“I Love You to the Disneymoon & Back!” || A September 2015 TR **Updated 10/17**

[TheMaxRebo]

First off, congratulations on your marriage and on getting to your Disneymoon!

Speaking of which, this is a man that looks ready to start his honeymoon off right!

That is great you were able to get the day off of work and start the honeymoon a day early. Sounds like a fun day!

I went to youtube to watch some performances of The Wild Rover and realized I totally know that song (including when to clap) but didn't recognize that as the name of the song. Definitely a fun one especially when the crowd is into it.

Well, the Poly definitely used to smell like a rain forest when it still had that big water feature in the middle of the lobby - not sure what it smells like now after the refurb though

Glad you found the Mara and that the food was pretty good. We've only eaten at Boma and Sanaa so far at AKL (with Sanaa being one of our new favorites)

Can't beat relaxing with some bubbly and watching animals from your balcony!

Ah, and Jiko the other AKL restaurant we haven't eaten at - It definitely can be fun to dress up some for a nice dinner out! Sounds like a nice evening and all your food looks wonderful

 

[DishonorOnYourCow]

Enjoying following along!

 

[DisneyHoover]

@TheMaxRebo -- Thank you! My scent memory tends to be not super strong but I want to say that when we walked through the Poly lobby on our way to the luau cove it didn't have a distinct smell anymore That's funny that you've only eaten at Boma & Sanaa since we never got around to eating at either of those while at AKL. We have dinner planned at Boma for my birthday trip in January since I'vd heard good reviews all around. We'll have to see if we can squeeze Sanaa in too! Thanks for joining in!

@DishonorOnYourCow - Welcome and thanks for reading along! (nice username by the way )

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Two - Part One

I guess I must’ve been more tired this morning since I finally didn’t wake up before my alarm today (8:30 a.m.). I took my shower and got ready, and then woke David up at 9:00 to much grumbling. He is really not a morning person or an alarm clock person so usually if he needs to be up by a certain time, I am his alarm clock (it's a thankless job). David’s contact lenses, which he had put in yesterday for the first time in months, were not working for him at all, so it was glasses for the rest of the trip. While he was getting dressed, I was kicking my feet up outside on the balcony--ahhhh, I could definitely get used to this view every morning.

David opted to go sans magic band today since we were headed to Universal, and he doesn’t like how sweaty his arm gets underneath it. I still rocked my Stitch magic band because it doesn’t bother me and we needed a way to get back into our room at the end of the day. We headed to The Mara on our way out to grab some breakfast; I was going to order the bounty platter but the line was crazy long so I just grabbed a bagel and some cream cheese instead. David was nice enough to drive so that I could munch on my bagel on the way to Universal.


Traffic wasn’t too bad and it felt like in no time flat, we were at Universal! We parked in the E.T. parking area, and started the semi-long trek along the moving sidewalks to the ticket counters. We walked up to an open counter with no line and showed our confirmation email for our annual passes. The Universal annual passes weren’t nearly as cool as the Disney annual passes -- they were basically printed on cardstock and super flimsy. Womp womp.

No sooner had we gotten into the park than it started to drizzle. I quickly checked my weather app and saw that a big storm was on its way; I told David that we should hurry and ride the Hulk roller coaster first before it closes for the weather and then head to the Spiderman ride since it was an indoor ride. (When I was a kid, my family had pretty much always visited Universal Islands of Adventure rather than Disney so I know that park like the back of my hand).

When we rounded to the corner to the Hulk we saw that it was closed until Spring of 2016 ! I hadn’t bothered to check if there were any rides closed for refurbishment at Universal like I had done for Disney. We headed directly to the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman ride instead. It was fun looking at all the details in the queue which wound through the Daily Bugles’ office space. The ride itself was a fun 4D experience which both my husband and myself enjoyed.

By the time we got out of the ride, it was raining cats and dogs. I figured that we could building hop to get to the cafe next door and grab some lunch since by this point it was almost 11, and David hadn’t eaten anything so far today. Well, when we got to the cafe, the only thing on the menu was.... pizza. Despite his deep love of pizza, he was really not feeling it this morning and had his heart set on a corn dog instead.

