useakiss
Am I there yet?
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2017
Saturday, September 9th
With the specter of Hurricane Irma looming, I decided I wanted to salvage as much of the rest of my original vacation as I could. I had an early morning Fastpass for the Kilimanjaro Safari (I'd done it on my first visit to the Animal Kingdom but in the middle of the afternoon when it was the hottest, and I wanted to do it when it was cooler and had a better chance of seeing animals in action), so I decided to spend half the day at Animal Kingdom, then hop over to Epcot for lunch and then just stick it out there until the weather worsened enough to send me back to my room. The morning was still very hot and humid as usual, but for once there was a nice breeze blowing most of the time (warning enough that change was in the air!). It also became pretty obvious that anybody who could get out of Orlando was doing so because the park felt practically empty (except for the lines at FoP and Expedition Everest, which never dropped below 30-minute waits).
Even though I sort of took my time getting ready that morning, I still made it to the Animal Kingdom gates shortly after rope drop. I decided to head first for Flight of Passage again to see what the wait was like and if I could ride it once more. There was no massive stampede this time at the bridge, thank god. The sign said about 30 minutes and I decided it was worth it in this case, so I got into line. I don't think it took quite that long, plus the line almost never stopped moving, which was great. It actually made it difficult to take more pictures, but I did snap this one quick. Waiting for my new ride!
Observation: Regarding Flight of Passage, while the ride itself holds up and remains thrilling and arguably the best 3D experience at Disney, the pre-ride prep becomes an endurance test after the first trip. The talking goes on WAY TOO LONG, all the while making you stand in place and occasionally move around while it "runs tests", etc. I get that it's supposed to build up that sense of immersion, but it becomes obvious just how awful and drawn that pre-ride show is upon second viewing. I guess your mileage may vary and some may love it, but IMO it's in desperate need of editing. And upon revisiting that question of whether or not the attraction is worth the wait? I'd say that 30 minutes is worth it, but 60-90 minutes is not...not once you already know what it's like. I'd do everything I could to either use a Fastpass or go at the least peak hours from now on.
Afterward, I paused to have a belated breakfast at the Satu'li Canteen (I've learned that they's stopped serving breakfast there, at least for now).
I maybe should have gone with my first choice of trying the weird "pods," but then instead went for the French toast. (Sorry, I can't recall the exact details of this meal and the breakfast menu has been pulled from the website). Sadly, IMO it was prettier than it tasted. It was fine, but there wasn't nearly enough sauce and so the toast was--to me anyway--very dry. Or I'm just used to pouring a lot of syrup over them. The sausage was tasty, though! And they gave me a free birthday cupcake too! (Against not nearly as tasty as it looked, frosting was way too sweet but with no flavor.)
Magic Moment: By this time my Fastpass for the Safari was nearly up, so I high-tailed it to the African part of the park. While passing through the Harambe village, I came across a live concert going on in the main square. It was a band playing some lively South African tribal music, with a lead singer/dancer down on the ground trying to pull in folks from the audience to join him. I was enjoying recording him live on Facebook, and then he spotted me and started dancing my way! I relented, put away my camera, and joined him in line. He was a lot of fun and had us all working up a good sweat already trying to imitate his dance moves. Then he sent the rest of our line dancers away but asked me to stay. Then he announced to the rest of the crowd that it was my birthday (!) and taught them how to say "Happy Birthday" in Swahili and had me dance one last quick one to a traditional birthday song before releasing me. I was laughing and gave him a big hug. I hadn't really been sweating too badly before this point, but I was soaked afterward. (Sadly Facebook doesn't seem to allow me to download this, so I can only provide a link and post it publicly. Here you go.)
And of course I just loved wandering through the Harambe Village some more, soaking in the atmosphere and enjoying the attention to detail.
And here is about the only above-ground wires you'll find in all of Disney, and even these weren't functional. See what I mean about attention to detail?
