"I've been waiting my whole life for this!" (says the 3 year old) - A September 2023 WDW Trip Report!

[VicarJT]

Fun to follow along with you! Of course the kiddos are adorable, and I marvel at your energy levels!

 

[mi*vida*loca]

What a great start to the trip. You’ve done a lot all before noon.

I love the haircuts. They look adorable!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Real life update -- Celebrated our anniversary last night and had a wonderful time!! I'll get back to posting shortly ​

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Friday 9/8/23 - Park Day 1: Magic Kingdom! (continued)

After the parade ended, we all were getting hungry so I mobile ordered lunch at Casey's and we cut through the shops for a nice AC break while we waited for it to be ready. It was the usual mad-dash to try to find a table, but eventually I snagged one that was at least half shaded- us parking the kids on the shaded side & Matt and I dealing with the sun on our necks. We made a mental note to reapply sunscreen after we were done eating since it was already 12:30 and we hadn't re-applied yet. I took a few pictures of the kids new haircuts while Matt ran in to pick up our mobile order.



In no time, Matt returned with our order and in true Casey's fashion, it was delicious and every single bite was devoured. we ordered two things of corn dog nuggets + fries (with cup o plastic cheese, of course), a LARGE Coke, and a frozen mint julep lemonade which was to die for!!!! Seriously we all were obsessed with that thing.



Unfortunately here was another brief episode where I was overcome by nausea (probably the same combination of heat + eating too fast + whatever weird stomach thing I've been battling - see Pre-Trip Report for more info) but thankfully it passed relatively quickly.

While we were reapplying sunscreen, 1:00 rolled around and I tried to join the VQ for Tron for Matt & I.



Success!!!!! We were so excited!! I also modified our Jungle Cruise to 2:30, still trying to push things back since the wait times were still so manageable. As we cleared off our table for the next family to sit down, we noticed the skies darkening & it appeared rain was coming in quick. Matt & I decided quickly that we'd head over to Tomorrowland since they have that great, huge stroller parking area that's completely covered - across from Monster's Inc Laugh Floor. We figured we'd hit some indoor rides in that area (People Mover, Buzz, maybe Monster's Inc etc.) and wait out the rain.



As we parked the stroller, Matt & I switched shoes (which felt soooooooo good, by the way) to our sandals just in case. We first booked an immediate return time for Buzz since the posted wait time was 20 minutes (though it probably wouldn't have taken that long) and scanned in at the tapstiles. Shortly after entering the LL however, the line stopped moving and we were stuck there for about 8 minutes. There was a nice couple behind us that overheard DS3 talking about how he was going on a secret mission in uncharted space to defeat Zurg and Pixie Dusted the kids with two very beautiful white rocks with Mickey heads bedazzled out of rhinestones. I'm not doing a very good job of describing them and of course I didn't get a picture but the kids are obsessed with them and still play with them to this day. It was very sweet, and we felt so so fortunate with all the love we've been experiencing today!! The line eventually started moving again and soon enough we were on our way to space.



Matt always gives me a hard time because I don't 'help' the kids while we do any sort of competition style game (Buzz, Toy Story Mania, etc.) but what can I say, I'm here to win baby!!!!!

And just look at that intense focus!!! LOL. I didn't do great this day, scoring 117k. As we debarked Buzz, the rain still hadn't come yet so we hopped in line for People Mover.




We had a relaxing ride, and the CM asked if we wanted to stay on for a second loop but we declined. After getting off though we realized we should have taken him up on his offer since the rain conveniently waited for us to get off before it started coming down! It started out strong-ish but within no time was just barely drizzling and felt amazing- it cooled us all down and we happily walked toward Fantasyland to our next LL- Winnie the Pooh.

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Friday 9/8/23 - Park Day 1: Magic Kingdom! (continued)



While in line for Winnie the Pooh, they must have closed down Jungle Cruise and it became an "anytime experience". Yay! No more needing to "modify" the time, now we could just go whenever we wanted. After Pooh, we made a quick stop at the Tangled bathrooms before heading to our next LL, which was Haunted Mansion. I LOVE the sound the tapstiles make when you scan your magic band, but this time the area was too crowded/noisy and I couldn't hear it. Boo!



I've told Matt 100x where the camera is but either he missed it or is genuinely terrified It's not real, Matt!!!