We tried waiting about 10 or 15 minutes for the rain to lighten up but it showed no signs of stopping and I was becoming restless so we decided to brave the downpour by doing some more building hopping. We decided to head to the Jurassic Park area since it looked like Thunder Falls Terrace had the best variety of food to appeal to both David and myself. We found a cart selling corn dogs along the way, much to David’s great pleasure, so he grabbed his lunch to go.

We managed to make it to Thunder Falls Terrace without getting completely soaked, and David grabbed us a seat near the huge window that looked out on the splash down portion of Duddly Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls. I got in line to order and had plenty of time to change my mind on what I was going to order because things moved fairly slowwwwly. In the end, I settled on the rotisserie chicken meal which came with two chicken pieces (a breast and a thigh) and two huge helpings of sides (I chose fries for David to share, and roasted potatoes for myself). For the $10 price, it was a pretty good deal and could easily have fed two adults (David and I couldn’t finish it).

My favorite thing about lunch was the little bit of pixie dust I got when I got to the cashier. My Disney “Happily Ever After” button was attached to my purse strap so I had worn it to Universal without really thinking about it. The employee ringing up my lunch told me congratulations and gave me a free dessert; it was a weird concoction called a Brookie which was a brownie with a cookie baked into the middle of it, and boy was it yummy! Both my husband and I got well wishes throughout the day because of our buttons which was pretty cool since we weren’t even in the Disney bubble!

When we finished with our lunch, the rain had finally abated to a light mist. It was time to actually explore the park!

(sorry for the lack of pictures in this post; despite the camera being waterproof, the pouring rain made me not think about taking any photos along the way during the morning; I’ll make up for it next post )​

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Two - Part Two

The first stop on our list was an area that in all my years of traveling to Universal Studios IOA I’d somehow managed to never visit (perhaps because my parents were roller coaster junkies so we skipped the non thrill attractions): the Jurassic Park Discovery Center. Although I think it’s primarily intended as a kids education/play area David and I had a lot of fun checking it out. You could “inspect” dinosaur eggs using a fancy gadget so that you can figure out what kind of dinosaur is inside, and use an “x-ray machine” to hunt for fossils.

We also go to meet Mr. DNA & create a Katie/Dinosaur hybrid by sampling some of my DNA and mixing it with the DNA of a dinosaur that had similar traits (they had me do a questionnaire). Sadly, in the end, the combination of my DNA & dino DNA was too unstable and so the world will forever be deprived of a Katiesaurus. After we finished up at the Discovery Center, we headed for our favorite part of the park: the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

David and I are both huge Harry Potter nerds. When the final movie came out we took part in a week long Harry Potter marathon at our local movie theatre which showed the first 6 movies, two a night on Monday through Wednesday and then Deathly Hallows pt 1 & pt 2 on Thursday night! The wedding party processional song for our wedding was Neville’s Waltz from the Goblet of Fire Movie. I also may or may not have a handmade wizarding robe in my closet.

This was our second time visiting the Hogsmeade part of WWoHP so we already had an idea of what we wanted to do. We headed for Dragon Challenge first since it was one of our favorite rides from our last trip. We quickly discovered that there were some ridiculously strict new safety procedures that had been put in place since we had last visited Universal. Now there were absolutely no loose items allowed on the ride (even in your pockets or a fanny pack!) so your cell phone, wallet, camera, and pretty much all of your worldly possessions had to go into a locker outside the ride. This would not be a very big deal... ifffffff they had more lockers available and a better system of moving people in and out of the locker area.

Instead they had perhaps 200 lockers available (with a 1 hour limit on them so you’d better hope the wait for the ride wasn’t too long) in a crowded area with only one real exit/entrance. It was packed wall to wall when we went to go put our stuff in a locker and none of the lockers were open. We had to stalk people to see who was getting their stuff out so we could use their locker once it was empty. Midway through the ride queue there was also a metal detector and anyone who set off the alarm was pulled aside for further screening. David commented as we were waiting in line that this ride queue was probably the safest area in the entire park. While I understand safety, all of this seemed a bit excessive, and I was also disappointing since we couldn’t get any pictures of the ride queue which was beautifully themed. Enough ranting, back to the trip report!

We chose the Hungarian Horntail rather than the Chinese Fireball, got in line and within a few minutes we were strapping into our harnesses. It was at this point that I realized I had made a critical mistake. In the past, I have always worn tennis shoes to Universal in the past because they have several leg dangling rides (including Dragon Challenge), and I’m paranoid about losing my shoes on the ride. Well, when I got dressed on this particular morning, I put on flip flops since I knew it was supposed to rain and didn’t want to walk around in wet, squishy socks and shoes all day long.