Magic Moment: While heading up the Fastpass isle, a group of 20-somethings in the Stand-by line caught up to me, and they started singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." I surprised them by suddenly joining in. By the time we reached the end and lined up for the safari truck, a whole bunch of us were serenading the cast members there which made them laugh.
I'm very glad I took the Safari again at a different time--I got better views of some animals, plus I think we took a slightly different route (for example, we either didn't pass by the lion exhibit on my first trip, or else they weren't visible and so weren't pointed out).
Got a great shot of the White Rhino.
And gotta love these Watusi cattle. Those horns are just crazy!
Here are the lions, doing what cats do.
We creeped along through the middle of this Bongos herd.
Here's the black rhino taking a break.
Got a great shot of an African elephant.
And this family of African elephants, including the baby!
Because I'd done most of the park on my first visit, this time I had more time and energy to explore more of the nature trails, particularly the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I didn't see too many animals (the tiger was just out of view and the flying foxes weren't coming out probably because of the coming storm), but I did love walking the lovely trail and seeing more examples of the sort of attention to detail that Disney is known for.
I wandered through the Asian portion of the park once more, too.
And after being denied a chance to meet Baloo and King Lois, I finally caught them at the right time so I could mug it up with them! Capturing them helped make my Disney trip feel complete.
I did get a chance to ride Expedition Everest a second time, though, along with a proper picture this time. It's definitely one of my top favorites now.
I also got to finally walk the trails that riddle Discovery Island, and got some better views of the Tree of Life.
Here were some ring-tailed lemurs.
Can you tell that by this point there was a nice stiff breeze blowing? It felt fantastic but it also warned that my time was limited.
By this time it was around Noon and I started making my way to the gate because I still wanted to hit Epcot before the rains came. I did pause to capture two last examples of that detail I was talking about, though. One was the lamp posts and the other was this nice mosaic in the floor of one of the gift shops.
Since the forum has a limit on pictures per post, this seems like a good place to break. Please see the next post for a continuation of this day...
With the specter of Hurricane Irma looming, I decided I wanted to salvage as much of the rest of my original vacation as I could. I had an early morning Fastpass for the Kilimanjaro Safari (I'd done it on my first visit to the Animal Kingdom but in the middle of the afternoon when it was the hottest, and I wanted to do it when it was cooler and had a better chance of seeing animals in action), so I decided to spend half the day at Animal Kingdom, then hop over to Epcot for lunch and then just stick it out there until the weather worsened enough to send me back to my room. The morning was still very hot and humid as usual, but for once there was a nice breeze blowing most of the time (warning enough that change was in the air!). It also became pretty obvious that anybody who could get out of Orlando was doing so because the park felt practically empty (except for the lines at FoP and Expedition Everest, which never dropped below 30-minute waits).
Even though I sort of took my time getting ready that morning, I still made it to the Animal Kingdom gates shortly after rope drop. I decided to head first for Flight of Passage again to see what the wait was like and if I could ride it once more. There was no massive stampede this time at the bridge, thank god. The sign said about 30 minutes and I decided it was worth it in this case, so I got into line. I don't think it took quite that long, plus the line almost never stopped moving, which was great. It actually made it difficult to take more pictures, but I did snap this one quick. Waiting for my new ride!
Observation: Regarding Flight of Passage, while the ride itself holds up and remains thrilling and arguably the best 3D experience at Disney, the pre-ride prep becomes an endurance test after the first trip. The talking goes on WAY TOO LONG, all the while making you stand in place and occasionally move around while it "runs tests", etc. I get that it's supposed to build up that sense of immersion, but it becomes obvious just how awful and drawn that pre-ride show is upon second viewing. I guess your mileage may vary and some may love it, but IMO it's in desperate need of editing. And upon revisiting that question of whether or not the attraction is worth the wait? I'd say that 30 minutes is worth it, but 60-90 minutes is not...not once you already know what it's like. I'd do everything I could to either use a Fastpass or go at the least peak hours from now on.