DS3 and I on the other hand, rocked it- though I'm not quite sure where he's looking:



By the time we got off, the brief rain had long passed and it was back to being a beautiful day. I made a note of how perfect this weather was- it wasn't too hot at all and there was a nice amount of cloud coverage as well. We were so lucky in terms of weather this trip!!

We booked an immediate return time for Pirates, so made our way over there. As we were walking that way, we noticed Jack Sparrow was doing meet & greets so we quickly joined that line. The kids had a super cute exchange with him, DS3 informing Jack that he (DS3) had taken his treasure. Jack wittily replied "you mean the treasure I don't have? you stole my nothing!" and that went back and forth between him & the kids for a while and it was very cute. We told him we were on our way to Pirates next and he asked us to say hi to Hector for him, which we promised we would.

While in line for Pirates, our VQ was called for Tron!!! Yay! I also booked another LL for TTA while we were in line.




So after we got off, we headed that way. As we started approaching the area, DD4 started getting weepy about mom & dad taking turns to go on a grown-up ride. I think she was just tired but was fighting a nap something fierce. We decided I would go first in the VQ, then thanks to Rider Swap Matt would get to go in the Lightning Lane and not have to wait as long. By the time I said goodbye to Matt & the kids, DD4 was full-blown crying. I felt awful obviously but know enough that lingering just makes it worse so I bid them a quick adieu, advising Matt to maybe go pick up a special treat while they waited for me. The CM who set up our Rider Swap said it would be a 45 minute wait, but it ended up being less than 20, huzzah!

During that 20 minute wait, DS3 had fallen asleep so only DD4 (still weepy) got to enjoy a Mickey Bar.




This picture cracks me up She is clearly unhappy but trying to force a smile for the sake of the picture & her mickey bar LOL

Unfortunately I didn't get any of our ride photos from Tron, ever throughout the trip (so that's a total of 4 missing photos!) and despite entering submissions for them I still haven't heard anything. Sigh- they look so cool!!! I wish we could see ours. The ride was super fun!! Very brief, but soooo smooth & just a very cool experience. This one I'd be slightly more inclined to pay an ILL for if they do away with the VQ, at least compared to 7DMT, but still I don't know that it would be entirely worth it since the ride is so short. Either way, I had fun though! After getting off and reuniting with Matt/the kids, we swapped places and I decided to get us a Popcorn Bucket for the rest of the trip. Who doesn't love buttery salty popcorn?! So I grabbed one of those and a strawberry ice cream bar for DS3 who had woken up.



I had told Matt to text me when he got to the lockers, and when he does we would head that way to try to get a video of him when the bikes come into the outer portion of the area- and I was able to get said video! It took me like 6 recordings of random strangers until I finally saw him

Another funny thing happened while he was in line for Tron - and I'll let the screenshot of the text tell the story



Hahahahaha so I'm not sure why this girl (Matt estimated her to be about 9 years old) did this to him but Matt says she was with 3 adults, and that she leaned forward to look between the three adults, pointed at Matt, did the thumb across throat thing, and then lean back and he never saw her again. He said when she did it he did the typical "looked over his left shoulder, looked over his right shoulder- are you talking to me?!" thing and was just flabbergasted by the whole thing

After he got off the ride, clearly having moved on from creepy girl, he said "that was like the best 20 seconds of my life!" which gave me a good chuckle. I submitted our missing ride photos right then and there, but as I said - no luck.

We made our way toward the cars, with DS3 asking to ride with me & DD4 was to ride with dad.

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Friday 9/8/23 - Park Day 1: Magic Kingdom! (continued)









I of course was stuck with crazy driver guy, who you can tell from these pictures was having a blast whipping his mama around the track. Let's hope his driving skills improve in the next 13 years!

By this point it was about 4:30 and we had done a LOT, but still had more we wanted to accomplish before we were booted from the park at 6 for the MNSSHP, so we made our way toward Little Mermaid at the kids' request. EDIT**** I'm realizing now that based on the kids hair not being cut yet, that I put these pictures in the wrong spot. WHOOPS! I guess we took these at some point in the morning?!??! Who knows. I'm old and clearly my memory is failing. LOL



The CM told DD4 to hold her dress like Belle, DS3 to growl like the Beast, Matt to hold up an arm like Gaston and me to "look like a princess" ......and I guess this was the best I could come up with




I marvel at how photogenic I can be, LOL

We made our way for Little Mermaid, booking an LL even though the posted standby time was 5 minutes.