Now, as I was sitting, waiting to be launched into oblivion I was filled with dread about losing my flip flops (the only real pair of shoes I had brought on the trip other than some fancy sandals that were not made for walking around the parks). I asked the Universal worker what I should do with my flip flops and he told me I could either sit on my flip flops (what happened to no loose items?!) or clench my toes tight. I had already pulled down the harness and it had locked in place so sitting on my shoes was out of the question--clenching it was. The ride itself was super fun, but I think I probably would’ve enjoyed it more if I wasn’t clenching my toes/crossing my feet for dear life.


Good news -- I didn’t lose my shoes! Bad news--after the ride David and I were both reeling. This was my first time riding a roller coaster after being diagnosed with neuro-cardiogenic syncope, which doesn’t usually affect me too badly on a day-to-day basis, and boy did it hit me hard. I felt so dizzy and lightheaded that as soon as we got out of the exit queue I had to sit down to regain my ability to walk straight. David was feeling pretty miserable after the ride as well. We were both dumbfounded-- “We rode this coaster twice in a row two years ago; when did we get too old for roller coasters?”

After David & I felt a little bit better, we headed to Harry Potter & the Forbidden Journey next. Although this ride was kind of tipsy-tilty as well, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Dragon Challenge. We both think this ride is pretty darn cool because you feel like you really are flying and immersed in the environment. We were lucky enough to make it through both rides in less than an hour (barely) and were able to retrieve all our worldly possessions from the locker without having to pay. We browsed through a few of the Hogsmeade shops before we decided to ride the Hogwarts Express for the first time!

David and I were excited to see the Diagon Alley area in USO since it hadn’t opened when we were last at Universal. The wait to board the Hogwarts Express wasn’t too bad--probably only 10 minutes or so--and the theming along the way was pretty cool. David did almost get into an argument with the lady who was funneling people into lines to load onto the train. We reached the front of the ride and were stopped because they thought they were full. One of the lady’s co-workers shouted that there was room for three, so the lady starts asking if there’s any parties of 3 behind us. What?!? We’re a party of 2 so what you should be asking for is a party of one.

I thought my husband was going explode when the party of three pushed their way past us. Luckily, there was also room for us on the train even after that group of 3; otherwise, I’m sure that my husband would’ve spent the entire wait for the next train muttering very loudly about people who don’t know proper load procedure/know how to do math (as you will see later in this trip report, when he gets irritated he doesn’t hide it very well). I kept reminding him to let it go because we were on our way to Diagon Alley!!​

 

[TheMaxRebo]

wow, that seems like a lot of rain! I mean, it's Florida so you have to expect some but never fun when it really impacts things that much

Sounds like you wound up with a pretty good lunch though and at a reasonable cost for being in ta theme park

I enjoy HP (not to the extent you apparently do though ) but we haven't seen any of the HP stuff at Universal yet as my kids are still young and don't like anything with conflict in it so I haven't been able to bribe, er, convince them to read the books or watch the movies yet. Some day though - really looking forward to taking in the theming

 

[MeganAndOwen]

Enjoying following along!

 

[DisneyHoover]

@TheMaxRebo -- My husband and I don't mind a light rain but we're not a big fan of downpours; we were glad when it finally stopped raining. I was surprised how affordable the lunch was since we were in a theme park! Haha, hopefully your kids when enjoy Harry Potter as much as you when they finally choose to read the books/watch the movies!

@MeganAndOwen -- Thanks for following along!

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Two - Part Three

The train ride to London was quite interesting with scenes projected out of the window and shadows of Hogwarts students against the frosted doors of our compartment. We unloaded at King’s Cross station and made our way past the leaky cauldron, through the back alley into Diagon Alley!

We checked out several of the shops and watched some kids and adults with interactive wands perform magic spells. There were gold medallions on the ground in front of spots that you could perform magic spells along with a guide on the medallion that showed how you were supposed to move your wand to cast the spell. It was very fun to watch, though I’m not sure I would be willing to spend the $47 purchasing price to feel like a wizard for so short a time.

