For my dad (a.k.a. Stove)'s 70th birthday, we surprised him with a trip to Walt Disney World! My WDW portion of the trip report will be relatively brief, since we had another surprise coming, but I do want to take some time to share our land-based Disney fun.

Since Aaron and I had the farthest to travel, we took a redeye flight from LAX to MCO. I've taken the LAX > MCO redeye many times (it's my preferred flight because I arrive in the morning and get a full day at Disney), but this was Aaron's first time joining me. While I can sleep anywhere (truly - I have a sleep disorder), and the adrenaline of being at Walt Disney World is enough to power me through the day, it turns out that Aaron is not as well-suited for redeye flights. He didn't get much sleep on the plane and was definitely dragging that morning.

After arriving at MCO, we went to The Club at MCO, a lounge that we accessed using Priority Pass through our Capital One Venture X cards.

As Rachel's sister and Maid of Honor, planning Rachel's Bachelorette Trip was the MOH duty that I was most looking forward to. Rachel knew exactly what she wanted to do for her Bachelorette - a 3-Night Cruise and a day at Disney with her girls.

On our Christmas Cruise on Jewel of the Seas, Rachel and I decided to go to Walt Disney World a few days earlier to have some fun sister time on the front end of her Bachelorette.

Since I live in California, my preferred flight to Orlando is a red-eye so that I arrive early in the morning and don't miss out on any fun (otherwise, the soonest I'd get in would be around 4 PM on a flight that leaves at 7 AM). I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia, so I can fall asleep anywhere, but to get better quality sleep, I travel with a travel pillow, eye mask, noise canceling headphones, and a foot hammock (because my legs are so short!).

This morning, we had park reservations for Animal Kingdom. Buses start running 45 minutes prior to park opening. Since Animal Kingdom opened at 7:30 for resort guests, bus service started at 6:45. It was right on time! I mentioned before that Coronado Springs Bus Stop 2 at Casitas is actually the first on the pick-up loop. We then circled the resort to Ranchos, Cabanas, and then Gran Destino Tower.

On the way to the park, I purchased Genie+ for everyone and booked Expedition Everest at 11:15 AM.

They started letting resort guests into the park before 7:00, but held us at Discovery Island.

January 1, 2013 - Animal Kingdom + Magic Kingdom

I had planned for us to take our time getting to the parks today since we were going to be out late celebrating the New Year the night before. I didn't book any of our FP+ reservations until the afternoon. It's been a long time since we've done Animal Kingdom in the afternoon/evening. We'll usually arrive at Animal Kingdom first thing in the morning and leave in the early afternoon.

When we arrived at Animal Kingdom, crowds were low. I checked my My Disney Experience app, and it said that Kilimanjaro Safari had a 0 minute wait. Our first FP was for Kilimanjaro Safari in an hour! So I changed it to Dinosaur which had a 70 minute wait (probably because it had been raining and Dinosaur is indoors). This was the first time that I made a FP+ change while in the park using the app, and it was really easy.

The wait for Kilimanjaro Safaris turned out to be a little more than 0 minutes... it was around 10, but we weren't complaining. Right after the rain seems to be one of the best times to go on the safari because the animals that are usually sleeping or hiding come out to play. We've had the good fortune of doing the safari right after the rain maybe twice before.

Our guide was great - she was really knowledgeable about the animals. I've done the safari so many times that I always appreciate a guide who switches things up and can tell me things I haven't already heard. Unfortunately, the four rows behind us in the vehicle consisted of a large party of completely obnoxious Spanish-speaking people (I promise, guys, I don't get annoyed by all Spanish-speaking people! I actually almost minored in Spanish and took a language immersion program where I was only allowed to speak in Spanish for six weeks). They thought it was really funny to all say, "Ooooohhhhh," really loud at absolutely nothing, and they also kept trying to stand up. At first, the guide didn't seem to mind, but she quickly got annoyed by their frequent, "Ooooohhhhh," and said, "I'm not sure if they are actually fascinated by something, or if they just like making noise." And that of course made the teenagers who could speak English very happy, and they encouraged the rest of the group to be even louder. I was upset because our guide was really good, but they were being so rude that she stopped sharing so much information.

Rise and shine!





Can I wake up every morning with this view? Please???

After Dinosaur, we headed back to Expedition Everest to use our FastPasses.






You can kind of see the Yeti... I haven't exactly learned how to time my camera just right for this photo, yet. Lack of flash and weird lighting makes it difficult.