While getting off the ride, DD4 asked "can you take my picture?" so I of course obliged.





Now SHE is photogenic (Mickey Bar crying pic excluded )

 

[saraheliz]

I love the margarita's in the 25th anniversary glasses, we actually just scored a set of 4 of those those at a thrift store recently and they've become the favorite to use in our house!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Friday 9/8/23 - Park Day 1: Magic Kingdom! (continued)
After Little Mermaid we made a quick pit stop at the restrooms by Gaston's, and entered Fantasyland- where we walked on to It's a Small World.



At some point I had made a LL for BTMRR however it was getting closer and closer to 6pm and we didn't want to walk all the way over there so we decided to close out our day in Fantasyland.

Our last "ride" of the day being Mickey's Philharmagic. As we were waiting in the little pre-theater waiting area, there was a family behind us with 2 kids a little younger than ours, maybe 18 months & 3? And it was apparent that the entire family had had enough (no judgement from me! I have kids, I get it) but the dad was getting IRATE with his kids, and even spanked one and then yelled at said kid for crying after being spanked. Once we entered the theater, that family was seated behind us and the entire time, one of the kids had his feet on DS3's chair and was kicking it incessantly for the entire show- to which the dad said nothing. Upon exiting, Matt and I were like huh??? Let me get this straight- you yell at your kids for being, well, kids (especially tired, overstimulated, overheated kids at that) but then don't say a single thing when he's actually doing something disruptive to other guests?

Oddity aside, we had a great show- the kids (and adults!) really love this attraction.




At some point during Philharmagic my phone died (boo!) and I didn't bring the right cord for the portable charger, so I was SOL. But as we returned our glasses it was already just about 6 so we made our way toward the park exit. We were trying to take the quickest route, which would have been cutting through the castle, but there were CM there who had blocked it off and were directing traffic out the other way - which doesn't make a ton of sense to me but maybe there is a parade or show or something right away at the beginning of the party?? We've never done it so I'm not sure, I just know it took us 20+ minutes to exit the park, oof!! It was a long, slow moving line of cattle being herded toward the exit. There was a family behind us who we overheard make the remark to his wife "it's kind of funny how quickly you go from being treated SO nicely to becoming chopped liver.... they're like GET OUT OF HERE AND GET OUT OF HERE NOW!"

On our way out (and as a way to stall our departure) I decided to stop in the Emporium since we had discovered earlier that the kids' bubble wands weren't working. They made bubbles, but they just all clumped at the top of the wand like one giant soapy, sticky, bubbly mess and they were completely worthless. The CM we approached was very much "meh, not my problem" and told us to try a different bottle of bubble solution.. for $2/ea for 2 tiny little bottles. Sigh, I guess I'll try that. So I did a mobile checkout since the Emporium was an absolute ZOO, which worked out super slick until it came time to trying to actually leave the store- you're supposed to show your barcode to the CM standing by the exit, but they were wrapped up in something so we just stood there patiently waiting for a few minutes until they could check us out.

We stopped for one last popcorn bucket refill at the cart just before the exit, and started our journey back to the TTC via ferry.


When we finally made it back to the resort, we all took showers & ate a hodge podge of dinner items - some of us had leftovers from Homecomin' (Matt), some had the leftover snacks we didn't eat from the park that day, pb&j sandwiches, oranges, cheese slices, etc. (the kids), and some of us had handful after handful of slightly stale popcorn (me)

Since it was still so early, I used the down time to do laundry, prep the stroller for AK the next day, lay out our clothes, etc. We were all in bed watching TV by 8:30, until we heard the fireworks going off at Epcot at 9 and all sprung out of bed to check them out - first from our bedroom window:




And eventually moving to the balcony- where we had a great view!! The bedroom window had water spots and made it a little bit harder to see.



All in all it was a WONDERFUL first day- absolutely perfect! We had the best weather, minimal crowds, rode everything we wanted, were pixie dusted TWICE, had 2 great character interactions and just had the most magical time. It was such an amazing way to start our trip!!

