in Asia, we were really pleasantly surprised to see only a 20 minute wait time for the Everest Standby line. By this point, it was shortly after 9 am, so the park had been totally open for over an hour and early entry had started even earlier. I had fully expected a longer wait. Since it was such a short wait, we went for the standby line rather than single rider. We were on a train in about 15 minutes.
Everest was awesome as always, obviously. I think it’s still my favorite attraction in Disney.
After escaping the Yeti, we headed to the land that’s still loosely considered Dinoland for one final ride on Dinosaur. We walked right into the pre-show. This was…well…Dinosaur on its way out. It’s never been a favorite of mine. Nick’s review was “I can see why they’re retiring it; it’s so dark, you can hardly see anything”. We took a few last pictures of what’s left of the land we never really appreciated as we headed out to the Discovery Island area.
Once back in Discovery Island, it was time to check out Disney World’s newest attraction: Zootopia: Better Zoogether. I photographed my way to the real entrance, where, despite a 20 minute posted wait, we only had to wait a couple of minutes for the next show to start.
What to say about this one? Well…they did a good job keeping all the same effects, but making them not scary. However, they need to tone down both the volume and the water feature. I think the show was cute, and could follow the story line well enough, but it was so loud that I couldn’t hear most of the dialogue. As an added bonus, I left the show feeling like I’d just taken a shower. I’m hoping that these were first week things that will be worked out, but not super optimistic. I’ll probably check it out again this summer to see if things have improved when I need an air conditioning break, but I don’t anticipate this one making it on my must-do list.
From here we browsed the stores and did some picture taking, while trying to figure out where/when the Merry Menagerie would appear, since the show times said they should already be around.
And then I basically turned around and there they were, already out and about. Not quite sure how that worked but hey. I was very excited to finally see this, and Nick who had had no idea what I was talking about, was clearly also pretty impressed.
Merry Menagerie enjoyed, we headed for Asia to see the tigers. Because who doesn’t want to see the tigers? One of them was pretty noisy today.
Tigers observed, it was time to see about an early lunch. We headed over to Yak & Yeti, which I hadn’t originally thought to make a reservation for. Then, shortly before the trip, an email about a birthday reward (to the tune of $25) rolled in from Landry’s, and it made it on my radar. But by then, reservations were all booked up.
But, I have that Landry’s Select card from when we went to Universal a couple years ago. So, we headed into the hostess stand, I showed my card and was told we would be seated in 10-15 minutes. Works for us!
We actually got the text that our table was ready less than 5 minutes later. We headed inside and…thoroughly enjoyed our first ever meal here. Service was great. Food and drinks were excellent. I had the honey chicken to eat, and the Himalayan Sunset to drink. The drink was refreshing (and multiple servings). My meal was delicious. Nick had the Cantonese Beef Chow Fun. This was also delicious and a massive portion. Nick’s advice for Yak and Yeti is to “go hungry”. We’d absolutely eat here again.
After lunch, it was time for a nap. So we headed for the bus stop, enjoying a bit more of Merry Menagerie and taking Christmas tree pictures on the way.
A bus came along within 10 minutes of us getting to the bus stop and soon enough we were back in the room for naps and good air conditioning. It had warmed up into the mid 70s, which was a LOT warmer than it had been at home recently.
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