After walking around for a little bit, I was feeling kind of hot and hungry so it seemed like the perfect time to stop by Florean Forteque’s Ice Cream Parlor! Although they had some very interesting flavors, I went with the safer choice of vanilla; I love all sorts of food but when it comes to ice cream my favorite type has always been plane jane vanilla. David decided to pass since he’s not a big ice cream person.

After I finished off my ice cream, we headed to ride Escape from Gringotts for the first time. We stowed our bags in the locker area they had connected to the ride entrance (this locker system worked much better than the one outside of Dragon Challenge) and hopped into line. This was another beautifully queued ride and we got to walk through Gringotts (again sadly no pictures since we had no camera). It was a really fun ride and we fortunately didn’t feel too dizzy afterwards.

We headed out of Diagon Alley and decided to stop by the Knight Bus so I could get a picture with the bus. After waiting for my turn, I walked up and greeted the Knight Bus attendant. He asked what my name was and I told him it was “Katie;” he then introduced me to the shrunken head and it responded back with a “Hello Katie!” The attendant then saw my button and asked what we were celebrating, and I told him that David and I had gotten married and were on our honeymoon; I pointed to David (who was playing my photog) and the attendant said “This troll?!” with incredulity and the shrunken head echoed “Lucky troll!” By the time we were done talking to them I was laughing so hard.

We wanted to see both sides of the Hogwarts express ride so we headed back to King’s Cross station. One of the coolest parts of the line to the train was a part where, thanks to some movie magic with a glass pane, it looks like the people in front of you in line are walking through the wall onto platform 9 & 3/4. The projection show for the ride back from London to Hogsmeade had darker scenes including a dementor attack.

When we got back to Hogsmeade we decided that we were tired and ready to head back to the resort for the afternoon; I think the coasters/rides of the day had gotten to both of us. We had a very brief stop in Seuss Landing to check out the Lorax area (one of David’s favorite Dr. Seuss books), and then made the long trek back to the parking area. Since we were out of the Disney bubble already we decided to stop at Walmart and grab some water bottles, powerade, milk, and cookies.

When we got back to Animal Kingdom Lodge, David was craving some Pizza Hut so he ordered delivery for dinner (Pizza Count: #4). Meanwhile, I headed down to the Mara for food since I needed to get my couscous fix for the day; I swear I have been craving their couscous just about every day since I got home from Disney. I ordered a hamburger with a side of couscous and they were both delicious--the hamburger was surprisingly good for quick service.

After dinner I stopped by the Zawadi Marketplace to browse what Animal Kingdom Lodge specific merchandise they had; I had fallen in love with AKL and wanted to have a souvenir to remind me of the wonderful time after I got home. I found a couple of shirts that I liked but was having trouble choosing which one I wanted so I decided I’d wait and purchase one later. After this, I stopped briefly to enjoy the beautiful fireplace before heading up to the room.

When I got back, David was sitting on the balcony eating his pizza. I grabbed the champagne and headed out to join him. This afternoon was the first time that we saw zebras from our balcony! The zebra and a couple african wild asses were eating the grass right below us, and they were so close we could even hear the noise of them tearing up the grass. We spent the rest of the afternoon/night relaxing and then headed to bed fairly early since we had our first Disney day tomorrow! (According to my watch, we walked 8.3 miles today).​

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day 3 -- Part 1

Although I didn’t wake up before my alarm today (which was set for 7:45), I did wake up with a giant smile on my face and leapt out of bed. Today was our first Disney parks day-- we were headed to Animal Kingdom!!! My goal was to get ready, get David up, and head down to the busses around 8:30. I took a quick shower, threw some mousse in my hair (with the humidity & rain it pays to embrace the curls), and put on my Animal Kingdom outfit. Yes, you read that correctly; I did in fact plan out my outfits (and my husbands outfits) for each day of the trip. I am just that neurotic and dorky.

David was a little bit grumbly when I woke him up at 8:15, but got up and got dressed so I call it a win! After yesterday’s super long line at the Mara for breakfast, I figured it would be another bagel-to-go day as we headed downstairs. Sure enough, the line was already around 7-8 people long, and I wasn’t about to waste precious park time eating so a bagel for breakfast it was! I figured we’d probably have to wait a little bit for a bus to come anyways so I’d have time to eat my bagel at the bus stop. Literally, as soon as I sat down and took my bagel out of the bag, a bus for Animal Kingdom pulled up. Oh well, at least we didn’t have to wait!