TOTAL STEPS: 23,309

Up next: Park Day 2: Animal Kingdom! 9/9/23

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Following along!! Love the Disney jammies!

Thank you!!! Target!!

Fun to follow along with you! Of course the kiddos are adorable, and I marvel at your energy levels!

Thank you!! I will say that our energy slowly tapered off each day It's funny, in the planning stages of WDW trips I'm always like "let's add another park day! We can rest when we're dead!" and then during/after the trips I'm like "next visit, we NEED to add in more rest days" LOL

What a great start to the trip. You’ve done a lot all before noon.

I love the haircuts. They look adorable!

Thank you!! Best $20 ever spent!!!

I love the margarita's in the 25th anniversary glasses, we actually just scored a set of 4 of those those at a thrift store recently and they've become the favorite to use in our house!

WOW, what a great find!!!!! I swear our thrift shops never have anything good, I'm jealous!!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Let's see if this works!


I like to make little video recaps of trips - but with this one being so much, I've also broken it down into one video per day. I had the hardest time figuring out how I could get it from my social media to the DIS & had to do some screen recording- so the video quality isn't the best, but it's decent enough for you all to get the gist!

Let me know if this link works, I literally had to create a YouTube account and this is my first time posting, lol!!

Enjoy my little video recap for our first park day: Magic Kingdom!

& if that works, I'll post the rest of the videos to correspond with the park day content I post here Up next, Animal Kingdom!

 

[SimplyGoofy]

I’m joining in!

Wow, what a great surprise! I’m not sure if I could pull off a surprise trip (I’d want to talk about it too much! ), but it worked well for you!

You had such a great first day - wow! So many rides and such great use of Genie+… and such great moments of pixie dust, too.

Thank you you so much for the stroller breakdown! I’ll be traveling with littles and a stroller for the first time next trip (my last few Disney trips were before I was married) and I’m nervous about it. Was it easy to identify stroller parking and get into queues without too many people passing you by? It seems you didn’t have any trouble with Jungle Cruise… I’d love any advice you have!

Also, Happy Anniversary! Did you happen to go to Kincaid’s for dinner? (I lived in Edina years ago and feel like those stairs look familiar…)

 

[MamaMouse0920]

I’m joining in!

Wow, what a great surprise! I’m not sure if I could pull off a surprise trip (I’d want to talk about it too much! ), but it worked well for you!

You had such a great first day - wow! So many rides and such great use of Genie+… and such great moments of pixie dust, too.

Thank you you so much for the stroller breakdown! I’ll be traveling with littles and a stroller for the first time next trip (my last few Disney trips were before I was married) and I’m nervous about it. Was it easy to identify stroller parking and get into queues without too many people passing you by? It seems you didn’t have any trouble with Jungle Cruise… I’d love any advice you have!

Also, Happy Anniversary! Did you happen to go to Kincaid’s for dinner? (I lived in Edina years ago and feel like those stairs look familiar…)

What a great eye!! Yes we were at Kincaids Our first time going, yum!! We usually go to Ruths Chris for our anniversary dinner as that is where Matt took me on our first date but they charge $15 for parking now and that + driving downtown had us reconsider & try somewhere new. We were happy we did!

For the stroller- you can't bring it into queues unfortunately unless it is tagged as a medical necessity, and in fact there are hardly any shows or anything that you CAN bring the stroller into (hard when you have a sleeping kid & can't just park it outside!) so that part does stink. But they do have a good amount of CM scattered around the parks that direct people where to park their strollers before getting in line, which was especially helpful at Animal Kingdom because it was often far away from the actual entrance to the attraction itself.

As for finding it after you have parked it, I designed a couple stroller tags via Canva that I then printed and laminated that made locating it easier, since it sticks out a bit:




But I've also heard of people tying scarves, Christmas lights, or balloons to the handles of their strollers to also make it stick out to them. The hardest thing about bringing a stroller isn't locating it though, in my opinion- it's dodging the people who decide to either cut right in front of you, stop right in front of you, or just think that they take priority because you have a stroller & they don't. This trip we had two separate nasty incidents where it was Matt + stroller vs someone without stroller that I will explain later on!!