Afterward, I paused to have a belated breakfast at the Satu'li Canteen (I've learned that they's stopped serving breakfast there, at least for now).
I maybe should have gone with my first choice of trying the weird "pods," but then instead went for the French toast. (Sorry, I can't recall the exact details of this meal and the breakfast menu has been pulled from the website). Sadly, IMO it was prettier than it tasted. It was fine, but there wasn't nearly enough sauce and so the toast was--to me anyway--very dry. Or I'm just used to pouring a lot of syrup over them. The sausage was tasty, though! And they gave me a free birthday cupcake too! (Against not nearly as tasty as it looked, frosting was way too sweet but with no flavor.)
Magic Moment: By this time my Fastpass for the Safari was nearly up, so I high-tailed it to the African part of the park. While passing through the Harambe village, I came across a live concert going on in the main square. It was a band playing some lively South African tribal music, with a lead singer/dancer down on the ground trying to pull in folks from the audience to join him. I was enjoying recording him live on Facebook, and then he spotted me and started dancing my way! I relented, put away my camera, and joined him in line. He was a lot of fun and had us all working up a good sweat already trying to imitate his dance moves. Then he sent the rest of our line dancers away but asked me to stay. Then he announced to the rest of the crowd that it was my birthday (!) and taught them how to say "Happy Birthday" in Swahili and had me dance one last quick one to a traditional birthday song before releasing me. I was laughing and gave him a big hug. I hadn't really been sweating too badly before this point, but I was soaked afterward. (Sadly Facebook doesn't seem to allow me to download this, so I can only provide a link and post it publicly. Here you go.)
And of course I just loved wandering through the Harambe Village some more, soaking in the atmosphere and enjoying the attention to detail.
And here is about the only above-ground wires you'll find in all of Disney, and even these weren't functional. See what I mean about attention to detail?
Magic Moment: While heading up the Fastpass isle, a group of 20-somethings in the Stand-by line caught up to me, and they started singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." I surprised them by suddenly joining in. By the time we reached the end and lined up for the safari truck, a whole bunch of us were serenading the cast members there which made them laugh.
I'm very glad I took the Safari again at a different time--I got better views of some animals, plus I think we took a slightly different route (for example, we either didn't pass by the lion exhibit on my first trip, or else they weren't visible and so weren't pointed out).
Got a great shot of the White Rhino.
And gotta love these Watusi cattle. Those horns are just crazy!
Here are the lions, doing what cats do.
We creeped along through the middle of this Bongos herd.
Here's the black rhino taking a break.
Got a great shot of an African elephant.
And this family of African elephants, including the baby!
Because I'd done most of the park on my first visit, this time I had more time and energy to explore more of the nature trails, particularly the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I didn't see too many animals (the tiger was just out of view and the flying foxes weren't coming out probably because of the coming storm), but I did love walking the lovely trail and seeing more examples of the sort of attention to detail that Disney is known for.
I wandered through the Asian portion of the park once more, too.
And after being denied a chance to meet Baloo and King Lois, I finally caught them at the right time so I could mug it up with them! Capturing them helped make my Disney trip feel complete.
I did get a chance to ride Expedition Everest a second time, though, along with a proper picture this time. It's definitely one of my top favorites now.
I also got to finally walk the trails that riddle Discovery Island, and got some better views of the Tree of Life.
Here were some ring-tailed lemurs.
Can you tell that by this point there was a nice stiff breeze blowing? It felt fantastic but it also warned that my time was limited.
By this time it was around Noon and I started making my way to the gate because I still wanted to hit Epcot before the rains came. I did pause to capture two last examples of that detail I was talking about, though. One was the lamp posts and the other was this nice mosaic in the floor of one of the gift shops.
Since the forum has a limit on pictures per post, this seems like a good place to break. Please see the next post for a continuation of this day...