Luckily the bus also wasn’t too busy this morning so we had no problem finding a seat near the back. I settled in and pulled my bagel back out and proceeded to start spreading on the cream cheese. Of course my husband decided to point out the big sign on the bus that indicated there was no food or drink allowed. I just ignored him and continued to eat my bagel like a rebel! The bus driver didn’t say anything when I got on clearly carrying food so I suspect the rule is more directed towards kids so the bus doesn’t end up all messy and sticky. It was a pleasantly short drive over to Animal Kingdom (ah, if only the rides to the other parks were as quick), and we got through bag check fairly quickly.

Our first fast pass started at 9:15 a.m. for the Kilimanjaro Safari and since we had made good time so far this morning, we had some time to meander along our way to Africa. We stopped and checked out several of the animals on the way in, seeing a Komodo dragon, a wallaby and some sort of bird whose name I don’t remember. We then headed over to Africa, and as we passed under the sign I had a dork moment. Anybody who watches See Ya Reel Soon will probably guess what line I said next to my husband, “Africa, Asia, Broadway, Dinosaurs alive and well!” He had seen a little bit of SYRS but still just shook his head and pretended not to know me until we reached Kilimanjaro Safari.

The fastpass line moved quickly, and we were loading up into our safari vehicle in no time. We got front row seats and I could barely hold in my excitement; every time I would spot an animal I would point wildly and shout out its name (“Look David, it’s a bongo! And back there is a kudu”) without even looking at the identification guide overhead. What can I say, I love African animals; my favorite animal is actually the bongo. Even the tour guide seemed a little impressed by my animal knowledge.

Even being the smarty-pants that I am, I learned quite a few things that I didn’t know about the animals; did you know a group of flamingos is called a flamboyance? About halfway through the ride we passed a baobab tree & the safari guide told us about how they survive arid conditions. An obnoxious lady in the row behind us asked if it was “a real baobab tree.” The cast member, to her credit, had a good, philosopher-worthy response: “You can see it can’t you? So it’s real.” The lady would just not let it go, though and kept repeatedly asking if it was real; it took around 6 or 7 times of the cast member repeating the same answer for the lady to get wise to what the cast member was saying indirectly.

We had to wait for a while near the end of the safari because there was a rhino blocking the road. It was cool sitting in the front seat because we got to hear the CMs talking to each other over their radios including a comment on the rhino that “It looks like he’s going to be a while.” Luckily, we ended up parked near a flamboyance of flamingos and got to watch a cast member feed them while carrying around what looked like an ipad. Just before we rolled on it looked like he was trying to count them--I wished him luck because they were certainly not making it easy on him! All too soon our safari was over, and so we decided to walk through the discovery island trails so we could admire some Tree of Life details and check out some more animals along the way.

I was super excited to get so close to the tree of life for this trip since the trails had been closed when we came for our trip two years prior. David and I had fun just sitting for a while and trying to see how many animals we could spot along the trunk of the tree and the tree roots. After sitting for a spell, it was time to head over to use our fastpass for..... Finding Nemo!​

 

[TheMaxRebo]

The Hogwarts Express is such a genius concept that they put in there (plus it drives up the sales of the 2-park tickets). Glad your experience on Gringotts was better than on Dragon Challenge ... seems like you got in what you needed to during your US time and were able to have a relaxing afternoon/evening with your lucky troll

Must admit I chuckled a bit reading about the "wild asses were eating the grass"

Sounds like a fun safari! ... though a pet peeve of mine is people that try to sound smart and ruin the magic - like the lady who was trying to get the bus drive to say that the baobab tree wasn't real. Like just google it if you are so worried about it and don't spoil the fun for the rest of us.

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Three - Part Two

The last time we visited Animal Kingdom, David and I had gone to Festival of the Lion King, so we decided to change it up and go watch Finding Nemo this trip; Davids mother and sister had given the show rave reviews so I was super excited to check it out. Wisely, we had fast passed the show so that we wouldn’t have to spend hardly any time standing outside waiting and we’d still get a good seat.