My last post on my September 2022 Trip Report was lengthy, but filled with my various takeaways & tips/tricks from visiting WDW for the first time with kids, if you want to give it a look!

https://www.disboards.com/threads/e...ned-september-2022-trip-report.3897181/page-3

 

[kaetra]

My goodness, I am enjoying reading this so much. So happy for you and your family. <3

 

[ambula603]

What a precious little video! I LOVE the pure joy on their faces. My girls are now 11 and 14, I really miss that age!!

 

[kimmylaj]

Love your writing and your family photos, it brings me back to when my kiddos were little. Thanks for sharing

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Matt LOVES surprises... me, not so much.

I love surprising my girls but also it is so HARD to keep the secret!!!

You know you're old when you have cups from the 25th celebration!

I need this cup! It's amazing!

When DD4 said "what's this?" I told her it was a sign that said "welcome home, Jessica!", who is their daycare provider.

This is sneaky!!! One day it will hit them what ou did and be so mad at you. Or at least that is what my girls would do.

And of course, the minute I stop recording is when they finally comprehend what I'm saying and emit squeals & excited giggles

It' show it always is! We surprised my girls once with a trip and my oldest ended up crying on the video! Oops!

Delta worker was telling everyone they had to get in a looong line to "self tag" their bags. I've written in previous reports how stupid I find this, since it 1) saves you ZERO time 2) 90% of people end up messing up their sticky bag tags & 3) you STILL have to get in ANOTHER long line to drop off said poorly-tagged-bag (which the worker ends up needing to correct) with a baggage

Nothing the airlines do makes sense to me. And it is always a little crazy trying to get one of the kioks cause there is no real line for them.

They look so happy!

1) this flight was not even close to being full,

Lucky!!!! I can't even remember the last time we were on a not full flight.

I'll take any tips/advice you have, since we usually fly 2-3 times a year!

My oldest chews on starbursts. The chewing seems to help her, kind of like gum, but not. (she doesn't like mint)

nd having rented from Fox Rent a Car

I miss Magical Express so much. I know you guys wouldn't have been able to by staying where you were. But it was just soooo nice.

We also quickly realized that we had no sunscreen on the kids so made an attempt to stay out of the sunny bits of the shopping area.

We did this once, we realized we had no magic bands, suncreen, water bottles. We were just totally not prepared. First fails.

The mac was tasty but cold

Your Mac and Cheese should NOT have been cold!!! Sounds like they were having an off day.

It was weird though, the waiter wouldn't accept my Disney gift card. I thought that you could, but he said since they were 3rd party it wouldn't work. Not a huge deal, but I would have preferred to use the gift card since I had saved 5-10% when I bought them. Oh well!

I think this CM just didn't want to bother with the gift card! They took the dinning plan gift card we had. Like you said, he sounds meh of a server.

il stepsisters (Drizella & Anastasia) boarding their respective horses on the carousel! The kids of course picked horses right next to theirs, and were star struck the whole time- barely able to look away. Drizella tried to engage DD4 a couple times but she was so shy she barely talked to her It sure made for cute video though!

SO fun!!!!

Love it!!!

I of course was stuck with crazy driver guy, who you can tell from these pictures was having a blast whipping his mama around the track.

Ha! This is why they have to keep it! Kids just love it!!!!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Saturday 9/9/23 - Park Day 2: Animal Kingdom!

For some reason I couldn't sleep that night, and was awake from 3:30am til 4:45am, with my alarm scheduled for 5:30am. I just kept tossing and turning and eventually decided I'd make good use of my wide awake time & purchase Genie+ for the 4 of us that day since I was already awake. When my alarm did go off, I rolled out of bed groggily and made some coffee in hopes that it would wake me up. I sipped on that as I got ready, eventually Matt & the kids getting up/dressed/ready as well.

Animal Kingdom opened at 8am this morning, so our plan was to leave the hotel by 6:30 which I believe we were pretty close to. We arrived & started unloading the car just as 7am rolled around, with me screeching as I was helping Matt unload the stroller: "AAAHHH, it's 7am!! My lightning lane!!!" But no worries, I was able to get a LL for safari at 8:05 am lol, panicking for nothing. With our getting there early we once again had a great parking spot, just behind preferred.