After Festival of the Lion King, we headed over to Dinoland USA to ride Primeval Whirl. The stand-by wait was only 20 minutes, I believe. However, the queue was very hot, and our lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with us.


I amused myself in line by taking photos of myself in the mirror.



Primeval Whirl is your basic Cat-and-Mouse rollercoaster, except the cars spin. This part of Dinoland - Chester and Hester's DinoRAMA, was actually designed to look tacky. A lot of Disney-lovers do not appreciate the tacky design and believe that it conflicts with the rest of Animal Kingdom. I kind of like it, actually.

When loading, the CM stepped on Rachel's foot, and she let out an angry, "OWWWW!"



After Primeval Whirl, we had to escape the heat, so we went over to DINOSAUR with the nice, air-conditioned queue. Unfortunately, the queue was out the door, but at least we got to wait in the shade under fans for the most part. Still, I was sweating. It was miserably hot. However, once we got inside, the air-conditioning felt really good.

After breakfast, we decided to head over and line up for the 12:00 showing of Festival of the Lion King, though it was only 11:30. The last time we were at WDW, we didn't get to see this due to technical difficulties (we found this out after we had waited 30 minutes ).

We decided to sit in the elephant section because we'd never sat there before (we're usually lions). We sat on the first row behind the wheelchair seating.

Okay, now as soon as the elephant guy came out, Rachel says, "It's Chandler!"

Chandler is the biggest guy on the football team... I suppose to understand this, you'd have to see him...









Here's some more pictures from the show. (Flash photography is allowed.) The quality isn't very good. My camera didn't care for the lighting.

















Festival of the Lion King is one of my favorite shows at Walt Disney World. It's been the same for as long as I can remember, but it's great. It combines singing, dancing, acrobatics, and even fire twirling to create a very colorful production. I don't know of any other theme park with productions as elaborate as this.

After the safari, we checked into Tusker House for our 10:20 Safari Breakfast. We were given a buzzer and sat at a shaded picnic table. We were all really hungry (it's a good thing I made this ADR... it was actually an afterthought, and I wasn't sure if we were really going to use it). After about 5-10 minutes, our buzzer buzzed.

We took a family picture and then were seated in a corner of the restaurant. Our safari guide (I don't know if that's what she actually was supposed to be, but I like that term), Veronica, gave us all Jungle Juice. Rachel chugged hers while Veronica was still telling us about the buffet. We both ordered Diet Cokes in addition to our Jungle Juice because we needed caffeine!

Donald and the gang wasn't near us, so we went on to the buffet. And, man, I filled my plate. I got like everything. But when I actually ate it, I was a bit disappointed in some of it... not all of it was hot, and the two meaty entrees had a weird flavoring to them. I really wanted some cheese grits.

I came back to the table and was greeted by Mickey. But Rachel was still at the buffet.



I managed to stall him long enough for Rachel to show...





Now, ten or so minutes later, Goofy showed up, and guess who was missing...



Once again, Rachel showed up with a big plate of food... Goofy really wanted her to share.



Luckily, she didn't miss Donald.



Or Daisy.



I can't remember what all I ate. I tried most everything. I ate a lot of fruit. The pineapple was good. So was the cheese.

Now, after our second run, we decided to get FPs (FastPasses) and head on to Kilimanjaro Safaris before a crowd built over there. It wasn't crowded at all, right now.

Kilimanjaro Safaris opened with Disney's Animal Kingdom in 1998. It is quite a unique attraction, with elaborate theming and clever planning. See, Walt Disney wanted to use real animals for The Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. However, he was advised not to do so because most of the animals he wanted to use were nocturnal or would spend most of the day sleeping or hiding from guests. So, they used animatronic animals for The Jungle Cruise. However, at Disney, no idea is ever completely shut-down. With Kilimanjaro Safaris, Imagineers found ways to persuade animals to stay visible throughout the day. Barriers are also seemingly invisible. As the animals adapt to their environment, Imagineers have to continue to make changes to the attraction. Though ever-changing, the storyline of the attraction has been rather consistant over the past eleven years. It is said that the best animal interaction occurs in the morning. We've also personally had good luck after rain. For the shortest wait, go here within the first hour of park opening or grab a FastPass to use later.

We actually walked at a leisurely pace. It wasn't hot, yet, and the trees provided a lot of shading.


Not bad...