Apparently we had wandered around Discovery Island for just the perfect amount of time because within minutes of getting in the fast pass line, the doors to the theatre opened and we headed in. David wanted to sit down in the bubble zone (and he says I’m the one who acts like a little kid?) but I told him that we’d get a better overall view of the show from the first row of the upper section, right in front of the large middle aisle. We broke the Disney “move all the way down to the end of your row” rules and sat in the middle of the first row; the theatre wasn’t too busy though so no one bothered telling us to scoot over.

Apparently I was right about our view being awesome because we got an up close and personal view of the characters who came in from the sides and walked down the aisle; we even got a few stray bubbles to land on us as well. I loved the entire show -- the costuming and scenery were very visually striking and all of the cast members did a great job! The “Go With the Flow” song was super catchy and I walked out of the theater singing it (and honestly, couldn’t stop singing it for the rest of the day, hence, the title of today).

We had almost an hour before our Expedition Everest fast pass so we decided to go ahead and grab an early lunch at Restaurantosaurus in Dinoland U.S.A. My husband ordered the angus bacon cheeseburger (one of his favorite foods, right behind pizza). He liked the cheeseburger itself but found the bacon too floppy for his liking (he’s more of a crispy bacon person). I tried to go for something healthy(ish) and ordered the Chicken BLT Salad which was both delicious and surprisingly filling for a salad. After we finished eating, we headed to Asia for a ride on one of our favorite roller coasters: Expedition Everest! We had tons of fun on the ride, and luckily didn’t feel so nearly discombobulated as we did after the rides at Universal.

Although David is not a big fan of characters, I knew we had to meet Mickey and Minnie at the Adventurer’s Outpost since it’s one of the few/only places to meet the lovely couple together. When we got to meet the pair, Minnie immediately noticed my “Happily Ever After” button and started showing off my ring to Mickey. I started ribbing Mickey about when he was going to buy Minnie a ring. He brushed off the question, and Minnie started scolding him. The photopass CM tried to help Mickey out and said that Mickey was just looking for the perfect ring; Minnie then started scolding the photopass photographer as well! The whole thing was quite hilarious, and I even got some Mickey kisses! Even David seemed to enjoy himself though he didn’t say too much.

The main other thing we had scheduled for the day was the afternoon “Flights of Wonder” show, however, we still had quite a bit of time before the show after we left the Adventurer’s Outpost. To kill time, we ended up walking around the Maharajah Jungle Trek while we waited. We got to see a lot of animals including tigers, monkeys, and the biggest most terrifying, huge bat I’ve ever seen. My favorite part of the trek, though, was the bird area. At the entrance to the aviary there were laminated bird identification cards; David and I spent a good 20 minutes trying to see if we could spot one of each type of bird.

We headed back to the Flights of Wonder show area, we got our photo taken in front of the Tree of Life and bought some cinnamon roasted nuts to snack on while we waited. I love those nuts and always used to get them at the Oklahoma state fair before we moved to Florida; I’ve been missing them since we left so it was a nice treat! We showed up about 30 minutes before the showtime and were first in line. The weather had been cool and mild all morning long, but the sun had started to get hot by this point so we melted a little while waiting. It worked out well though, since we got front row seats with a great view of the stage.

My husband and I loved this show, and I’d highly recommend checking it out. One of the most hilarious parts of the show was when a fake tour guide was chased around the stage by a chicken and another bird stole his flag and stick. During another part of the show, a bird flew to an audience member, took a dollar out of their hand, and flew back to the stage. The bird trainer was nice though, and had the bird fly back and return the dollar to its owner, joking that “That’s got to be one of the only time a theme park gave you your money back!” When the show ended, we had one more activity that David wanted to do before we headed out of the park: the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail!​

 

[DisneyKates]

Yes, you read that correctly; I did in fact plan out my outfits (and my husbands outfits) for each day of the trip. I am just that neurotic and dorky.

Neurotic??? I thought that was what everyone does at Disney!!!

My husband and I loved this show, and I’d highly recommend checking it out

Ohh! That's on my list now!

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Three -- Part Three

We had skipped this trail earlier after we road Kilimanjaro Safari since we weren’t sure how long it would take to check out all of the animals, and we didn’t want to miss our Finding Nemo fast pass. We saw a ton of different animals including colobus monkeys (I have a funny story about those monkeys from Day 8 of our trip , okapi, meerkats, and gorilla. This trail also had an aviary area with laminated bird identification cards. We spotted quite a few of the birds before getting completely distracted by the weaver birds that were flitting around.