Now as I've mentioned, Animal Kingdom is the park I am least familiar with, with the last time I had visited being WELL over 10+ years ago. I'm talking an early teenager probably, so closer to even 15 years ago more likely. Basically everything I knew (layout wise) was from YouTube vloggers & Instagram videos, and I knew close to NOTHING about entering the park. As I sent Matt & the kids through the stroller line, I took the bags & went immediately from the metal detector to the bag check line, pretty much not even waiting to be directed that way since I already knew that one "problem bag" with the bubble wands, batteries, fans, and umbrella were for sure going to alert. The bag check line weaved around like a maze via blue painters tape on the ground, and it wasn't for a couple minutes that myself & the people around me even realized that it wasn't just 2 straight lines, so I'm not sure if I had budged people or if they had budged me, but oh well. When it got to the point where there were 3 people in front of me, one of the bag-checkers said "yeah it's that woman right there", looking in my direction. I heard this, but didn't realize he was talking about me until he said "yes, you ma'am, in the hat- please come forward"

I awkwardly stepped around the 3 people in front of me to make my way to the front of the line. He didn't elaborate at all on why I was selected from the line to come forward, but I figured it must have been something that looked really bad in my bag that made them do this. Thankfully I had nothing to hide & soon enough though they cleared me to enter. I hustled off to re-join my family, who thankfully had not waited for me and had found their place in the large line of people waiting to scan into the park- with an even longer line of people accruing behind them in that time. Matt can be a pretty smart guy sometimes!

At DHS during our Sept trip, we received conflicting information from a CM on which line was the "offsite guests" line, and ended up eating a chunk of time standing in the wrong area-- NOT wanting to repeat that mistake here, I quickly stepped away from Matt (after first organizing the bags within the stroller) & found a CM to ask if we were in the right space. She confirmed that this line/area is for ALL guests, and that once we go through the tapstiles that we want to make our way toward the right, with onsite guests entitled to Early Entry heading toward the left. Relieved we were in the right area, I quickly re-joined Matt and let him know.

We waited in that line for about 20 minutes, and I didn't make note of it but I *think* we put sunscreen on the kids in that time even though it was suuuper overcast. Matt & I of course took our obligatory "waiting for Rope Drop!" pic:



DS3 plowed through a bunch of his snacks because he is, like me, a bored-eater.



DD4 had located some acorns nearby and was entertaining herself playing with those. Soon enough it was announced by the CM that it was nearing the time for Early Entry, and I actually think they started letting people in early- maybe 10-15 minutes? I didn't note it though since it didn't apply to us but I remember people cheering. As we veered to the right after scanning in, we were stopped by SO MANY CAST MEMBERS (maybe 5?) all asking us repeatedly "you are not an onsite guest, right??? If so, you're in the wrong area". Kudos to them on their thoroughness... I suppose they don't want to have to deal with people pissed off, learning that they've been waiting for nothing.
We were the first people to approach that second rope, but thankfully at this park there are animal areas nearby to entertain the kids while we waited for another 30 minutes.


Matt & I taking turns "holding the line" and exploring with the kids. We even had a nice CM show us one of their iguanas who was molting & getting ready for new skin.

And another who offered to take our family picture:

In no time at all they were ready to remove the rope, after which we made our way toward Africa so we could rope drop safari.



At some point in all that waiting, I had decided that we would be better suited modifying our LL for safari for later in the day in the hopes that we could ride it twice and have two totally different experiences- so that is what we did- I kept pushing it back and back as the day went on. And then at rope drop, we made our way to safari via the Standby Lane which was a walk on.

We had a great safari! Me sitting next to DS3 & Matt with DD4.




I am of course out of picture space so will pause here.

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Saturday 9/9/23 - Park Day 2: Animal Kingdom! (continued)

I forgot to include this gem of the kids giving "squeezy hugs" in my last post, which I snapped while we were weaving through the queue before getting to our safari truck:



Another thing I forgot to mention: While we were waiting for rope drop Matt and I hemmed & hawed over whether or not to buy the ILL for Flight of Passage. I knew I wanted to try it at least once, and I knew there was no way we would be able to sit in that long line with the kids in tow... so it was either buy the ILL or skip the ride altogether. I was nervous however about getting motion sickness, since simulator screens (a la Star Tours) have done me in in the past. Matt and I eventually came to the decision that we would splurge on the ILLs, pop some Dramamine and hope for the best. So we bought an ILL for the two of us for 9:25am. The plan being rope drop Safari, then just kill time exploring the park until our ILL window arrived.

Anyway, back to the safari - we had a really great time! Our driver was very factual (I don't know why I was semi expecting a Jungle Cruise skipper kind of experience???) but definitely knew their stuff so I feel like we learned a lot. We saw lots of animals but unfortunately the ones I was most excited for were not present the lions. I had hoped since we were among the first vehicles on the safari that we might get the coveted "morning roars" but alas- we didn't even see them at all, roaring or not.













The kids were interested in the animals, but since we've ridden Jungle Cruise so many times I'm not 100% convinced that they knew these were REAL animals, and not the animatronics

After debarking our vehicle, we went to check out the Gorilla trail, but after just one quick glance at the gorillas (we didn't have a great view):



DS3 was running and fell, scraping his knee pretty good. He cried & cried and made a HUGE deal about this (at home we say "is this a big ouchie or a little ouchie?" and most of the time they reply "little" but the way he was carrying on you would have thought he was having a toe amputated without anesthetics. We found a CM who thankfully had a larger band-aid (the one I had in my bag wasn't going to cut it) and eventually he calmed down enough when we handed him/DD4 their bubble wands.... only to discover they still weren't working even with the new (Disney version) bubble solution. So that was a bust. We changed gears then to the bribe of food, with us enticing the kids with a colossal cinnamon roll- so we headed toward Isle of Java, Matt wanting to poke his head into a few shops along the way hoping he would find a new hat for himself.



This thing was definitely colossal, but also not very tasty LOL it was dried out and bland- but our iced coffees hit the spot and all four of us ate the cinnamon roll. After our shared breakfast, we had a brief potty break and I decided I was going to try asking another CM about the bubble wand problem, since they were less than a year old and should in theory still at least be functioning. I'm sorry but $50 in bubble wands and my kids better get more than 4 uses out of them! I followed the sea of bubbles until I found the source, a nice man standing at the entrance of Discovery Trading Company & briefly explained what was happening. Without saying much, he took the bubble wands, pulled a tiny screwdriver out of god knows where, replaced both sets of batteries and PRESTO- they were working! Whaaaa?! I even had BROUGHT batteries (literally had them with me in the park at that moment!) but it did not cross my mind ever that that could be the cause of the clumpy foamy bubble disaster that was happening on the top of these bubble wands. So- tip of the day- if your bubble wands aren't working (but even if they're still making sounds and some version of a bubble), try replacing the batteries!

CM saving the day (I wish I had gotten his name!) and the time nearing 9:15am, we made our way to Pandora so Matt & I could check out what all the fuss was about on FOP.



I will say it is a BEAUTIFUL area, and I wish we could see it lit up at night with all the bioluminescence. Those Imagineers, man. The whole land is SO detailed & stunning. After we had "ooh-ed" and "ahhh-ed" at Pandora as a whole, I left Matt & the kids to play at the drum area near Na'vi River Journey and scanned in for my ILL on FOP. While I don't mind being alone, I do wish every time we do these rider swaps that I had someone to talk to/experience the ride with.

It was a great ride!! Not once did I feel icky (though I had taken Dramamine, so that could be why) and the whole thing was just so immersive & cool. Would I pay to ride it again? I'm not sure. It seems I compare everything to GotG in terms of "is it worth it?" and every single time, in every single comparison GotG wins. But I will say, this one is a close second and time will tell on whether or not we splurge on the ILLs again for this one.

When it was Matt's turn to ride, the kids & I got a Na'vi sized pretzel (w/ cup o plastic cheese of course), and a Night Blossom to share. I'm out of picture space and have to hop off but will be back to add more tomorrow

 

[Evelyn K]

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[SimplyGoofy]

Wow, thank you for all of your tips and advice! I really appreciate it!

(Also, I read through your entire 2022 trip report, and it sounded… stressful. I’m glad you got a chance for another trip with only your family!)

Onto your next update…

What a great start at Animal Kingdom! The animals do tend to be finicky (especially the lions - I’ve only heard them roar once despite my many safaris) but I’ve found the early morning safaris to be the most successful.

I’m SO excited to see Pandora - it was still under construction the last time I visited!