David noticed one weaver bird that was working on building a nest on a branch near the walking path so we stood and watched him weave little bits of leaves into his nest, working quickly like a skilled seamstress. After he finished with the strip of leaf he had, he would flit over to the plants and tear off another piece. Occasionally he would decide the leaf strip just wasn’t working for his nest or it was too difficult to weave and he’d just drop it down. Whenever he left his nest-in-progress, a few other male birds would fly over and try to claim the nest for their own. They would be promptly shooed away by the weaving bird as soon as he got back with much irritated chirping and wing flapping. Now when one female weaver bird stopped by it was a different story

We probably watched the weaver bird alone for a good 20 or so minutes. We also saw an adorable duck who kept diving under the water and zooming around. I didn’t want to leave, but David was getting tired and the skies were starting to cloud up so we decided to call it a wrap for the day. We did have one more stop to make on the way out--Dug & Russell meet & greet! On our last trip to Animal Kingdom we accidentally happened upon the duo meeting and greeting with absolutely no line and had a magical time, so, I wanted to see them again this trip.

This time around we did have to wait for a little while in line, but the queue area was in the shade and the line moved fairly quickly so it wasn’t bad. Dug is one of my favorite Disney animals; I even asked for a talking Dug plush toy for Christmas the year the movie came out (yes, I was 19 but are you ever really too old for stuffed animals?). I came so close to telling Dug “I have just met you and I love you!” but chickened out at the last moment. I had a fun time talking to Dug, and Russell loved my Lion King/Simba hair bow that I had worn specially for Animal Kingdom day (told you I was a dork!).

After we finished our meet and greet, we headed for the park exit. While walking out we saw a group of people standing around two CMs who were standing on ladders under a circular pedastal. I, being a curious person, decided to stop and figure out what in the world was going on. I’m so glad we did because all of a sudden around 20 macaws flew over our heads and landed on the pedestal. The CMs started feeding them and explaining how they had trained them to come to this pedestal by using food as positive reinforcement; the whole flock of birds is fully flighted so I assume they could fly straight out of Disney if they wanted to. It was very magical to see them all arrive and then depart at the same time -- definitely not something you get to see every day!

After that we finally left the park for real (I’m pretty sure we’d been trying to leave since around 2 p.m.). We got lucky on the transportation front and had a bus pull up just as we were getting to the bus stop. We headed back to the room and hung out on the balcony with some champagne for a little while (do you see a trend here in how we spend our down time?) Although the clouds had been rolling in and looking a little ominous, other than a few sprinkles the afternoon stayed dry. Around 5:30 or so we both took showers and got spiffied up since we were having a fancy dinner tonight at the California Grill.


We drove our own car to the Contemporary resort since we didn’t want to have to hassle with doing connecting transportation at a park (though the Contemporary would probably be one of the easiest with Magic Kingdom so close). When we pulled up to the gatehouse, I let the guard know we had a reservation at the California Grill, they scanned our magic band and then told us the best place to park. We headed inside and up the escalator to the second floor to check in for our 7:30 p.m. reservation. I had tried to make the reservation late enough that if we got a seat with an awesome view of the castle we could stretch out dinner and watch the fireworks from our table; but early enough so that if we didn’t get lucky on our table assignment we’d be done eating before wishes started and could watch from the balcony.

The lady at the desk noted on the reservation that we were celebrating our honeymoon, handed us a pager and told us to wait by the special, California Grill exclusive elevator. There is a specific cast member whose job it is to ferry people from the second floor check in desk up to the restaurant and make sure no freeloaders get on. I’m guessing this is most strictly enforced closer to Wishes time. We sat down in the lounge area while waiting for our buzzer to go off and took in the beautiful views of the castle and Space Mountain (I was so engrossed that I didn’t manage to actually get any photos of these stunning views). After waiting about 5 minutes our pager lit up and it was our turn to go eat some delicious food!​

 

[DISNEYMOON10121991]

Enjoy reading about your honeymoon.
Can't wait to see how your dinner at the Calif. Grill was. Have that restaurant on the possible list to celebrate our 25th anniversary dinner next year!

 

[MrsSykes2014]

Loving your Disneymoon report, my husband and I leave for ours next Saturday.